Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. If you've been listening
Speaker 1: along to the past few episodes, then you know that
Speaker 1: we are going through a spooky phase, uh, leading up
Speaker 1: to Halloween. I'm enjoying it. I don't want it to end.
Speaker 1: I know I can't last forever. But we've got another
Speaker 1: good one today. We've got a two part episode. Check
Speaker 1: this out, Noel super producer Casey Bangrum, we figured this
Speaker 1: one out in advance. I'm beat. Yeah, it's in the
Speaker 1: spirit of Halloween. Ben I figure here that it would
Speaker 1: we would would be doing a disservice to the listener
Speaker 1: if we didn't d mark these two partners ahead of time,
Speaker 1: and this one it is worthy of such and we
Speaker 1: know exactly what we're gonna break it. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I've got shivers running down my spine just thinking about it.
Speaker 1: This has never happened maybe once. No, I don't think so. No.
Speaker 1: I think it's a different show. We've we've said that
Speaker 1: we figured out something was going to be a two parter,
Speaker 1: or it advanced a couple of times, but then we've
Speaker 1: leaned on Casey. Uh and again, thank you, Casey. We've
Speaker 1: been like, you know, Casey'll figure it out. He'll figure
Speaker 1: it out. Super Producer Casey Pegram. And when you say
Speaker 1: another show, you don't mean like somebody else's show. You
Speaker 1: mean like it's one of the other shows that we do. Right, Yeah, okay, cool?
Speaker 1: What do you think about this momentous occasion, Super Producer
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram. We're entering a brand new era and um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm excited to see where it takes us. Well,
Speaker 1: you're also uh knowing our luck. Dear ridiculous historians, Please
Speaker 1: forgive us if this accidentally ends up being a three parter.
Speaker 1: How Hilaria race would that be? But we think we
Speaker 1: we think we've got it figured out, and we think
Speaker 1: this is something that's got a little bit of law
Speaker 1: in order. It's got some murderous mysteries spookiness. Uh no,
Speaker 1: how could a young, otherwise healthy woman drop dead? All
Speaker 1: the Everlasting Faint, the Everlasting Faith. That's my favorite emo
Speaker 1: band from the early aughts. By the way, the Everlasting Faint.
Speaker 1: I thought it was like a good it would be
Speaker 1: a good uh classic greatest hits album name for the Faint.
Speaker 1: That's very true, that's very true. There also was a
Speaker 1: small Ladder day, small guests. We're still in the latter
Speaker 1: days of the Smashing Pumpkins. I do wish they'd stop,
Speaker 1: but they are coming back with a huge melancholy sadness
Speaker 1: twenty anniversary. By the way, anybody else feel old? I
Speaker 1: sure do? Uh but anyway, Um. They had a song
Speaker 1: off of their man album Machina The Machines of God
Speaker 1: called the Everlasting Gaze. But not the same thing as
Speaker 1: an everlasting faith. I think of the everlasting gays might
Speaker 1: be like a stroke. Uh, the everlasting faint is a
Speaker 1: heart attack, or at least in the parlance of of
Speaker 1: the time, which would be eight yes, oh real quick,
Speaker 1: nothing to do with anything. While we're shouting out anniversaries.
Speaker 1: I just learned that today, this very day that we're recording,
Speaker 1: this is the eleven year anniversary. Stuff they don't want
Speaker 1: you to know, is that right? Yeah, we totally missed
Speaker 1: it because we peek behind the curtain. We recorded that
Speaker 1: show earlier today. Well, I guess, I guess turn about
Speaker 1: being fair play and all. Now we just have to
Speaker 1: wait till the eleventh anniversary of ridiculous History and forget
Speaker 1: to shout that out on this show and shout out
Speaker 1: out on the other show, and then there you will
Speaker 1: be closed. Perfect. But the year's eight seven, Greenbrier County,
Speaker 1: West Virginia. Um, Mary Jane Heaster. Oh boy, people might
Speaker 1: come at us for the pronunciation here. It's h E
Speaker 1: A S t R. I really don't think. I mean,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be he astern easter. Hester Hester seemed a
Speaker 1: little more of the time. But I guess I'm just
Speaker 1: thinking of the Crucible or no, I'm sorry that the Crucible,
Speaker 1: the Scarlett. Excuse me, Let's go with Easter. Easter is good.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go with Mary Jane Heaster of Greenbrier County,
Speaker 1: West Virginia is sound asleep. It's winter, it's cold, she's
Speaker 1: bundled up. She's still in mourning from you know, i'm
Speaker 1: editorializing here a bit, but likely from the late January
Speaker 1: death of her newly wedded daughter, Zona, which is the
Speaker 1: name that I absolutely love. So she's she she's asleep
Speaker 1: and she has this vision. She has this dream vision.
Speaker 1: An apparition appears to her and it's Zona's ghost telling
Speaker 1: her how it was that she came to die. Right,
Speaker 1: that's her set up because she's haunted by that question.
Speaker 1: They asked the top. You know, she's uh, Mary Jane
Speaker 1: is not a doctor, but she is a person with
Speaker 1: common sense, and she's thinking, uh, healthy person. That's so
Speaker 1: odd that she would drop dead of a of a
Speaker 1: heart attack. That's what the everlasting faint was that the
Speaker 1: doctor had written in the autopsy report in his findings.
Speaker 1: And when she sees what she believes to be the
Speaker 1: apparition of her deceased daughter, Zona, Zona brings her a message.
Speaker 1: At least that's what Mary James believes, and Zona is
Speaker 1: telling her mother it was not an everlasting faint, it
Speaker 1: was not a heart attack, and was homicide. It was
Speaker 1: murder most foul. And this this event leads us to
Speaker 1: what remains one of the most unique court cases in
Speaker 1: human history. To get into the details about how weird
Speaker 1: this series of events becomes. I think maybe maybe it's
Speaker 1: good for us to start in a happier place. You know,
Speaker 1: who doesn't love a wedding. We can throw some rom
Speaker 1: common here. There's a bit of a meet cute story
Speaker 1: that happens a year earlier, in the summer of eight
Speaker 1: with another really cool name. By the By the way,
Speaker 1: so many cool names in the story. Uh. And, by
Speaker 1: the way, we'll go ahead and put it out there
Speaker 1: if you didn't see it in the metadata. This is
Speaker 1: the story of the Greenbrier Ghost. So summer, a gentleman
Speaker 1: by the name of Erasmus Stribbling Shoe, fantastic name, moved
Speaker 1: from a place called Droop Mountain, another amazing name for
Speaker 1: a place that was probably only somewhat amazing. Uh, in
Speaker 1: Pocahontas County. It just doesn't stop in West Virginia. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he picked up and moved to live says Mill
Speaker 1: in Greenbrier County. Erasmus being a a handsome gentleman, uh,
Speaker 1: strong of feature, muscular of arm leg one would assume
Speaker 1: as well. Um, he had taken a job at a
Speaker 1: blacksmith shop, a blacksmith shop owned by one James Crookshank,
Speaker 1: Erasmus Wintrow himself to focus this Edward. People knew him
Speaker 1: by the name of Trout, which you know, you could
Speaker 1: either think is charming or sort of like a prison nickname. Um,
Speaker 1: no spoilers quite yet, but we're leaning already kind of
Speaker 1: towards the second one of those two options. Well, I
Speaker 1: want to be completely fair to speak from experience in
Speaker 1: West Virginia, Eastern Tennessee areas of the US like this.
Speaker 1: It is very much common. It's a common thing for
Speaker 1: people to have somewhat anomalous nicknames that are used in
Speaker 1: place of their names on their birth certificate if they
Speaker 1: had one, And it's also common for people to have
Speaker 1: names that aren't super common in the rest of the country.
Speaker 1: I'm saying this as a guy who has a great
Speaker 1: aunt whose name is literally was literally nine. I guess why.
Speaker 1: It's not hard because she's no. I can't if she
Speaker 1: was the ninth kid, the ninth kid. Did you ever
Speaker 1: see that show ozark On on Netflix? Very very good?
Speaker 1: But then you know, there's like a kind of a
Speaker 1: country family and sort of a clan that lives um
Speaker 1: out in kind of like a rural part of of
Speaker 1: women the whole places the world they live in like
Speaker 1: a trailer situation. And one of the kid's name is six.
Speaker 1: I think, which, uh, that's that's sort of okay, that
Speaker 1: holds true. I'm a big fan of that. I think
Speaker 1: it's cool too. I have a I think I think
Speaker 1: they're related to me. They live in the same town.
Speaker 1: But I know I've met someone named seven as well.
Speaker 1: Got it. I don't know what they were the seventh
Speaker 1: kid or if their parents were just like that is
Speaker 1: the winning number. Seven's cool seven is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite print songs, by the way, underappreciated from the New
Speaker 1: Power Generation era. Check it out if you haven't heard
Speaker 1: it already. So back to Trout. Shortly after Erasmus gets
Speaker 1: to live, says Mill, he meets a farmer's daughter. Uh, Casey,
Speaker 1: to have a little bit of rom com music here
Speaker 1: would be beautiful slap some Seinfeld base perhaps, No, I
Speaker 1: don't know who knows what Casey will come up with.
Speaker 1: That'll be great. Whatever it is is happening right now,
Speaker 1: and I love it. Yeah, I think you've outdone yourself, Casey.
Speaker 1: By the way, every time I say something like that, sure,
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm annoying your Casey because he don't know
Speaker 1: what coming up with anyway. So, as I was saying, so,
Speaker 1: Trout meets a farmer's daughter. To the music. Her name
Speaker 1: is Elva Zona. Heaster. Zona is head over heels with Trout.
Speaker 1: She's smitten, she's over the moon, is handsome man. She's
Speaker 1: thinking and he is feeling the same way. This is
Speaker 1: completely reciprocated. So they courted for a short while. That's
Speaker 1: you know, dating, and uh then they were married very
Speaker 1: soon after meeting October six, almost a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: four years to today, right, we just passed the anniversary
Speaker 1: of their meeting their marriage. She was twenty three when
Speaker 1: she met Trout and he was thirty seven, so a
Speaker 1: little bit of age difference there, but nothing you know,
Speaker 1: particularly scandalous. Uh. Mary Jane however, the mother, remember she
Speaker 1: was not a fan of Erasmus or Trout. She wasn't
Speaker 1: on board with the marriage. But love, like life, uh
Speaker 1: finds a way, as as Jeff Goldblum would say. So
Speaker 1: the pair settles down into a house right near that
Speaker 1: blacksmith shop. Fast forward three months, as we set up
Speaker 1: at the top, January three, Zona has passed away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so here's how that came to pass, or at least
Speaker 1: you know how. I've got to tell you. I've been
Speaker 1: watching the first season of the incredible f FXX series
Speaker 1: Fargo Um written and created by Noah Holly, who also
Speaker 1: did the show Legion, which is fantastic, and he's done
Speaker 1: a bunch of other really cool stuff and has written
Speaker 1: some books, really talented do. But it's uh, the first
Speaker 1: season is all about murder, most foul and and trying
Speaker 1: to cover it up, and all of the length that
Speaker 1: you go to to to make people think that a
Speaker 1: certain thing, a certain chain of events happened. I can't help,
Speaker 1: but my mind can't help but go there in the
Speaker 1: intention that Trout went to, the very specific order of
Speaker 1: operations that he went to to to lead to discovery
Speaker 1: of of his beloved body. So in January, Trout went
Speaker 1: and paid a visit to Martha Jones, a k a.
Speaker 1: Auntie Martha, and he asked her son Anderson, if he
Speaker 1: could go to his house to get some eggs and
Speaker 1: to see if Zora and needed anything because she was
Speaker 1: feeling poorly. Uh, just something they would have said in
Speaker 1: eighteen seven. Once he was inside that this kid came
Speaker 1: upon a horror show. Zora's lifeless body at the foot
Speaker 1: of the stairs, face down. You know, from the look
Speaker 1: of it, she had taken a nasty tumble down those stairs.
Speaker 1: Her legs were straight, her arms were stretched out. Um
Speaker 1: she had one or one of her arms stretched out,
Speaker 1: her other arm was tucked under her chest, and her
Speaker 1: head was kind of a little bit of a canted angle.
Speaker 1: He even had a moment. Poor kid, we thought maybe
Speaker 1: she was like asleep, and he stepped towards her, you know,
Speaker 1: calling her name, Mrs Shoe he said, and nothing. So
Speaker 1: he freaked out, as any kid discovering such a thing
Speaker 1: would likely do, and he took off ran to his
Speaker 1: mom's house, where he reported, Uh this this this tragedy
Speaker 1: that he had stumbled upon. Um, at which point they
Speaker 1: called the doctor, who was also the corner one George W. Knap.
Speaker 1: And by the time the doctor has arrived trout she
Speaker 1: Harasmus take him with that name, has already returned home.
Speaker 1: He's carried his former spouse's body up to a bedroom.
Speaker 1: He's washed and dressed her and laid her on the bed.
Speaker 1: Uh this. This is interesting because Victorian Sustum held that
Speaker 1: female family and friends should wash and dress the deceased,
Speaker 1: but Erasmus did it himself. Were reasons that will explore later.
Speaker 1: He had prepared her body for burial. He put her
Speaker 1: in a nice dress. It was importantly a high necked
Speaker 1: dress with a stiff collar, but a veil over her face.
Speaker 1: And as the doctor remember this detail, folks, As the
Speaker 1: doctor Nap is examining the corpse, Shoe is cradling his
Speaker 1: wife's head, if you can picture it, and he is crying,
Speaker 1: sobbing inconsolably the whole time, which makes sense. He has
Speaker 1: just lost his wife. An interesting thing happens, though, in
Speaker 1: the course of his examination. The doctor says, you know,
Speaker 1: he starts moving towards elver Zona's neck and head, and
Speaker 1: this irritates the Jesus out of trout h and Nap goes, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know I understand is I can't even begin to
Speaker 1: imagine what a terrible, harrowing time this is for you.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna leave it at that. I have, in
Speaker 1: my examination found nothing wrong with anything about Elva physically,
Speaker 1: other than, of course, the fact that she is dead. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I I had also been treating her, you know,
Speaker 1: as the talent doctor for a few weeks beforehand. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this cause of death heart attack, a
Speaker 1: faint that lasts forever. Yeah, I hope he was a
Speaker 1: better doctor than he was a coroner. Um I got
Speaker 1: Can I tell you this makes my mind to go
Speaker 1: right back to Fargo, because there's all these like hapless
Speaker 1: Minnesota cops that are just like, oh, don't mess with
Speaker 1: the poor man. He's been through so much. Don't ask
Speaker 1: him any more questions. You know, it's the same kind
Speaker 1: of deal here is that small town kind of mentality
Speaker 1: and the idea that no one would ever do anything
Speaker 1: untoward you know, um or or that alone, you know,
Speaker 1: murder most foul. So this all kind of this kind
Speaker 1: of odd behavior extends to the funeral. Elva's body is
Speaker 1: uh is taken and and just just a quick housekeeping note,
Speaker 1: we worst we've been sometimes referring to this young woman
Speaker 1: as el Elva sometimes Zona. She was referred to that
Speaker 1: interchangeably by by her friends, I believe, and then also
Speaker 1: a lot of the reporting that we found uh interchanges
Speaker 1: those names too, so not to confuse anybody. Then you
Speaker 1: want to stick with one, which one you like better?
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of Zona. Yeah, I'm a fan
Speaker 1: of Zona. But the reason I said Elva Zona a
Speaker 1: few minutes ago is just to establish that is her
Speaker 1: full day. Oh absolutely so, so I'm gonna stick with
Speaker 1: Zona moving forward. So her body is taken to her
Speaker 1: childhood home of Little Sieouel Mountain, which sounds very charming,
Speaker 1: and she's buried. Um after this weird funeral where Trout
Speaker 1: acts like a total sketchy weirdo. This is ridiculous. More
Speaker 1: of the next stuff, more of the crazy edling fiddling,
Speaker 1: you know, messing around with her body as it's laying
Speaker 1: in state, you know, fiddling with her collar and making
Speaker 1: sure it's pulled up high enough, putting too much stuff
Speaker 1: on her on her like putting a suspicious amount of
Speaker 1: stuff on her neck and her head. I found this
Speaker 1: beloved scarf that dear Zona loved so well, and I'm
Speaker 1: sorry I must have forgotten to put it on her
Speaker 1: when I very hastily dressed her for burial myself. So
Speaker 1: let's just wrap it on. Let's shove it on there,
Speaker 1: right in the coffin, right in the family and friends
Speaker 1: are going. You know, I know it's a tough time
Speaker 1: for you, trout, but this this is the last time
Speaker 1: any of us are going to see Zona. And uh,
Speaker 1: this scarf doesn't match her burial dress. And so Shoe
Speaker 1: turns on the wet works again and he says, as well,
Speaker 1: this is her favorite scarf. She would want it to
Speaker 1: be buried in it. And then while he's doing this,
Speaker 1: he's like also propping her head up incrementally, first with
Speaker 1: a pillow, then are rolled up cloth. I gotta tell
Speaker 1: you this. Okay, So I just rewatched Death Becomes Her.
Speaker 1: You guys, remember Death Becomes Her? Oh yeah, with the
Speaker 1: makewere where as they start decomposing, they start having to
Speaker 1: lay on the makeup thicker and then like the hellll
Speaker 1: crack or something and they have to like touch it
Speaker 1: up real QUI don't nothing to see here. Definitely not dead,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, this this reminds me of that Death
Speaker 1: Becomes Her, by the way, is a wonderful campy romp
Speaker 1: and holds up. So if you want a Halloween movie
Speaker 1: but you don't want to be too scared, it's definitely
Speaker 1: not for the kiddos. But it's uh, you're right then
Speaker 1: it's not. It's got some good effects, good makeup effects.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of like a Tim Burton movie that
Speaker 1: Tim Burton wished he had made, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like it, it's got that vibe to it, and I
Speaker 1: love um. Bruce willis playing kind of a chump. He's
Speaker 1: usually such as like badass, kind of like leading man
Speaker 1: action start, and this one he's a total sucker kind
Speaker 1: of what's the word, like a patsy almost you know,
Speaker 1: it was totally take advantage of by these strong willed women.
Speaker 1: He's the character as a redemptive arc, though spoilers he
Speaker 1: does exactly, But I mean it's it's a slapstick for
Speaker 1: the ages. I wouldn't be surprised if it was originally
Speaker 1: written for the stage. Everybody at the funeral isn't kind
Speaker 1: of an awkward, curb your enthusiasm peep show level, uh position,
Speaker 1: because they're like, that's weird, right, They're looking at each
Speaker 1: other and like he's messing with her neck a lot. Well,
Speaker 1: he's grieving, you know, people express the grief in a
Speaker 1: multitude of ways, so we've just got to help him out.
Speaker 1: It's what I like to call pathological politeness, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, where it's sort of like you want
Speaker 1: so much not to upset anybody that you just ignore
Speaker 1: huge red flags or just don't want to call out
Speaker 1: when something is very very very wrong to the detriment
Speaker 1: of of all concerns, which again shout up to peep show.
Speaker 1: There is one person, though, who rejects this social convention,
Speaker 1: and that is Elva Zona's mother, Mary Jane. So we
Speaker 1: were talking about the very top of the show slipping
Speaker 1: into that deep sleep and she she already like it's
Speaker 1: public knowledge that her son in law is never gonna
Speaker 1: win the Mary Jane Hayster Award for my Favorite Person.
Speaker 1: But she couldn't quite put her finger on it. She
Speaker 1: just there was something off about the dude, something she
Speaker 1: didn't cotton to. And u Zona. She was she was
Speaker 1: very close to Elva Zona, that was not only her
Speaker 1: only daughter but also functionally her best friend. And so
Speaker 1: she felt kind of abandoned when Zona had moved to
Speaker 1: live says Mill on the other side of the county.
Speaker 1: And maybe it was just a mother's intuition, which rarely
Speaker 1: talked things up to, but she had this feeling, she
Speaker 1: had a certitude that this guy Trout had something to
Speaker 1: do with her daughter's death. You know what I mean,
Speaker 1: she's watching him with the neck oh big time and
Speaker 1: and okay, and so you know, being a woman of God,
Speaker 1: she decided to prey on it. And she did. She
Speaker 1: prayed for nights and nights and nights and nights that
Speaker 1: her daughter would somehow give her a sign from the
Speaker 1: Great beyond uh as to as to what really happened,
Speaker 1: or at the very least, you know, give her a
Speaker 1: little closure and say goodbye. Because at the you know,
Speaker 1: on the most basic level, she didn't buy the heart
Speaker 1: attack story. She didn't really necessarily hadn't really keyed in
Speaker 1: on anything else or any specific foul play, but she
Speaker 1: knew that didn't make any sense. So according to Mary
Speaker 1: Jane herself, she prayed on this relentlessly for for multiple nights,
Speaker 1: and then that one night that we set up at
Speaker 1: the very top of the show in seven, just after
Speaker 1: when her daughter was laid to rest um, she saw
Speaker 1: a strange light enter into her view. Was she asleep,
Speaker 1: was she awake? She wasn't really sure, But what she
Speaker 1: did know was that she then saw her daughter's form
Speaker 1: appeared to her and began to tell a very interesting
Speaker 1: and upsetting story. Yes, Mary Jane claimed that her daughter
Speaker 1: appeared to her in a dream, not once, but four
Speaker 1: separate times, four consecutive nights, to tell her story. And
Speaker 1: the story she told was grizzly, disturbing, and tragic. She
Speaker 1: would appear as that bright light, assume a human form,
Speaker 1: and the room would fall into a chill. So Elva
Speaker 1: Zona's ghost told her mother that Erasmus or Trout had
Speaker 1: abused her severely and that one night, in a rage,
Speaker 1: he attacked her because get this, he thought she hadn't
Speaker 1: made any meat for dinner, because she served portedly apple butter,
Speaker 1: spread of preserves and bread, and so in that rage,
Speaker 1: the ghost says he had broken her neck and her
Speaker 1: head had turned. Death becomes her style completely around or
Speaker 1: exorcist style. Pick your favorite of the Halloween films. There, yes,
Speaker 1: it's exactly and by the way, but I do love
Speaker 1: a good apple butter. I know it's not for everybody,
Speaker 1: but I certainly wouldn't you know, break somebody's neck over
Speaker 1: serving the apple butter. How do you feel about the preserve?
Speaker 1: I yeah, I love I love preserves. I'm good with
Speaker 1: a good apple butter. I'm I'm a seasonal person myself.
Speaker 1: I've never I've never been so moved by rage at
Speaker 1: food that I would break someone's neck or you know,
Speaker 1: even even punch them. I might have in in in
Speaker 1: a show of joy, I may have kissed someone or
Speaker 1: like loudly clapped in the air or something. If there's
Speaker 1: something I love, But that's that's horrible. And then didn't
Speaker 1: she say it's not the first time he had abused her? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and subsequent nights, um, she kind of piece meal this
Speaker 1: the full picture together of the real story, and she
Speaker 1: did reveal that her husband had often abused her and
Speaker 1: beating her and treated her absolutely horribly, that he had
Speaker 1: a nightmarishly um foul temper, and that she was essentially
Speaker 1: living in fear of him, and it was he was
Speaker 1: a completely you know, unreasonable person that she couldn't talk
Speaker 1: down once he got into these rages. And again this
Speaker 1: is all from Mary Jane's own recollection. Zona apparently went
Speaker 1: on too to tell her about the neighborhood, because again
Speaker 1: they she didn't live there in the same town as
Speaker 1: her mom anymore. She'd moved out on her own. And
Speaker 1: even though we described it as just being on the
Speaker 1: other side of the county, you know, in these days
Speaker 1: and in a rural place like this, that would have
Speaker 1: been a significant distance. Yeah, and after it would tell
Speaker 1: an installment of the story, the ghost would vanish. The
Speaker 1: interesting thing here, uh, and something that's different from a
Speaker 1: lot of regional folk tales of ghostly revenge or something.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing here is that this ghost is very
Speaker 1: specific on how her neck was broken. She says that
Speaker 1: trout snapped it at the first joint, and first he
Speaker 1: squeezed for some time and then snapped it and then
Speaker 1: as if to really drive the points home. Mary Jane,
Speaker 1: according to her testimony, on the final and fourth night,
Speaker 1: watched as Zona's ghost twisted her head around a hundred
Speaker 1: and eight d degrees to show just how severely broken
Speaker 1: her neck was. Terrifying visions, ben, especially if you're beloved
Speaker 1: and uh and and late daughter, to be showing you
Speaker 1: such such sights, as they say, such things to show you. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but this was, you know, in her mind,
Speaker 1: just what her she's been asking for and in her prayers.
Speaker 1: And she took this information, if we could call it that, um,
Speaker 1: and went to the local prosecutor, a gentleman by the
Speaker 1: name of John Preston, over in Louisbourg, and she spent
Speaker 1: an entire afternoon trying to explain the story to him
Speaker 1: and convincing him to open up the case again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and to this point he's still in We do not
Speaker 1: know whether Prosecutor Preston believed Mary Jane's story, but she
Speaker 1: was incredibly tenacious and persistent and again certain. She began
Speaker 1: to convince him that, regardless of whether or not he
Speaker 1: believed in ghosts, she was definitely not lying. She was
Speaker 1: being sincere. So he went around town and started asking
Speaker 1: some questions. And that's when Preston starts putting together some
Speaker 1: puzzle pieces. Boy, this guy was sure strange when the
Speaker 1: doctor examined his dead spouse, boy who was even stranger
Speaker 1: at the funeral. And hey, wait, doctor Knapp, upon you
Speaker 1: know focus questioning, says, well, my examination was I guess
Speaker 1: I would I would call it eight percent, but not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he thinks back on that detail of of of trout
Speaker 1: getting agitated when he was making his way up to
Speaker 1: the neck area, and he literally says something to the
Speaker 1: effect of why do you mention it? The husband wouldn't
Speaker 1: let me examine her neck. You don't suppose that might
Speaker 1: be suspicious? Do you don't? Don't bless your little heart,
Speaker 1: doctor Knapp. I pictured like a Mr. Magoo esque, you know,
Speaker 1: like good hearted guy country doctor. But this you're right,
Speaker 1: you're right. Well it's uh it's an interesting character. It's like,
Speaker 1: huh no, well I don't you mention it? Uh? Next
Speaker 1: are important? I am a doctor. That's weird. Anyway, he
Speaker 1: wants some apple butter, apple Butterhi country apple butter? Right,
Speaker 1: and uh this admission not this apple butter this admission
Speaker 1: was enough for the prosecutor to say, Okay, we need
Speaker 1: to order a complete autopsy. I can justify this because
Speaker 1: now I'm not saying I'm ordering this because somebody believes
Speaker 1: in a ghost. I'm saying it because the doctor says
Speaker 1: they didn't get they didn't get a chance to do
Speaker 1: an adequate autopsy. Yeah, that's right, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: certainly not a pleasant thing to have to have your
Speaker 1: loved one exhumed, you know, for a second autopsy. But again,
Speaker 1: it was the mother that was asking for it, so
Speaker 1: it's not like anyone would have made a fuss about
Speaker 1: it other than her. We don't really hear about any
Speaker 1: other family of her, So speak up. Although I imagined
Speaker 1: the deceased former husband probably wouldn't have been too pleased
Speaker 1: about this news. Oh he was steamed. He was livid.
Speaker 1: This is already a guy who has a temper problem, right,
Speaker 1: so he is doubling down. He uh. The Greenbrier Independent
Speaker 1: you can read part of this on Appalachian history dot net.
Speaker 1: The Greenbrier Independence says that Erasmus quote vigorously complained, but
Speaker 1: then eventually the authority said, look, son, you can have
Speaker 1: all the problems you want, But if you don't go
Speaker 1: to this inquest willingly, we're going to force you to
Speaker 1: go so by hook or by crook, your choice. And uh,
Speaker 1: he said, look, I know you all are gonna arrist me,
Speaker 1: but they will not be able to prove I did it. Whoops,
Speaker 1: I know what a dumb ass, not clever Erasmus, You
Speaker 1: don't I keep thinking, I think I say this out loud,
Speaker 1: Erasmus irascible. Ah, yes, yes, yes, doesn't that mean kind
Speaker 1: of grouchy or like a little bit cantankerous. It means
Speaker 1: being easily angered. It's quite apt a spelled differently. It's
Speaker 1: with an eye if I'm not mistaken. But I'm with it.
Speaker 1: I'm with it. So he based really played himself, as
Speaker 1: the kids would say, uh, and this he's he was
Speaker 1: right though. This wasn't like the age of forensics, you know,
Speaker 1: where they could tie him to the crime scene with
Speaker 1: like you know, d n A samples. It was all circumstantial,
Speaker 1: all of this stuff. But the findings were a real
Speaker 1: bad look for a boy erasthmus trout shoe. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: Nap and two other doctors lay out the corpse in
Speaker 1: the schoolhouse of the town. I know this sounds like
Speaker 1: a very strange place to put a corpse, but in
Speaker 1: Appalachia at the time, in very small pounds, this this
Speaker 1: sort of stuff was not uncommon. Many structures were multi use,
Speaker 1: aside from maybe the local church, and they give it examination.
Speaker 1: The Pocahontas Times later reports on this autopsy that you're
Speaker 1: describing nol and it is worse than bad. It is
Speaker 1: what Orwell would call double plus un good for shoe. Uh.
Speaker 1: They say the discovery was made that the neck was
Speaker 1: broken and the windpipe mashed on the throat were the
Speaker 1: marks of fingers, indicating that she had been choken. That's
Speaker 1: their word also like mashed. I think that's a very
Speaker 1: creative wording there. It's true that the neck was dislocated
Speaker 1: between the first and second vertebrate, remember what the ghost said,
Speaker 1: and that the ligaments were torn and ruptured, the wind
Speaker 1: pipe had been crushed at a point in front of
Speaker 1: the neck. This is all exactly what Mary Jane was
Speaker 1: said the ghost of her daughter told her. But like
Speaker 1: Sho you know, was saying, trout, there was really no evidence.
Speaker 1: All of this was circumstantial um nothing specifically tying him
Speaker 1: to the murder. Uh, even though people recalled his strange behavior, um,
Speaker 1: and it certainly stuck around in that prosecutor's mind too,
Speaker 1: and it did cast a little bit of suspicion on him. Um.
Speaker 1: But it was pretty interesting that Elva's mother, Elva Zona's mother, um,
Speaker 1: was able to describe the murder with such graphic detail.
Speaker 1: So it almost made her a bit of a suspect.
Speaker 1: That's a really good point, yeah, because who else would
Speaker 1: have this information? Right? Curiouser and curiouser. And there was
Speaker 1: even a sense that perhaps, uh, she was just making
Speaker 1: up this ghost story in an effort to frame Shoe um,
Speaker 1: because you know, I mean, this wasn't It's not like superstition,
Speaker 1: random muck. But it was a time where I think
Speaker 1: it would be a little easier to swallow a story
Speaker 1: like this than maybe in a court of law today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean we're look look at we're not
Speaker 1: quite into the century. Uh. People have a much closer
Speaker 1: and more mediate relationship with folklore, right with haints, with
Speaker 1: Willow the wisp and so on. So Ben was it Trout?
Speaker 1: Was it perhaps her own mother that put an end
Speaker 1: to the young life of Elva Zona Hairston? Uh name shoe.
Speaker 1: I for kept trying. Now I speaking like a late
Speaker 1: eight hundreds newspaper men, Well, you gotta half to wait
Speaker 1: until the next episode to find out. This concludes Part
Speaker 1: one of The Greenbrier Ghosts. We've given you the blow
Speaker 1: by blow, not a punt, not an intentional pun, but
Speaker 1: we we've given you this step by step order of events.
Speaker 1: Let's call this the setup. We have ghosts, we have crime,
Speaker 1: we have a mystery of foot, and we hope that
Speaker 1: you join us. Uh and what will probably be a Thursday. No,
Speaker 1: no to predict the future, but we'll probably be a
Speaker 1: Thursday for part two of the Greenbrier Ghosts when we
Speaker 1: add some strange, extraordinary plot twist to the mix. We
Speaker 1: haven't even gotten to court yet. We can't wait to
Speaker 1: explore what happens next with you in part two of
Speaker 1: our episode. And you might even get a little dramatic
Speaker 1: courtroom re enactment. I can neither confirm nor deny that
Speaker 1: that's going to happen, but uh, it's certainly not off
Speaker 1: the table. In the meantime. Thank you so much, super
Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegram for being our partner in crime or
Speaker 1: crime solving spooky crime solving, but whatever, thanks, I've got
Speaker 1: nickname list, super producer, Casey Cadaver, Pegram love it. I
Speaker 1: am still noel Uh Satan Brown because my middle name
Speaker 1: is actually Christian, so it's still kind of a pun I.
Speaker 1: And I also, I've really it's embarrassing, just made a
Speaker 1: big gass list of these. So I had Nold Nosparatto
Speaker 1: Brown love it. I'll tell you could have multiple nicknames.
Speaker 1: It's it's just it's yeah, what about you, Ben uh Uh.
Speaker 1: You've got this policy though, of not nicknaming yourself, and
Speaker 1: I feel woefully underprepared. Ben Bone saw love that. Oh
Speaker 1: that's good. Or I'm trying to think of an actual
Speaker 1: monster bones saws, which just grizzly. Well, we'll get to it.
Speaker 1: We'll get to it. Thanks of course to Alex Willow,
Speaker 1: the Whisp, williams Uh, let's see. Thanks to Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 1: a k A. The Cuister a k A. The What
Speaker 1: do you think for him? How about the Ripper? Yeah?
Speaker 1: The Ripsters? Yeah, I got one for you. Christopher unleashed
Speaker 1: the crack in hasiotis dope. Yeah, that's gonna be big
Speaker 1: for him. That's gonna be big for him, to hope,
Speaker 1: so man one, I can't wait. Guys, and you think
Speaker 1: you're just gonna magically turn around on day one, all
Speaker 1: of the stink of just gonna be like washed away,
Speaker 1: like tears in the rain. My fear handidly is that
Speaker 1: we may well find ourselves in looking back on is
Speaker 1: not that bad? Ah, fun good thing. We got some fun,
Speaker 1: entertaining Halloween content to keep your spirits up or down
Speaker 1: or what what have you. By the way, check out
Speaker 1: our buddy Matt Frederick's amazing show Thirteen Days of Halloween,
Speaker 1: available now wherever you get podcasts. It's three D binaural
Speaker 1: audio spooky storytelling experience with a couple of real chillers,
Speaker 1: written by you Ben Bolan of Ridiculous History. Wow, thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Matt has done amazing work on this. Uh now, Casey Nolan,
Speaker 1: I can say that we're technically co workers with Keegan
Speaker 1: Michael Key from Key and Peel, who was in the
Speaker 1: first season of Fargo, by the way, only in the
Speaker 1: last last stretch of it full circle. You were doing
Speaker 1: so much for far Ago, man, I wish they appreciated you.
Speaker 1: I just think it's I missed it the first time around.
Speaker 1: I saw the second season and I adored it, and
Speaker 1: I'd never watched the first season and Billy about Thornton's
Speaker 1: character in that series, unreal love, unbelievably malevol at, one
Speaker 1: of the best. Like would you call his character chaotic evil? Ben?
Speaker 1: Because he just wants to, like watch the world burn
Speaker 1: and laugh at it. It's all for his own amusement.
Speaker 1: I would He's like a bit more of a restrained
Speaker 1: judge Holden from uh Blood Meridian by Quarterback McCarthy, which
Speaker 1: James Franco keeps saying, he's good to adapt story for
Speaker 1: another day. We want to hear your spooky nicknames. A
Speaker 1: lot of our best ideas come from you, ridiculous historians.
Speaker 1: Tell us about him on the internet. You can find us.
Speaker 1: We love to point to ridiculous historians. Our Facebook page
Speaker 1: where you can meet your fellow listeners a k our
Speaker 1: favorite part of the show. You can also find us
Speaker 1: as individuals if you so please, you may. I am
Speaker 1: at how now Noel Brown on Instagram And I don't
Speaker 1: really mess with Twitter much, but I've been I've been
Speaker 1: using it to keep up with things, but I don't
Speaker 1: really post them. More of a visual learner and express
Speaker 1: or how about you, Ben, Yeah, I'm on I'm on
Speaker 1: Instagram as at Ben Bolen, and I'm on Twitter as
Speaker 1: at Ben boleyn hs W. So there you can read
Speaker 1: my Jack Handy style deep thoughts like uh, maybe I
Speaker 1: should have paid all those blockbuster fees with late fees,
Speaker 1: with the world be a different place. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's a good question, Ben, one that we all should
Speaker 1: be pondering, and until next time, ponder away. We'll see
Speaker 1: you then. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.