Ghosts and Evidence in Criminal Trials

Rev'd Prof Helen Hall, Nottingham Law School https://www.ntu.ac.uk/staff-profiles/law/helen-hall

Zona Heaster Shue via Wikimedia Commons

There is a long tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas, particularly in the British Isles. It is not hard to understand why. Before central heating and electric lighting became widely available, living through winters in Northern Europe must have been hard going. Households huddled around fires for warmth and company, and as the flickering flames sent shadows dancing in dark corners, tales of the supernatural were a welcome distraction. However, not all ghost stories were purely for entertainment purposes.

Ghosts could be a way of connecting people with both the distant and more recent past. Tales of spirits roaming the earth were a means not only of remembering individuals and events, but framing the narrative in a way that met contemporary needs or concerns. Sometimes these were societal in nature. For example, there are numerous stories of female spectres who came to a tragic end after being let down by cruel or feckless lovers. These served in part as a warning to young women and girls to be careful in their dealings with men, and to think twice before engaging in secret relationships, or becoming attached to bad boys of whom their families disapproved. However, sometimes, ghost narratives could be extremely personal, and a way of raising fears or concerns that would otherwise have been transgressive.

Hamlet is a literary example of the this. The ghost in the Shakespeare play galvanizes the young prince to confront his suspicions that his father had been murdered. The text of the play makes it clear that the ghost is real, rather than a figment of Hamlet’s imagination. The ghost’s intervention is important, because it justifies Hamlet challenging the authority and legitimacy of the reigning king. Given the nature of Tudor and Stuart monarchs, it was a shrewd move to stress that a hero would only question royal authority if he had an incredibly good reason.

However, there are real world examples of individuals using ghost narratives as a way of raising concerns that would otherwise seem transgressive. In 1897 Elva Zona Heaster Shue was killed by her abusive husband. The perpetrator initially convinced the doctor who signed her death certificate that she had died of natural causes. He behaved strangely at her funeral, seemingly intent on keeping Zona’s loved ones from interacting too closely with the body. When it was suggested that a different scarf would go better with her dress, he became completely hysterical, sobbing and pushing people away. This must have raised, or more likely intensified, suspicions. Nevertheless, the rites when ahead and she was duly buried.

In the weeks following, Zona’s mother Mary Jane Heaster reported that she was repeatedly visited in the night by Elva’s ghost. The spirit revealed that she had been murdered, and that her husband had broken her neck. Mary Jane went to the local prosecutor with this story, and he consented to an exhumation and further investigation. Whether he gave any credence to the ghost is unclear, but he evidently found the mother’s concerns compelling enough to take drastic action.

The evidence is too scant for us to discern whether Mary Jane genuinely believed in that her daughter had returned from the grave, or whether she consciously chose this as a palatable way of phrasing her concerns. What is clear however, is that there were significant barriers for a working-class woman wanting to challenge the findings of the educated, influential men who concluded that there was nothing untoward about her Zona’s death. Perhaps she felt that supernatural evidence gave her arguments more weight, or maybe she found it easier to talk about a ghost, than to directly state that the town doctor was either dishonest or staggeringly incompetent. It is also worth remembering that she might well have been very frightened for her own safety. She knew that her son-in-law was both violent and devious, and had so far escaped justice.

Of course, none of these interpretations are incompatible with Mary Jane having experienced something while alone at night. Whether these were dreams as her mind tried to process her grief and trauma, a spirit, or some other phenomenon is impossible to say with certainty. We do know however, that when Zona was exhumed and re-examined, there was overwhelming evidence that she had been manually strangled, including finger marks on her neck. Her husband was tried and convicted of her murder and sentenced to life in prison.

It is not necessary to take a position on the existence of ghosts to appreciate that they form part of the worldview of some people within society. Sometimes victims or witnesses will describe their experiences in ways that reflect this, and indeed other beliefs in the supernatural. It is important that authorities are able to listen to the detail of what is being said, and discern the underlying issues, regardless of the presentation. If Mary Jane Heaster had been dismissed, a very dangerous individual would have avoided punishment for his crimes, and may well have gone on to hurt others. In a plural society where people have many different perspectives and terms of reference, sensitivity to diverse expressions is essential if justice systems are to be effective and impartial.