Speaker 1: Give me a check. Check. I need to be given
Speaker 1: a check as well, check for many millions of dollars. Please,
Speaker 1: somebody give me a check. Check check large, check large check,
Speaker 1: one of those big novels. Check. Yeah, check that I
Speaker 1: can fill in and it will not bounce. Che check signed.
Speaker 1: Who do I want to give me a blank check?
Speaker 1: I hate everyone who came to my mind, and I
Speaker 1: was just about everyone. I was like, I don't want
Speaker 1: from them, everybody who I know the check will not bounce.
Speaker 1: I'm like, keep your money and choke on it. Except no,
Speaker 1: I will also please give me your money. Yeah, definitely
Speaker 1: good in the community. No moral qualms about where that
Speaker 1: money came from. I'll make good with it. I will
Speaker 1: wash your money more morally, Yes, by giving it to
Speaker 1: the community doing good work in the community. We're like
Speaker 1: a moral money during I do need a moral laundromat
Speaker 1: for your money. Well, hey, everybody, well hey there, friends,
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show Ridiculous Romance. Yeah, hey, look,
Speaker 1: thank you so much everybody forgiving us a little time
Speaker 1: to kind of get ourselves back together, kind of collect
Speaker 1: ourselves a little bit, uh, sort of sort our affairs, um,
Speaker 1: and for checking out our episodes about the about the trip,
Speaker 1: and Jason really appreciate affirming that our trips are interesting
Speaker 1: to anyone. But I'll tell you, you know, I really
Speaker 1: just didn't. As I'm editing them after we recorded them,
Speaker 1: I'm just even more. I'm just like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: who is going to care about this? But um, but
Speaker 1: the first episode really got some downloads and the second
Speaker 1: one also got some downloads, some downloads. But well, I
Speaker 1: just watched a whole scene between two guys on a
Speaker 1: podcast arguing about the best pop tart flavor for about
Speaker 1: twenty minutes. So I feel like it feels like it
Speaker 1: should be fine, But I have been a hell of
Speaker 1: self conscious. Yeah, it's true. It's weird in a world
Speaker 1: where the most popular videos on YouTube are people opening
Speaker 1: boxes of ship they bought. Uh, you know, I assume
Speaker 1: people will just take anything as content. But we're back.
Speaker 1: We are back. We have his historic stories, yes good
Speaker 1: ones too, in fact, not just any old stories. But
Speaker 1: it's October. It's Halloween season, and that means it's time
Speaker 1: for our special series, Recrupulous Romance. Yes, this is where
Speaker 1: we take all the spooky, ghostly, ghastly google stories that
Speaker 1: we could find throughout the year and we just drop
Speaker 1: them all here around Halloween time. Yeah, because who doesn't
Speaker 1: love this mood? I do. We love Halloween around here,
Speaker 1: and we never get to do much with it because
Speaker 1: October is always a very busy month for us. But
Speaker 1: we've kept you all at bay long enough. Here from
Speaker 1: from from a ridiculous romance, So today we've got a
Speaker 1: good one. Extra spooky, fixtra spooky, extra ghostly. That's right
Speaker 1: because when Zona Hester Shoe died suddenly one cold January day,
Speaker 1: her mother Mary knew that something about her death was natural.
Speaker 1: Days later, she was given the answer she was looking
Speaker 1: for when she got a spooky visit from the ghost
Speaker 1: of Zona herself. This is the tale of the Greenbrier Ghost,
Speaker 1: the only known case where a ghostly testimony played a
Speaker 1: part in the conviction of a murderer. Oh my goodness, well,
Speaker 1: I have got chills. I'm ready for this one. Let go,
Speaker 1: hated friends, elid say you're welcome to Hell. There's no
Speaker 1: match making a romantic te just out you were lying
Speaker 1: in crypt. I love my Demonico, but if there's a
Speaker 1: spirit with the second chance, we'll show jealous. A production
Speaker 1: of I Heartradio Elva, Zona Hester was a lovely farmer's
Speaker 1: daughter living in Livesey's Mill, West Virginia, West Virginia. The
Speaker 1: story did start scary in eight when Zona was just
Speaker 1: twenty three years old, she became smitten with a new
Speaker 1: guy in town, a tall, handsome, mysterious stranger, Nate Edwards
Speaker 1: Stribbling trout Shoe. Oh. I love this idea of this
Speaker 1: super sexy guy walking in and being like, hey, what's
Speaker 1: your name. My name's Zna Hester. What's your Hester? My
Speaker 1: name is Edwards Stribbling trout Shoe. Okay, well, those are
Speaker 1: lots of a lot of names. My name contains both footwear,
Speaker 1: fish and stribbling, which sounds like there's something coming out
Speaker 1: of your mouth or something does, doesn't it. This is
Speaker 1: actually really making me think of Terry Pratchett's Discworld, because
Speaker 1: he has so many weird names like like this, Like, um,
Speaker 1: there's a beggar's guild in Discworld and they all have
Speaker 1: names like stribbling trout. There's one called Dribbling Sydney, and
Speaker 1: someone's called cut my own throat Dibbler stuff like that,
Speaker 1: And I was just like, stribbling trout shoe, what book
Speaker 1: are you in, sir? Are you writing to the hog
Speaker 1: Father today. So anyway, Edward worked at the local blacks
Speaker 1: its shops. Probablys pretty musli, you know, he had to
Speaker 1: make some good grit. Like he he dirtied up real hot,
Speaker 1: probably probably on him all the time, even after he showers.
Speaker 1: He's just got a little bit of soot on his cheeks,
Speaker 1: just enough to show you he's a working man. So
Speaker 1: he's young, he's hot. Zona fell hard for this guy,
Speaker 1: and this dashing hunk loved her back. In fact, it
Speaker 1: wasn't long before he wanted to marry her. He was
Speaker 1: ready to get to the smithy and strike out a ring,
Speaker 1: round out a rain for and the forge. But her mother,
Speaker 1: Mary Jane Hester, could not get on board. Mary Jane
Speaker 1: did not know much about this guy Edward, but something
Speaker 1: about him rubbed her the wrong way. She's just like,
Speaker 1: I don't like the vibes off this guy, this trout,
Speaker 1: little fishy, yeah, just throwing back. So yeah, his dark,
Speaker 1: mysterious vibes were just making Mary kind of uncomfortable. She's like, Zona,
Speaker 1: you know, don't run off with the first hot black smithew. See,
Speaker 1: there's other blacksmith in the sea. There's more trouts in
Speaker 1: the sea, but Zona was determined, so in October they
Speaker 1: eloped together, with Zonah wearing her favorite high necked burgundy gown. Lovely. Now, ultimately,
Speaker 1: this couple just seemed so happy together, so Mary had
Speaker 1: to set her suspicions aside and resign herself to her
Speaker 1: daughter's marriage. Edward and Zona we're totally living up their
Speaker 1: honeymoon phase, and Mary gradually came to accept them as
Speaker 1: a loving couple. She's like, Oh, my son in laws
Speaker 1: a blacksmith, so at least all my horse shoes are
Speaker 1: in good order. I don't know. I'm looking for the
Speaker 1: bright side here. Perks of being a blacksmith's mother in
Speaker 1: law by Mary Jane has But everything changed on January three.
Speaker 1: Eight that morning, Edward visited his neighbor, Martha Jones, and
Speaker 1: he said, oh, Martha, Zone is not feeling so well today.
Speaker 1: I'm off to work, and jeez, I just hate to
Speaker 1: leave her all alone. Could your son Anderson maybe stop
Speaker 1: by and do a few chores and see if she
Speaker 1: needs anything. Wow, this is a neighborly little town, so Anderson,
Speaker 1: this little eleven year old boy. He skipped on over
Speaker 1: to Zona's house around ten am to see if he
Speaker 1: could help with some turn of the century chores. You know,
Speaker 1: churn some butter rug beta rug, definitely beat some rugs.
Speaker 1: He's out here penning clothes to a line. Maybe he
Speaker 1: just wants to help out Holland Holland water from the well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably just I want to just well, I want to
Speaker 1: be helpful. Young. So he comes up to the house
Speaker 1: and he knocks, and no one answered. He says hello
Speaker 1: Andy by the hall, but still no answer. He slowly
Speaker 1: twisted the door knob. It was unlocked. So, being a
Speaker 1: child with no respect for privacy, he slowly pushed the
Speaker 1: door open. It's old hinges creaked, and there in the
Speaker 1: middle of the room was Zona, sprawled delfless across the floor.
Speaker 1: I imagine he's wondering, why do these hinges squeak so much?
Speaker 1: This guy's blacksmith. You think that would be the one
Speaker 1: thing in the house that worked real well good. That
Speaker 1: might have been one of my chores today to get
Speaker 1: that way. Well, Martha and Anderson immediately went to the
Speaker 1: blacksmith to tell Edward this terrible news. He threw down
Speaker 1: his smithing tools and he ran straight home, just in anguish,
Speaker 1: and the coroner Dr. George Knat arrived sometime later at
Speaker 1: the Shoes house, but he found that Edward had been
Speaker 1: pretty busy before he arrived. Not only had her husband
Speaker 1: moved Zona's body to the bed, he had already even
Speaker 1: changed her clothes for burial, and apparently this was unusual
Speaker 1: in Victorian times. It was really the mom or the
Speaker 1: sisters that would do it, not your husband. Not to mention, like,
Speaker 1: you know, thoughts with the scene of the crimea for well,
Speaker 1: they might not have had that in place, but the
Speaker 1: traditions of the time. He was still being weird about.
Speaker 1: Even still I'm allowing to care what it is if
Speaker 1: somebody's dead on the floor and the coroner's coming by,
Speaker 1: just leave it, leave it as it is. Is that I
Speaker 1: I couldn't stand to see, or they're like apole clothes,
Speaker 1: It's like, but I had to. I had to show
Speaker 1: up and do him a chalk outline drawings. So yeah,
Speaker 1: he had already prepared her for burial. He had put
Speaker 1: her in the high necked burgundy gown that she had
Speaker 1: worn to get married in, as well as a scarf
Speaker 1: he had found like a large scarf and wounded around
Speaker 1: her neck. Sure you don't want her to get cold. Now.
Speaker 1: Dr Napp found Edward on the bed holding Zona's head
Speaker 1: in his lap. Dr Napp needed to examine her body.
Speaker 1: You know, a healthy young woman drops dead out of nowhere,
Speaker 1: you got to do an autopsy. I mean, even an
Speaker 1: old lady. You gotta figure out what's going on. He's
Speaker 1: got some I do exactly, so he's you know, trying
Speaker 1: to get close to his ownA and trying to check
Speaker 1: her out. But Edward was so distraught he would just
Speaker 1: cry and wail every time Dr Nap got anywhere close
Speaker 1: to Zona. Seriously, yes, specifically her head. He was really like,
Speaker 1: you can her feet and gold teas and sows whatever.
Speaker 1: But as as the closer you get to to the
Speaker 1: top of her body, the more upset he would seem
Speaker 1: to grow. These toes, those are okay, shoulders not so good.
Speaker 1: Head out of the question of the question, that's my
Speaker 1: wife's head. So out of respect for this loving husband's feelings,
Speaker 1: you know, his his grief and everything, Dr Nap just
Speaker 1: kind of choked her death up to quote an everlasting faint.
Speaker 1: Like Dr Nap said, she took a nap. That's and
Speaker 1: that's the official ductor nap diagnosis for everything taking a nap.
Speaker 1: Dr Naps, Nap, Dr Nap, dirt nap, that's what they
Speaker 1: named naps after Doctor Nap. No. Apparently, an everlasting faint
Speaker 1: is what victorians called a heart attack. So it wasn't
Speaker 1: just Dr Nap, Wow, she took a nap. They were like,
Speaker 1: your heart stopped working and you fainted forever, fainted permanently.
Speaker 1: Now later Dr Nap changed the cause of death to childbirth.
Speaker 1: What and Gillian Brockole writes in the Washington Post article
Speaker 1: about Greenbrier ghost quote that was somewhat odd since the
Speaker 1: Shoes had only been married for three months and had
Speaker 1: only known one another for a brief time before that.
Speaker 1: It's what kind of like supercharged babies coming out after
Speaker 1: three months. I don't know, Dr Nap. I think you
Speaker 1: just make a ship up. Wow. So literally, just like
Speaker 1: this guy is so against doing a thorough job right
Speaker 1: now because of this man crying in his face. He
Speaker 1: makes up a reason, calls it a day. He's like,
Speaker 1: I got dinner on the stove. Mrs Nap is about
Speaker 1: to get up from her nap, so so I want
Speaker 1: to get home in time for dinner. Um, okay, all right,
Speaker 1: now Mary Zona's mother was obviously devastated, you know, the
Speaker 1: sudden loss of her daughter very unexpected, but her sorrow
Speaker 1: was matched with a renewed suspicion. She'd gotten kind of
Speaker 1: comfortable with with Edward and Zona being married, but now
Speaker 1: she's saying, well, I'm not so comfortable anymore. She's dead.
Speaker 1: I could not be more uncomfortable. I mean, Zona had
Speaker 1: been perfectly healthy. She wasn't just gonna drop dead of
Speaker 1: some everlasting faint out of nowhere, right. Plus, Edward was
Speaker 1: acting absolutely bonkers. At the wake. Zona had an open coffin,
Speaker 1: but Edward wouldn't leave her side. He just kept fussing
Speaker 1: around with her head like. He added a whole other
Speaker 1: scarf and a ill to her burial gown. He propped
Speaker 1: her head up with a pillow, and he would pace
Speaker 1: around in agitation in front of the coffin. Whenever somebody
Speaker 1: got close, he whimpered and fussed, and that sort of
Speaker 1: prevented anyone from getting a good look at Zona. Other
Speaker 1: townspeople thought he was acting weird too, but they just
Speaker 1: chalked it up to grief, right. But Mary, she wasn't
Speaker 1: so sure. She had never liked the guy in the
Speaker 1: first place. After all. But all she could do about
Speaker 1: it was pray, and so pray she did. According to
Speaker 1: Gary Rogers on Huffington's Post, she prayed every night for
Speaker 1: four weeks, asking Zonah to come back and tell her
Speaker 1: mother the true story. And one night Mary's prayers were answered.
Speaker 1: And we'll hear those answers right after a word from
Speaker 1: our spooksters, welcome back from the grave. So Mary had
Speaker 1: been praying for weeks for answers and the mysterious death
Speaker 1: of her daughter, and then her prayers were answered in
Speaker 1: a shocking, haunting way. She lay in bed one night,
Speaker 1: wide awake, when suddenly a bright light seemed to fill
Speaker 1: her bedroom. Before her very eyes, the globe began to
Speaker 1: take shape. The room grew colder as the light shifted
Speaker 1: into a form, a human form. It was Zona. Mary
Speaker 1: was terrified at first, but soon she began to speak
Speaker 1: with her ghostly daughter, and Zona's ghost visited Mary for
Speaker 1: four nights straight and spilled the entire ghastly tea Oh shit.
Speaker 1: She told Mary that Edward was not the loving husband
Speaker 1: that she had made him out to be. What what
Speaker 1: Mary's like? No ship, sherlock, He's like, Oh if only
Speaker 1: someone had warned, you warned you, if only you'd ever
Speaker 1: listened to your mother, And Zona's ghost is like, I'll
Speaker 1: leave right now if you can't. Alright, alright, No. In fact,
Speaker 1: Edward was violent and physically abusive. The night she died,
Speaker 1: Edward had been furious with her for not cooking any
Speaker 1: meat for dinner. Edward backhanded her and then grabbed her
Speaker 1: neck in a psychotic rage, He squeezed into her next
Speaker 1: broke right between the first and second vertebrae. The apparition
Speaker 1: even provided details to Marry about where she could find evidence.
Speaker 1: On her final visit, Mary wasn't so sure, I guess.
Speaker 1: She's like, well, sure, you appeared out of pure light
Speaker 1: and told me what I've been asking for this whole time,
Speaker 1: But how can I know that this story is true?
Speaker 1: It's a reasonable question, Mary Well, the ghost of Zona replied, Hey,
Speaker 1: check this out, and she turned her head a hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty degrees to prove her points. Oh, she gave
Speaker 1: her the old Linda Blair, Yes she did, minus the
Speaker 1: vomit hopefully hopefully or Mary left that part out And
Speaker 1: Mary's like, okay, got it, picking up what you're putting down,
Speaker 1: and she started telling her neighbors about these ghostly visits
Speaker 1: that she was getting, and then she decided to take
Speaker 1: it to the local prosecutor, John Preston. This is like
Speaker 1: the ultimate hungry, like he didn't cut me meat for dinner,
Speaker 1: freaking out? God true, hold yourself together, man, Like I
Speaker 1: understand that sometimes food is the only pleasure that you
Speaker 1: get in your day, especially back in the day when
Speaker 1: there wasn't many pleasures go get or enjoy necessarily. But
Speaker 1: it's like, calm the funk down. Maybe we'll have meat tomorrow. Also,
Speaker 1: don't you bring home the bacon. Isn't that your job? Damn,
Speaker 1: this guy sucks. According to the ghosts take right, Edward
Speaker 1: didn't get a chance to speak for himself, I guess.
Speaker 1: So she goes to speak to the prosecutor, John Preston,
Speaker 1: and he's like, I ain't so sure about no ghost stories.
Speaker 1: You know, kind of crazy sounded to me. But while practical, man. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But while he was talking to Mary, he did learn
Speaker 1: that Dr Napp had never really done a real autopsy
Speaker 1: on Sona. He's like, all right, that's a little strange,
Speaker 1: So let me go on down and talk to the
Speaker 1: corner myself. So he goes talk to Dr Nap, But
Speaker 1: Dr Nap excuses like, well, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Every time I tried to get close to this guy's
Speaker 1: dead wife's body, he got all defensive and freaked out
Speaker 1: and wouldn't give me a good look. Hey, you don't
Speaker 1: think that's weird, do you? And Preston is like, I
Speaker 1: find that tell us suspicious, stir incredibly, you should have
Speaker 1: come to me on day what with that information? How
Speaker 1: long has this woman been dead? I have not talked
Speaker 1: about this yet. How long have you been a coroner?
Speaker 1: How many other murderers stood over their victims and said, no, please,
Speaker 1: don't investigate. It would make me very sad? And you
Speaker 1: were like, well, what can I do? It's not like
Speaker 1: it's my job to figure out what happened to you.
Speaker 1: How rude of me would it be to keep asking question?
Speaker 1: Who am I to come between a murderer and his
Speaker 1: victim's score? So yeah, Preston is like, I gotta get
Speaker 1: to the bottom of this. Hold on, I got to
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of this yell foghorn leg Horn
Speaker 1: is John Preston, and he obviously orders Zona's body to
Speaker 1: be exhumed. Now, maybe he just thought that Mary was
Speaker 1: really upset about her daughter's death, and if he proved
Speaker 1: that she died naturally, this whole thing would just drop.
Speaker 1: Or maybe he was responding to public sentiments because several
Speaker 1: people around town we're starting to speculate about Zona's death
Speaker 1: since himself did have a reputation of having a hot temper.
Speaker 1: They're like, it ain't just the forge that's so hot
Speaker 1: about him and his muscles, it's also his attitude. Lord,
Speaker 1: I just think it's so funny that they're like, you know,
Speaker 1: now that I think about it, now that there's a victim,
Speaker 1: well weird. Had Zona just dad out of nowhere and
Speaker 1: Edward put her in a had neck gown and a
Speaker 1: scarf when Lett no, no nobody near her heir. So
Speaker 1: Zona did get her autopsy and three physicians took part,
Speaker 1: including Dr Nap. Like that they got two more. John
Speaker 1: Preston was like, we need some you can be there.
Speaker 1: They hand him like a plastic knife. They're like, here
Speaker 1: you go, Dr Nap. You're part of it too. Why
Speaker 1: don't you write down what we find? That's very like Anderson,
Speaker 1: get in here. We need your help. It's industrious, little kid.
Speaker 1: Your powers of observation are clearly better than the Corners.
Speaker 1: But get this, since he was her husband, Edward trout
Speaker 1: Show got to watch the autopsy as well, and once again,
Speaker 1: during this autopsy, Edward would get really agitated whenever they
Speaker 1: got close to Zona's head. He's like, oh, no, no,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you ought to check his feet there,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't just spend some time down south.
Speaker 1: But of course he could not stop them, and sure enough,
Speaker 1: the doctors found bruise marks around Zona's throat. Her windpipe
Speaker 1: had been crushed, and her neck had been snapped right
Speaker 1: between the first and second vertebrae, just as Mary had
Speaker 1: said the ghost described. Edward was immediately arrested for murder
Speaker 1: and at the inquest he could not provide an alibi.
Speaker 1: So while he awaited trial in the county jail, John
Speaker 1: Preston worked on his case against him, and a lot
Speaker 1: of information started coming out about this guy to in doubt,
Speaker 1: Edward Stribbling trout Shoe wasn't even his real name. His
Speaker 1: true identity was Erasmus Stribbling trout Shoe. Wait, what hang
Speaker 1: on his fake name? Who was so close? His real
Speaker 1: name was the most identifiable name in West Virginia and
Speaker 1: Soda Hide himself. He just switched Erasmus to Edward. I
Speaker 1: gotta change one of my three real weird names right away.
Speaker 1: That'll throw him off the trail. You know, everybody always
Speaker 1: remembers an Erasmus, but they'll never remember an Edward, even
Speaker 1: if it's strippling trout shoe stribling trout that is standing.
Speaker 1: Tell you right now, he didn't even change the first initials.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe he was a fraidie forget to be close.
Speaker 1: It's like when you just add an exclamation point at
Speaker 1: the end of yours. Now. The reason he changed his
Speaker 1: name was because he had a record of assaults and theft.
Speaker 1: He had even served time for stealing a horse, and
Speaker 1: he had been married before, not once, but twice. His
Speaker 1: first marriage ended in divorce. The wife said he was
Speaker 1: physically abusive to her and then abandoned her and their son,
Speaker 1: and his second wife died less than a year after
Speaker 1: marrying him. Erasmus said, well we were I was fixing
Speaker 1: the roof of our barn and I accidentally dropped a
Speaker 1: brick on her head and she died. He told people that,
Speaker 1: like he said, the words, so easy to get away
Speaker 1: with murder. Back then, people were less skeptical. That's all
Speaker 1: I had to say, because he's like, oh, well, the
Speaker 1: way you do it is I will climb up to
Speaker 1: the hay loft and I'd pull a basket up that
Speaker 1: she'd fill with brick, and I happened to drop the
Speaker 1: whole basket on her head like a cartoon. Exactly I was.
Speaker 1: She She tied the rope to a ten ton weight
Speaker 1: and I was lifted to a piano and I was
Speaker 1: lifting it up and squash. Are you judge doom? Sir?
Speaker 1: I said, heads up? But she just didn't heads up.
Speaker 1: She looked up. She looked. I should have said move
Speaker 1: Erasmus learned a heart lesson that day, didn't we all? Wow?
Speaker 1: So all of that is weird as hell that you
Speaker 1: had two ex wives, you know, one who died mysteriously
Speaker 1: and the other one who's like that's a real violent man.
Speaker 1: But even more suspicious was how Trout was talking in
Speaker 1: his jail cell. He kept insisting to people, no one
Speaker 1: will ever prove I killed Zona. No one can ever
Speaker 1: ever prove it. They'll never ever ever find enough evidence
Speaker 1: to prove I did it. In fact, I'm going to
Speaker 1: write a book called If I did It? If I
Speaker 1: did if I arrest Miss Stribling trout to if the
Speaker 1: brick fits, you must go. Wow. He also started talking
Speaker 1: at length about his lifelong ambition to marry seven women
Speaker 1: before he died, and this is his third wife. I'm like,
Speaker 1: how do you expect to marry seven women unless you're
Speaker 1: going to convert to Mormonism or something. I don't know
Speaker 1: how you expect to do that without them all mysteriously dying.
Speaker 1: I just anticipate at least six accidents. We'll fix a
Speaker 1: lot of roofs. That's all I know. Wow. Now, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: none of this stuff, as damning as it seems, none
Speaker 1: of it really added up to the physical, hard evidence
Speaker 1: that John Preston would need to get a slam dunk
Speaker 1: in court. But it was all he had. It would
Speaker 1: have to do. The trial began June twenty two, eight.
Speaker 1: One thing Preston decided he was not gonna do was
Speaker 1: put a grieving mother on the stand and asked the
Speaker 1: jury to believe some ghost story she told about her daughter.
Speaker 1: But this is actually kind of funny because this was
Speaker 1: and one of the biggest trends in the US was spiritualism.
Speaker 1: We'll take a quick fling with history here now. Spiritual
Speaker 1: Ism is a religious movement that believed that humans could
Speaker 1: communicate with people from beyond the grave through a series
Speaker 1: of taps and wraps. It was popularized by the Three
Speaker 1: Fox Sisters in the eighteen forties. They would go and
Speaker 1: do public appearances where they'd carry on conversations with spirits
Speaker 1: and make furniture move around or even summon up an
Speaker 1: apparition sometime. Now soon there were many more spiritualists who
Speaker 1: would do similar demonstrations. People started holding seances and their
Speaker 1: living rooms. Even Queen Victoria tried to speak to her
Speaker 1: husband Albert through a seance preview for an upcoming episode
Speaker 1: of Ridiculous Romance, no doubt, honestly. But we've also gotten
Speaker 1: the listeners suggestion to do the Fox Sisters because their
Speaker 1: husbands tried very hard to make a lot of money
Speaker 1: off of their demonstrations and stuff. So there's quite a lot, actually,
Speaker 1: several episodes that the spiritualists could offer us. I'm ready
Speaker 1: now by at least eight million U s citizens identified
Speaker 1: as spiritualists, so a lot of the country was feeling
Speaker 1: very credulous about ghosts at this time. And yeah, if
Speaker 1: you want to know more about Spiritualism. Season two of
Speaker 1: the podcast Unobscured all about spiritualism and they go Brilli
Speaker 1: in depth. It's very, very great seasons to check that out.
Speaker 1: Check it out now. Preston himself was a little more
Speaker 1: level headed about this. He didn't think that Mary's ghost
Speaker 1: story was going to help their case, so at the
Speaker 1: trial he's like, I'm a man of facts. Just the facts, Jack,
Speaker 1: We're going to stick to that. Trout's got a violent
Speaker 1: and criminal character. He has no alibi. I mean he
Speaker 1: lied about his identity. Yeah, close, come on, what do
Speaker 1: you need? Looked at the Jerry and said, what do
Speaker 1: you all need? What else do you want me to say?
Speaker 1: Look at this guy alright, case clothes, let else. Imagine
Speaker 1: your sister came up to you and said, I'm married
Speaker 1: a guy whose last wife died mysteriously when he hit
Speaker 1: and he accidentally dropped a brick on her head. Would
Speaker 1: you say go for it my blessings? No, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: say that man as a murderer. So true. You know,
Speaker 1: he's going to stick to the fact. He's not dealing
Speaker 1: with this ghost story. But the defense had other ideas,
Speaker 1: and the testimony of a ghost seemed like just what
Speaker 1: they needed and will right back right after this commercial break,
Speaker 1: the scariest transition of them all. Welcome book to the show.
Speaker 1: Everyone pun yes. So this trail was not going great
Speaker 1: for Old Route Okay, damning character evidence was mounting against him,
Speaker 1: but the defense was not worried because they knew how
Speaker 1: they would throw the prosecution into disarray. They wanted Mary
Speaker 1: to tell her ghost story. They thought if a grieving
Speaker 1: woman got up on the stand and said with a
Speaker 1: straight face that the glowing, floating ghost of her dead
Speaker 1: daughter showed up in her room one night and laid
Speaker 1: out the details of her own murder, that would make
Speaker 1: Mary look insane fair enough. So they called her up
Speaker 1: to tell her spooky story. And they kept asking about
Speaker 1: the quote unquote dream she'd had, and they brought the
Speaker 1: jury's attention to how distressed her mind must be after
Speaker 1: the death of her daughter. She's just an emotional, hysterical lady.
Speaker 1: How can you trust anything, she said, You know that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. But Mary was unphased. She probably looked
Speaker 1: at the corner of the courtroom and saw Zona's ghost
Speaker 1: standing there whispering, You got this, mom, Tell him, I
Speaker 1: told you so, just like you won't tell me, So
Speaker 1: she was firm. She stuck to her story. She said
Speaker 1: it was not a dream. She was quote as wide
Speaker 1: awake as I ever was, and that her daughter had
Speaker 1: appeared to her and spoken to her from beyond the grave.
Speaker 1: The ghost had told her to go look at certain
Speaker 1: bricks near their neighbor, Martha's seller. Mary had checked it
Speaker 1: out and had found blood there, just where her daughter
Speaker 1: told her to look, and the ghost had told her
Speaker 1: exactly how her neck was broken, and the doctors had
Speaker 1: confirmed that too. So Mary's like, I don't know what
Speaker 1: to tell y'all. I believe what she said. She also,
Speaker 1: I have to say she also told them the following.
Speaker 1: This is a quote from the testimony. She came back
Speaker 1: and told me that he was mad that she didn't
Speaker 1: have no meat cooked for supper. But she said she
Speaker 1: had plenty, and said she had butter and apple butter apples,
Speaker 1: and named over two or three kinds of jellies, pears
Speaker 1: and cherries and raspberry jelly, and she says, I had plenty. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to say that Edwards should kill anyone,
Speaker 1: or that anyone should a girl. Somebody comes home hungry
Speaker 1: for dinner and you're like, oh, let me interest you
Speaker 1: in a wide variety of condiments, Like that is not food.
Speaker 1: Don't give me four jellies are like starving to death
Speaker 1: after day at the forge. Wow, the defense rests, all right,
Speaker 1: I did kill my wife, but anyone would say I
Speaker 1: was just a bad when I come home after hard
Speaker 1: day's work and she wants me to eat apple butter,
Speaker 1: you wanted a steak and she offered you a jar
Speaker 1: of cranberry sauce. Well, award this man five million dollars
Speaker 1: and send him on his way. Please, What a terrible
Speaker 1: life you lived with the horrible woman. Well, fortunately that
Speaker 1: did not happen. The defense had hoped to make Mary
Speaker 1: look crazy, or at least just reaving and like grabbing
Speaker 1: at any straw to explain her daughter's death. But she
Speaker 1: was a more credible witness than Trout. She's stuck to
Speaker 1: her story. It never changed. She was cool headed, she
Speaker 1: spoke clearly. Meanwhile, Trout took the stand later, and according
Speaker 1: to Katie let your Lyle in Wonderful West Virginia Magazine,
Speaker 1: he quote rambled on for an entire afternoon and made
Speaker 1: an unfavorable impression. Apparently he talked about how everyone was
Speaker 1: out to get him, and he's you've got no evidence,
Speaker 1: you can't get me, and like all this kinds of
Speaker 1: crazy ship that just made him sound nuts. But eventually
Speaker 1: all the talking was over. The doctors had presented their autopsy,
Speaker 1: Mary had told her ghost story, and Trout had like
Speaker 1: word barfed a bunch of crazy all over the courtroom.
Speaker 1: So it was time to decide. The judge even told
Speaker 1: the jury that all the evidence was circumstantial and that
Speaker 1: they were going to have to return an unequivocal verdict
Speaker 1: either he definitely murdered Zona or he's completely innocent. He's like,
Speaker 1: don't want to, you know, wishy washy in between ship
Speaker 1: yes or no. That's right, that's the only answer I'm
Speaker 1: looking for you. I don't want to see this guy
Speaker 1: back in the courtroom with an appeal or something I
Speaker 1: I we need to know right now. And an hour
Speaker 1: and ten minutes later, the jury filed back into the room.
Speaker 1: The entire court was on the edges of their seats.
Speaker 1: Mary was clutching her handkerchief, Trout was gritting his teeth.
Speaker 1: Zona's ghost is staring daggers at him and whispering, you're
Speaker 1: mind you bitch. The jury foreman read their verdict. This
Speaker 1: jury is decided. The arrest was struggling. Trout Shoe was
Speaker 1: not only guilty if he had a big piece of ship,
Speaker 1: but of murder. Damn, they got him now. It was
Speaker 1: clear that the ghostly testimony did not play much, if
Speaker 1: at all, into their decision one way or another. Okay,
Speaker 1: they were like, it's not about the ghostie thing. The
Speaker 1: truth is the guy is clearly veular. We didn't need
Speaker 1: all that. Thank you anyway, Mary for sharing um And
Speaker 1: the newspaper at the time reported quote, though the evidence
Speaker 1: was entirely circumstantial, the verdict meets with general approval. Everyone
Speaker 1: in America just nodded their heads solidly in agreements. Finally,
Speaker 1: the justice system works. Erasmus was sentenced to life in prison,
Speaker 1: but only three years later he died of the flu
Speaker 1: epidemic of nineteen hundred. Greenbrier Valley's website says that no
Speaker 1: one from his family claimed his body. Oh damn, I bet,
Speaker 1: I bet the ghost of Zona did. She's like, you
Speaker 1: come with me now, I'll the hell. So the question
Speaker 1: here is, did Mary really get a visit from her
Speaker 1: daughter in the dead of night? No pun intended, Katie,
Speaker 1: let your lyle doesn't seem to think so she told
Speaker 1: Wonderful West Virginia that Mary was likely already suspicious since
Speaker 1: she didn't like the guy from the beginning quote. By
Speaker 1: pretending to receive the news directly from Zona, she could
Speaker 1: appeal to the superstitions of her mountaineer neighbors and get
Speaker 1: a lot of public attention, which we know is you know,
Speaker 1: people started to speculate about how she died. Surely they
Speaker 1: didn't do that on their own. You know, it's because
Speaker 1: Mary was walking around being like, I never liked him.
Speaker 1: My daughter's ghost is telling me stuff. You know, she's
Speaker 1: she's she's dropping hints in people's runner to kind of
Speaker 1: get the crowd going, make you know, force some action.
Speaker 1: So maybe she made it up. But Gary Rogers in
Speaker 1: Huffington Posts says, quote, I find Mary Jane Huster's testimony
Speaker 1: about Zona's fractured vertebrae to be downright spooky. And that
Speaker 1: is that is definitely strange. I gotta wonder where that
Speaker 1: information came from. And you know, to Katie, let your
Speaker 1: lions point. Yeah, all her mountaineer neighbors were also superstitious,
Speaker 1: and there was all this um spiritualism and everything. But
Speaker 1: wouldn't she have had that too? Is she going to be?
Speaker 1: Mary doesn't seem like someone who's so like, you know,
Speaker 1: thinking two days ahead of everyone else where. She's like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to use their superstitions against him. She probably
Speaker 1: believed all that ship too, I think so, And I
Speaker 1: think so. She really like if you read her whole testimony,
Speaker 1: she's really like pretty solid in it, Like I believe
Speaker 1: in God and I pray every night, and yeah, I
Speaker 1: saw her ghosts. That's all I can tell you. The
Speaker 1: truth is I saw her ghost and she told me
Speaker 1: that I would never know otherwise, And that is pretty creepy.
Speaker 1: That is pretty creepy. Now I gotta pull in the
Speaker 1: speculation station, and you know our favorite thing to do
Speaker 1: in speculation station, there's wild accusations of murder. And here's
Speaker 1: the other thing. So Mary knew where these bricks with
Speaker 1: the blood on him, we're Mary knew exactly where Zona's
Speaker 1: neck had been snapped after she heard of from the ghost.
Speaker 1: The only other way Mary could have that information is
Speaker 1: if she did it herself. What are you using Mary
Speaker 1: Jane Hester of murdering her own daughter? In speculation station
Speaker 1: I believe I am. You can do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying it's a little strange. And if I'm
Speaker 1: not someone who necessarily believes that a ghost could show
Speaker 1: up and give you all the details of their murder,
Speaker 1: and I would say, I'm probably not someone who believes that,
Speaker 1: I would say, well, then how did you know all
Speaker 1: these details? Miss Mary. That's such a good point, because
Speaker 1: I can only think of one other way you knew.
Speaker 1: I had not thought of that because I was like,
Speaker 1: he this guy sucks, so yeah, and he does it
Speaker 1: must be him. Yeah, but Mary knew something somehow, Mary,
Speaker 1: you're something. And it was how shittyr daughter's jellies were.
Speaker 1: It was I was the one she who asked for meat,
Speaker 1: and I was the one she offered a jar of
Speaker 1: apple sauce. So I killed. I snapped her neck into places.
Speaker 1: Then I put her husband been in jail. Man. Mary is, yeah,
Speaker 1: She's like, try it again, I got I got more
Speaker 1: ghost friends. Oh my god. Mary was never fucked with again.
Speaker 1: Whether or not it's true that Zona's ghost appeared to Mary,
Speaker 1: you know, that's up for you to decide for yourselves,
Speaker 1: pull into your own speculation stations. But either way zonaver
Speaker 1: means the only known case in America were a ghost
Speaker 1: helped put away a killer. Incredible. The only other case
Speaker 1: that comes close to this one is the legend of
Speaker 1: Fisher's Ghost in Australia. In and English born Australian farmer
Speaker 1: named Frederick Fisher suddenly disappeared and his friend and neighbor,
Speaker 1: George Worreld told everyone. Fisher he decided to return home
Speaker 1: to England. He gave me power of attorney over all
Speaker 1: his affairs and his property. Okay, the most suspicious thing
Speaker 1: you could say, Incredibly after one dies. And then later
Speaker 1: George claimed that he had received a letter from Fishers saying,
Speaker 1: I'm not coming back to Australia. You know what, George,
Speaker 1: you can have all my stuff. I'm sorry. The most
Speaker 1: suspicious thing you could say. Until that the guy is
Speaker 1: not being smart. Well. Four months after that, a respectable
Speaker 1: local man named John Farley claimed that he'd seen Frederick
Speaker 1: Fisher's ghost at the dock. Unlike Zona, this ghost remained
Speaker 1: perfectly silent. It just pointed at a nearby paddock ominously
Speaker 1: and the disappeared to me. And now Farley, you know,
Speaker 1: he like ran insto the local pub he's full on
Speaker 1: freaking out about this sighting. So the story sped really quickly,
Speaker 1: But it was really the mysterious circumstances surrounding Frederick Fisher's
Speaker 1: disappearance and all this stuff about George getting letters quote
Speaker 1: unquote letters he's been receiving and stuff that really got
Speaker 1: the police interested. Much like John Preston, they were like,
Speaker 1: fun story, but there's actually some weird shit underneath. So
Speaker 1: they searched Paddock, and they discovered Fisher's remains by the creek,
Speaker 1: and George Worrell was arrested, tried, and hanged for the murder. Damn.
Speaker 1: So you know, most people say either Farley, the respectable
Speaker 1: local man, already knew Fisher was murdered, maybe he was
Speaker 1: even a part of it, or he just suspected it,
Speaker 1: you know, for whatever reason, probably because of the ultra
Speaker 1: suspicious time all this stuff. Um, so he wanted to
Speaker 1: draw attention to this case, force some some local action
Speaker 1: by riling people up with a ghost story, kind of
Speaker 1: like Katie letter Lyle is saying that Mary, yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: or speculation station, here we go, Mary Jane Hester, did
Speaker 1: Farley killed Fisher, knew where his bones were and was
Speaker 1: like a ghost told me that he's over there, right, which,
Speaker 1: come on, Look, I'm just saying, if anybody ever comes
Speaker 1: up to me and says, a ghost told me where
Speaker 1: the body's buried, I'm gonna be like, you knew where
Speaker 1: the body was buried because you put it there. George's like, no, seriously,
Speaker 1: I got a letter I didn't know it was. It
Speaker 1: from Frederick. I don't know his handwriting. Oh there it is.
Speaker 1: Farley wrote letters from George. Yeah, and told him like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can hear some real suspicious alibi for you. Let
Speaker 1: me make it sound like you totally killed this guy. Wow. Well,
Speaker 1: hopefully George Whorl haunted John Farley forever. If that's the case.
Speaker 1: Either way, maybe these ghosts are out there and that's
Speaker 1: extra spooky. That's recrupulous reclus. I love this story. I
Speaker 1: kind of hope that Erasmus was the killer. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: we're wrong about Mary. I mean, all things logically say
Speaker 1: that Erasmus was the killer. And Mary, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe she maybe the chimney flu was closed that night,
Speaker 1: she wasn't getting enough ox gin and she so it goes, well, damn,
Speaker 1: there's ghosts. Maybe there's ghosts. It is Halloween after all,
Speaker 1: so I sort of have to believe that there's some
Speaker 1: spooky spirits out there waiting to reveal the truth of
Speaker 1: their murders. Do do you believe in ghosts? Do I
Speaker 1: believe in ghosts? I mean that's a big question. I mean,
Speaker 1: like basically no, but I do kind of I could.
Speaker 1: I could believe in um, either interdimensional bleed or um
Speaker 1: or residual energies kind of hanging around for a little while. Um.
Speaker 1: But in terms of like my conscious spirit, like me
Speaker 1: myself in my brain, uh, floating around here trying to
Speaker 1: tell you something after my death, not so much I
Speaker 1: feel that what about you? I don't know, I guess
Speaker 1: because I definitely know people we know, people who you
Speaker 1: know have very they're very clear that they have had
Speaker 1: mysterious encounters that cannot be explained. Aliens but okay, pretty
Speaker 1: much any other way aliens. But okay, UM, I have
Speaker 1: never had an experience myself, So I don't know. But
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm like, I might just be sort of a
Speaker 1: Hermione Granger, where she she's got a mundane mind. She
Speaker 1: can't you know. So maybe I don't stand that close
Speaker 1: to the veil. Maybe other people I mean I have seen, Uh,
Speaker 1: there was a there was a young girl at our
Speaker 1: house when I was a kid who would uh. Apparently
Speaker 1: I was not the only one to see her at
Speaker 1: the top of our basement stairs, very very creepy basement stairs,
Speaker 1: like wooden stairs down into a spider invested, you know,
Speaker 1: concrete basement where the washing and dryer was in the furnace,
Speaker 1: and real spooky kind of stuff that the dangling lightbulb,
Speaker 1: everything you'd need for a ghostly scene. Uh. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember catching a glimpse when I walked into the
Speaker 1: room once. Um. But again it's it's more I want
Speaker 1: to say, it's more like somewhere in some sort of
Speaker 1: pseudoscience or metaphysics or something, because I think that all
Speaker 1: time is happening at once, so there may be some bleeds,
Speaker 1: some overlap. I think there are probably many many dimensions uh,
Speaker 1: existing in the same place at the same times. There's
Speaker 1: probably some cross phasing between them in very specific circumstances
Speaker 1: and specific places. And those might be of someone who
Speaker 1: died in our world and didn't somewhere else or or
Speaker 1: or Yeah, there's residual conscious energy that's sort of just
Speaker 1: like hasn't dissipated yet, um, sure possible. What do I know?
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a while where they thought that, you know,
Speaker 1: they could just bleed the crazy out of you. So
Speaker 1: whatever we think now might sound totally ignorant in a
Speaker 1: hundred years. I don't know that's true. I try not
Speaker 1: to get too hard in any of my beliefs. That's
Speaker 1: very true and smart. But yeah, and I guess I
Speaker 1: guess my skepticism probably comes from when I was pretty young,
Speaker 1: like ten twelve years old, and I had friends who
Speaker 1: we'd pretend to see things moving pictures. It's just for attention,
Speaker 1: you know. It was just to tell people at school
Speaker 1: like I'm special and I have a site, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, And maybe they believed it. I certainly
Speaker 1: was not seeing ship, so you know, I was like,
Speaker 1: I just know that people do that, especially young people.
Speaker 1: I don't know that an old lady would do it.
Speaker 1: I don't know that our friends and their forties would
Speaker 1: do it. But people do a lot of weird ship
Speaker 1: for attention at any age. So sometimes I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I feel like you just want to feel
Speaker 1: like you're different from other people and and special, and
Speaker 1: so you kind of come up with a little thing
Speaker 1: for yourself, right right, don't we all? Don't we all
Speaker 1: exactly with the podcast? So what who am I? I know?
Speaker 1: I know for a fact one of our grown spooky
Speaker 1: friends told me in my face, like, oh I moved
Speaker 1: the Wuji puck around. Yeah, I do remember I deliberately
Speaker 1: did that. And I was like what. She's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's got to scare people. I'm like, oh, okay, well,
Speaker 1: but she wasn't smooth about it. Honestly, It's a little
Speaker 1: too sharp for me. I was like, I don't like this. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think I was on that board, but ours
Speaker 1: didn't do anything. So I was thinking, look, it's a
Speaker 1: nice literary device to close out an episode of Down Nabby,
Speaker 1: but that's it very specific for my down Nappy fans. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. Obviously there's things we don't understand about
Speaker 1: the world. Would be foolish to think there aren't, absolutely
Speaker 1: and there's and there's no way to know whether or
Speaker 1: not Mary saw the ghost of her daughter or not.
Speaker 1: We can only take her word for it, and and
Speaker 1: then our own belief on top of that. So who knows.
Speaker 1: But for Spooky Season, I definitely believe in ghosts. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I believe that Zona showed up and helped put
Speaker 1: away her shitty ex husband. Yeah. Yeah, well that's the
Speaker 1: other thing, you know, for spooky season, it does kind
Speaker 1: of make sense. I mean, if there is uh some
Speaker 1: sort of ghostly presence in our world, what better time?
Speaker 1: How how thin must the veil be when literally everybody's
Speaker 1: thinking about it at the same time, you know, So
Speaker 1: maybe Halloween does in fight more kind of spooky things happening.
Speaker 1: So you know, if you're listening to this show right now,
Speaker 1: do you feel that on your shoulder little tingly? Touch
Speaker 1: My God? Look out behind you, someone just had a
Speaker 1: heart attack because of you. Yeah, no, they had the
Speaker 1: thrill of a lifetime. Well, thank you so much for tuning,
Speaker 1: and y'all, I hope you enjoyed this recryptulous story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: about the Greenbrier ghosts. Please reach out and tell us
Speaker 1: what you thought or about your own ghostly encounters. I'm
Speaker 1: always down to here, and I know that I said
Speaker 1: I'm a skeptic, but I will listen with an open
Speaker 1: mind to your story and be kind of jealous. To
Speaker 1: be honest, you can commune with these magical things right
Speaker 1: Our email is ridic Romance at gmail dot com right,
Speaker 1: or you can find us on Twitter and Instagram. I'm
Speaker 1: at oh great, it's I like I didn't change it, Danning,
Speaker 1: spooky you just like they won't find me. Mine is
Speaker 1: at Dianamite boom yea, And of course you can follow
Speaker 1: the show at Romance and we will be back soon
Speaker 1: with another recryptulous romance. Help get you in the mood
Speaker 1: for Halloween. Right, Thanks again, y'all, and we'll catch you
Speaker 1: at the next one. I love you, insist trying to leave,
Speaker 1: but we rise again. All halloisive put your friends in
Speaker 1: it and puy trends and play for them a show.
Speaker 1: Recruitulus Ros