Speaker 1: On the surface, a court room seems like the last
Speaker 1: place you'd expect to find anything supernatural. The business of law,
Speaker 1: with its stuffy procedure and pedantic detail, leaves little space
Speaker 1: for spirits. It's a province of hard rules and objective
Speaker 1: fact where, perhaps more than anywhere else, the weight of
Speaker 1: verification matters. Nonetheless, at times, the other worldly has fought
Speaker 1: its way into the legal sphere. The spiritual battle of
Speaker 1: the Salem witch trials was not raised by religious leaders
Speaker 1: in the churches and chapels, but by magistrates in the
Speaker 1: town court. The evidence of devilry was as much a
Speaker 1: matter of legality as religion. Hundreds of years later, the
Speaker 1: devil was back on the stand in the tragic case
Speaker 1: of Analiza Michail, as covered in Unexplained, Season seven, episode six,
Speaker 1: Look Me in the Eye. In nineteen seventy six, Annalisa
Speaker 1: died from severe malnutrition following a year long course of
Speaker 1: starvation to exercise the demonic forces that her parents were
Speaker 1: convinced infested. Her medical experts diagnosed the supposed possession as epilepsy,
Speaker 1: but the church back to the spiritual theory. Annalisa's parents
Speaker 1: and two Catholic priests were charged and convicted of negligent
Speaker 1: homicide in a landmark case that has reverberated in pop
Speaker 1: culture and Catholic doctrine. In the Salem Trials and the
Speaker 1: Analisa Michael tragedy, it was the threat of diabolic forces
Speaker 1: that came under legal interrogation, but in other even stranger cases,
Speaker 1: spectral evidence has actually been a tool of criminal prosecution.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the most famous episode is the case of Zona
Speaker 1: Hester Schu and the Green Ghost. In January eighteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: Zona was found dead at the foot of the stairs
Speaker 1: in her West Virginian home. Sona's husband, local blacksmith, Edward Shoe,
Speaker 1: was at work when he got the news. He ran
Speaker 1: home immediately and called for someone to fetch the local physician,
Speaker 1: doctor Napp. When doctor Napp arrived at the Shoe property,
Speaker 1: he found that Edward had carried his wife's body upstairs,
Speaker 1: washed her, dressed her in a high necked gown, and
Speaker 1: was clinging to her corpse, weeping and refusing any further
Speaker 1: medical assessment. Despite the oddity of Edward's behavior, doctor Napp
Speaker 1: put it down to the frenzy of grief and declared
Speaker 1: the cause of death as the everlasting faint, a nineteenth
Speaker 1: century term for a heart attack. He later changed this
Speaker 1: to female trouble and then simply childbirth. Sona Shue was
Speaker 1: buried the very next day, and Edward went on with
Speaker 1: his life in a seeming stoic manner, despite his evident grief.
Speaker 1: Less than a month later, Sona's mother, Mary Hester, is
Speaker 1: said to have awoken one night to find her dead
Speaker 1: daughter standing in the corner of her darkened room. Over
Speaker 1: the course of four supposed visitations, Zona sheu told her
Speaker 1: mother the truth of how she died. Edward, it seemed,
Speaker 1: was far from the loving husband he portrayed. He was
Speaker 1: violent and abusive, and on that tragic day in January,
Speaker 1: he had apparently reacted angrily to being told that there
Speaker 1: was no meat for that evening's dinner. Sona apparently described
Speaker 1: to her mother how he'd squeezed her neck at the
Speaker 1: first joint until she was dead. Mary approached local prosecutor
Speaker 1: John Preston for help. Preston initially laughed off the story,
Speaker 1: but after questioning Mary for several hours even he began
Speaker 1: to have doubts. First, Preston consulted doctor Knapp, who agreed
Speaker 1: reluctantly that he may have been too eager in his diagnosis,
Speaker 1: and that he certainly remembered Edward Schues's behavior as unusual.
Speaker 1: Then the prosecutor looked more deeply into Edward's life and
Speaker 1: found that he had been married twice before, both times
Speaker 1: to women who died under strange and unresolved circumstances. Armed
Speaker 1: with this new information, Preston was able to gain an
Speaker 1: order to exhume Zoner's body. According to the local paper,
Speaker 1: The Green Briar Independent, the discovery was made that Zna's
Speaker 1: neck was broken and her windpipe mashed. On the throat
Speaker 1: were the marks of fingers, and the neck was dislocated
Speaker 1: between the first and second vertebrae. It was an injury
Speaker 1: that had never been recorded before, but it matched precisely
Speaker 1: what Zona's apparent ghost had told her mother. Edward Schu
Speaker 1: was immediately arrested and subsequently charged with murder. He was
Speaker 1: given a life sentence. In court, Mary Hester was asked
Speaker 1: about her daughter's spectral visits, whether they were in fact
Speaker 1: dreams founded upon her distressed condition of mind. As it
Speaker 1: was put to her, no, sir, she replied adamantly, it
Speaker 1: was no dream, for I was as wide awake as
Speaker 1: I ever was. Sona came to me in the very
Speaker 1: dress that she was killed in, and when she went
Speaker 1: to leave me, she turned her head completely around and
Speaker 1: looked at me like she wanted me to know all
Speaker 1: about it. It's often said that the Greenbrier episode remains
Speaker 1: the only case in which ghostly testimony was directly involved
Speaker 1: in the conviction of a murderer, while skeptics argue that
Speaker 1: the passing of time has helped to embellish it into
Speaker 1: a neater, more satisfying story than it probably was. But
Speaker 1: there is in fact another case where a spirit or
Speaker 1: something like it is said to have found the means
Speaker 1: to address the court, and it happened much much more recently.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard mc lean smith.
Speaker 1: Terisee to Baza always loved music. From the very first
Speaker 1: time her fingers touched the keys of the family piano,
Speaker 1: she was infatuated. Even as a child, she knew that
Speaker 1: making and studying music would be the purpose of her life.
Speaker 1: Yet for a woman born in the Philippines in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty nine, a serious musical career was highly unlikely. Her
Speaker 1: father was a successful lawyer and the Bazar family were
Speaker 1: comfortably middle class, but a life in the small Dumaguete
Speaker 1: city provided scant opportunity to someone of Terry's talent. To
Speaker 1: have any chance of distilling her skills into success, she
Speaker 1: knew she had to make her way to the United States.
Speaker 1: It took her all of her adolescents and her twenties
Speaker 1: to make it possible, but in her early thirties she
Speaker 1: finally succeeded in gaining a place to study music at
Speaker 1: the University of Indiana. She worked hard and graduated with
Speaker 1: her master's diploma, but then, like so many others hoping
Speaker 1: to pursue a career in the arts, Tera Sita was
Speaker 1: spewed out into an unforgiving world. Without the comforts of
Speaker 1: home and family, Terasita put her dreams on halt and
Speaker 1: took a regular job. She worked at Chicago's Edgewater Hospital,
Speaker 1: and over the course of several years, worked up to
Speaker 1: the position of respiratory therapist, all the while keeping up
Speaker 1: her musical studies. At some point she was accepted into
Speaker 1: the Graduate School of Music to study for a PhD.
Speaker 1: It was a busy life, long days at the hospital
Speaker 1: followed by long evenings of work on her thesis, but
Speaker 1: she was making her way. She was happy. Colleagues described
Speaker 1: how she would eat her lunch every day in the
Speaker 1: same spot in the cafeteria, humming gently to herself between mouthfuls. Finally,
Speaker 1: she saved enough money to buy herself a piano of
Speaker 1: her own. Maybe this gave her confidence, and colleagues noted
Speaker 1: that Teresita became more sociable once the instrument was installed
Speaker 1: at her home. She began hosting parties in her small,
Speaker 1: fifteenth floor apartment in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood. Friends and
Speaker 1: colleagues would cram into the humble space and sing as
Speaker 1: Terasita played along. One night, her mother was there too,
Speaker 1: having flown over to visit her daughter. She watched on
Speaker 1: with a gentle melancholy at how relaxed her middle aged
Speaker 1: daughter seemed in her adoptive home among her new knew
Speaker 1: American friends, how radiant she was. A few days later,
Speaker 1: when Pterasita's mother was leaving, she handed her daughter a
Speaker 1: jewelry box. Teresita opened it and her eyes began to water.
Speaker 1: Inside was a beautiful emerald pendant that her father had
Speaker 1: bought for her mother during a trip to France years
Speaker 1: before she had always admired it, and now her mother
Speaker 1: was passing it down to her, a poignant symbol of
Speaker 1: love from a parent who knew their daughter was never
Speaker 1: going to come back home. At just after ten pm
Speaker 1: on Monday, the twenty first of February nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 1: at Terasita's apartment block, the scent of smoke hung thick
Speaker 1: in the air. Terasita's neighbors were the first to notice it,
Speaker 1: the acrid tang of something burning somewhere in the building.
Speaker 1: They traced it down the corridors to Terraceata's door. They
Speaker 1: banged and banged on it, but no one answered. When
Speaker 1: tendrils of black smoke then began to curl out from
Speaker 1: under the door, they did the only thing they could
Speaker 1: do and called nine one one. The building superintendent led
Speaker 1: the firefighters into Terra Seater's apartment, where they immediately found
Speaker 1: the source of the smoke, a low blaze simmering in
Speaker 1: the center of the living room and its noxious smoke
Speaker 1: pluming from a bare mattress. They made short work of
Speaker 1: extinguishing the fire. Then, with worried neighbors peering in, the
Speaker 1: firefighters lifted the mattress to reveal what they first assumed
Speaker 1: to be a pile of clothes. When the smoke cleared,
Speaker 1: they saw, to their horror that it was, in fact
Speaker 1: the body of a woman. The neighbors would immediately identify
Speaker 1: her as Teraceata Basa. She was naked and laid out
Speaker 1: on her back, with her legs spread apart. A butcher's
Speaker 1: knife was embedded deep into her chest. While the firefighters
Speaker 1: waited for police to arrive, they took a closer look
Speaker 1: at the mattress, hoping to establish how the fire was started,
Speaker 1: but they found no obvious catalyst or accelerant. The fact
Speaker 1: that the mattress had really only been smoldering when they
Speaker 1: arrived led them to believe it was the work of
Speaker 1: an inexperienced arsonist. Then they turned their attention to the
Speaker 1: wider apartment. The whole place was in disarray. Cupboard doors
Speaker 1: hung open, Teraceta's belongings were strewn everywhere, and the air
Speaker 1: was heavy with dust, as if freshly disturbed. It looked
Speaker 1: less like the clutter of a busy life than the
Speaker 1: aftermath of a robbery. A short time later, detectives Joe
Speaker 1: Stahula and Lee Epplin took over the scene. Stahula and
Speaker 1: Epplin had worked on many murders, but almost immediately something
Speaker 1: about this one felt different. Next to Teresita's body lay
Speaker 1: a pile of clothes that appeared to have been torn
Speaker 1: off her with violence. That and the positioning of her
Speaker 1: body suggested that she had been sexually assaulted before or
Speaker 1: after she was murdered. The door to the apartment had
Speaker 1: two dead bolts that Terasita was known to use. It
Speaker 1: would have been impossible for an intruder to force his
Speaker 1: way into the apartment, and he certainly couldn't have climbed
Speaker 1: the fifteen floors to the window. The two detectives concluded
Speaker 1: that whoever it was that killed Terasita, she must have
Speaker 1: let them in voluntarily. The coroner determined that she died
Speaker 1: from the single stab wound in her chest. It was
Speaker 1: unsurprising that life had been driven deep or most to
Speaker 1: the hilt in a single remorseless thrust. There were no
Speaker 1: marks to suggest any hesitancy on the part of the killer.
Speaker 1: It was a murder committed with great violence, efficiency, and
Speaker 1: it seemed to the detectives some experience. Then came a surprise.
Speaker 1: Pteroceata's body showed no signs of sexual assault. In fact,
Speaker 1: the coroner had good reason to believe she'd never had
Speaker 1: sexual intercourse at any time in her life. Testing on
Speaker 1: her clothes found no evidence of sexual assault either, which meant,
Speaker 1: for some reason, the killer appeared to have deliberately made
Speaker 1: the assault look sexually motivated when it wasn't. But to
Speaker 1: what end? They only found one clue to pursue, a
Speaker 1: note found in a journal written in Teraceata's handwriting, which
Speaker 1: read get theater tickets for asctives to Hula and Epplin
Speaker 1: asked around, but quickly determined that Teraesita didn't have any
Speaker 1: romantic acquaintances, and none of her close friends knew of
Speaker 1: anyone in her personal life with the initials as. The
Speaker 1: only scant thread was the word of Ruth Loeb, a
Speaker 1: hospital colleague who'd spoken to Teraster on the phone little
Speaker 1: more than an hour before her body was discovered. They
Speaker 1: spoke for several minutes, and according to Lob, Teraesita sounded
Speaker 1: happy and calm. There was nothing to give her friend
Speaker 1: any cause for concern, and when Teresita mentioned she was
Speaker 1: expecting a man to come over that evening, perhaps to
Speaker 1: buy a concert ticket from her Lobe barely registered the
Speaker 1: detail until the detectives got in touch with her. Was
Speaker 1: this the enigmatic as they wandered, but Lobe couldn't say.
Speaker 1: Neither could she confirm if the man arrived or not,
Speaker 1: and offered no further insight into how her friend came
Speaker 1: to be murd At some point in a Venstant, a
Speaker 1: small town just north of Chicago, in the early hours
Speaker 1: one morning, Remi Ture tossed and turned in her bed.
Speaker 1: Her husband Jose, sat up over her with concern. Remi
Speaker 1: began to mumble something, as though something in the dream
Speaker 1: was terrifying her. Jose urged her to wake up, and
Speaker 1: finally she did, gasping for air. It was yet another nightmare,
Speaker 1: all about the same thing, Terraceita. Remi Tua worked at
Speaker 1: Edgewater Hospital as a respiratory specialist, just like Terresita, and
Speaker 1: also like Terraesita. She'd been born in the Philippines before
Speaker 1: moving to the United States. Because the two women had
Speaker 1: similar jobs, they were rarely on shift together and only
Speaker 1: knew each other casually. Because of that, Remy was surprised
Speaker 1: by how hard she took the news of Teraceita's murder
Speaker 1: and how unnerved she felt in the aftermath. That's why
Speaker 1: she thought little of the dreams At first. Dreaming of
Speaker 1: her dead coworker was probably a normal reaction to such
Speaker 1: recent and traumatic events, Remy thought. Then one lunch break,
Speaker 1: a colleague spotted Remy sitting in Terraceita's favorite spot in
Speaker 1: the cafeteria. It wasn't especially strange until she did it
Speaker 1: again the next day and the day after that too.
Speaker 1: Then one day, Remy was overheard humming while eating her lunch,
Speaker 1: just like Terresita used to do. Then some one else
Speaker 1: noticed that Remy had taken a new locker. She started
Speaker 1: using Terraceita's old locker instead. Her co workers were rapidly
Speaker 1: growing disturbed by the behavior, which seemed orbit at best
Speaker 1: and pathological at worst. Eventually one of them found the
Speaker 1: courage to ask Remy about it, but she simply refused
Speaker 1: to engage. When pushed further, she flew into a sudden
Speaker 1: rage and told them to leave her alone. Several weeks
Speaker 1: after the murder, during a late shift, Remy was sat
Speaker 1: in an armchair in the staff lounge when she drifted
Speaker 1: off to sleep. A few minutes later, she woke with
Speaker 1: a horrifying scream, startling everybody in the room. Remy bolted
Speaker 1: out at the door, seemingly in a state of utter
Speaker 1: fear and confusion. A nurse eventually managed to catch up
Speaker 1: with her and tried to calm her down. Did you
Speaker 1: see her, said Remy. It was Tera Sita. She was
Speaker 1: in the room standing over me. But the nurse just
Speaker 1: shook her head. She hadn't seen anything. The event unsettled everyone,
Speaker 1: but the next day Remy acted as if nothing had
Speaker 1: happened at all. With disquiet growing on the ward, senior
Speaker 1: staff called Remy to a meeting to address the deteriorating situation.
Speaker 1: She attended, but flatly refused to discuss her behavior. Instead,
Speaker 1: she reeled off a litany of complaints about her job,
Speaker 1: her coworkers, and the management itself. Her outburst was so
Speaker 1: out of character that her supervisor suggested she take a
Speaker 1: short leave of absence, assuming with some compassion that Remy
Speaker 1: was suffering the after effects of grief or shock. But
Speaker 1: Remy flew into such a rage and response the management
Speaker 1: decided instead to terminate her contract there and then. Now
Speaker 1: untethered to the routines of work, Remy's behavior became even
Speaker 1: more bizarre at home. Her dreams of Teracita continued, and
Speaker 1: her husband, Jose, a doctor at another Chicago hospital, found
Speaker 1: it harder and harder to wake her from them. One night,
Speaker 1: Remy is said to have told Jose that she was
Speaker 1: exceptionally exhausted and retired to bed early. Jose was understandably
Speaker 1: worried about his wife, but agreed that a good night's
Speaker 1: rest would do her good. Minutes later, he heard his
Speaker 1: wife calling him from their bedroom, but something in the
Speaker 1: tone of her voice was off. He opened the door
Speaker 1: to the bedroom and in the darkness could just about
Speaker 1: make out the figure of Remy lying prostrate on their bed.
Speaker 1: Are you okay, he asked, but Remi didn't respond. He
Speaker 1: realized then that she was fast asleep. But then she
Speaker 1: spoke again. Doctor, She said, in an unfamiliar voice, I
Speaker 1: would like your help. The man who killed me is
Speaker 1: still at large. What said Jose, taking a step closer,
Speaker 1: I would like your help. The man who killed me
Speaker 1: is still at large. Unnerved, Jose tried to wake his wife,
Speaker 1: but Remy's eyelids remained tightly shut, and still the words came,
Speaker 1: the man who killed me is still at large. There
Speaker 1: were other words too, that Jose didn't recognize at first,
Speaker 1: until he realized they were to garlog words of Filipino language,
Speaker 1: which Remi used rarely and ineloquently. Jose shook Remy some more,
Speaker 1: but still she wouldn't wake up. He began to panic, Doctor,
Speaker 1: I need your help, came the voice again. Then this
Speaker 1: time Jose tried something different. Who am I speaking to?
Speaker 1: He asked, I am teraceeitaza, The woman replied. Jose felt
Speaker 1: a chill run through his body. Then Remy opened her eyes.
Speaker 1: When Remy woke up, she was alarmed to find her
Speaker 1: husband standing over her with an anxious look on his face.
Speaker 1: She claimed to have no memory of whatever she had
Speaker 1: been dreaming at the time, or of saying anything during
Speaker 1: her sleep. After that, she refused to discuss it any further.
Speaker 1: At a loss how to respond, Jose simply tried to
Speaker 1: forget about the whole incident. Then the following week, it
Speaker 1: happened again. Once asleep, Remy began to speak once more
Speaker 1: in that uncanny alternate voice, addressing Jose as doctor and
Speaker 1: repeating the same plea. This time, however, she also said
Speaker 1: someone's name, Alan Showy. Then the voice claiming to be
Speaker 1: Terasita berated Jose for not telling the police that she
Speaker 1: had been trying to communicate with him. Jose replied meekly
Speaker 1: that he couldn't possibly approach the authorities without evidence, But
Speaker 1: what is this if not evidence? Snapped the voice in return,
Speaker 1: as All the while, his wife appeared to remain completely unconscious.
Speaker 1: A short time later, she seemed to wake again. Remy
Speaker 1: claimed to have had no awareness of what had just transpired,
Speaker 1: but then Jose told her the name that she said
Speaker 1: in her sleep, Alan Showery, and Remy jerked to attention.
Speaker 1: She knew him Allan, it turned out, was an orderly
Speaker 1: within the same respiratory team as her and Terasita. Remy
Speaker 1: had always considered him an intimidating individual, and though she
Speaker 1: remembered that Terasita seemed to have got on well with him,
Speaker 1: she herself avoided him wherever possible. She described him as
Speaker 1: an arrogant man who liked to pretend he was a doctor,
Speaker 1: and had even coined the nickname Doc for himself. She
Speaker 1: didn't find it hard to believe that Showery could have
Speaker 1: killed Terasita, but what on earth were they supposed to
Speaker 1: do on the word of a supposed ghost. Another week
Speaker 1: passed while the chewers worried and deliberated, both feeling guilty
Speaker 1: for not reporting what they knew or at least suspected.
Speaker 1: Then Remy fell into a third and final trance once again.
Speaker 1: It began with Remy going to bed early as Jose
Speaker 1: lay beside her waiting. Then, in the darkness of the room,
Speaker 1: as Remy lay absolutely still, the apparent voice of Terasita returned.
Speaker 1: It said that she and Allan Shari had been on
Speaker 1: friendly terms and that he'd offered to come to her
Speaker 1: apartment to help fix her broken television. When she let
Speaker 1: him in, according to the voice, he knocked her senseless
Speaker 1: to the floor, then picked up a knife from her
Speaker 1: kitchen and drove it deep into her chest. After that,
Speaker 1: he systematically removed her clothes and posed Teresita's body to
Speaker 1: imply a sexual assault, just as the investigative team had suspected.
Speaker 1: The thing was, As Remy and Jose would later find out,
Speaker 1: no one outside the investigation knew this because the police
Speaker 1: had never released this information to the press. Terasita's supposed
Speaker 1: voice went on describing how while she was dying, Showy
Speaker 1: pocketed her jewelry, including a distinctive pearl ring and the
Speaker 1: emerald pendant that her mother had given her if further
Speaker 1: evidence was required. The voice also told jose the names
Speaker 1: of terror family members who could help verify that the
Speaker 1: stolen jewelry was hers. Then all went quiet again, and
Speaker 1: once more, Remy claimed to have no memory of speaking
Speaker 1: or any knowledge of the event. She described. Unable to
Speaker 1: wait any longer, and now utterly convinced that Terasita was
Speaker 1: using her as a conduit for justice, Remi Chow finally
Speaker 1: contacted the Chicago Police Department. To her surprise, the man
Speaker 1: she spoke with listened to her story with patients and
Speaker 1: urged her to contact the homicide detectives covering the case.
Speaker 1: But Remy still wasn't sure going public with her strange
Speaker 1: claim ran the risk of harming her husband's professional reputation.
Speaker 1: But then the officer told her something unexpected. According to him,
Speaker 1: Remy wasn't the only staff member from her old hospital
Speaker 1: there had been experiencing strange visions of Terracetera. Three others
Speaker 1: had two, and eventually Remy agreed to talk. As preposterous
Speaker 1: as it all sounded, having gone six months without a lead,
Speaker 1: detective Joe Stahula was willing to try anything. When he
Speaker 1: met the Chewers at their house, the first thing he
Speaker 1: noticed was Jose's restless, anxious energy. You're rubbing your hands
Speaker 1: together like you're trying to start a fire, Stahula said,
Speaker 1: you have something you want to tell me. As Remy
Speaker 1: looked on nervously, her husband raised his eyes to meet
Speaker 1: the detectives. Do you believe in ghosts? He said? If
Speaker 1: the question took Stahula by surprise, he tried not to
Speaker 1: let it show. A good cop keeps an open mind,
Speaker 1: he said. Perhaps he struck upon exactly the right answer,
Speaker 1: because with that the Chewer's floodgates opened. Remi and Jose
Speaker 1: Tua told the detective about everything that had apparently transpired
Speaker 1: in their home since Pterasita's murder, the dreams, the apparitions,
Speaker 1: and what they'd finally resolved to call Remy's possession. Stahula
Speaker 1: listened to it all without interruption, as bit by bit,
Speaker 1: the Chewers revealed the details of the stolen jewelry and
Speaker 1: even that withheld truth about the body's suggestive positioning, and
Speaker 1: then they gave him a name, Alan Shawi. Stahula felt
Speaker 1: the hairs on the back of his neck bristle as
Speaker 1: he recalled the cryptic note that he'd found at Terasita's apartment,
Speaker 1: the initials A and S. Until then, alan Shahi had
Speaker 1: not even been on the police's radar, But now armed
Speaker 1: with the most specious of probable causes, the detectives decided
Speaker 1: to pay him a visit. Alan Shawi lived with his
Speaker 1: girlfriend Yanka, less than a block from Terasita's apartment. Later
Speaker 1: that day, detectives, to Hula and Epplin knocked on his door.
Speaker 1: He answered with a friendly smile and asked if they
Speaker 1: were there to talk about Teraceita Basa. Ever since her murder,
Speaker 1: He told the detectives he'd been very open with people
Speaker 1: about how he'd visited her the night she died. It
Speaker 1: was an unusual admission to make, and one that gave Sta, Hula,
Speaker 1: and Epplin enough reason to bring him in for questioning. First,
Speaker 1: then terrogated Shari, who just repeated what he said. He'd
Speaker 1: already told everyone that he went to Terreceta's apartment on
Speaker 1: the night of the twenty first of February to fix
Speaker 1: her TV, but after quickly judging it beyond repair, he
Speaker 1: told her he was going home to fix some electrical
Speaker 1: problems of his own, but when the detectives put his
Speaker 1: account to Yanker, she was confused. Allan had never shown
Speaker 1: any aptitude with electronics, she said, and there were never
Speaker 1: any alle pactrical issues with their apartment. She then revealed
Speaker 1: that in late February, Alan had presented her with a
Speaker 1: pair of belated Christmas presents, a pearl ring and a
Speaker 1: beautiful emerald pendant. Then sta Hula glanced down at the
Speaker 1: ring on her finger and recognized it immediately. As Teraceita bases.
Speaker 1: Faced with insurmountable evidence, Alan Shari confessed his plan was
Speaker 1: as the detectives suspected, to rob Terasita stage as sexual
Speaker 1: assault and attempt to destroy the evidence by setting fire
Speaker 1: to her apartment. In a sad twist, Shari admitted that
Speaker 1: he'd chosen Terasita as a victim because her generosity toward
Speaker 1: colleagues had convinced him she was hoarding secret wealth. When
Speaker 1: Shari's trial began in October nineteen seventy eight, there was
Speaker 1: initial doubt over whether any of the evidence could stand up. First,
Speaker 1: the defense's legal team accused the Showers of fraud, citing
Speaker 1: a long standing enmity between Remy and Alan. They argued
Speaker 1: that the entire possession explanation was just a ludicrous invention,
Speaker 1: and that Allan's confession had been coerced. Then Showi pleaded
Speaker 1: not guilty. The trial ended in a hung jury with
Speaker 1: no definitive verdict, and Shawi was sent back to jail
Speaker 1: for a month pending a retrial. Maybe his guilty conscience
Speaker 1: worked away at him, or maybe he realized that his
Speaker 1: chances were slim should a new set of jurors see
Speaker 1: the strange, compelling evidence. Either way, for whatever reason, when
Speaker 1: he was brought back to court in January nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: he changed his plea to guilty. On February twenty third,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine, almost two years to the day of
Speaker 1: the crime, Alan Shari was victim of arson, robbery and
Speaker 1: the murder of Pteraceitea Barza. He was sentenced to a
Speaker 1: rather lenient fourteen years in prison. The evidence against him
Speaker 1: may have been tainted in the eyes of the legal
Speaker 1: system that the court seemed happy to overlook the bizarre
Speaker 1: manner in which it had come to light. Justice by
Speaker 1: whatever means, had been served to a degree, at least
Speaker 1: with the man responsible for their daughter's murder behind bars,
Speaker 1: the Bazar family could focus on grieving for Terresita, who
Speaker 1: was buried back in Dumaguette City, close to the family
Speaker 1: home in Chicago. Many of Terasita's friends loudly protested Shahi's
Speaker 1: sentence as a paltry punishment for such a heinous crime.
Speaker 1: Their frustrations would be inflamed even further when he was
Speaker 1: released on parole in October nineteen eighty three, having served
Speaker 1: just four years of his sentence. From there, Alan Shaowery
Speaker 1: recedes into the shadows of the story. Rumors persist that
Speaker 1: he relocated to New York City, but is whereabouts in
Speaker 1: the decades since, or whether he is even still alive
Speaker 1: remains unknown, and as for just how a supposed unsettled
Speaker 1: spirit may have played a role in bringing him to
Speaker 1: what little justice he ultimately faced, that is likely to
Speaker 1: remain forever unexplained. This episode was written by Neil McRobert
Speaker 1: and produced by Richard McLain Smith. Before we Go, I'm
Speaker 1: very happy to say that Neil's debut novella, Good Boy,
Speaker 1: is now out and available to buy. It's a dark, eerie,
Speaker 1: and deeply moving story set in a small northern town
Speaker 1: haunted by something ancient and terrible. So that sounds like
Speaker 1: your kind of thing, and I suspect that many of
Speaker 1: you it probably does. Please check it out. That's Good
Speaker 1: Boy by Neil McRobert that theyable now, Thank you as
Speaker 1: ever for listening. Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions podcast
Speaker 1: created by Richard McClain Smith. All other elements of the podcast,
Speaker 1: including the music, are also produced by me Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained.
Speaker 1: The book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide.
Speaker 1: You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and
Speaker 1: other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in
Speaker 1: touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've
Speaker 1: heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation or
Speaker 1: a story of your own you'd like to share. You
Speaker 1: can find out more at Unexplained podcast dot com and
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Speaker 1: Podcast