August 24, 2010

No, not those kind of ghosts.

The period of Ghost Month–the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar–comes to a climax on Zhong Yuan, the Hungry Ghost Festival, on the eve of the fifteenth day. During Ghost Month the gates of the afterworld open to allow the dead to walk the earth and seek food.

Families prepare meals for the departed on Zhong Yuan. Many say prayers and burn special incense. Also, it is said these ghosts can enact revenge on those who wronged them in life.

There is a superstition against doing all sorts of activities during Ghost Month, including swimming–kind of unfortunately, as the Olympic swimming events occur smack in the middle this year.

In China the festival bears some similarity to Qingming–Tombsweeping Day–except the Ghost Festival focuses solely on the departed of previous generations.

Other traditions include the placement of a chair and alter outdoors in a prominent location for priests. Dishes of peaches and special flour-made rice are placed underneath the alter and spread by the priest to the souls of the dead. Atop the alter are symbolic sacrifices, including food and cakes, meant to invoke the gods for better weather and healthy crops. Families also make and burn fake paper money in tribute to the dead.

Zhongyuan Festival china.org.cn

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(In the category of “On this day in…1897)

Just this week we heard about a housewife’s testimony from beyond the grave used to convict her husband. The soon-to-be-murdered woman gave her neighbor a video tape in which she testified that she suspected her husband might be trying to kill her. At the woman’s request, the neighbor handed it over to authorities after the murder.

The recorded testimony of a murder victim is rarely admitted into evidence because the defense is unable to cross-examine. (Of course, my feeling is the defendant shoulda thought about that before he killed her.)

This isn’t the first instance a court has allowed testimony from beyond the grave to convict a killer, but the most unusual case may have been the 1897 murder of young Zona Shue.

On this day in 1897 (January 23) Zona Shue was found dead in her West Virginia home. Her husband Erasmus arrived at the house before the coroner, carried the body to her bed and dressed the corpse himself, in a dress with a high stiff collar. When the coroner examined her, the distraught Erasmus was cradling her neck, and snapped at the coroner. After a brief exam the coroner listed “everlasting faint” as the cause of death.

Zona Shue and her mother Mary Jane Heaston  

After the funeral (and after conspicuous behavior Erasmus’s part), Zona’s mother, Mary Jane Heaster, told the local prosecutor she had been visited by the spirit of her daughter. Zona’s ghost had said Erasmus was a violent man and had attacked her in a fit of rage for not preparing meat for dinner.

The prosecutor had Zona’s body exhumed. It was found her neck had been broken and windpipe smashed, and there were finger marks around her throat.

It came to light that Erasmus had been married twice before. Wife#1 divorced him claiming violent cruelty. Wife#2 was not so lucky. She died under mysterious circumstances a year after they were married.

At the trial the prosecutor didn’t let Mary Jane mention the ghost story, but under cross-examination the defense attorney introduced the testimony, hoping the jury would discredit Mary Jane.

It backfired.

Mary Jane stuck to her ghost story and was evidently such a strong witness that, not only did the jury vote to convict, a lynch mob formed in an (unsuccessful) attempt to hang Erasmus after he was sentenced to life in prison.

The Shue house where Zona’s body was found

Erasmus died in prison three years later.

It goes to show, if there’s one thing more damning than a skeleton in the closet, it’s a ghost at your mother-in-law’s. 

http://www.prairieghosts.com/shue.html

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