This article examines four documented cases of murderers allegedly haunted by their victims through apparitions, possession, or posthumous encounters that led to confessions or convictions.
Research published by Cambridge University Press and Harvard University has shown that eyewitness testimony is not as reliable as once thought. Such accounts can be distorted by stress, suggestive questioning, and the passage of time, rendering them unusable. But what if the eyewitness in question were offering information about their own murders?
One ghost visited her mother to reveal her murder. In other cases, a deceased victim harassed one of the most notorious gangsters of all time, a spirit allegedly took possession of a woman to get details of her murder to police, and the ghost of a murder victim convinced their killer to confess.
The Greenbrier Ghost: A Murder Solved by Testimony from the Dead
On January 23, 1897, Blacksmith Erasmus Stribbling “Edward” Trout Shue was back to work in his shop when 11-year-old Andy Jones rushed in with shocking news. The boy had found Elva Zona Heaster Shue, Shue’s wife of three months, lying dead at the foot of the stairs in their two-story log home.
Shue had asked the boy to see if his wife, commonly referred to as Zona, wanted anything from the store only moments before. The new husband hurried home, asking that Dr. George W. Knapp, local doctor and coroner, be called.
Suspicious Death and a Rushed Medical Examination
A recount by former Greenbrier County Archivist Arabeth Balasko on the Greenbrier Historical Society website details the series of events. “Onlookers reported that Trout had acted inconsolable and told everyone to leave the house . . .”,
By the time Dr. Knapp arrived, an hour or two later, Zona’s body was cold, according to testimony reported in the July 1, 1897 edition of the Greenbrier Independent.
That same edition of the paper said Dr. Knapp “resorted to the usual means of resuscitation,” after which Shue asked the physician “to make no further examination of the body.”
The Husband’s Strange Behavior After Zona Heaster Shue’s Death
Shue then “assisted in dressing the body and in doing so put around the neck a high collar and a large veil several times folded and tied in a large bow under the chin. . .”, according to the newspaper. Shue dressed Zona in the same burgundy one she wore when she eloped, according to the Greenbrier Valley website.
Dr. Knapp initially determined that Zona’s cause of death was “everlasting faint” or heart disease, according to AppalachianHistory.net.
Shue was highly attentive to his wife’s body — particularly her head — after her death. He helped place her body in her casket, always holding her head.
It was only afterward that several witnesses reported her head seemed “to be very loose upon the neck and would drop from side to side when not supported,” Reported the Greenbrier Independent. Some who attended the wake even noticed that Zona, “… had a bruise on her cheek that seemed to just appear out of nowhere,” according to Balasko.
At one point, Shue placed a folded sheet on one side of her head and clothing on the other. The explanation for such care, according to AppalachianHistory.net, was to “make her rest easier.”
Zona Heaster Shue’s Ghost Returns to Reveal Her Murder
Zona did rest easy — for a while.
Her coffin sat at her mother’s home on Big Sewell Mountain for a day before burial. All the while, Shue stood vigil at the head of the casket.
Mary Jane Heaster, Zona’s mother, had misgivings about Edward Shue from the beginning. That was the reason her daughter and Shue eloped. With Zona’s death, those misgivings grew.
Less than a month after her burial, Zona appeared to her mother to set the record straight, according to Heaster.
“She cames four times and four nights,” Hester later testified, “but the second night she told me that her neck was squeezed off at the first joint and it was just as she told me, according to The Greenbrier Independent.
Shue’s motive for murder? Heaster reported her daughter said, “he was mad that she didn’t have no meat cooked for supper.”
A Ghost’s Testimony Reaches Prosecutors
Finally, Hester and her brother-in-law took Zona’s story to John A. Preston, Lewisburg prosecutor. After hours of discussion, he agreed to review the investigation.
Dr. Knapp was consulted and acknowledged that his initial conclusion might have been wrong.
Further investigation revealed information that concerned Preston.
According to an entry on the Greenbrier Valley website, Shue had served two years in jail for horse theft. An even more alarming fact was that he served the sentence between his first and second marriages. It turned out that Zona was his third wife.
His first wife had divorced him for abandoning her and their child. One account has her dying of a fall from a haystack, but Obscurix did not find evidence to corroborate this. The second wife died when, as Shue reported it, he accidentally dropped a brick on her head as he repaired the roof of their home in Pocahontas County, West Virginia.
Exhumation, Autopsy, and the Murder Trial of Edward Shue
That was enough for Preston to order an exhumation of Zona’s body and impanel an inquest jury.
Shue told The Greenbier Independent that authorities would arrest him, “but they will not be able to prove I did it.” He was right about them arresting him.
A Greenbrier Independent examination issued March 9, 1897, reported that “the discovery was made that the neck was broken and the windpipe mashed. On the throat were the marks of fingers indicating that she had been choken [sic] … the neck was dislocated between the first and second vertebrae. The ligaments were torn and ruptured. The windpipe had been crushed at a point in front of the neck.”
Heaster proved an unshakable witness at Shue’s trial. She refuted repeated attempts to discredit her testimony about Zona’s visits.
When asked if she thought she saw Zona “in the flesh,” Heaster’s reply was firm.
“Yes, sir, I do,” stated Heaster. “I told them the very dress that she was killed in, and when she went to leave me, she turned her head completely around and looked at me like she wanted me to know all about it.”
The jury convicted Shue of first-degree murder on June 22. The judge sentenced him to life in prison. Heaster’s testimony fueled passions that led to the formation of a lynch mob. However, the vigilantes did not carry out their plans.
According to WBOY 12 News, Shue served three years of his sentence before dying in March 1900 as a result of a flu outbreak. Almost 100 years later, in 1991, a West Virginia state historical marker was erected at the intersection of Interstate 64 and U.S. Route 60 in Greenbrier County, as reported by West Virginia’s News. It commemorates Zona and the court case arising from her death. The last line states that hers was the “only known case in which testimony from a ghost helped to convict a murderer.”
Al Capone and the Ghost of Jimmy Clark
Another case shows that the ghosts of their victims can torment even notorious bad guys.
Legendary Chicago Gangster Al Capone was supposedly only afraid of one man – Hymie Weiss. The Northside hitman and bootlegger attempted to kill Capone on several occasions. However, Capone overcame his fears when gunmen fatally shot Weiss on State Street near Holy Name Cathedral on October 11, 1926, according to History is Now Magazine.
After that, Capone seemed to fear no one – except the visitor who kept making unwanted visits to his cell after he went to prison.
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and Its Victims
A little over two years after Weiss’s demise, Capone’s St. Valentine’s Day Massacre spelled the end of his Northside rivals. Capone allegedly ordered the executions. However, Capone was in Miami at the time.
On the morning of February 14, 1929, seven Northsiders were lined up against a wall inside a garage at 2122 Clark Street and executed by hitmen dressed as police.
Among those who died that Valentine’s Day was Albert Kachellek, a.k.a. Jimmy Clark. He was the brother-in-law of George “Bugs” Moran, the North Side gang’s leader. Moran had seen the faux police enter the garage and did not follow them inside.
Clark, like five of the victims, died instantly. Only Frank Gusenberg lived long enough to talk to real police officers. When asked who shot him, Gusenberg said, “No one shot me.”
Reports of a Ghostly Visitor in Al Capone’s Prison Cell
You might think that everything would be coming up roses for Big Al after he decimated his rivals. But you would be wrong. Just three months after the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, police arrested Capone in Philadelphia for gun possession.
He was convicted and sentenced to one year in Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary, according to The Mob Museum.
Other prisoners lived in dank cells with bare walls and slept on slabs. However, through his connections, Capone’s cell was furnished with paintings, luxury furniture, and a radio.
Officially, Capone’s room was a single. However, guards reported hearing him talking to someone at night. He often screamed, “Jimmy, leave me alone.”
According to Daily Press, Capone was referring to Jimmy Clark, according to multiple accounts.
Al Capone’s Federal Conviction and Prison Sentences
A little over a year after Capone’s March 17, 1930, release from prison, he landed in more hot water. On June 5, 1931, a grand jury indicted him on 22 counts of federal income tax evasion. Following his conviction on October 18, 1931, authorities sentenced him to 11 years in federal prison and ordered him to pay $80,000 in fines and court costs, according to The National Archives and Records Administration.
That was the end of Capone’s criminal career, but not the end of his ghostly torments.
Jimmy seemed to follow him wherever Capone went.
Before going to Alcatraz, Capone began serving his sentence in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia. There, he appeared to be a shell of his former self. He was suffering withdrawal from years of cocaine use. In addition, the former mod boss was experiencing the effects of advanced syphilis. If all that was not bad enough, Jimmy was still visiting him.
Al Capone’s Transfer to Alcatraz and Continued Hauntings
Finally, Capone was transferred to Alcatraz when it opened in 1934.
Jonathan Eig, author of Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster, told History he suspects authorities moved Capone to “show off their new prison and justify its cost.”
Authorities transferred over 100 other prisoners and possibly one ghost at the same time as Capone. According to History Collections, his conversations with Jimmy continued at Alcatraz, sometimes turning into more desperate pleas for Jimmy to leave Capone alone.
Some researchers attribute Jimmy’s visits to the effects of Capone’s syphilis. The disease can cause hallucinations, according to the National Institutes of Health. However, Capone exhibited lucid behavior during much of his time in the island prison, according to Eig.
Life at Alcatraz: Music, Reading, and Mental Decline
Shortly after he arrived at Alcatraz, Capone, then prisoner 85, petitioned to start a prison band. According to History, after a year of lobbying, the warden gave in.
Capone had not played an instrument before, according to Laurence Bergreen, author of Capone: The Man and the Era. Capone took up the banjo and recruited other inmates to join him, including George “Machine Gun” Kelly, who played drums.
Capone soon switched to the Mandola, an instrument similar to a mandolin. The gangster’s repertoire grew to about 500 songs, mostly show tunes. In a letter to his son, he wrote: “Junior, there isn’t a song written that I can’t play.”
Big Al was also an avid reader, according to his biographers. He checked out books from the prison library on English usage, self-improvement, gardening, and music appreciation, according to Eig. Bergreen points out that he also subscribed to 87 newspapers and magazines.
Al Capone’s Final Years and Death
Syphilis continued to march Capone toward insanity. Some days, he appeared completely normal. Others, he appeared deranged.
In his 2003 biography, Al Capone, Luciano J. Iorizzo writes: “His behavior became totally unpredictable.”
He left The Rock, as the prison was known, in 1939, returning to his beachfront estate in Florida. He died there on January 25, 1947, eight days after turning 48.
Hallucinations or Haunting? Explaining Capone’s Visions
Most historians and writers attribute Jimmy’s visits to Capone as a product of hallucinations brought on by venereal disease. That is a plausible explanation.
However, Capone’s volatile behavior did not begin until years after his incarceration, and his visits from Jimmy started during his time in Eastern State Penitentiary. Since Capone acted like a model prisoner behind bars—reading avidly, learning to play music, and even founding a band—one can reasonably question the plausibility of that explanation. Could a mind ravaged by syphilis allow someone to do those things?
In the end, perhaps only Al and Jimmy know. No one has heard from Jimmy since Capone died. However, according to Chicago Private Tours and Productions, the gangster’s ghost allegedly haunts the Congress Plaza Hotel. Maybe you can stop by and ask him about Jimmy.
The Teresita Basa Case: A Voice from the Grave Solves a Murder
Firefighters responding to a report of a fire on the 15th floor of an apartment building in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood on February 21, 1977. They found more than they expected when the blaze was extinguished, according to DNA Info. Among charred furniture, investigators discovered a nude body.
The victim, Teresita Basa, was a respiratory therapist at Edgewater Hospital. She had been stabbed in the chest with a kitchen knife and placed under clothes and a mattress before being set on fire.
Police found no clues in the ransacked apartment. However, an entry in Basa’s journal that read “Get tickets for A.S.” would later pique their interest.
The investigation seemed to have gone cold when a phone call led police to Dr. Jose Chua and his wife, Remibias “Remy” Chua.
Dr. Chua told police that Basa had taken possession of his wife on three occasions, revealing information about her murder. Basa, supposedly speaking through Remy, told Chua that Basa’s co-worker, a respiratory technician named Allan Showery, committed the murder.
Police remembered Basa’s journal entry referring to “A.S.” and, with little else to go on, interviewed Showery. They also searched his apartment, where they found a ring and a pendant belonging to Basa.
Remy had told police about the jewelry, saying it was French and had belonged to Basa’s mother. Further, Remy provided contact information for four people who could identify the jewelry.
Showery confessed after police found Basa’s jewelry. He later recanted and went to trial. He was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison. However, he only served five.
Jennifer Stewart’s Murder and a Killer’s Unusual Confession
There are all sorts of motives for murder. Impulsive rage led to Zona Heaster Shue’s death. The St.Valentine’s Day massacre may have been a little personal, but it was mostly just business. Terestia Basa’s murder was a case of greed.
One of the most bizarre murder motives was the killing of 36-year-old Jennifer Stewart in the Vanier neighborhood of Ottawa, Canada. Adrian Daou confessed to the 2010 axe murder three and a half years after the fact while in custody on unrelated charges.
And, the motive Daou gave? He answered in a taped confession to police.
“If I killed someone, I’d be a really good rapper,” Daou explained, according to the Ottawa Sun. “Because I wanna be a f—ing millionaire rapper, you know?”
A Claimed Ghost Encounter That Changed a Killer’s Beliefs
Equally unusual in Daou’s case is the effect of Stewart’s ghost. She did not provide evidence or even haunt Daou like other ghosts. She literally blew by him, but it left a dramatic impact.
Daou told police he hacked Stewart to death and left her body where it fell in a parking lot, according to the Ottawa Sun. He said he initially felt proud of what he had done.
Afterwards, he went for a stroll. That is when it happened.
“I seen this ghost. I seen Jennifer speed by me,” Daou told police.”Holy f—. There is heaven. There is a god. Since that day, I started believing.”
In making his confession, Daou said he came to believe the murder was “really, really wrong. First of all, it’s not a good thing to kill someone, you know?”
Confession, Recantation, and Life Sentence
According to CBC, Daou later denied his confession, even though he approached police to offer it and made that confession on tape. A jury believed Daou’s confession over his recantation in a 2015 trial, and a judge sentenced him to life in prison.
In 2021, Daou was granted a new trial. He acted as his own attorney. However, he was again found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
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