Newlywed, Newly Dead: How The Greenbrier Ghost Convicted Her Own Murderer

I'm like, keep your money and choke on it. Except no, I will also please give me your money. Yeah, definitely good in the community. No moral qualms about where that money came from. I'll make good with it. I will wash your money more morally, Yes, by giving it to the community doing good work in the community. We're like a moral money during I do need a moral laundromat for your money. Well, hey, everybody, well hey there, friends,

welcome back to the show Ridiculous Romance. Yeah, hey, look, thank you so much everybody forgiving us a little time to kind of get ourselves back together, kind of collect ourselves a little bit, uh, sort of sort our affairs, um, and for checking out our episodes about the about the trip, and Jason really appreciate affirming that our trips are interesting to anyone. But I'll tell you, you know, I really just didn't. As I'm editing them after we recorded them,

I'm just even more. I'm just like, oh my god, who is going to care about this? But um, but the first episode really got some downloads and the second one also got some downloads, some downloads. But well, I just watched a whole scene between two guys on a podcast arguing about the best pop tart flavor for about twenty minutes. So I feel like it feels like it should be fine, But I have been a hell of

self conscious. Yeah, it's true. It's weird in a world where the most popular videos on YouTube are people opening boxes of ship they bought. Uh, you know, I assume people will just take anything as content. But we're back. We are back. We have his historic stories, yes good ones too, in fact, not just any old stories. But it's October. It's Halloween season, and that means it's time

for our special series, Recrupulous Romance. Yes, this is where we take all the spooky, ghostly, ghastly google stories that we could find throughout the year and we just drop them all here around Halloween time. Yeah, because who doesn't love this mood? I do. We love Halloween around here, and we never get to do much with it because October is always a very busy month for us. But we've kept you all at bay long enough. Here from from from a ridiculous romance, So today we've got a

good one. Extra spooky, fixtra spooky, extra ghostly. That's right because when Zona Hester Shoe died suddenly one cold January day, her mother Mary knew that something about her death was natural. Days later, she was given the answer she was looking for when she got a spooky visit from the ghost of Zona herself. This is the tale of the Greenbrier Ghost, the only known case where a ghostly testimony played a part in the conviction of a murderer. Oh my goodness, well,

I have got chills. I'm ready for this one. Let go, hated friends, elid say you're welcome to Hell. There's no match making a romantic te just out you were lying in crypt. I love my Demonico, but if there's a spirit with the second chance, we'll show jealous. A production of I Heartradio Elva, Zona Hester was a lovely farmer's

daughter living in Livesey's Mill, West Virginia, West Virginia. The story did start scary in eight when Zona was just twenty three years old, she became smitten with a new guy in town, a tall, handsome, mysterious stranger, Nate Edwards Stribbling trout Shoe. Oh. I love this idea of this super sexy guy walking in and being like, hey, what's your name. My name's Zna Hester. What's your Hester? My name is Edwards Stribbling trout Shoe. Okay, well, those are

lots of a lot of names. My name contains both footwear, fish and stribbling, which sounds like there's something coming out of your mouth or something does, doesn't it. This is actually really making me think of Terry Pratchett's Discworld, because he has so many weird names like like this, Like, um, there's a beggar's guild in Discworld and they all have

names like stribbling trout. There's one called Dribbling Sydney, and someone's called cut my own throat Dibbler stuff like that, And I was just like, stribbling trout shoe, what book are you in, sir? Are you writing to the hog Father today. So anyway, Edward worked at the local blacks its shops. Probablys pretty musli, you know, he had to make some good grit. Like he he dirtied up real hot, probably probably on him all the time, even after he showers.

He's just got a little bit of soot on his cheeks, just enough to show you he's a working man. So he's young, he's hot. Zona fell hard for this guy, and this dashing hunk loved her back. In fact, it wasn't long before he wanted to marry her. He was ready to get to the smithy and strike out a ring, round out a rain for and the forge. But her mother, Mary Jane Hester, could not get on board. Mary Jane did not know much about this guy Edward, but something

about him rubbed her the wrong way. She's just like, I don't like the vibes off this guy, this trout, little fishy, yeah, just throwing back. So yeah, his dark, mysterious vibes were just making Mary kind of uncomfortable. She's like, Zona, you know, don't run off with the first hot black smithew. See, there's other blacksmith in the sea. There's more trouts in the sea, but Zona was determined, so in October they

eloped together, with Zonah wearing her favorite high necked burgundy gown. Lovely. Now, ultimately, this couple just seemed so happy together, so Mary had to set her suspicions aside and resign herself to her daughter's marriage. Edward and Zona we're totally living up their honeymoon phase, and Mary gradually came to accept them as a loving couple. She's like, Oh, my son in laws a blacksmith, so at least all my horse shoes are in good order. I don't know. I'm looking for the

bright side here. Perks of being a blacksmith's mother in law by Mary Jane has But everything changed on January three. Eight that morning, Edward visited his neighbor, Martha Jones, and he said, oh, Martha, Zone is not feeling so well today. I'm off to work, and jeez, I just hate to leave her all alone. Could your son Anderson maybe stop by and do a few chores and see if she needs anything. Wow, this is a neighborly little town, so Anderson,

this little eleven year old boy. He skipped on over to Zona's house around ten am to see if he could help with some turn of the century chores. You know, churn some butter rug beta rug, definitely beat some rugs. He's out here penning clothes to a line. Maybe he just wants to help out Holland Holland water from the well. Yeah, probably just I want to just well, I want to be helpful. Young. So he comes up to the house and he knocks, and no one answered. He says hello

Andy by the hall, but still no answer. He slowly twisted the door knob. It was unlocked. So, being a child with no respect for privacy, he slowly pushed the door open. It's old hinges creaked, and there in the middle of the room was Zona, sprawled delfless across the floor. I imagine he's wondering, why do these hinges squeak so much? This guy's blacksmith. You think that would be the one thing in the house that worked real well good. That might have been one of my chores today to get

that way. Well, Martha and Anderson immediately went to the blacksmith to tell Edward this terrible news. He threw down his smithing tools and he ran straight home, just in anguish, and the coroner Dr. George Knat arrived sometime later at the Shoes house, but he found that Edward had been pretty busy before he arrived. Not only had her husband moved Zona's body to the bed, he had already even changed her clothes for burial, and apparently this was unusual

in Victorian times. It was really the mom or the sisters that would do it, not your husband. Not to mention, like, you know, thoughts with the scene of the crimea for well, they might not have had that in place, but the traditions of the time. He was still being weird about. Even still I'm allowing to care what it is if somebody's dead on the floor and the coroner's coming by, just leave it, leave it as it is. Is that I I couldn't stand to see, or they're like apole clothes,

It's like, but I had to. I had to show up and do him a chalk outline drawings. So yeah, he had already prepared her for burial. He had put her in the high necked burgundy gown that she had worn to get married in, as well as a scarf he had found like a large scarf and wounded around her neck. Sure you don't want her to get cold. Now. Dr Napp found Edward on the bed holding Zona's head in his lap. Dr Napp needed to examine her body. You know, a healthy young woman drops dead out of nowhere,

you got to do an autopsy. I mean, even an old lady. You gotta figure out what's going on. He's got some I do exactly, so he's you know, trying to get close to his ownA and trying to check her out. But Edward was so distraught he would just cry and wail every time Dr Nap got anywhere close to Zona. Seriously, yes, specifically her head. He was really like, you can her feet and gold teas and sows whatever. But as as the closer you get to to the top of her body, the more upset he would seem

to grow. These toes, those are okay, shoulders not so good. Head out of the question of the question, that's my wife's head. So out of respect for this loving husband's feelings, you know, his his grief and everything, Dr Nap just kind of choked her death up to quote an everlasting faint. Like Dr Nap said, she took a nap. That's and that's the official ductor nap diagnosis for everything taking a nap. Dr Naps, Nap, Dr Nap, dirt nap, that's what they

named naps after Doctor Nap. No. Apparently, an everlasting faint is what victorians called a heart attack. So it wasn't just Dr Nap, Wow, she took a nap. They were like, your heart stopped working and you fainted forever, fainted permanently. Now later Dr Nap changed the cause of death to childbirth.

What and Gillian Brockole writes in the Washington Post article about Greenbrier ghost quote that was somewhat odd since the Shoes had only been married for three months and had only known one another for a brief time before that. It's what kind of like supercharged babies coming out after three months. I don't know, Dr Nap. I think you just make a ship up. Wow. So literally, just like this guy is so against doing a thorough job right now because of this man crying in his face. He

makes up a reason, calls it a day. He's like, I got dinner on the stove. Mrs Nap is about to get up from her nap, so so I want to get home in time for dinner. Um, okay, all right, now Mary Zona's mother was obviously devastated, you know, the sudden loss of her daughter very unexpected, but her sorrow was matched with a renewed suspicion. She'd gotten kind of comfortable with with Edward and Zona being married, but now she's saying, well, I'm not so comfortable anymore. She's dead.

I could not be more uncomfortable. I mean, Zona had been perfectly healthy. She wasn't just gonna drop dead of some everlasting faint out of nowhere, right. Plus, Edward was acting absolutely bonkers. At the wake. Zona had an open coffin, but Edward wouldn't leave her side. He just kept fussing around with her head like. He added a whole other scarf and a ill to her burial gown. He propped her head up with a pillow, and he would pace

around in agitation in front of the coffin. Whenever somebody got close, he whimpered and fussed, and that sort of prevented anyone from getting a good look at Zona. Other townspeople thought he was acting weird too, but they just chalked it up to grief, right. But Mary, she wasn't so sure. She had never liked the guy in the first place. After all. But all she could do about

it was pray, and so pray she did. According to Gary Rogers on Huffington's Post, she prayed every night for four weeks, asking Zonah to come back and tell her mother the true story. And one night Mary's prayers were answered. And we'll hear those answers right after a word from our spooksters, welcome back from the grave. So Mary had been praying for weeks for answers and the mysterious death of her daughter, and then her prayers were answered in

a shocking, haunting way. She lay in bed one night, wide awake, when suddenly a bright light seemed to fill her bedroom. Before her very eyes, the globe began to take shape. The room grew colder as the light shifted into a form, a human form. It was Zona. Mary was terrified at first, but soon she began to speak with her ghostly daughter, and Zona's ghost visited Mary for four nights straight and spilled the entire ghastly tea Oh shit. She told Mary that Edward was not the loving husband

that she had made him out to be. What what Mary's like? No ship, sherlock, He's like, Oh if only someone had warned, you warned you, if only you'd ever listened to your mother, And Zona's ghost is like, I'll leave right now if you can't. Alright, alright, No. In fact, Edward was violent and physically abusive. The night she died, Edward had been furious with her for not cooking any meat for dinner. Edward backhanded her and then grabbed her neck in a psychotic rage, He squeezed into her next

broke right between the first and second vertebrae. The apparition even provided details to Marry about where she could find evidence. On her final visit, Mary wasn't so sure, I guess. She's like, well, sure, you appeared out of pure light and told me what I've been asking for this whole time, But how can I know that this story is true? It's a reasonable question, Mary Well, the ghost of Zona replied, Hey, check this out, and she turned her head a hundred

and eighty degrees to prove her points. Oh, she gave her the old Linda Blair, Yes she did, minus the vomit hopefully hopefully or Mary left that part out And Mary's like, okay, got it, picking up what you're putting down, and she started telling her neighbors about these ghostly visits that she was getting, and then she decided to take it to the local prosecutor, John Preston. This is like the ultimate hungry, like he didn't cut me meat for dinner,

freaking out? God true, hold yourself together, man, Like I understand that sometimes food is the only pleasure that you get in your day, especially back in the day when there wasn't many pleasures go get or enjoy necessarily. But it's like, calm the funk down. Maybe we'll have meat tomorrow. Also, don't you bring home the bacon. Isn't that your job? Damn, this guy sucks. According to the ghosts take right, Edward didn't get a chance to speak for himself, I guess.

So she goes to speak to the prosecutor, John Preston, and he's like, I ain't so sure about no ghost stories. You know, kind of crazy sounded to me. But while practical, man. Yeah. But while he was talking to Mary, he did learn that Dr Napp had never really done a real autopsy on Sona. He's like, all right, that's a little strange, So let me go on down and talk to the corner myself. So he goes talk to Dr Nap, But Dr Nap excuses like, well, you know what I mean.

Every time I tried to get close to this guy's dead wife's body, he got all defensive and freaked out and wouldn't give me a good look. Hey, you don't think that's weird, do you? And Preston is like, I find that tell us suspicious, stir incredibly, you should have come to me on day what with that information? How long has this woman been dead? I have not talked about this yet. How long have you been a coroner? How many other murderers stood over their victims and said, no, please,

don't investigate. It would make me very sad? And you were like, well, what can I do? It's not like it's my job to figure out what happened to you. How rude of me would it be to keep asking question? Who am I to come between a murderer and his victim's score? So yeah, Preston is like, I gotta get to the bottom of this. Hold on, I got to get to the bottom of this yell foghorn leg Horn is John Preston, and he obviously orders Zona's body to

be exhumed. Now, maybe he just thought that Mary was really upset about her daughter's death, and if he proved that she died naturally, this whole thing would just drop. Or maybe he was responding to public sentiments because several people around town we're starting to speculate about Zona's death since himself did have a reputation of having a hot temper. They're like, it ain't just the forge that's so hot

about him and his muscles, it's also his attitude. Lord, I just think it's so funny that they're like, you know, now that I think about it, now that there's a victim, well weird. Had Zona just dad out of nowhere and Edward put her in a had neck gown and a scarf when Lett no, no nobody near her heir. So Zona did get her autopsy and three physicians took part, including Dr Nap. Like that they got two more. John Preston was like, we need some you can be there.

They hand him like a plastic knife. They're like, here you go, Dr Nap. You're part of it too. Why don't you write down what we find? That's very like Anderson, get in here. We need your help. It's industrious, little kid. Your powers of observation are clearly better than the Corners. But get this, since he was her husband, Edward trout Show got to watch the autopsy as well, and once again, during this autopsy, Edward would get really agitated whenever they

got close to Zona's head. He's like, oh, no, no, you know, maybe you ought to check his feet there, you know, I don't just spend some time down south. But of course he could not stop them, and sure enough, the doctors found bruise marks around Zona's throat. Her windpipe had been crushed, and her neck had been snapped right between the first and second vertebrae, just as Mary had

said the ghost described. Edward was immediately arrested for murder and at the inquest he could not provide an alibi. So while he awaited trial in the county jail, John Preston worked on his case against him, and a lot of information started coming out about this guy to in doubt, Edward Stribbling trout Shoe wasn't even his real name. His true identity was Erasmus Stribbling trout Shoe. Wait, what hang

on his fake name? Who was so close? His real name was the most identifiable name in West Virginia and Soda Hide himself. He just switched Erasmus to Edward. I gotta change one of my three real weird names right away. That'll throw him off the trail. You know, everybody always remembers an Erasmus, but they'll never remember an Edward, even if it's strippling trout shoe stribling trout that is standing. Tell you right now, he didn't even change the first initials.

I mean, maybe he was a fraidie forget to be close. It's like when you just add an exclamation point at the end of yours. Now. The reason he changed his name was because he had a record of assaults and theft. He had even served time for stealing a horse, and he had been married before, not once, but twice. His first marriage ended in divorce. The wife said he was physically abusive to her and then abandoned her and their son, and his second wife died less than a year after

marrying him. Erasmus said, well we were I was fixing the roof of our barn and I accidentally dropped a brick on her head and she died. He told people that, like he said, the words, so easy to get away with murder. Back then, people were less skeptical. That's all I had to say, because he's like, oh, well, the way you do it is I will climb up to the hay loft and I'd pull a basket up that she'd fill with brick, and I happened to drop the whole basket on her head like a cartoon. Exactly I was.

She She tied the rope to a ten ton weight and I was lifted to a piano and I was lifting it up and squash. Are you judge doom? Sir? I said, heads up? But she just didn't heads up. She looked up. She looked. I should have said move Erasmus learned a heart lesson that day, didn't we all? Wow? So all of that is weird as hell that you had two ex wives, you know, one who died mysteriously and the other one who's like that's a real violent man. But even more suspicious was how Trout was talking in

his jail cell. He kept insisting to people, no one will ever prove I killed Zona. No one can ever ever prove it. They'll never ever ever find enough evidence to prove I did it. In fact, I'm going to write a book called If I did It? If I did if I arrest Miss Stribling trout to if the brick fits, you must go. Wow. He also started talking at length about his lifelong ambition to marry seven women

before he died, and this is his third wife. I'm like, how do you expect to marry seven women unless you're going to convert to Mormonism or something. I don't know how you expect to do that without them all mysteriously dying. I just anticipate at least six accidents. We'll fix a lot of roofs. That's all I know. Wow. Now, unfortunately, none of this stuff, as damning as it seems, none of it really added up to the physical, hard evidence that John Preston would need to get a slam dunk

in court. But it was all he had. It would have to do. The trial began June twenty two, eight. One thing Preston decided he was not gonna do was put a grieving mother on the stand and asked the jury to believe some ghost story she told about her daughter. But this is actually kind of funny because this was and one of the biggest trends in the US was spiritualism.

We'll take a quick fling with history here now. Spiritual Ism is a religious movement that believed that humans could communicate with people from beyond the grave through a series of taps and wraps. It was popularized by the Three Fox Sisters in the eighteen forties. They would go and do public appearances where they'd carry on conversations with spirits and make furniture move around or even summon up an apparition sometime. Now soon there were many more spiritualists who

would do similar demonstrations. People started holding seances and their living rooms. Even Queen Victoria tried to speak to her husband Albert through a seance preview for an upcoming episode of Ridiculous Romance, no doubt, honestly. But we've also gotten the listeners suggestion to do the Fox Sisters because their husbands tried very hard to make a lot of money off of their demonstrations and stuff. So there's quite a lot, actually,

several episodes that the spiritualists could offer us. I'm ready now by at least eight million U s citizens identified as spiritualists, so a lot of the country was feeling very credulous about ghosts at this time. And yeah, if you want to know more about Spiritualism. Season two of the podcast Unobscured all about spiritualism and they go Brilli in depth. It's very, very great seasons to check that out. Check it out now. Preston himself was a little more

level headed about this. He didn't think that Mary's ghost story was going to help their case, so at the trial he's like, I'm a man of facts. Just the facts, Jack, We're going to stick to that. Trout's got a violent and criminal character. He has no alibi. I mean he lied about his identity. Yeah, close, come on, what do you need? Looked at the Jerry and said, what do you all need? What else do you want me to say?

Look at this guy alright, case clothes, let else. Imagine your sister came up to you and said, I'm married a guy whose last wife died mysteriously when he hit and he accidentally dropped a brick on her head. Would you say go for it my blessings? No, you wouldn't say that man as a murderer. So true. You know, he's going to stick to the fact. He's not dealing

with this ghost story. But the defense had other ideas, and the testimony of a ghost seemed like just what they needed and will right back right after this commercial break, the scariest transition of them all. Welcome book to the show. Everyone pun yes. So this trail was not going great for Old Route Okay, damning character evidence was mounting against him, but the defense was not worried because they knew how they would throw the prosecution into disarray. They wanted Mary

to tell her ghost story. They thought if a grieving woman got up on the stand and said with a straight face that the glowing, floating ghost of her dead daughter showed up in her room one night and laid out the details of her own murder, that would make Mary look insane fair enough. So they called her up to tell her spooky story. And they kept asking about the quote unquote dream she'd had, and they brought the jury's attention to how distressed her mind must be after

the death of her daughter. She's just an emotional, hysterical lady. How can you trust anything, she said, You know that kind of thing. But Mary was unphased. She probably looked at the corner of the courtroom and saw Zona's ghost standing there whispering, You got this, mom, Tell him, I told you so, just like you won't tell me, So she was firm. She stuck to her story. She said

it was not a dream. She was quote as wide awake as I ever was, and that her daughter had appeared to her and spoken to her from beyond the grave. The ghost had told her to go look at certain bricks near their neighbor, Martha's seller. Mary had checked it out and had found blood there, just where her daughter told her to look, and the ghost had told her exactly how her neck was broken, and the doctors had confirmed that too. So Mary's like, I don't know what

to tell y'all. I believe what she said. She also, I have to say she also told them the following. This is a quote from the testimony. She came back and told me that he was mad that she didn't have no meat cooked for supper. But she said she had plenty, and said she had butter and apple butter apples, and named over two or three kinds of jellies, pears and cherries and raspberry jelly, and she says, I had plenty. Now, I'm not trying to say that Edwards should kill anyone,

or that anyone should a girl. Somebody comes home hungry for dinner and you're like, oh, let me interest you in a wide variety of condiments, Like that is not food. Don't give me four jellies are like starving to death after day at the forge. Wow, the defense rests, all right, I did kill my wife, but anyone would say I was just a bad when I come home after hard day's work and she wants me to eat apple butter, you wanted a steak and she offered you a jar

of cranberry sauce. Well, award this man five million dollars and send him on his way. Please, What a terrible life you lived with the horrible woman. Well, fortunately that did not happen. The defense had hoped to make Mary look crazy, or at least just reaving and like grabbing at any straw to explain her daughter's death. But she was a more credible witness than Trout. She's stuck to her story. It never changed. She was cool headed, she

spoke clearly. Meanwhile, Trout took the stand later, and according to Katie let your Lyle in Wonderful West Virginia Magazine, he quote rambled on for an entire afternoon and made an unfavorable impression. Apparently he talked about how everyone was out to get him, and he's you've got no evidence, you can't get me, and like all this kinds of crazy ship that just made him sound nuts. But eventually

all the talking was over. The doctors had presented their autopsy, Mary had told her ghost story, and Trout had like word barfed a bunch of crazy all over the courtroom. So it was time to decide. The judge even told the jury that all the evidence was circumstantial and that they were going to have to return an unequivocal verdict

either he definitely murdered Zona or he's completely innocent. He's like, don't want to, you know, wishy washy in between ship yes or no. That's right, that's the only answer I'm looking for you. I don't want to see this guy back in the courtroom with an appeal or something I I we need to know right now. And an hour and ten minutes later, the jury filed back into the room. The entire court was on the edges of their seats. Mary was clutching her handkerchief, Trout was gritting his teeth.

Zona's ghost is staring daggers at him and whispering, you're mind you bitch. The jury foreman read their verdict. This jury is decided. The arrest was struggling. Trout Shoe was not only guilty if he had a big piece of ship, but of murder. Damn, they got him now. It was clear that the ghostly testimony did not play much, if at all, into their decision one way or another. Okay, they were like, it's not about the ghostie thing. The truth is the guy is clearly veular. We didn't need

all that. Thank you anyway, Mary for sharing um And the newspaper at the time reported quote, though the evidence was entirely circumstantial, the verdict meets with general approval. Everyone in America just nodded their heads solidly in agreements. Finally, the justice system works. Erasmus was sentenced to life in prison, but only three years later he died of the flu epidemic of nineteen hundred. Greenbrier Valley's website says that no one from his family claimed his body. Oh damn, I bet,

I bet the ghost of Zona did. She's like, you come with me now, I'll the hell. So the question here is, did Mary really get a visit from her daughter in the dead of night? No pun intended, Katie, let your lyle doesn't seem to think so she told Wonderful West Virginia that Mary was likely already suspicious since

she didn't like the guy from the beginning quote. By pretending to receive the news directly from Zona, she could appeal to the superstitions of her mountaineer neighbors and get a lot of public attention, which we know is you know, people started to speculate about how she died. Surely they didn't do that on their own. You know, it's because Mary was walking around being like, I never liked him.

My daughter's ghost is telling me stuff. You know, she's she's she's dropping hints in people's runner to kind of get the crowd going, make you know, force some action. So maybe she made it up. But Gary Rogers in Huffington Posts says, quote, I find Mary Jane Huster's testimony about Zona's fractured vertebrae to be downright spooky. And that is that is definitely strange. I gotta wonder where that information came from. And you know, to Katie, let your

lions point. Yeah, all her mountaineer neighbors were also superstitious, and there was all this um spiritualism and everything. But wouldn't she have had that too? Is she going to be? Mary doesn't seem like someone who's so like, you know, thinking two days ahead of everyone else where. She's like, I'm going to use their superstitions against him. She probably believed all that ship too, I think so, And I

think so. She really like if you read her whole testimony, she's really like pretty solid in it, Like I believe in God and I pray every night, and yeah, I saw her ghosts. That's all I can tell you. The truth is I saw her ghost and she told me that I would never know otherwise, And that is pretty creepy. That is pretty creepy. Now I gotta pull in the speculation station, and you know our favorite thing to do in speculation station, there's wild accusations of murder. And here's

the other thing. So Mary knew where these bricks with the blood on him, we're Mary knew exactly where Zona's neck had been snapped after she heard of from the ghost. The only other way Mary could have that information is if she did it herself. What are you using Mary Jane Hester of murdering her own daughter? In speculation station I believe I am. You can do whatever you want.

I'm just saying it's a little strange. And if I'm not someone who necessarily believes that a ghost could show up and give you all the details of their murder, and I would say, I'm probably not someone who believes that, I would say, well, then how did you know all these details? Miss Mary. That's such a good point, because I can only think of one other way you knew. I had not thought of that because I was like, he this guy sucks, so yeah, and he does it

must be him. Yeah, but Mary knew something somehow, Mary, you're something. And it was how shittyr daughter's jellies were. It was I was the one she who asked for meat, and I was the one she offered a jar of apple sauce. So I killed. I snapped her neck into places. Then I put her husband been in jail. Man. Mary is, yeah, She's like, try it again, I got I got more ghost friends. Oh my god. Mary was never fucked with again.

Whether or not it's true that Zona's ghost appeared to Mary, you know, that's up for you to decide for yourselves, pull into your own speculation stations. But either way zonaver means the only known case in America were a ghost helped put away a killer. Incredible. The only other case that comes close to this one is the legend of Fisher's Ghost in Australia. In and English born Australian farmer named Frederick Fisher suddenly disappeared and his friend and neighbor,

George Worreld told everyone. Fisher he decided to return home to England. He gave me power of attorney over all his affairs and his property. Okay, the most suspicious thing you could say, Incredibly after one dies. And then later George claimed that he had received a letter from Fishers saying, I'm not coming back to Australia. You know what, George, you can have all my stuff. I'm sorry. The most suspicious thing you could say. Until that the guy is

not being smart. Well. Four months after that, a respectable local man named John Farley claimed that he'd seen Frederick Fisher's ghost at the dock. Unlike Zona, this ghost remained perfectly silent. It just pointed at a nearby paddock ominously and the disappeared to me. And now Farley, you know, he like ran insto the local pub he's full on

freaking out about this sighting. So the story sped really quickly, But it was really the mysterious circumstances surrounding Frederick Fisher's disappearance and all this stuff about George getting letters quote unquote letters he's been receiving and stuff that really got the police interested. Much like John Preston, they were like, fun story, but there's actually some weird shit underneath. So they searched Paddock, and they discovered Fisher's remains by the creek,

and George Worrell was arrested, tried, and hanged for the murder. Damn. So you know, most people say either Farley, the respectable local man, already knew Fisher was murdered, maybe he was even a part of it, or he just suspected it, you know, for whatever reason, probably because of the ultra

suspicious time all this stuff. Um, so he wanted to draw attention to this case, force some some local action by riling people up with a ghost story, kind of like Katie letter Lyle is saying that Mary, yeah yeah, or speculation station, here we go, Mary Jane Hester, did Farley killed Fisher, knew where his bones were and was like a ghost told me that he's over there, right, which, come on, Look, I'm just saying, if anybody ever comes up to me and says, a ghost told me where

the body's buried, I'm gonna be like, you knew where the body was buried because you put it there. George's like, no, seriously, I got a letter I didn't know it was. It from Frederick. I don't know his handwriting. Oh there it is. Farley wrote letters from George. Yeah, and told him like, yeah, you can hear some real suspicious alibi for you. Let me make it sound like you totally killed this guy. Wow. Well, hopefully George Whorl haunted John Farley forever. If that's the case.

Either way, maybe these ghosts are out there and that's extra spooky. That's recrupulous reclus. I love this story. I kind of hope that Erasmus was the killer. Yeah, that we're wrong about Mary. I mean, all things logically say that Erasmus was the killer. And Mary, I don't know. Maybe she maybe the chimney flu was closed that night, she wasn't getting enough ox gin and she so it goes, well, damn,

there's ghosts. Maybe there's ghosts. It is Halloween after all, so I sort of have to believe that there's some spooky spirits out there waiting to reveal the truth of their murders. Do do you believe in ghosts? Do I believe in ghosts? I mean that's a big question. I mean, like basically no, but I do kind of I could. I could believe in um, either interdimensional bleed or um

or residual energies kind of hanging around for a little while. Um. But in terms of like my conscious spirit, like me myself in my brain, uh, floating around here trying to tell you something after my death, not so much I feel that what about you? I don't know, I guess because I definitely know people we know, people who you know have very they're very clear that they have had mysterious encounters that cannot be explained. Aliens but okay, pretty much any other way aliens. But okay, UM, I have

never had an experience myself, So I don't know. But sometimes I'm like, I might just be sort of a Hermione Granger, where she she's got a mundane mind. She can't you know. So maybe I don't stand that close to the veil. Maybe other people I mean I have seen, Uh, there was a there was a young girl at our

house when I was a kid who would uh. Apparently I was not the only one to see her at the top of our basement stairs, very very creepy basement stairs, like wooden stairs down into a spider invested, you know, concrete basement where the washing and dryer was in the furnace, and real spooky kind of stuff that the dangling lightbulb, everything you'd need for a ghostly scene. Uh. And yeah, I remember catching a glimpse when I walked into the

room once. Um. But again it's it's more I want to say, it's more like somewhere in some sort of pseudoscience or metaphysics or something, because I think that all time is happening at once, so there may be some bleeds, some overlap. I think there are probably many many dimensions uh, existing in the same place at the same times. There's probably some cross phasing between them in very specific circumstances

and specific places. And those might be of someone who died in our world and didn't somewhere else or or or Yeah, there's residual conscious energy that's sort of just like hasn't dissipated yet, um, sure possible. What do I know? I mean, there's a while where they thought that, you know, they could just bleed the crazy out of you. So whatever we think now might sound totally ignorant in a hundred years. I don't know that's true. I try not to get too hard in any of my beliefs. That's

very true and smart. But yeah, and I guess I guess my skepticism probably comes from when I was pretty young, like ten twelve years old, and I had friends who we'd pretend to see things moving pictures. It's just for attention, you know. It was just to tell people at school like I'm special and I have a site, you know what I mean, And maybe they believed it. I certainly was not seeing ship, so you know, I was like, I just know that people do that, especially young people.

I don't know that an old lady would do it. I don't know that our friends and their forties would do it. But people do a lot of weird ship for attention at any age. So sometimes I'm like, I don't know, I feel like you just want to feel like you're different from other people and and special, and so you kind of come up with a little thing for yourself, right right, don't we all? Don't we all exactly with the podcast? So what who am I? I know?

I know for a fact one of our grown spooky friends told me in my face, like, oh I moved the Wuji puck around. Yeah, I do remember I deliberately did that. And I was like what. She's like, yeah, it's got to scare people. I'm like, oh, okay, well, but she wasn't smooth about it. Honestly, It's a little too sharp for me. I was like, I don't like this. Yeah, yeah, I don't think I was on that board, but ours

didn't do anything. So I was thinking, look, it's a nice literary device to close out an episode of Down Nabby, but that's it very specific for my down Nappy fans. Yeah, um, whatever it is. Obviously there's things we don't understand about the world. Would be foolish to think there aren't, absolutely and there's and there's no way to know whether or not Mary saw the ghost of her daughter or not. We can only take her word for it, and and then our own belief on top of that. So who knows.

But for Spooky Season, I definitely believe in ghosts. Yes, and I believe that Zona showed up and helped put away her shitty ex husband. Yeah. Yeah, well that's the other thing, you know, for spooky season, it does kind of make sense. I mean, if there is uh some sort of ghostly presence in our world, what better time? How how thin must the veil be when literally everybody's thinking about it at the same time, you know, So maybe Halloween does in fight more kind of spooky things happening.

So you know, if you're listening to this show right now, do you feel that on your shoulder little tingly? Touch My God? Look out behind you, someone just had a heart attack because of you. Yeah, no, they had the thrill of a lifetime. Well, thank you so much for tuning, and y'all, I hope you enjoyed this recryptulous story. Yeah, about the Greenbrier ghosts. Please reach out and tell us

what you thought or about your own ghostly encounters. I'm always down to here, and I know that I said I'm a skeptic, but I will listen with an open mind to your story and be kind of jealous. To be honest, you can commune with these magical things right Our email is ridic Romance at gmail dot com right, or you can find us on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at oh great, it's I like I didn't change it, Danning,

spooky you just like they won't find me. Mine is at Dianamite boom yea, And of course you can follow the show at Romance and we will be back soon with another recryptulous romance. Help get you in the mood for Halloween. Right, Thanks again, y'all, and we'll catch you at the next one. I love you, insist trying to leave, but we rise again. All halloisive put your friends in it and puy trends and play for them a show. Recruitulus Ros