In 1897, Zona Heaster Shue was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Her death was ruled natural. Her husband insisted on a quick burial. And the case should have ended there. But it didn’t. Because Zona’s mother, Mary Jane, claimed her daughter came back from beyond the grave to tell her she’d been murdered.

This episode breaks down what really happened inside that house, what Mary Jane knew that she shouldn’t have known, and the ghost story printed on the front page of The Greenbrier Independent that may have shaped everything that came next. We explore the miscarriage theory, Trout Shue’s history, the bloody sheet, and the possibility that the wrong person could have been blamed. And we look at how Trout’s own testimony — not the ghost — ultimately sealed his fate.

This episode includes discussion of:

• Death
• Domestic violence
• Pregnancy loss
• Racial bias in 19th‑century Appalachia