Appalachian History Series
A curious death in Greenbrier County
In late January 1897 a Lewisburg weekly carried a short notice about a young wife’s death. The Greenbrier Independent identified her only as “Mrs. Shue,” reported the date, and moved on. Few readers could guess that Elva Zona Heaster Shue’s passing would become one of Appalachia’s most retold stories. Local memory says a ghost pointed the finger at a killer. The surviving records let us test which parts of the tale hold up.
Zona Heaster, before the headlines
One preserved county register adds a little known piece of context. In 1895 Zona bore a son listed as illegitimate in the Greenbrier County birth book, with the father noted as “supposed to be George Woldridge.” The entry is brief but it helps round out a life too often reduced to a legend about her death.
From death to suspicion
Zona married a blacksmith who signed his name variously as Erasmus, Erastus, or Edward Stribbling “Trout” Shue. After her body was found at home on January 23, 1897, the community treated it first as a natural death. Within weeks the story shifted. By spring Shue sat in the Lewisburg jail awaiting trial for murder. A May item in the Independent noted that he had threatened suicide while behind bars, a small but telling window into a tense town waiting on a jury.
In court, and what the jury heard
The trial unfolded in late June 1897. The Independent’s week-of-verdict coverage reported plainly that the jury convicted Shue of murder in the first degree and that the verdict met general approval among those who heard the evidence. The paper stressed that the case was built on circumstantial proof, which tracks with what trial summaries and later historians have concluded.
Modern write-ups often say “a ghost’s testimony convicted a murderer.” That line comes from marker text and popular retellings, not from any official ruling. Mary Jane Heaster did tell jurors about vivid visits from her daughter, but the prosecution did not rely on spirit testimony as legal proof. Contemporary press beyond Greenbrier County carried the sensational angle, including a Baltimore American piece headlined “Mother-in-law’s Vision as Evidence,” which is useful chiefly as a pointer to how the story traveled.
Verdict and vigilantes
The week after the verdict the Independent described an attempted lynching that fizzled before it reached the jail. Sheriff J. A. Nickell and neighbor George M. Harrah intercepted a small armed group that had gathered near Meadow Bluff. Deputies spirited Shue to a safe place in the woods that night, then the sheriff and a deputy delivered him to the state penitentiary at Moundsville the next morning. In the same term the circuit court ordered the sheriff to take from the prisoner a small penknife and a gold ring that belonged to Zona and return them to her father, a striking reminder that the court still had an eye on the family’s property, not just the criminal sentence.
Paper trails beyond the newspaper
Greenbrier Historical Society archivists have identified and cited a magistrate’s warrant dated July 12, 1897, naming men accused of conspiring to lynch Shue after his conviction. The document lives today in the Greenbrier County Courthouse Collection, and the Society has published the names and wording from the record. That finding dovetails with the Independent’s report that authorities intended to identify and charge the would-be lynchers.
What endures, and why
State reference works still summarize the episode as the country’s most famous “ghost in court” case, and a roadside marker near Sam Black Church fixes that memory for visitors. The marker simplifies facts for a signpost, yet the fuller paper trail shows something more human. A grieving mother pressed officials to look again. Local jurors weighed a stack of circumstantial facts. Officers kept order when tempers flared after the verdict. That is the history the records preserve.
Sources and further reading
Greenbrier Independent (Lewisburg, W. Va.), “Shue convicted of murder,” week-of-verdict coverage, July 8, 1897. Chronicling America. The Library of Congress
Greenbrier Independent, post-trial coverage including the foiled lynching and court orders, July 15, 1897. Chronicling America, PDF page image with “County Court Proceedings,” lynching narrative, and the order to retrieve Zona’s ring and penknife. The Library of Congress
Greenbrier Independent, item noting Shue’s jailhouse suicide threat, May 20, 1897, cited with live LOC link by the Greenbrier Historical Society. Greenbrier Historical Society
Greenbrier Independent, death notice for “Mrs. Shue,” January 28, 1897, cited with LOC link by the Greenbrier Historical Society. Greenbrier Historical Society
West Virginia Vital Research Records, Greenbrier County Register of Births, Nov. 29, 1895, scanned page image documenting Zona Heaster’s out-of-wedlock son. West Virginia Archives and History. images.wvculture.org
Greenbrier County Courthouse Collection, magistrate’s warrant dated July 12, 1897, tied to the attempted lynching, held by the Greenbrier Historical Society Archives and cited by staff with excerpted text. Greenbrier Historical Society
e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia, “Greenbrier Ghost,” concise background and context. West Virginia Encyclopedia
Greenbrier Historical Society, Arabeth Balasko, “The Greenbrier Ghost Reexamined,” a local archival review that reconciles conflicting claims and links multiple primary items. Greenbrier Historical Society
The Clio, “Greenbrier Ghost Historical Marker,” entry with marker text, photos, and bibliography. Clio
Historical Marker Database, “Greenbrier Ghost,” official West Virginia marker text and documentation. HMDB
Skeptoid, “The Greenbrier Ghost,” used mainly for its research trail to period newspapers such as the Baltimore American story noted above. skeptoid.com
Author Note: [Blank]