Latest / Ridiculous History / The Case of the Greenbrier Ghost, Part 2: The Court

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The Case of the Greenbrier Ghost, Part 2: The Court · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
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Speaker 1: so much for tuning into what we're calling Hallo Wayne,
0:35
Speaker 1: because we will just not let a joke die. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: even an accidental joke that stems from just like a
0:42
Speaker 1: momentary mispronunciation of a very common word. Well, it's been
0:46
Speaker 1: it's probably my Appalachian roots linguistically popping out my accent.
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Speaker 1: But uh, I am thrilled to be joined with you
0:54
Speaker 1: guys again Noel niar Lowthotepe Brown and keep super producer
1:01
Speaker 1: Casey Catulu Pegram. Oh hell yes, guys, I went, uh
1:07
Speaker 1: we we usually try to take a little a quick
1:10
Speaker 1: break between episodes of recording something straight through and I
1:15
Speaker 1: literally ran away and like picked up one of my
1:17
Speaker 1: HP Lovecraft books and I was like, I know there's
1:20
Speaker 1: something here. So I apologize for being late. I tried
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Speaker 1: to know. I really wanted to nail that pronunciation for you.
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Speaker 1: Uh Nyarla though, tep, Yeah, how about I got one
1:32
Speaker 1: for you? Have about this Ben the void stairs back bowling?
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Speaker 1: Oh thank you, I love it and I agree, and
1:40
Speaker 1: so uh we're we're in merry spirits as we explore. Uh,
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Speaker 1: some not so merry spirits but so not Yes, exactly
1:49
Speaker 1: some not so merry spirits as we teased in part one. Uh,
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Speaker 1: this is the second half of the Greenbrier Ghost, in
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Speaker 1: which we encounter some stunning revelation and some scandalous plots. Whish,
2:02
Speaker 1: I don't know, what do you think, man? Would it
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Speaker 1: be good for us to give, like just a brief
2:05
Speaker 1: summary of episode one? Oh? I think that's always helpful.
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Speaker 1: Ben Um, So we've got an unexplained death or or
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Speaker 1: a poorly explained death. Let's say the local physician, uh
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Speaker 1: Dr Knapp sounds like a made up character. Um blamed
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Speaker 1: it on the Everlasting Faint a k A heart attack.
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Speaker 1: But this is the woman in question who passed away
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Speaker 1: one Elva Zona Shoe maiden name Heaster, was discovered in
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Speaker 1: a ramshackle pile at the bottom of the stairs in
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Speaker 1: the home where she was living with her ne'er do
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Speaker 1: well husbands, Erasmus. If we were gonna give him a nickname,
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Speaker 1: the Irascible Shoe a k A. Trout, which is mainly
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Speaker 1: what we've been referring to him as. Although we really
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Speaker 1: liked the name Erasmus Um, he very suspiciously had left
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Speaker 1: the house on to visit a neighborhood UM Auntie Martha,
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Speaker 1: I believe um, and then had her young son go
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Speaker 1: and uh fetch some eggs from from his wife UM,
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Speaker 1: only to discover her decrepit body um dead, her corpse
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Speaker 1: at the bottom of the stairs. UM. There was an
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Speaker 1: autopsy performed quite haphazardly, if I do say so myself,
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Speaker 1: by said local physician UH and coroner Dr Knapp Um,
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Speaker 1: and the trout very conspicuously was not cool with him
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Speaker 1: examining the neck parts. Flash forward to the funeral back
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Speaker 1: in Zona's hometown on the other side of Greenbrier County,
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Speaker 1: where Trout even more conspicuously and awkwardly sticks close to
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Speaker 1: the casket and and make sure that her neck parts
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Speaker 1: are covered up by going as far as propping her
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Speaker 1: head up believe we referred to as death becomes her
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Speaker 1: style uh in the casket and made sure no one
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Speaker 1: got a good look at her neck. Um. What happens next, Ben, Well,
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Speaker 1: then everybody is being pathologically polite, as we said, and
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Speaker 1: letting this guy do his weird next stuff to his
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Speaker 1: wife's corpse, and no one's raising to stink about it
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Speaker 1: except for Zona's mother, Mary Jane Heaster. She never liked
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Speaker 1: Erasmus and she also found him uh sketchy is what
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Speaker 1: I would call a sketch artist, because I am a
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Speaker 1: fan of terrible euphemisms. And she then experienced a series
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Speaker 1: of visions. For four nights, she was visited by what
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Speaker 1: she believed to be the ghost of her daughter after
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Speaker 1: extensive praying, and her daughter not only said that she
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Speaker 1: did not die of a heart attack, she said that
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Speaker 1: her husband had murdered her murder most foul. And she
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Speaker 1: specifically said, Uh, this is where it happened, this is
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Speaker 1: how he broke my neck, This is where he broke
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Speaker 1: my neck, this is what the view looked like out
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Speaker 1: of our house. And Mary Jane had all the details.
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Speaker 1: She brought them to the town prosecutor, one Mr Preston.
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Speaker 1: Mr Preston, we don't know whether he believed in ghosts,
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Speaker 1: but through sheer tenacity, uh, Mary Jane was able to
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Speaker 1: persuade him to start asking questions. He finds out about
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Speaker 1: this weird next stuff he gets uh the doctor in
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Speaker 1: a very like lovable kind of absent minded Professor Waite,
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Speaker 1: Well shucks. You know, it was a little odd that
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Speaker 1: that that that that this guy named Trout uh was
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Speaker 1: was against me examining the the neck area of his
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Speaker 1: dead wife. But I just I just chalked it up
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Speaker 1: to grief, and I just figured out I didn't want
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Speaker 1: to ask too many questions. I mean, the man's grieving,
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Speaker 1: he's he's he's he's shedding tears, he's a grown man.
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Speaker 1: I don't want I don't want to push him over
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Speaker 1: the edge, you know. I mean, I haven't have a
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Speaker 1: little compassion, why don't you? But yeah, he goes back
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Speaker 1: to say, okay, well, now that you mentioned it, that
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Speaker 1: was a little odd. So they exhumed the body for
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Speaker 1: a second an autopsy, at which point they find, uh,
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Speaker 1: some pretty conspicuous markings around the neck. Uh A crushed windpipe,
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Speaker 1: finger bruises around the neck, all things that point to
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Speaker 1: Trout as perhaps have being the perpetrator of what is
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Speaker 1: now looked at not as a case of the horribles
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Speaker 1: or what do they call it, the Everlasting Faint? The
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Speaker 1: everlasting Faint, but rather a murder. And the plot continues
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Speaker 1: to thicken just like uh, just like corn starch, I
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Speaker 1: guess not a corn starch doctor or whatever, but yeah,
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Speaker 1: they it looks like murder rather than unfortunate heart attack.
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Speaker 1: And what's more, the markings on the body correlate almost
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Speaker 1: precisely according to the papers of the time, with the
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Speaker 1: information that Mary Jane claims to have received from her
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Speaker 1: daughter's ghosts. However, there and and then Trout says some ridiculous,
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Speaker 1: less lee sketchy stuff about this, kind of like when O. J.
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Speaker 1: Simpson published a book called If I Had Done It? Uh?
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Speaker 1: And this, uh, this gives Preston the prosecutor even more
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Speaker 1: of an off feeling. But at this point people in
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Speaker 1: town are saying, well, it could have been shoe, But
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Speaker 1: how did Mary Jane have all this information? What if
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Speaker 1: she is not only making up this ghost story, but
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Speaker 1: what if she is the murderer and framing her son
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Speaker 1: in law. That's where our stage is set. Back to
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Speaker 1: our inshrepid prosecutor. He's doing some detective work. He's got
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Speaker 1: a Sherlock Holmes hat on. Whatever. What's the Do we
7:38
Speaker 1: know the specific name for that kind of hate. It's
7:41
Speaker 1: called a deer stalker. Not sure why I know that,
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Speaker 1: but but for some reason I do. And yeah, it's true.
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Speaker 1: He keeps digging, he keeps digging and looking into shoes.
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Speaker 1: Pass because this guy is now really looking good as
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Speaker 1: as suspect number one, and he finds out that she
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Speaker 1: has been married twice before scandal Indeed, um and, according
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Speaker 1: to the record, the first marriage ended in a divorce
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Speaker 1: when she was sent to prison for stealing a horse.
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Speaker 1: That's what they call a horse divorce. That was what
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Speaker 1: happens you steal a horse. Automatic divorce. I thought it
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Speaker 1: was a divorce. Maybe that's what they just call it
8:18
Speaker 1: in Tennessee. It might be right. It's you know, there's
8:20
Speaker 1: different colloquialisms all over this grand country of ours. Language
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Speaker 1: is a living thing, as you say. Um. But but
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Speaker 1: that wife later told the cops that she was in
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Speaker 1: fact an awful, awful, violent, aggressive, angry man who beat
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Speaker 1: her quite frequently when they were married. The second marriage
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Speaker 1: that he entered into ended after only eight months with oh,
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Speaker 1: my gosh, surprise, surprise, the mysterious death of that wife. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: Lucy and trip Shoe had lived with her husband for
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Speaker 1: a little less than eight and she died under suspicious circumstances.
9:04
Speaker 1: Check this out. The first wife was supposed to have
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Speaker 1: passed away from a broken neck when she fell from
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Speaker 1: a haystack the second wife apparently died while helping trout
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Speaker 1: to repair a chimney. He was on top of the chimney.
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Speaker 1: His wife was putting rocks in a basket with a
9:21
Speaker 1: rope attached, so they could, you know, yeah, like a
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Speaker 1: counterweight or something. Yeah, do a fully thing up to
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Speaker 1: the top. And as the basket was drawn up, it
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Speaker 1: turned over and dropped the rock on the head of
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Speaker 1: his wife. That's the explanation for the second wife. But
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Speaker 1: those are still mysterious circumstances because you see, gentleman, some
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Speaker 1: people said that this second wife, Lucy, was pregnant at
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Speaker 1: the time of her death and was still to this day.
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Speaker 1: You'll hear people say she fell through ice, others say
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Speaker 1: the rocks that are on the head, and some say
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Speaker 1: it was poison. Oh my gosh. And and let's just
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Speaker 1: really quickly, you know, the the initial digging revealed only
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Speaker 1: the first wife. The first marriage ended in divorce. But
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Speaker 1: there are these uh differing stories of these other potential
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Speaker 1: um deaths and these potential uh super sketchy deaths, and
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Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it is circumstantial, but it is
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Speaker 1: a smoke fire type situation, and it's certainly but the
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Speaker 1: very least points to Shoe Trout being a pretty awful guy. Um,
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Speaker 1: so he's got this information now. And we also have
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Speaker 1: an account that while he was in prison, um between
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Speaker 1: those marriages for the horse theft, that he bragged about
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Speaker 1: this idea that he was gonna marry seven women in
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Speaker 1: his lifetime. Weird flex weird goal. Uh, to each their own,
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Speaker 1: I guess, but there's a there's definitely that that's the
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Speaker 1: kind of statement that definitely leaves some questions, right because
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Speaker 1: the US at this time has law us against what's
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Speaker 1: known as bigamy. Bigamy is the practice of going to
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Speaker 1: marry someone when you are vact still married to someone else.
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Speaker 1: So he would have been, ah, what sex couple, big amist?
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Speaker 1: I guess it would seem so. And that paired with
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Speaker 1: his previous statement when presented with the plans to exhume
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Speaker 1: his his third dead wife's body. Uh. The the the the
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Speaker 1: apparition in questions. And by the way, my daughter the
11:28
Speaker 1: other day, uh was she likes this anime and it's
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Speaker 1: about ghosts. And she was like, Dad, you know what
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Speaker 1: an operation is? And I got, well, you mean like
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Speaker 1: a ghost, because yeah, an operation? I think you mean apparition,
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Speaker 1: because no, no, it's definitely an operation. I read it
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Speaker 1: on the subtitles right there on the screen, and I
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Speaker 1: had to like break it to her, like, no, you
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Speaker 1: got that one wrong. And she hasn't spoken to me since.
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Speaker 1: But yeah, today's apparition in question. UM. So, between all
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Speaker 1: of those details, even though they're circumstantial, um and shoes
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Speaker 1: statement of if I you know O. J. Simpson like
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Speaker 1: statement of, well, you're gonna arrest me, but you're not
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Speaker 1: gonna be able to prove that I did it. It
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Speaker 1: was enough for for this um prosecutor to bring him
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Speaker 1: to trial, and there was a grand jury assembled and
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Speaker 1: the trial began in June Louisburg, West Virginia. June seven,
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Speaker 1: Trout hires two defense lawyers, William Reekler and James Gardner,
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Speaker 1: to be his representatives in a court of law. James Gardner,
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Speaker 1: by the way, is the very first black lawyer to
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Speaker 1: practice in a circuit court in the state of West Virginia.
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Speaker 1: At the trial, here's the tricky thing. There's not a
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Speaker 1: togn of hard evidence available. Yes, Elva Zona's neck is
12:52
Speaker 1: broken and there are hand marks for sure, but as
12:55
Speaker 1: we pointed out, forensic science then is not what it
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Speaker 1: is today, and yes, Trout did brag. They will not
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Speaker 1: be able to prove I did it, which is a quote.
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Speaker 1: But that's not that doesn't get you beyond reasonable doubt
13:12
Speaker 1: in a murder case, you know what I mean. So
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Speaker 1: the defense calls Mary Jane to the stand and the
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Speaker 1: defense attorney asked her to describe her visits from this operation,
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Speaker 1: this ghost and she does this was the defense. Most
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Speaker 1: likely this was the defense's attempt to attack her credibility right,
13:36
Speaker 1: to make her seem like a crazy grieving parent. Uh.
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Speaker 1: But she stuck to her guns and later a full
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Speaker 1: transcript of this conversation was published by a newspaper called
13:48
Speaker 1: The Monroe Watchman. We tease, we tease this little bit.
13:52
Speaker 1: We're not going to give you the whole transcript, but
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Speaker 1: we think it might be suitable for a bit of
13:56
Speaker 1: a what do you think, knowl a dramatic reenactment. Yeah, yeah,
14:00
Speaker 1: I think so. And listen and any Southern drawl accents
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Speaker 1: we do, we come, We come honestly by we're from
14:07
Speaker 1: the South, Ben, you're from Tennessee. You know, we're not
14:10
Speaker 1: making fun of anybody. They're just fun to do. Can
14:12
Speaker 1: we all agree on that that we're not trying to
14:15
Speaker 1: make fun of anybody's culture or background. Here, do you
14:17
Speaker 1: want to rock paper scissors for the attorney? Absolutely? Okay,
14:22
Speaker 1: it's one to three shoot right, one to three shot less,
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Speaker 1: eyes closed, so there's no lag because it just there's
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Speaker 1: a lag on the video. Okay, Casey, you're are impartial
14:29
Speaker 1: witness and uh watching death batch. So the winner is
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Speaker 1: the attorney? Ready? Okay? Alright? One? Two, eyes open. Both
14:38
Speaker 1: were below the camera line. I think I see paper
14:41
Speaker 1: and says all right, okay, I'm a scissor. Okay, I
14:44
Speaker 1: might trust that you didn't cheat. I never never, that's alright,
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Speaker 1: would never. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't stooped to
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Speaker 1: that level. Here we hit the music. Mrs Kista, are
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Speaker 1: you positively sure that these visits are not four dreams? Why? Yes, sir,
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Speaker 1: it was not a dream. I don't dream when I
15:08
Speaker 1: am quide awake to be sure, and I know I
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Speaker 1: saw her right there with me. Are you are you
15:14
Speaker 1: not considerably superstitious? And no, sir, I am not. I
15:19
Speaker 1: was never that way before and I am not now.
15:22
Speaker 1: I thought, but do you believe in the scriptures? Yes, sir,
15:27
Speaker 1: I have no reason not to believe. It, And do
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Speaker 1: you believe the scriptures contain the word of God and
15:34
Speaker 1: his son, Yes, sir, I do. Don't you believe it? Now?
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Speaker 1: I would like it if I could to get you
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Speaker 1: to say that these were four dreams and not four
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Speaker 1: visions or appearances of your daughter in flesh and blood.
15:50
Speaker 1: I am not going to say that, or I am
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Speaker 1: not going to lie and seen and seen all right,
16:01
Speaker 1: case you could just out of pity throw us an
16:04
Speaker 1: applause que because I know our fellow ridiculous history. That
16:08
Speaker 1: is no pity applause those accents where there's something else.
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Speaker 1: Oh wow, so okay, alright, I'll take that backhanded compliment
16:15
Speaker 1: all day long. You're on thin ice, my friend. I
16:19
Speaker 1: can't believe I gave you. Oh oh okay, now now
16:25
Speaker 1: all right, you know, moving on, we're working live. Here's
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Speaker 1: the deal. Many of the people in town, maybe not
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Speaker 1: all twelve jury members, but many people of the town
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Speaker 1: believed he's her story. She seemed sincere, She did not
16:39
Speaker 1: seem as though she had some sort of ulterior motive
16:43
Speaker 1: to murder her own daughter. She certainly wasn't getting any
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Speaker 1: money out of this, and uh, to be honest, Erasmus
16:50
Speaker 1: didn't really do himself any favors. When he took the stand,
16:53
Speaker 1: he was just kind of like rambling, like a crazy
16:57
Speaker 1: guy who accidentally walked onto the Ted Talk stage. He
17:00
Speaker 1: was saying stuff to the jury, like like interrupting the
17:04
Speaker 1: lawyers and saying like, look into my face and then
17:07
Speaker 1: you tell me if I'm guilty, which is the worst
17:12
Speaker 1: thing to say, especially they're like a super guilty looking dude,
17:16
Speaker 1: Like I'd be like, look away from my face. But
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Speaker 1: maybe no mind, you know, um, it's it's it's very
17:21
Speaker 1: interesting scene. And not to mention this didn't really come up,
17:24
Speaker 1: but this is just my two cents. Uh. You know,
17:27
Speaker 1: this was an elderly lady, and these were the types
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Speaker 1: of injuries that were clearly inflicted by hand, by very
17:34
Speaker 1: strong hands, like animalistically strong hands, perhaps the hands of
17:39
Speaker 1: a trout. A trout don't have hands, but a guy
17:43
Speaker 1: with a nickname trout does. Yep. And because the jury
17:47
Speaker 1: had no hard evidence to consider, just circumstantial stuff, and
17:52
Speaker 1: then of course what appears to be the testimony of
17:55
Speaker 1: a woman who received information from a ghost, they're left
17:59
Speaker 1: with kind of feeling out the vibe, you know what
18:01
Speaker 1: I mean, going with their guts and this guy makes
18:04
Speaker 1: a terrible first impression on them. Uh. So the judge said,
18:09
Speaker 1: you know, there's no middle ground for the jury to take.
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Speaker 1: The verdict inevitably and logically must be for murder in
18:16
Speaker 1: the first degree or for an acquittal. No other choices,
18:20
Speaker 1: no manslaughter, nothing like that. The jury deliberates, but they
18:26
Speaker 1: don't go twelve angreen Men's style. They're only deliberating for
18:30
Speaker 1: maybe an hour and change. Surprised it took him that long. Yeah,
18:34
Speaker 1: what are they find? Well, I mean, yeah, they convicted
18:38
Speaker 1: the guy. I mean, I just can't imagine what else
18:41
Speaker 1: they would have done. Um, when presented with especially such
18:44
Speaker 1: unsympathetic testimony from the man himself. Look at my face,
18:48
Speaker 1: look at my tail me. There's a face, the face
18:53
Speaker 1: of a child of God. Right, no, no, uh yeah,
18:56
Speaker 1: but they sentenced him to life. Uh And it turns
18:59
Speaker 1: out that's exactly what they took. Uh. As they say
19:03
Speaker 1: in the Shawshank redemption, only in this case it means
19:06
Speaker 1: that he died pretty quickly in prison of an undetermined malady.
19:12
Speaker 1: But as we know, in the time the spring of
19:15
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred, um, something we can relate do There are
19:18
Speaker 1: quite a few epidemics running around measles and pneumonia were
19:22
Speaker 1: absolutely ripping through this particular prison, the Moundsville State Prison.
19:28
Speaker 1: Um and he had no one to come and claim
19:33
Speaker 1: his body. Uh. And this is all from actually the
19:36
Speaker 1: the official website of Greenbrier, West Virginia. And so now
19:40
Speaker 1: we're question the very Halloweenny question for everyone in the crowd,
19:45
Speaker 1: true believers and skeptics alike. Was it a ghostly visitation
19:50
Speaker 1: or was it simply mother's intuition that uncovered the murderer.
19:55
Speaker 1: Mary Jane Hayster lived long after trout Erasmus has pass
20:00
Speaker 1: the way. If she lived until nineteen sixteen, she never
20:02
Speaker 1: changed her story about Alvirizona's ghost. Maybe it was her
20:07
Speaker 1: story that swayed the jury and won the case. Maybe
20:12
Speaker 1: it wasn't. And as they say in a great Mental
20:16
Speaker 1: Philoss article about this, maybe her daughter did speak to
20:20
Speaker 1: her from beyond the grave. Maybe it was all Mary
20:22
Speaker 1: Jane's head, or maybe just maybe she had arrived at
20:26
Speaker 1: the information through mundane means and chose to frame it
20:31
Speaker 1: in this, in this otherworldly lie, to get more like
20:36
Speaker 1: eyes on it, to get more attention. Uh. But no
20:39
Speaker 1: matter what, she did not have the ghost story. She
20:42
Speaker 1: would not have gone to the prosecutor, and the prosecutor
20:45
Speaker 1: never would have put those pieces together. And uh, it's
20:49
Speaker 1: quite possible that shoe would have been on spouse number four.
20:54
Speaker 1: Pretty soon the shoe would have been on the other spouse.
20:59
Speaker 1: Never her mind, I was just the shoe on the
21:02
Speaker 1: other foot. Forget it. Forget I said, thank you, thank
21:06
Speaker 1: you so much. UM. And so that's essentially, uh, the
21:11
Speaker 1: end of you know, the main part of the story.
21:14
Speaker 1: But it actually becomes a little bit more of a legend, um,
21:20
Speaker 1: which I love. The idea of the legend of Zona
21:23
Speaker 1: makes me think of the legend of Zelda, of course, UM.
21:26
Speaker 1: But it's mainly referred to in folklore in the lower
21:31
Speaker 1: I guess of the area of Appalachia as the Greenbrier Ghost,
21:34
Speaker 1: and it has taken on sort of a life of
21:36
Speaker 1: its own over the years. It's told on a lot
21:39
Speaker 1: of like ghost tours, which we know well even around
21:42
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, but especially in more haunted rural type
21:46
Speaker 1: places or like New Orleans. You might think of, um,
21:49
Speaker 1: but there is actually a West Virginia micro brewery named
21:53
Speaker 1: Zona's Revenge, which is uh, it's in her honor and
21:58
Speaker 1: is device Biau which is a very nice it's a
22:00
Speaker 1: very drinkable summary kind of beer. If you haven't had
22:02
Speaker 1: a vice beer, I highly recommend it. Um And, but
22:05
Speaker 1: I know you're a fan of this Jenna Pierson Um.
22:08
Speaker 1: The comic appears on an episode of Drunk History and
22:12
Speaker 1: and tells the drunk version of this story. Um And
22:16
Speaker 1: it has been adapted into quite a few stage plays.
22:20
Speaker 1: There's even a musical which I want to hear all
22:23
Speaker 1: about the Greenbrier Ghost. The musical written by somebody named
22:27
Speaker 1: clais Ambo, which is a fabulous name from the nation,
22:32
Speaker 1: you know, clais Ambosh Well, music and lyrics by clais
22:37
Speaker 1: Ambo and it was apparently there's there's a you can
22:39
Speaker 1: you can read about it on new play exchange dot org. Um.
22:44
Speaker 1: But it did seem to capture people's imagination. I'm surprised
22:48
Speaker 1: that we haven't seen it as a podcast. Yeah, I mean,
22:51
Speaker 1: I guess you know we are doing it as a podcast,
22:53
Speaker 1: but I mean as like a spooky Halloween fiction podcast
22:56
Speaker 1: like Thirteen Days of Halloween from featuring the original works
23:03
Speaker 1: of Ben Bolan and a slew of other incredible writers,
23:06
Speaker 1: most of which are from right here in the Atlanta area,
23:10
Speaker 1: made by our very own Ride or Die compatriots Matt
23:15
Speaker 1: Frederick and the one and only Alex Williams who composed
23:19
Speaker 1: this uh this banging track. Well, don't worry, Alex, I
23:22
Speaker 1: know you listen to this show entirely for the part
23:24
Speaker 1: where we thank you at the end. We'll make sure
23:26
Speaker 1: to do it. There's still a little bit of an
23:33
Speaker 1: apologue here, because if you are a fan of road trips,
23:36
Speaker 1: so you live in the area and you want to
23:38
Speaker 1: see the living history, go to US sixty and between
23:43
Speaker 1: sam Black Church and the I sixty four entrance ramp,
23:46
Speaker 1: you can pull over and see a state highway marker
23:49
Speaker 1: that sums up this story, saying the following interred in
23:53
Speaker 1: a nearby cemetery, Zona Heaster Shoe. Her death in e
23:58
Speaker 1: was presumed natural until her spirit appeared to her mother
24:02
Speaker 1: to describe how she was killed by her husband, Edward.
24:05
Speaker 1: Erasmus introduced himself as Edward. By the way, we made
24:08
Speaker 1: the editorial choice to go with the much cooler name
24:11
Speaker 1: a top and apologies to the Edwards in the crowd.
24:14
Speaker 1: You can go by Erasmus if you want. Man. The
24:16
Speaker 1: world is yours, carpet diam uh and autopsy on the
24:20
Speaker 1: exhumed body, verified the apparition's account Edward found guilty of
24:24
Speaker 1: murder was sentenced to state prison. It's strange because you know,
24:30
Speaker 1: later investigators like Katie Letcher Lyle have have made some
24:37
Speaker 1: pretty compelling arguments that Mary Jane was leaning into a
24:42
Speaker 1: supernatural angle to get leverage, uh and and get her
24:49
Speaker 1: somewhat suspicious neighbors to to support her cause. And you know,
24:55
Speaker 1: whether or not you believe in ghosts, the fact of
24:57
Speaker 1: the matter is it worked and justice was served. And
25:00
Speaker 1: if you look at the evidence, we have now what
25:03
Speaker 1: a d and twenty four years later, so he did
25:06
Speaker 1: it like he he killed her? Right, we can agree
25:10
Speaker 1: that's pretty conclusive. With just about zero percent uncertainty. Um,
25:16
Speaker 1: we we can conclude that. But here's the thing. We
25:20
Speaker 1: do have a precedence that Zona's mother likely would have
25:25
Speaker 1: been aware of UM for perhaps shaping her telling of
25:30
Speaker 1: this ghost story in a way that might sway a
25:33
Speaker 1: jury right when Zona's life was taken. One of the
25:38
Speaker 1: places that her death was first reported we mentioned this
25:41
Speaker 1: was in a publication called the Greenbrier Independent on page
25:45
Speaker 1: three in January UM specifically the eight UM and it
25:51
Speaker 1: was only briefly mentioned, but this is how it went.
25:54
Speaker 1: Mrs E Z Shoe, wife of E. S. Shoe, died
25:59
Speaker 1: at her home in the rich Lands, this County on
26:02
Speaker 1: Sunday last um aged twenty second years. Mrs Shu was
26:07
Speaker 1: a daughter of Mr Hedges, heaster of meadow Bluff District.
26:12
Speaker 1: Mr Shu formerly lived in Pocahonna's County. But on the
26:17
Speaker 1: very front page of this publication was a headline a
26:23
Speaker 1: ghost story and it went on to talk about a
26:28
Speaker 1: case in Australia that was happening around the same time. Ben,
26:33
Speaker 1: would you like to do a bit of this reading here? Sure,
26:36
Speaker 1: and we'll do this in perhaps the accent of the reporter.
26:40
Speaker 1: One of the most famous murder cases you know Australia
26:44
Speaker 1: was discovered by the ghost of a murdered man sitting
26:47
Speaker 1: on the rail of a damn that's Australian for hurst
26:50
Speaker 1: pond into which his body had been thrown. Numberless people
26:54
Speaker 1: saw it, and the crime was duly brought home years
26:57
Speaker 1: after dying. Man making his con fashion said that he
27:01
Speaker 1: invented the ghost. He witnessed the crime, but was threatened
27:05
Speaker 1: with death if he divulged it as he wished to,
27:07
Speaker 1: and the only way he saw out of the impasse
27:09
Speaker 1: was to effect to see the ghost where the body
27:12
Speaker 1: would be found. As soon as he started the story
27:15
Speaker 1: such as the power of nervousness, that numerous other people
27:18
Speaker 1: began to say it until its fame reached such dimensions,
27:22
Speaker 1: lad of search was might and the body found and
27:25
Speaker 1: the murderers brought to justice. That's interesting, right, because we're like,
27:30
Speaker 1: we know Mary Jane is probably reading this paper. Yeah,
27:34
Speaker 1: it's the front page. She wouldn't have been able to
27:36
Speaker 1: miss it. And it's also the paper that contains the
27:39
Speaker 1: announcement of her daughter's uh tragic passing. Yes, exactly so
27:44
Speaker 1: and so uh maybe, just maybe, and this is to
27:48
Speaker 1: be fair of this speculation on our part and the
27:51
Speaker 1: part of other other people who may share this belief.
27:54
Speaker 1: But just maybe mary Jane saw this and hatched the
27:59
Speaker 1: plan because she thought this would help galvanize local law
28:07
Speaker 1: enforcement and authorities to do a better job investigating this.
28:11
Speaker 1: Or maybe it was unconscious on her part, because she's
28:15
Speaker 1: in a very traumatized mental state at this time. So
28:17
Speaker 1: it's quite possible, for example, that she read it and
28:21
Speaker 1: didn't consciously register it and it just affected what she
28:25
Speaker 1: believed she experienced later, you know, what I mean, absolutely, Yeah,
28:28
Speaker 1: it could have been a ghost, you know. I it's
28:31
Speaker 1: interesting that this this is hard to ignore, don't you think, Ben,
28:36
Speaker 1: The coincidence here of this other story literally setting a
28:40
Speaker 1: precedent for, you know, concocting a ghost story to make
28:44
Speaker 1: sure that someone's killer actually gets convicted in the same
28:47
Speaker 1: exact publication that the announcement of her daughter's death, where
28:51
Speaker 1: she definitely would have had eyes on that, her being
28:53
Speaker 1: a bit of a shrewd woman clearly, um, and having
28:58
Speaker 1: known this gentleman was a bit of a no good neck, uh,
29:02
Speaker 1: and also knowing that he was being super sketchy around
29:05
Speaker 1: the neck. And I guess it being a quite patriarchal society,
29:10
Speaker 1: the mother would have had very little ability to do
29:12
Speaker 1: anything about that, you know, just to to to call
29:16
Speaker 1: him out in public, you know, in that way, So
29:18
Speaker 1: she would have had to go about it in a
29:21
Speaker 1: bit of a more circuitous path. Yeah. And I think
29:24
Speaker 1: that's an excellent point. I mean, it reminds me of
29:28
Speaker 1: some of the other stuff we've done about the socio
29:33
Speaker 1: economic context of exorcisms, right, I was thinking the very
29:38
Speaker 1: same thing, Ben. Yeah. So, and that's something you can
29:41
Speaker 1: check out on on on the other show, we do
29:43
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know. Uh, that's I
29:47
Speaker 1: think there's a lot to be said there. Uh. We
29:50
Speaker 1: know that this is not necessarily the only case where
29:55
Speaker 1: people feel a murderer has been revealed by a ghost.
29:59
Speaker 1: But at this time, even now, in the case of
30:03
Speaker 1: the Greenbrier ghost, remains the only time in US history
30:08
Speaker 1: that a murder conviction has been determined by a source
30:14
Speaker 1: reportedly beyond the grave here here. What do you think, Ben,
30:19
Speaker 1: Have we've done justice to this two parter? Yet? Should
30:22
Speaker 1: we keep going? I think I think we've I think
30:24
Speaker 1: we've done it. I think we have successfully made a
30:28
Speaker 1: two parter on purpose, which is which is big for us. Uh,
30:32
Speaker 1: you know, I want I want there to be ghost man.
30:35
Speaker 1: But this is such a great story that I propose
30:39
Speaker 1: we passed the torch to our fellow ridiculous historians to
30:42
Speaker 1: tell us some of their favorite ghost stories. What do
30:45
Speaker 1: you think? I agree? Ben? Do you have any of
30:48
Speaker 1: you had any brushes with the with the afterworld? I have.
30:53
Speaker 1: There are things I can't explain, but I think automatically
30:58
Speaker 1: calling those uh spirits or ghost is kind of explaining them,
31:05
Speaker 1: you know, when I don't what I don't have the evidence.
31:07
Speaker 1: I will see. My family believes in a lot of
31:09
Speaker 1: that stuff historically. Yeah, and my ex wife and and
31:12
Speaker 1: you know, one of my best friends, Casey, is very
31:15
Speaker 1: much a spiritual person and is into like Wicca and
31:18
Speaker 1: a lot of that stuff and stuff that I'm not.
31:20
Speaker 1: I I wouldn't like poopoo or anything, but it's not
31:22
Speaker 1: necessarily my wheelhouse or or stuff that I fully understand
31:26
Speaker 1: or believe. I would say, but I would never judge
31:29
Speaker 1: anybody else for their beliefs or whatever they might be.
31:32
Speaker 1: I did. I think I've told the story on stuthing
31:34
Speaker 1: that I want you to know before, and I'll tell
31:35
Speaker 1: the very abbreviated version of it. Um. I had the
31:38
Speaker 1: closest thing that I would call a brush with the
31:41
Speaker 1: supernatural when I was late high school. The girl that
31:44
Speaker 1: I dated for a really long time was older than me,
31:46
Speaker 1: and she was in college and I would visit her
31:49
Speaker 1: after class, um and she'd wait for me in her car.
31:52
Speaker 1: And it was really cold one day and I walked
31:54
Speaker 1: up to her car and she was sitting in the
31:56
Speaker 1: car and she looked like visibly shaken, and she was
31:58
Speaker 1: kind of like crying. I said, what's going on on
32:00
Speaker 1: and she blew on the inside of her windshield and
32:04
Speaker 1: the signature appeared, and it was the signature of her friend,
32:08
Speaker 1: our friend, but her best friend, um, Missa, who had
32:12
Speaker 1: died in a car accident about three weeks prior. And
32:17
Speaker 1: I just got hit with the most you know, intense
32:20
Speaker 1: sense of I am experiencing a ghostly apparition, a ghostly vision.
32:26
Speaker 1: That is what this is, no question about it. And
32:29
Speaker 1: I was shaken. I was moved to tears, and I
32:32
Speaker 1: really didn't know what to think and other than that's
32:35
Speaker 1: what this is. And then a little time passed and
32:38
Speaker 1: I thought about it, and it's like, you know, it's
32:39
Speaker 1: the kind of thing young girls do. They write their
32:41
Speaker 1: names on the inside of you know, foggy windshields with
32:44
Speaker 1: their fingers, and uh, if it had been recent enough,
32:46
Speaker 1: you've got oils on your fingers that would cause it
32:49
Speaker 1: to leave a mark that you could uh, you know,
32:51
Speaker 1: blow on and you could see that kind of return. Um.
32:55
Speaker 1: But I swear to God, ma'am, I felt the spirit.
32:58
Speaker 1: I really did. And then I sort of explained it away,
33:01
Speaker 1: which is almost sad, but that I couldn't deny that
33:05
Speaker 1: part of the story either. Yeah, yeah, well, in the
33:09
Speaker 1: spirit of pro quoa, I'll give you a story as well.
33:13
Speaker 1: But first casey, do you have now that we're gathered
33:17
Speaker 1: around our zoom campfire, do you have something to tell
33:20
Speaker 1: us as the uh the flames throw orange shadows and
33:24
Speaker 1: shades across your face. No, I have to be kind
33:26
Speaker 1: of disappointing here, although I do remember um playing like
33:30
Speaker 1: that game Bloody Mary as a kid at at a
33:33
Speaker 1: friend's house. Oh God, why would you why would you do? Hand? Uh?
33:36
Speaker 1: And and really really psyching ourselves up and and you
33:39
Speaker 1: know it was it was like an old house and
33:41
Speaker 1: it was full of weird noises and stuff. So you know,
33:44
Speaker 1: we we heard stuff, felt like we saw stuff because
33:46
Speaker 1: it was just candlelight. But um, I'm pretty sure we
33:49
Speaker 1: were just kind of highly suggestible maybe, but um yeah,
33:53
Speaker 1: that's about the closest I can recall from the ghostly realm.
33:56
Speaker 1: So uh, in the spirit of fairness, then I will say,
34:00
Speaker 1: without shouting out specific family members, there is a little
34:04
Speaker 1: bit of a stereotype persistent in days of yore around
34:08
Speaker 1: uh my ancestors malungeons. Uh. Usually like allegations of witchcraft
34:15
Speaker 1: or they have secret hordes riches that they got through
34:19
Speaker 1: magical means dark magical means. Uh. And keep in mind
34:22
Speaker 1: that riches in like seventeen hundreds eight hundreds rural Tennessee
34:28
Speaker 1: or not what you would consider riches in New York City.
34:31
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. But for most of my
34:34
Speaker 1: life growing up, I've heard stories that hinge on things
34:37
Speaker 1: more like uh, precognitive dreams or claar avoyance from my family.
34:43
Speaker 1: And in my lifetime I've I have seen things that
34:47
Speaker 1: I cannot as I try, as try as I might,
34:51
Speaker 1: I cannot explain through mundane means. To give a light note,
34:55
Speaker 1: we used to travel all the time right in the
34:58
Speaker 1: days before the pandemic, and I can't wait to get
35:00
Speaker 1: on the road again with you guys. But on a
35:02
Speaker 1: lighter note, one of my favorite Franks and hotels, I
35:07
Speaker 1: will tell you. I hope you guys don't hate me
35:09
Speaker 1: after this, because it may be a little mean for
35:12
Speaker 1: some folks in the crowd, but it's so fun. I
35:14
Speaker 1: used to take shaving cream. Take shaving cream and you
35:18
Speaker 1: write a message on the mirror, or cryptic message, and
35:21
Speaker 1: then you clean it off, and then when someone turns
35:24
Speaker 1: on the shower and the room fogs up, then that
35:29
Speaker 1: message will be visible because the condensation will work the
35:33
Speaker 1: same way on the part where the shaving cream was
35:36
Speaker 1: so I used to write stuff like they're coming race.
35:42
Speaker 1: Do you think spooky ghost ever haunt via shaving cream?
35:46
Speaker 1: I would love that. That would be cool. Yeah. I
35:48
Speaker 1: don't know, man, I just I thought it was fun,
35:51
Speaker 1: little plots with spice up people's lives, you know what
35:53
Speaker 1: I mean. It's a little bit of a little bit
35:55
Speaker 1: of light anarchic, a little bit of SubGenius stuff there.
35:58
Speaker 1: But it's fun. It's like making fake lost posters. I
36:01
Speaker 1: used to make missing posters for boomerangs and stuff like that.
36:05
Speaker 1: That's pretty funny, Ben, that's very datta. I like that
36:08
Speaker 1: very much. Hey, is this the last spooky episode of
36:10
Speaker 1: the season for us? And am I getting the calendar
36:12
Speaker 1: meddled up? Yeah? I think you're right. Well, this will
36:15
Speaker 1: wrap it up for our Halloween extravaganza. See, but can
36:19
Speaker 1: we just keep can't we just keep doing it? Once to?
36:22
Speaker 1: I mean, it feels sometimes like it's always Halloween in America. Now,
36:26
Speaker 1: I feel like November is sort of Halloween e a
36:28
Speaker 1: little bit, you know. Yeah, it's it's it's happy halloweyn,
36:33
Speaker 1: you know. We made up our own spin on the holiday.
36:36
Speaker 1: Are our our how Halloween is just two months of Halloween?
36:40
Speaker 1: There we go because we definitely have more spooky stories
36:43
Speaker 1: and the and the and the research materials that we
36:46
Speaker 1: could talk about. I don't know, we don't have to
36:48
Speaker 1: limit ourselves. We don't you know, maybe the real Halloween
36:51
Speaker 1: was the friends we made along the way. The which
36:56
Speaker 1: is how you always end in prop shows if you
36:58
Speaker 1: just need to get out of the scene. But it's
37:01
Speaker 1: a very good place. But the Yeah, we've had a
37:05
Speaker 1: blast with this. And you could say it's not Halloween
37:09
Speaker 1: if it's every day of the year. Um, but we
37:12
Speaker 1: hope that you have enjoyed this. And hey, just because
37:15
Speaker 1: this is coming out towards the end of the season,
37:19
Speaker 1: don't feel like you can't send us nicknames. Don't feel
37:22
Speaker 1: like they have to be spooky, send us full nicknames.
37:25
Speaker 1: Shout out to Melissa in over On Ridiculous Historians who
37:30
Speaker 1: gave me the nickname Ben Boo Bolan, which I'm frankly surprised.
37:34
Speaker 1: What did you think of that one? Already know that
37:37
Speaker 1: was the very first one. It's the most go to, easy,
37:41
Speaker 1: low hanging Halloween fruit that ever could be but thanks
37:44
Speaker 1: for the callback. Full circle, my friend, Full circle. Happy Halloween, everybody.
37:49
Speaker 1: Big thank you to Alex Williams, Big thank you to
37:52
Speaker 1: Christopher hasci Otis. Big thank you to use super producer
37:58
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram whatever. John, I'm I'm I'm fading guys at
38:03
Speaker 1: six o'clock here, It's Friday, uh, and I am ready
38:07
Speaker 1: to flee. I'm kind of punch you too, man, I'm
38:10
Speaker 1: kind of punchy too. All right, let's leave it to that.
38:12
Speaker 1: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts for
38:23
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
38:26
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,