Greenbrier Ghost: how a ghost helped justice be done (7 photos)

This story began as a simple family tragedy, but turned into a legal precedent when the victim became the prosecution's star witness.





In southeastern Greenbrier County, West Virginia, one of the most incredible crime stories took place. In 1897, a young woman named Zona Heaster Shew was found dead at the bottom of her own stairs.



Zona Heaster Shew - Murder Victim

Initially, the townspeople assumed that the death was due to natural causes. Everything changed when the victim's mother, Mary, reported repeated visits from her daughter's ghost. The spirit claimed that Zona was strangled by her own husband, Edward, in a fit of rage.





At the Greenbrier County Courthouse (now a National Historic Landmark in downtown Lewisburg), the jury took just an hour to return a guilty verdict. After exhuming and re-examining the body, experts confirmed the cause of death was strangulation. Edward Shew went to prison, where he died, becoming the only murderer in history to be convicted on the testimony of a ghost.



The House Where the Murder Occurred

In 1991, the State Department of Culture and History erected a memorial sign near the town of Smoot, 30 kilometers west of the historic Greenbrier Hotel. The plaque indicates the final resting place of the Zone and reads: "The only known case of a ghost's testimony helping to convict a murderer."



For more than a century, this legend has stirred the imagination of historians, writers, and playwrights. The story has inspired theatrical productions, including a 2004 performance at the New York Film Festival, and even an opera.



This building was the site of the trial of the

This story makes you wonder: was it the victim's posthumous revenge or a mother's intuition that took the form of a ghostly vision? Whatever the case, the case of the Zone Heaster Shew has forever entered the annals of forensic science as a unique example of otherworldly justice.