Chapter Text
Calm but eerie music filtered through the room, a light haze to the air from incense burning, all the lighting tinged slightly purple. A small round table sat three young women, who looked to be chatting amongst themselves. To the left, a human with her brown hair tied up in a messy bun lounged in a way that only looked vaguely comfortable in the wooden chair she sat in. To the right, a blue tiefling surrounded by a stack of index cards and several pastries. In the middle, a small goblin woman, long black hair tied into braids, who looked more interested in her comically large flask than the conversation happening between the other women.
There was a moment where the two just made wordless eye contact, the tiefling looking very smug, the human looking defiant, when suddenly the former turned to face the camera, and the sound of her voice rang clear. “Oh, hi! Welcome to M9 Unsolved! I’m Jester!” Jester smiled and waved her hand energetically, not noticing the goblin woman startle at her voice, and motioning for the human to continue.
“I’m Beau,” the human woman said un-enthusiastically with as small a wave she could get away with.
“I’m--” the goblin woman covered her mouth and coughed on the contents of her flask, and Jester rubbed her back while Beau tried not to laugh. “I’m Nott, the Brave,” Nott tried again, voice a little rougher than usual.
“Already scared, Nott?” Beau teased.
“One of these days I will fight you in a Denny’s parking lot and win,” Nott replied confidently.
“Today,” Jester continued, ignoring the other two. “We will be doing the first part of our ‘Ghosts Who Solved Their Own Murders’ episode! So, to start off and stuff we’re going to be talking about the Greenbrier Ghost since its the most, like, well-known one.”
“Can I just say,” Beau interrupted. “Before we start, that like you guys can hear the lofi ghost music, but for those who are just listening, this room reeks of patchouli, there's crystals, including a crystal ball, on a very goth looking cloth on the table. There’s skulls and house plants everywhere, and this weird antique cabinet with alcohol in fancy old glasses. Who the fuck designed this set; Molly? I feel like I’m about to be ripped off by Madame Tracy.”
A purple hand came from beside the camera and flipped off Beau, politely informing her in what might have been an Irish accent that in fact “Yasha actually helped me with the atmosphere a lot.”
Beau paled, immediately backpedaling. “And I love it! This whole about-to-do-a-seance vibe is really great! I’m just making sure the people at home get the full experience.”
The purple hand retreated with a quiet laugh. Jester cleared her throat and smiled at Beau. “You ready?”
“For you guys to convert me to the occult?”
“No!” said Jester, sounding like she might be lying.
“Yes,” said Nott, sounding entirely serious before taking another sip from her flask.
“Hey, wait a--”
“Anyway! Here you go Nott you get half the cards. I go first, then you, okay?” Jester handed over cards covered in writing and colored with highlighter. Nott agreed and flipped through her own cards, scanning them.
“No, no, hold on I--” Beau starts. The screen cuts to black, images and text popping up as Jester reads the first card.
Zona Heaster Shue of Greenbrier County, West Virginia, was murdered in 1897. She was originally thought to have died of natural causes, but was later found to have been murdered by her husband, Eramus Stribbling Trout Shue. A testimony from Zona’s mother, Mary Jane Heaster, claimed that Zona’s spirit had revealed the true cause of death.
“Can you imagine being named Trout Shoe ?” Beau made a face, as if the idea physically hurt her. “Can you imagine your parents hating you so much they named you Trout Shoe ?”
“Try saying his full name five times fast,” Jester giggled. “As a warm up exercise!”
“What was his name again?” Nott asked.
“Eramus Stribbling Trout Shue.”
The next thirty seconds or so are spent with the three of them all talking over each other, trying to say the name five times fast, or even just remembering the full name. Then, Nott cleared her throat and began to read her card.
Zona was born in Greenbrier County around 1873. She was brought up near Richlands, and had a child out of wedlock in 1895. In 1896 Zona met Shue, a drifter in search of a new life and a blacksmithing job. The two soon married, despite the objections of Mary.
“ I’ll show you, mom, I’m gonna go marry a drifter ! ” Beau mocked.
Jester gasped, mock offended, before breaking down into a fit of giggles, before shuffling to her next set of cards.
On January 23rd, 1897, Zona’s body was found by a young boy Shue had sent on an errand. Zona was found at the foot of the stairs, stretched out, feet together, and with a hand on her stomach.
“So far I know three things about this guy,” Beau starts.
“Go on,” Nott encourages her.
“He killed his wife after being married for about a year.”
“Mmhmm.”
“He was a fucking drifter and still managed to cuff somehow?”
“Yeah, Zona was settling for sure.”
“And he sent a goddamn child to discover his murder? Excuse me?” Beau sounded legitimately offended at this, at which Jester laughed. “Like, couldn’t he have traumatized an adult? Why send the kid?”
“Yeah,” Nott agreed. “This Trout Shoe guy is a real piece of work.”
George W. Kapp, the local doctor and corner was summoned immediately, but took nearly an hour to get there.
“Wow, sounds like response times haven’t changed,” Beau said, unimpressed.
“Well, back then there was like, one doctor per county and they had to get around in carriages or whatever,” Jester defended.
“Okay, yeah, I guess that’s fair then.”
When Kapp arrived, Shue had moved Zona up to the bed, and had dressed her in a high necked dress with a stiff collar. This was highly unusual, as it was traditionally the women of the communities job to wash and dress the body. Dr. Kapp gave the body a brief examination in an attempt to accommodate Shue’s grief. He noted some bruising on her neck, but when he tried to look into it further, Shue reacted violently, and so Kapp left.
“Alright, but like, right there, I would have already called the police and be reporting a murder,” Beau scoffed. “ Hmm? A stiff collar and bruising around the neck that the husband won’t let me see? Sure looks like natural causes to me! ”
Initially, Zona’s cause of death was listed as “Everlasting Faint”, but this was later changed to “Childbirth”. Kapp had been treating her for “Female Trouble”--
“ Female Trouble ,” Nott said in a mocking tone.
“ Female Trouble ,” Jester and Beau repeated one after the other.
--though it was never known if she actually was pregnant. Mary Jane Heaster is reported to have said upon receiving the news that “The Devil has killed her.”
Beau made an unintelligible noise of disbelief. “They couldn’t even tell if she was pregananant?”
“Kapp is out there googling ‘how do u tell if pregnart’,” Nott snorted.
Jester gave the camera a sultry look as the other two laughed, accent heavier than usual, “ Preganté .”
“In all seriousness though, what does it say about this time period if even doctors were like ‘Women...no idea how they work. This one died mysteriously? Pregnant’.” Nott dropped her voice an octave to mimic a man speaking, then read from the next card.
Zona was buried the next day at Soule Chapel Methodist Cemetery. Shue kept a close eye at the head of the open coffin while it was being moved. The body way ‘laid out’ in the Heaster’s home.
Then, Shue began acting erratically. During the wake, he is said to have swung between overwhelming sadness to incredible energy. He allowed no one near the coffin; especially when placing a pillow on one side of her head and a rolled up sheet on the other, supposedly to “help her rest easier”. Shue also tied a large scarf at Zona’s neck, saying that it had been her favorite. This began to arouse suspicion.
“No... really ?” Beau’s voice saturated with sarcasm, leaning forward on the table. “Like, let me just put a neck brace on this corpse no reason she just liked it.”
“She was never comfortable in life so let me just secure her neck a little,” Jester continued the bit.
“Okay but for real we haven’t even gotten to the ghost bit yet,” Beau sank back into her chair in possibly the most inconvenient way possible. “And I’m already convinced Trout Shoe killed her. No ‘ghostly evidence’ is going to sway my opinion.”
“We’ll see,” Nott said ominously.
Several people noted that there seemed to be a “strange looseness” to Zona’s head, and Mary Jane Heaster was convinced Shue had murdered her.
After the wake, Mary tried to return the sheet to Shue, but he refused it. She noticed a strange smell coming from the sheet, so she washed it.
“First of all, that smell was probably formaldehyde, not anything supernatural,” Beau disregarded.
“I don’t think they used formaldehyde in the 1890’s,” Jester said skeptically. “I think it’s more recent than that, you know?”
“Ok Google,” Nott started, her phone chirping to life with the acknowledgment of her voice. “When was formaldehyde first used for embalming?”
They all waited a moment, then a small woman’s voice came from the phone. “ In 1867, the German chemist August Wilhem von Hofmann discovered formaldehyde, whose preservative properties were soon discovered, and became the foundation for modern methods of embalming, replacing previous methods. Dr. Frederic Ryusch was the first one to have used the arterial injection method for embalming. ”
“See? Probably formaldehyde,” Beau said triumphantly, while Jester pursed her lips and made a noise of dissatisfaction. “Secondly, what does her washing the sheet have to do with anything?”
“ Well , if you would let me fucking finish ,” Nott growled, voice full of fake anger as she stood on her chair, just barely making her taller than the two women cackling at her antics. “Then maybe you would know, Beau ! Did you think of that ? Letting me finish a fucking sentance ?! I’ve got like half a card left!”
When Mary placed the sheet in the basin, the water turned red, and when the water cleared, the sheet was stained pink. Mary couldn’t get the stain out, and took it as a sign Zona had been murdered. She prayed for four weeks, hoping Zona would explain what happened.
Nott stared intensely at Beau. “Are you--” Beau started, but interrupted herself with a fit of laughter at the look Nott gave her. “Are you done?”
Nott stared for a moment longer before breaking out into a smile. “Yeah, I’m done.”
“I’m not,” Jester sang.
According to local legend, Zona appeared to Mary after four weeks, and over the course of the next four days. The ghost first appeared as a bright light, eventually taking form and filling the room with a chill. She said Shue was a cruel, abusive man who had attacked her when he believed she had cooked no meat for dinner, and broke her neck. To prove this, the ghost Zona turned her head around until it was facing backwards.
“That’s his fucking motive according to the ghost? No meat for dinner ?” Beau squinted at Jester. “And someone believed this as evidence in a legitimate trial ?”
“I’d kill a man if he didn’t cook me meat for dinner,” Nott piped in with a long sip from her flask, the other two staring at her in an uncomfortable silence, then picked up her cards without another word on the subject.
Mary visited local prosecutor John Alfred Preston with her story, spending the next several hours convincing him to re-open Zona’s case. He did, though it is believed he may have done this because many other locals were also suggesting Zona had been murdered.
“Well, yeah,” Beau said as though this was the most obvious thing in the world, rolling her eyes. “Trout Shoe is being mighty suspicious, like, what? You never committed murder before?”
“It’s funny you should say that,” Jester smiled mysteriously.
“Wait,” Nott paused. “Are you telling me Trout Shoe is a serial killer?”
Beau snorted. “Are you telling me you don’t know? Didn’t you prepare for this show?”
“This,” Nott lifted her flask. “Was my prep. Jester did all the leg work.”
Preston himself visited Kapp, who admitted to not having checked the body thoroughly. This was grounds for an autopsy, and an exhumation was ordered.
On February 22, 1897, Zona’s body was examined in a one room school house.
“Hey kids,” Beau leaned in, stage whispering. “Wanna see a dead body?”
Shue complained about this, but was required by law to be there for the autopsy. He responded by telling them that he knew he would be arrested, but that no one would be able to prove his guilt.
“Can I just say,” Nott paused in her reading of the cards. “That this is the exact same type of guy who if he did get away with murdering his wife, which we already know he doesn’t, that he would write a book about how he would have done it if he had.”
“That’s some very specific shade, Nott,” Beau chuckled.
“He knows what he did.”
The Autopsy lasted three days and found that Zona’s neck had been broken, her windpipe smashed, neck dislocated, ligaments were torn and ruptured, and the hand shaped bruising on her neck meant she had been choked to death.
Due to his behaviour and the strength of the evidence stacking up against him, Shue was arrested and charged with murder.
“So far I’m not seeing that this ghost actually solved her own murder,” Beau looked bored. “It just seems like regular old evidence was damning him.”
“But they wouldn’t have opened the case back up without the mom seeing the ghost!” Jester cried.
“Even you said--or Nott said--one of you definitely said that locals were already suspicious of this weird drifter she married,” Beau argued. “And like, the evidence was all there. They probably would have figured it out eventually. What I don’t get is why Trout Shoe didn’t just run away after killing her? It’s 1897 what are they gonna do, send the hounds after him? He could just change his name and fuck off and no one would know where to find him.”
“I--” Nott started, then held her chin with her little hand, looking deep in thought. “You know what you actually have a point.”
“I’m pretty sure the next murder we are going to talk about the guy did run off and they found him anyway,” Jester supplied. “The next one is actually really interesting, Beau, you’ll like it. It has drama and scandal and secret trysts and a real dirtbag guy as the murderer.”
“I love hearing about dirtbags!” Beau cheered.
Jester smiled, picking up the next set of cards.
Shue was held in Lewisburg jail before the trial. During this time, more information on his otherwise secretive past came to light. He had been married twice before, first to a woman who divorced him shortly after they were married for great cruelty and abuse against her, then to another woman who died mysteriously less than a year after being married.
“Female Troubles?” Beau asked, a hint of humor to her tone.
“Female Troubles,” Nott and Jester echoed.
“But do you see, Beau?” Jester leaned in, smiling widely. “He was divorced for being cruel and abusive! How would Mary have known if Zona hadn’t told her?”
“There are like, a million ways you can tell someone is being abused without a ghost telling you,” Beau countered. “I’d say in fact it’s much easier to just observe abusive behaviors than to have a ghost tell you, seeing as ghosts aren’t real.”
Jester pouted, but kept reading.
Shue began to talk of wanting to marry seven women while in jail, and even told reporters that he would be let free as there was not enough evidence against him.
“Wow, Trout Shoe is kind of a huge dirtbag too, huh?” Beau clucked, unimpressed.
“He did murder two women and sent a child to discover the body he knew would be there,” Nott added.
“Yeah, true, but this is some next level fuck boy-ery.”
Trial began June 22nd, 1897, with Mary as the star witness. Preston avoided talk of the ghost she had seen, but in an attempt to ruin her credibility as a witness, Shue’s lawyer asked extensive questions about Zona’s visits. This ended up backfiring, as Mary never wavered in her story despite intense badgering.
Since the defence had brought up the evidence of Zona’s ghostly visits, the judge found he couldn’t really tell the jury to disregard the evidence, and many people in the community already believed the story.
Nott and Jester both looked to Beau.
“What?”
“Well? Don’t you have anything to add?” Jester asked.
“So, let me get this straight,” Beau motioned with an open hand toward Jester. “I’m supposed to believe in this ghost because a town full of bored idiots in 1897 believed it?”
“She never messed up the story in court, Beau!” Nott added.
“Yeah, well, she probably had a lot of practice telling it! She probably told the whole damn town a thousand times!”
“People mess up when their lying,” Jester added in a cryptic tone. “Like, almost every time.”
“Only if they get cocky about it,” Beau retorted.
Shue was found guilty on July 11th, and sentenced to life in prison in West Virginia State Penitentiary. A lynch mob was formed to take him from jail and hang him, but was disbanded. Shue died three years later on March 13th, 1900, due to an unknown epidemic.
“So you’re not going to try and convince me that Zona’s ghost killed him?”
“She might have,” Nott added, taking another sip from her flask. She should have probably been showing more signs of being drunk by now, given her small size and the size of her flask, but she wasn’t. “You never know.”
“It’s certainly a theory,” Jester nodded. Beau snorted, and Nott looked to her final set of cards.
There was a pause. “Wait...really?”
Jester giggled. “Yeah!”
“What?”
“So,” Nott continued. “This next bit is apparently about ‘Modern Interpretations’ and just...wow.”
There are three stage adaptations of the Greenbrier Ghost. Jan Buttram’s play Zona in 1998 by Greenbrier Valley Theater.
Beau laughed. “ Buttram .”
The Greenbrier Ghost , a full-length musical by Cathey Sawyer and Joe Buttram in 2003 at Greenbrier Valley Theater.
“These Buttram’s just can’t get enough of Zona,” Nott sounded astonished.
“Also apparently nothing else of importance ever happened in the valley so they just kept making re-boots of the same murder,” Beau chuckled.
Greenbrier, 1897 , another full-length musical by Lovewell Institute for the Creative Arts in 2018 can be found on YouTube.
“Holy shit,” Beau regarded, wide eyed. “ Two musicals?”
“I mean it’s not that weird concidering most musicals involve a murder,” Jester mentioned. “ Chicago is all about murder.”
“ The Phantom of the Opera ,” Nott added.
“ Hamilton ,” Beau replied grimly.
Jester and Nott clutched their chests and made distressed noises.
The Unquiet Grave is a book about the Greenbrier Ghost by Sharynn McCrumb, written in 2017.
“Thats a fucking dope name for a book,” Beau nodded approvingly.
“I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts, Beau?” Jester teased.
“I’m allowed to enjoy works of fiction, Jester.”
And finally, Comedy Central had an Episode of Drunk History, season six, episode nine--
“Nice,” Nott saluted with her flask.
--titled “Believe It or Not”.
“Man, we should do a Drunk History thing on our show except we like, explain something we learned in college,” Beau suggested. “Caleb could probably just do a whole show by himself.”
“I would have to be there,” Nott sounded like a protective mother. “To take care of him.”
“You’re drunk right now!”
“Yes, but I’m a functional drunk,” Nott corrected, taking another long sip from her flask, frowning when it was empty.
“Well!” Jester clapped her hands together, scaring Nott for a second time. “That’s all we have for today. Would you say you are convinced yet, Beau?”
“Not even a little. Next time we do this though I’m breaking into those fancy alcohol bottles.”
“There’s not really anything that good in them,” the same accented voice came from behind the camera. “It’s mostly bottom shelf liquor. Also we didn’t label any of them.”
“Weeaak,” Beau complained, taking a textured glass bottle with a matching stopper off the antique shelf and examining it. She opened it with a satisfying pop and sniffed the contents, immediately pulling a face.
“I suppose that means this episode ends still unsolved,” Jester replied cheerfully, looking directly into the camera and waving. “We’ll see you next time! Buh-bye!”
As the screen faded to black, Nott grabbed the bottle from Beau and chugged a decent amount of it, pulling away making a face of disgust and saying something that went unheard by the camera while Beau laughed heartily. Credits rolled, listing the three girls, the cameraman who’s name was apparently Mollymauk, and a few other names you hadn’t been introduced to yet.