1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:01,920 Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I 2 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:11,680 Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, 3 00:00:11,720 --> 00:00:15,160 Speaker 1: a show that honors the dead by sharing their stories 4 00:00:15,360 --> 00:00:19,520 Speaker 1: with the living. I'm Gabe Louzier, and today we're looking 5 00:00:19,560 --> 00:00:22,759 Speaker 1: at a true crime ghost story from the heart of Appalachia, 6 00:00:23,239 --> 00:00:27,440 Speaker 1: the Legend of the Greenbrier Ghost. A warning though this 7 00:00:27,520 --> 00:00:31,880 Speaker 1: episode includes descriptions of domestic violence, which may be upsetting 8 00:00:31,920 --> 00:00:41,720 Speaker 1: to some listeners. The day was January twenty three, eighteen nine. 9 00:00:43,200 --> 00:00:47,479 Speaker 1: The lifeless body of Elva Zona Heaster Shoe was found 10 00:00:47,479 --> 00:00:52,320 Speaker 1: inside her home in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. The discovery 11 00:00:52,440 --> 00:00:55,240 Speaker 1: was made by an eleven year old neighbor boy who 12 00:00:55,280 --> 00:00:57,840 Speaker 1: had been sent to the home to collect some eggs 13 00:00:57,880 --> 00:01:01,320 Speaker 1: at the request of Elva's husband. Although she had been 14 00:01:01,360 --> 00:01:05,520 Speaker 1: young and seemingly healthy, the doctor who examined Elva's corpse 15 00:01:05,880 --> 00:01:08,919 Speaker 1: ruled that she had died of a heart attack or 16 00:01:08,959 --> 00:01:12,640 Speaker 1: in everlasting feint, as he described it in his report. 17 00:01:13,480 --> 00:01:18,520 Speaker 1: Elva's untimely death shocked her small community, but most residents 18 00:01:18,520 --> 00:01:23,600 Speaker 1: accepted the official account and soon enough moved on from it. Understandably, 19 00:01:23,600 --> 00:01:27,120 Speaker 1: though one woman found the tragedy much harder to get 20 00:01:27,160 --> 00:01:31,440 Speaker 1: over Elva's mother. She didn't believe her daughter had dropped 21 00:01:31,440 --> 00:01:34,200 Speaker 1: dead from a weak heart, so she launched her own 22 00:01:34,400 --> 00:01:38,959 Speaker 1: unorthodox investigation to prove it. What followed was the first 23 00:01:39,280 --> 00:01:42,960 Speaker 1: and only murder case to be solved by the testimony 24 00:01:43,240 --> 00:01:46,880 Speaker 1: of a ghost. At the time of her death, Elva 25 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:49,680 Speaker 1: was a newly wed, having tied the knot just three 26 00:01:49,720 --> 00:01:53,200 Speaker 1: months earlier. She was twenty three on her wedding day, 27 00:01:53,360 --> 00:01:57,880 Speaker 1: and her husband, Edward Trout Shu, was thirty seven. He 28 00:01:57,920 --> 00:02:00,280 Speaker 1: had moved from a neighboring county to the by a 29 00:02:00,360 --> 00:02:04,640 Speaker 1: town of live Says Mill in Greenbrier County earlier that summer. 30 00:02:05,280 --> 00:02:08,560 Speaker 1: A blacksmith by trade, Trout quickly found work at the 31 00:02:08,639 --> 00:02:12,840 Speaker 1: local forge. Not long after, he ran into Elva, the 32 00:02:12,919 --> 00:02:15,160 Speaker 1: daughter of a farmer who had been sent to town 33 00:02:15,240 --> 00:02:18,680 Speaker 1: on an errand. Trout and Elva hit it off, and 34 00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:22,040 Speaker 1: the pair were married just a few weeks later. Despite 35 00:02:22,040 --> 00:02:26,160 Speaker 1: the objections of her mother, Mary Jane, The couple moved 36 00:02:26,200 --> 00:02:29,280 Speaker 1: into a house near the blacksmith shop, the same house 37 00:02:29,360 --> 00:02:32,400 Speaker 1: where Elva would be found dead just three months later. 38 00:02:33,240 --> 00:02:37,720 Speaker 1: On the morning of January twenty three, Trout took a 39 00:02:37,760 --> 00:02:41,000 Speaker 1: break from work to visit the nearby home of Martha Jones. 40 00:02:41,760 --> 00:02:44,480 Speaker 1: He asked if her son Anderson, could do a favor 41 00:02:44,520 --> 00:02:48,000 Speaker 1: for him. Apparently, Elva hadn't been feeling well, so he 42 00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:50,320 Speaker 1: wanted the boy to go collect the eggs from their 43 00:02:50,320 --> 00:02:53,480 Speaker 1: hens and then see if Elva needed anything from the store. 44 00:02:54,200 --> 00:02:57,520 Speaker 1: Anderson obliged, but when he entered the Shoes house, he 45 00:02:57,680 --> 00:03:00,200 Speaker 1: was shocked to find Elva crumpled on the ground owned 46 00:03:00,240 --> 00:03:03,000 Speaker 1: at the foot of the stairs. He walked toward her, 47 00:03:03,160 --> 00:03:07,079 Speaker 1: calling Mrs Shoe, but there was no response. The young 48 00:03:07,160 --> 00:03:10,560 Speaker 1: boy panicked and ran straight home, where his mother immediately 49 00:03:10,600 --> 00:03:14,400 Speaker 1: called for the local doctor and coroner, George W. Nap. 50 00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:18,240 Speaker 1: When doctor Nap arrived at the Shoe residence, he didn't 51 00:03:18,240 --> 00:03:20,960 Speaker 1: find Elva's body at the foot of the stairs. It 52 00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:24,320 Speaker 1: turned out Trout had gotten home first and had already 53 00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:29,639 Speaker 1: begun preparing his wife's body for burial. Victorian mourning custom 54 00:03:29,680 --> 00:03:32,280 Speaker 1: dictated that a friend of the family should wash and 55 00:03:32,360 --> 00:03:35,640 Speaker 1: dress the body of the deceased, but Trout had taken 56 00:03:35,640 --> 00:03:39,240 Speaker 1: on the duty himself and wasted no time doing it either. 57 00:03:40,320 --> 00:03:44,119 Speaker 1: The grieving husband led doctor Nap upstairs to a bedroom 58 00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:46,440 Speaker 1: where he had laid out Elva's body on the bed. 59 00:03:47,160 --> 00:03:49,680 Speaker 1: He had dressed her in a high necked gown with 60 00:03:49,720 --> 00:03:52,800 Speaker 1: a stiff collar and placed a veil over her face. 61 00:03:53,640 --> 00:03:56,960 Speaker 1: Nap proceeded to examine the body while Trout sat on 62 00:03:57,040 --> 00:04:01,280 Speaker 1: the bed, cradling his wife's head and sobbing loudly. He 63 00:04:01,400 --> 00:04:05,640 Speaker 1: seemed especially bothered when Nap attempted to examine Elva's neck 64 00:04:05,720 --> 00:04:09,200 Speaker 1: and head, so rather than upset the distraught husband, the 65 00:04:09,320 --> 00:04:12,480 Speaker 1: doctor simply examined the rest of her body, and, finding 66 00:04:12,520 --> 00:04:15,720 Speaker 1: nothing amiss, he went on his way with little to 67 00:04:15,760 --> 00:04:18,920 Speaker 1: go on. Doctor Napp recorded the cause of death as 68 00:04:19,200 --> 00:04:24,400 Speaker 1: everlasting faint, a poetic yet vague description generally used to 69 00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:28,640 Speaker 1: refer to a heart attack. Elva's funeral was held later 70 00:04:28,680 --> 00:04:32,120 Speaker 1: that week at her childhood home on Little Suell Mountain. 71 00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:36,080 Speaker 1: Trout was said to behave strangely at the service, pacing 72 00:04:36,160 --> 00:04:39,440 Speaker 1: next to the casket and making constant readjustments to the 73 00:04:39,480 --> 00:04:42,839 Speaker 1: collar and veil he addressed her in. At one point, 74 00:04:43,040 --> 00:04:46,760 Speaker 1: he even wrapped a scarf around Elva's neck, insisting that 75 00:04:46,839 --> 00:04:48,800 Speaker 1: she had always loved it and would want to be 76 00:04:48,839 --> 00:04:51,839 Speaker 1: buried in it. Most of the friends and family in 77 00:04:51,880 --> 00:04:56,520 Speaker 1: attendance assumed Trout's behavior was just a bizarre show of grief, 78 00:04:57,040 --> 00:05:01,520 Speaker 1: but Elva's mother, Mary Jane, felt differently. She had already 79 00:05:01,560 --> 00:05:04,720 Speaker 1: suspected that Trout had something to do with her daughter's death, 80 00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:08,200 Speaker 1: call it mother's intuition, but watching him at the funeral, 81 00:05:08,520 --> 00:05:13,440 Speaker 1: she became convinced of his guilt. Mary Jane was deeply religious, 82 00:05:13,640 --> 00:05:16,880 Speaker 1: so that night she prayed to God for help. She 83 00:05:16,960 --> 00:05:20,560 Speaker 1: asked that her daughter be allowed to communicate from the afterlife, 84 00:05:20,920 --> 00:05:23,840 Speaker 1: to somehow send a message to explain what had really 85 00:05:23,880 --> 00:05:27,159 Speaker 1: happened to her, or, at the very least, to say goodbye. 86 00:05:27,839 --> 00:05:31,520 Speaker 1: Mary Jane made the same fervent prayer over and over 87 00:05:31,839 --> 00:05:36,280 Speaker 1: for several restless nights, and according to her, those prayers 88 00:05:36,440 --> 00:05:41,520 Speaker 1: were eventually answered. Mary Jane Heaster claimed her daughter appeared 89 00:05:41,520 --> 00:05:44,240 Speaker 1: to her four nights in a row, first as a 90 00:05:44,320 --> 00:05:48,360 Speaker 1: bright light and then gradually in her own human form. 91 00:05:48,480 --> 00:05:53,360 Speaker 1: Elva's spirit supposedly made several revelations about her husband and 92 00:05:53,520 --> 00:05:56,359 Speaker 1: his role in her death. She said he had a 93 00:05:56,440 --> 00:05:59,359 Speaker 1: terrible temper and that he had abused her often since 94 00:05:59,360 --> 00:06:03,000 Speaker 1: their wedding. One night, he attacked her for not serving 95 00:06:03,040 --> 00:06:06,320 Speaker 1: meat with their dinner. Elva tried to get away, and 96 00:06:06,320 --> 00:06:10,320 Speaker 1: Trout wound up breaking her neck. Specifically, he snapped it 97 00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:13,320 Speaker 1: at the first vertebra, right at the base of her skull. 98 00:06:14,040 --> 00:06:19,200 Speaker 1: According to Mary Jane, Elva's ghost presented that injury rather ghoulishly, 99 00:06:19,520 --> 00:06:22,800 Speaker 1: by turning her head around backward and then walking away 100 00:06:22,839 --> 00:06:27,080 Speaker 1: into the night while staring back at her mother. Disturbed 101 00:06:27,120 --> 00:06:29,800 Speaker 1: by the encounter, Mary Jane paid a visit to the 102 00:06:29,839 --> 00:06:33,760 Speaker 1: local prosecutor, John Preston, and spent several hours trying to 103 00:06:33,760 --> 00:06:38,320 Speaker 1: convince him to reopen Elva's case. Preston remained skeptical, but 104 00:06:38,400 --> 00:06:41,240 Speaker 1: he was moved enough by Mary Jane's request that he 105 00:06:41,279 --> 00:06:44,880 Speaker 1: began interviewing friends and neighbors who had attended Elva's funeral. 106 00:06:45,480 --> 00:06:48,640 Speaker 1: They told him how strangely Trouted acted that day and 107 00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:51,080 Speaker 1: how desperate he seemed to keep his wife's neck out 108 00:06:51,080 --> 00:06:54,120 Speaker 1: of you. There was no mention of Elva's neck and 109 00:06:54,200 --> 00:06:57,440 Speaker 1: doctor Knapp's report, so Preston spoke with him to see 110 00:06:57,480 --> 00:07:00,440 Speaker 1: if anything had been left out. When press about the 111 00:07:00,480 --> 00:07:04,240 Speaker 1: missing detail, Nap admitted that he had never examined Elva's 112 00:07:04,279 --> 00:07:09,120 Speaker 1: neck or head due to Trout's interference. Those testimonies convinced 113 00:07:09,120 --> 00:07:12,520 Speaker 1: Preston of the need for a complete autopsy. Within a 114 00:07:12,560 --> 00:07:16,560 Speaker 1: few days, the body was exhumed over Trout's vocal objections, 115 00:07:16,560 --> 00:07:20,920 Speaker 1: and the findings of the autopsy proved damning. A local newspaper, 116 00:07:21,080 --> 00:07:25,840 Speaker 1: The Pocahonist Times, covered the event, writing quote, the discovery 117 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:29,640 Speaker 1: was made that the neck was broken and the windpipe mashed. 118 00:07:30,120 --> 00:07:32,840 Speaker 1: On the throat were the marks of fingers, indicating that 119 00:07:32,920 --> 00:07:35,800 Speaker 1: she had been choked. The windpipe had been crushed at 120 00:07:35,800 --> 00:07:38,760 Speaker 1: a point in front of the neck, which was dislocated 121 00:07:39,040 --> 00:07:44,400 Speaker 1: between the first and second vertebrae. The injuries matched those 122 00:07:44,440 --> 00:07:47,440 Speaker 1: reported by Mary Jane, who still claimed to have learned 123 00:07:47,480 --> 00:07:51,800 Speaker 1: about them second hand from Elva's ghost. Preston briefly considered 124 00:07:51,800 --> 00:07:55,080 Speaker 1: the possibility that Mary Jane herself was behind the murder, 125 00:07:55,280 --> 00:07:58,040 Speaker 1: but he set the notion aside in favor of continuing 126 00:07:58,080 --> 00:08:02,360 Speaker 1: his investigation of Trout. Digging into his past, the prosecutor 127 00:08:02,440 --> 00:08:05,320 Speaker 1: learned he had been married twice before and had had 128 00:08:05,400 --> 00:08:09,160 Speaker 1: several run ins with the law. Trout's first marriage ended 129 00:08:09,160 --> 00:08:11,760 Speaker 1: in divorce while he was serving time in prison for 130 00:08:11,920 --> 00:08:15,840 Speaker 1: stealing a horse. According to that wife's testimony, Trout had 131 00:08:15,880 --> 00:08:19,040 Speaker 1: a pension for violence and had routinely beaten her throughout 132 00:08:19,080 --> 00:08:23,080 Speaker 1: their time together. As for his second marriage, it lasted 133 00:08:23,120 --> 00:08:26,160 Speaker 1: only eight months and ended with the mysterious death of 134 00:08:26,200 --> 00:08:29,760 Speaker 1: the wife. Reports of how she died varied, but the 135 00:08:29,800 --> 00:08:32,040 Speaker 1: most common story was that she had been struck in 136 00:08:32,080 --> 00:08:34,800 Speaker 1: the head by a brick while helping her husband repair 137 00:08:34,840 --> 00:08:38,920 Speaker 1: a chimney. Supposedly, she had placed several bricks and a 138 00:08:38,960 --> 00:08:41,440 Speaker 1: basket with a rope attached to it, and as the 139 00:08:41,480 --> 00:08:44,520 Speaker 1: basket was hoisted upward, one of the bricks fell out 140 00:08:44,520 --> 00:08:49,079 Speaker 1: by mistake and dropped right on her head. Although unconfirmed, 141 00:08:49,280 --> 00:08:52,360 Speaker 1: it was later reported that Trout's first wife had also 142 00:08:52,440 --> 00:08:56,080 Speaker 1: suffered a similar accident, in her case breaking her neck 143 00:08:56,360 --> 00:09:01,199 Speaker 1: after falling off a haystack. In between his first two marriages, 144 00:09:01,400 --> 00:09:04,480 Speaker 1: Trout did another stretch in prison where he bragged about 145 00:09:04,520 --> 00:09:07,640 Speaker 1: a plan to marry seven different women in his lifetime. 146 00:09:08,120 --> 00:09:10,880 Speaker 1: He even made some morbid drawings of a husband and 147 00:09:10,920 --> 00:09:14,199 Speaker 1: wife while behind bars, some of which featured them lying 148 00:09:14,240 --> 00:09:18,720 Speaker 1: in caskets. All of this new evidence Trout's pattern of abuse. 149 00:09:18,960 --> 00:09:23,320 Speaker 1: The mysterious fates of his multiple wives, while compelling, was 150 00:09:23,440 --> 00:09:27,480 Speaker 1: ultimately circumstantial. Still, it was enough for Preston to have 151 00:09:27,640 --> 00:09:31,880 Speaker 1: Trout arrested and taken to jail and nearby Louisbourg. He 152 00:09:31,960 --> 00:09:34,680 Speaker 1: was held there until his indictment by a grand jury, 153 00:09:34,960 --> 00:09:37,520 Speaker 1: at which point he was taken to court to stand trial. 154 00:09:38,440 --> 00:09:41,280 Speaker 1: The trial took place that June, and at first it 155 00:09:41,320 --> 00:09:44,880 Speaker 1: seemed to be going Trout's way, because while Preston presented 156 00:09:44,920 --> 00:09:48,880 Speaker 1: many incriminating facts, including the hand marks found on Elva's neck, 157 00:09:49,360 --> 00:09:51,839 Speaker 1: none of it proved that Trout was the man behind 158 00:09:51,880 --> 00:09:56,440 Speaker 1: the murder. The prosecution's big break came from a decidedly 159 00:09:56,520 --> 00:10:00,679 Speaker 1: unexpected source. The defense called Mary Jane in heaster to 160 00:10:00,760 --> 00:10:04,160 Speaker 1: the stand, likely in an attempt to make her look ridiculous, 161 00:10:04,400 --> 00:10:07,440 Speaker 1: knowing the only evidence she would offer was her supposed 162 00:10:07,520 --> 00:10:12,120 Speaker 1: conversation with a ghost. Unfortunately for the defense attorney and 163 00:10:12,200 --> 00:10:15,560 Speaker 1: for Trout, Mary Jane didn't play the part of a fool. 164 00:10:16,120 --> 00:10:19,160 Speaker 1: She presented her case matter of factly and stuck to 165 00:10:19,200 --> 00:10:21,880 Speaker 1: her conviction that the visits from her daughter were not 166 00:10:22,080 --> 00:10:27,160 Speaker 1: dreams but real, waking encounters. Many people in the courtroom, 167 00:10:27,360 --> 00:10:31,439 Speaker 1: including in the jury, seemed to believe Elva's mother. Trout 168 00:10:31,559 --> 00:10:34,240 Speaker 1: tried to win them back by taking the stand himself, 169 00:10:34,600 --> 00:10:37,240 Speaker 1: but it didn't do him much good. After giving a 170 00:10:37,320 --> 00:10:40,839 Speaker 1: rambling account of his own good character, he concluded by 171 00:10:40,880 --> 00:10:44,559 Speaker 1: imploring the jury to quote, look into my face and 172 00:10:44,640 --> 00:10:48,520 Speaker 1: then say if I'm guilty. If the jury members took 173 00:10:48,559 --> 00:10:51,640 Speaker 1: him up on that, they apparently didn't reach the conclusion 174 00:10:51,720 --> 00:10:55,480 Speaker 1: he expected. In the end, they deliberated for just over 175 00:10:55,559 --> 00:11:00,520 Speaker 1: an hour before declaring him guilty. Edward Trout Shoot was 176 00:11:00,559 --> 00:11:02,960 Speaker 1: sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his 177 00:11:03,040 --> 00:11:06,920 Speaker 1: third wife. He ended up serving only three years, though, 178 00:11:07,160 --> 00:11:10,840 Speaker 1: as he died in custody on March thirteenth, nineteen hundred. 179 00:11:11,440 --> 00:11:15,199 Speaker 1: The illness that killed him was likely either measles or pneumonia, 180 00:11:15,480 --> 00:11:19,000 Speaker 1: as epidemics of both had racked the Moundsville State Prison 181 00:11:19,080 --> 00:11:22,920 Speaker 1: that spring. When he ultimately secained to his illness, no 182 00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:26,680 Speaker 1: one from Trout's family came to claim his body. As 183 00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:31,200 Speaker 1: for Mary Jane Heaster, she remained in Greenbrier County until 184 00:11:31,240 --> 00:11:35,560 Speaker 1: her death in nineteen sixteen. She never recanted her story 185 00:11:35,960 --> 00:11:39,920 Speaker 1: or entertained any other theories about her daughter's death. As 186 00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:44,640 Speaker 1: a result, the legend of Elva, the so called Greenbrier Ghost, 187 00:11:45,040 --> 00:11:49,240 Speaker 1: lived on today. It's a staple of walking tours throughout 188 00:11:49,280 --> 00:11:52,760 Speaker 1: the region, and there have also been several novelizations and 189 00:11:52,920 --> 00:11:57,960 Speaker 1: stage adaptations, including a musical. Any retelling of the tale 190 00:11:58,280 --> 00:12:02,280 Speaker 1: must inevitably grapple with the question of its reality. Was 191 00:12:02,320 --> 00:12:06,600 Speaker 1: it truly a ghostly visitation that uncovered Trout's crime or 192 00:12:06,679 --> 00:12:09,480 Speaker 1: was it just a mother's intuition about her shady son 193 00:12:09,520 --> 00:12:13,080 Speaker 1: in law. If we're honest, there's no real way to 194 00:12:13,120 --> 00:12:16,520 Speaker 1: say for certain. Maybe Mary Jane did commune with the 195 00:12:16,559 --> 00:12:19,160 Speaker 1: spirit of her daughter, or maybe it was all in 196 00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:22,280 Speaker 1: her head. A third option is that she really was 197 00:12:22,320 --> 00:12:25,840 Speaker 1: acting on mere intuition and then just invented the story 198 00:12:25,880 --> 00:12:27,920 Speaker 1: of the ghost as a way to appeal to her 199 00:12:27,920 --> 00:12:32,240 Speaker 1: superstitious neighbors and to draw attention to the case. Whatever 200 00:12:32,280 --> 00:12:35,560 Speaker 1: her motivation for telling it, the ghost stories seemed to 201 00:12:35,559 --> 00:12:38,920 Speaker 1: sway the jury, and without it, Elva's murder may have 202 00:12:39,000 --> 00:12:43,000 Speaker 1: never been uncovered at all. So true or not, the 203 00:12:43,160 --> 00:12:47,000 Speaker 1: story of the Greenbrier Ghost secured a kind of justice 204 00:12:47,040 --> 00:12:51,120 Speaker 1: for Elva's family and potentially spared four more women for 205 00:12:51,280 --> 00:12:55,120 Speaker 1: making the same mistake of marrying a man named Trout. 206 00:12:57,240 --> 00:13:00,880 Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Lucier, and hopefully I'll know a little more 207 00:13:00,920 --> 00:13:05,080 Speaker 1: about history today than you did yesterday. You can learn 208 00:13:05,120 --> 00:13:08,479 Speaker 1: even more about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, 209 00:13:08,480 --> 00:13:12,800 Speaker 1: and Instagram at t d i HC Show and if 210 00:13:12,800 --> 00:13:15,520 Speaker 1: you have any comments or suggestions, you can always send 211 00:13:15,559 --> 00:13:18,480 Speaker 1: them my way at this day at I heeart media 212 00:13:18,800 --> 00:13:22,120 Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks to Chandler May's for producing the show, 213 00:13:22,240 --> 00:13:24,600 Speaker 1: and thank you for listening. I'll see you back here 214 00:13:24,600 --> 00:13:27,960 Speaker 1: again tomorrow for another day in History class