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The Greenbrier Ghost is the name popularly given to the ghost of Elva Zona Heaster Shue, a young woman in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, United States, who was murdered in 1897.

Initially judged a death by natural causes, the court later declared that the woman had been murdered by her husband, following testimony by the victim's mother, Mary Jane Heaster, in which she claimed that her daughter's spirit revealed the true cause of death.

In October 1896, Elva Zona Heaster (who went by her middle name Zona) met a blacksmith named Edward Stribbling Trout Shue (who also used the names Erastus and Erasmus). On January 23, 1897, Zona Shue was found dead in her home. According to Mary Jane's story, Zona insisted that Edward had killed her by breaking her neck.

Armed with the story allegedly told to her by the ghost, Mary Jane Heaster visited the local prosecutor, John Alfred Preston, and spent several hours in his office convincing him to reopen the matter of her daughter's death. Whether he believed her story of the ghost is unknown, but he did have enough doubt to dispatch deputies to reinterview several people of interest in the case, including Dr.

As the defense had introduced the issue, the judge found it difficult to instruct the jury to disregard the story of the ghost, and many people in the community seemed to believe it. However, "the Greenbrier ghost was never mentioned by the prosecution and played no part in the case against Shue".

The state of West Virginia has erected a state historical marker near the cemetery in which Zona Shue is buried.

The article, The Dead Man Test: a Preliminary Experimental Analysis, was published in 2018 in the journal, Behavior Analysis in Practice (formerly known as The Behavior Analyst). Katie Letcher Lyle, a writer and an amateur historian, in her book The Man Who Wanted Seven Wives: The Greenbrier Ghost and the Famous Murder Mystery of 1897, gave a dramatized account of the Greenbrier Ghost. Lyle explained her conclusion in a 1999 issue of Wonderful West Virginia magazine in which she said that Mary had probably made up the story of the ghost in order to make a compelling argument to open up her daughter's case. As it turned out, she didn't need the ghost story, for Shue was convicted, according to every account, strictly on earthly considerations, without any unearthly ghosts." The story of the Greenbrier Ghost is the subject of four stage adaptations. Jan Buttram's play Zona was produced in 1998 by Greenbrier Valley Theatre, the state professional theatre of West Virginia. Karen Benelli's “The Ghost of Greenbrier County” was produced in 2004 at the New York Fringe Festival by the Rising Sun Theatre Co. The Greenbrier Ghost, a full-length musical adaptation, was written by Cathey Sawyer (book and lyrics) and Joe Buttram (music). The show premiered in 2003 at Greenbrier Valley Theatre, with subsequent productions in 2004, 2009, 2013, 2019, and 2026. Another full-length musical adaptation of this story is Greenbrier, 1897, written and performed by the Lovewell Institute for the Creative Arts. The Unquiet Grave, a 2017 novel by Sharyn McCrumb, is based on the Greenbrier case. The Comedy Central show Drunk History profiled the Greenbrier Ghost and subsequent trial in the 2019 episode "Believe It or Not" (season 6 episode 9). An opera based on the Greenbrier case, Everlasting Faint, made its world premier in Madison, WI on December 9, 2023.

Red Barn Murder, an English murder case where the murderer was allegedly revealed by the victim's ghost. The Greenbrier Ghost and Other Strange Stories, South Charleston, WV, Mountain Memories Books, 1990. Man Who Wanted Seven Wives: The Greenbrier Ghost and the Famous Murder Mystery of 1897, Quarrier Press, 1999 ISBN 1891852051

Quick Facts

• Katie Letcher Lyle, a writer and an amateur historian, in her book The Man Who Wanted Seven Wives: The Greenbrier Ghost and the Famous Murder Mystery of 1897, gave a dramatized account of the Greenbrier Ghost.
• Man Who Wanted Seven Wives: The Greenbrier Ghost and the Famous Murder Mystery of 1897, Quarrier Press, 1999 ISBN 1891852051
• Karen Benelli's “The Ghost of Greenbrier County” was produced in 2004 at the New York Fringe Festival by the Rising Sun Theatre Co.
• The Comedy Central show Drunk History profiled the Greenbrier Ghost and subsequent trial in the 2019 episode "Believe It or Not" (season 6 episode 9).
• However, "the Greenbrier ghost was never mentioned by the prosecution and played no part in the case against Shue".

Source material: Wikipedia - "Greenbrier Ghost". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.