The Greenbrier Ghost

Mrs. Shue was found dead at her home in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, on 22 January 1897. Her mother said her daughter's ghost told her how she died, and her husband was later convicted of murder.

The Monroe Watchman's 1897 account of the trial says that around ten in the morning on 22 January 1897, Mrs. Shue's body was found. Her husband, E. S. Shue, the accused, had gone from his blacksmith shop to a neighbouring house. He asked the son of the woman there to go to the Shue home, look for eggs and ask Mrs. Shue if she wanted anything from the store. The boy knocked, got no answer, went in and found her body on the floor.

The e-WV encyclopedia says her mother, Mary Heaster, told of her daughter appearing at her bedside four times, wearing her death dress. According to Mary Heaster, the ghost said Edward Shue came back from the forge, and in a rage killed her by breaking her neck by hand. The Greenbrier Independent's transcript of the testimony has the witness relating that the ghost said her husband was angry about the supper, and that he packed away her preserves. The e-WV encyclopedia and Atlas Obscura say the body was exhumed and examined. Atlas Obscura reports that officials found the cause of death to be strangulation.

Atlas Obscura says the jury at the courthouse of Greenbrier County, in Lewisburg, took an hour to find Shue guilty. The e-WV encyclopedia gives the verdict date as 8 July 1897 and says he was sentenced to the Moundsville penitentiary, where he died on 13 March 1900.