by Aaron Mahnke
On the other hand, Mary Heaster knew all about the cause of death before the exhumation. She claimed that her knowledge had come to her through an otherworldly vision, that her deceased daughter had actually stepped through the veil between life and death and revealed the truth to her. But no one really believed that, did they?
Mary, it seemed, was more of a suspect than Edward was, and that didn’t sit well with John Preston. He’d hoped that her vision would be dismissed for the insanity that it was, that it was just crazy enough to help her avoid suspicion. To help that along, though, he needed to know more about the other suspect, and so he began to investigate Edward Shue’s past. What he found was shocking.
Edward Shue, it turned out, was a new name. His real name was Erasmus Stribbling Shue, though many who knew him prior to his days in West Virginia called him Trout. And Trout, it seems, had quite the past. Most important, Elva hadn’t been his first wife, or even his second. She’d been his third.
The first marriage was in 1885 to one Ellie Cutlip. They even had a daughter together, but divorced in 1889 when Edward was sent to prison for stealing a horse. John Preston actually managed to track her down and interview her, and she was quick to tell him about how abusive and violent Edward had been toward her.
After getting out of prison, Edward married a second time, in 1894. Her name was Lucy Tritt, but she died within a year of the wedding. Preston was unable to track down a cause of death, but there were stories. There are always stories. And these stories spoke of how Lucy had been killed by Edward, who vanished from town a short while later.
At the time, the rumors had been dismissed. Death, even among the youth, was not uncommon. Tragic, yes, but it happened. Now, though, with a third wife in the grave, it raised all sorts of questions.
It was enough to arrest Edward. His trial began on June 22, 1897. Although the prosecution lacked the physical evidence to connect him to the death of Elva, they built their case on his string of marriages, and specifically on the death of Lucy Tritt Shue. There was a pattern, they told the jury, and that pattern should be proof enough. Edward Shue, they declared, was a cold-blooded killer.
The jury found him guilty, but rather than the death penalty that everyone expected, Edward was sentenced to life in prison. This didn’t sit well with some. On July 11, while Shue was sitting in the county jail waiting to be transported to prison, a mob of nearly thirty angry men gathered outside of town. They were armed with guns and a brand-new rope tied into a noose.
Thanks to a tip from a local farmer who saw the men gathering, the sheriff was able to keep Edward safe. He rushed him out of the jail and into a hiding place until the chaos blew over. And then, as promised, Shue was delivered to his new home at the West Virginia State Penitentiary.
He died there three years later when a wave of pneumonia and measles swept through the prison. Mary Heaster died thirteen years after that, at peace with her role in the trial.
OTHERWORLDLY TESTIMONY
I doubt we could ever know for sure if Mary Heaster’s ghostly visitor was really her daughter, back from the grave. It might very well have been nothing more than a personification of her suspicion and intuition. Or perhaps it was a projection of her grief and loss and pain. We’ll never know for sure, but the effect was real enough.
When Mary Heaster took the stand in court that day in June 1897, John Preston was careful to avoid any mention of her vision. Partly it was because he didn’t want her to sound like she had prior knowledge of the cause of her daughter’s death, but mostly it was because that story made the woman sound crazy. She believed the ghost of her daughter had appeared in her bedroom and told her the truth. That was probably enough to discredit her as a witness against Edward Shue, and Preston wanted to avoid that at all costs.
The defense attorney noticed the omission, though, and decided to use it against them. While Mary was still on the witness stand, he grilled her about the vision she claimed to have experienced. I’ve read the court transcripts. I’ve read his insistence that it had been nothing more than a dream. That she’d been exhausted, obsessed, and overwhelmed with her loss.
But Mary stuck to her guns. It had been a vision, not a dream. She’d been fully awake when it happened, and it had really had happened, she said. And the judge allowed the testimony to stand. So when the jury retreated to make their decision, they did so with a ghost story as a piece of the evidence. It took them less than an hour to reach a verdict.
Sometimes folklore creeps into our lives and pushes us in a direction we never thought we’d go. Over the centuries, it’s driven people to murder, to steal, to abuse, and to build social rules that oppress certain types of people. In that way, folklore is often an excuse for bad behavior.
But folklore is also like a gem: we can hold it up, turn it, and watch the light play off dozens of facets. The story of Mary Heaster and Edward Shue reveals the hopeful side of folklore, giving us all a glimpse of the power and sway it commands.
As rare as it was, this was a moment when folklore took the stand in a court of law. When belief had weight, and the supernatural world—at least for a few moments—entered public opinion and actually meant something. Yes, folklore can transform people into monsters; occasionally, though, it’s empowered us to dig deeper for the truth.
The grave, it seems, can’t always stop justice.
IN EARLY 2012, a team of archaeologists discovered something groundbreaking inside a cave in southern Germany. They’d been working in the region for years, chasing a theory that early humans had followed the Danube River north into central Europe about forty-five thousand years ago.
The caves had provided a mountain of evidence, including early human jewelry and cave art representing humans and their growing collection of mythical heroes. But this cave added a new element to our picture of that early culture. There, in the dust and sediment of this dark cavern, researchers found flutes.
They were all made of bone—some mammoth, some bird. But they’d all been crafted in a way that would be completely recognizable to us today, too. Holes were drilled into one side, spaced out at regular intervals. And they are, to date, the oldest instruments uncovered in the world.
Music has been a part of human culture for thousands of years. And if you ask an archaeologist, she would probably tell you that even older instruments once existed. They’re just impossible to find. Our voices, after all, are the original musical instruments. And shortly after that, scientists believe it was percussion that was invented next.
Music is in our blood. It’s in our soul. The human experience, whether it was that of a nomadic Paleolithic hunter or a modern college student, would be incomplete without music. It pulls at our emotions. It inspires us. It helps us remember key lessons, and it’s the central form of worship for many people around the world. Music is…well, it’s life.
But part of life is death. And pain and sorrow and fear. And while it’s not as common, music has been present in those moments as well.
Sometimes it’s even caused them.
THE HEARTBEAT OF HUMANITY
One of the earliest physical instruments, according to most archaeologists, was the drum. It was probably a simple stone in the beginning, and the musician would bang another stone against it, or a stick. Which makes it hard to nail down a date for the earliest history of the drum, because every early human dig site seems to be crawling with sticks and stones.
It wasn’t until around 6000 BCE that we started to see man-made drums, skins that were stretched tight over pottery or shells. But these early drums weren’t unique to one place. We’ve uncovered them in Egypt, China, and almost every other ancient civilization we know of. Drums are, and always have been, global.
And their uses are as varied as the cultures that have created them. They’ve served as instruments of worship, as tools of communication, and as the driving force within ceremonial traditions that stretch back hundreds, even thousands, of years. It’s like a heartbeat: wherever there is human
activity, there’s percussion.
One significant use of drums throughout history has been within the military. The ancient Chinese used drums to pass orders over vast distances and to synchronize the marching of foot soldiers. The war drum appears in the military history of the Aztecs, many peoples of West Africa, India, most ancient Near Eastern kingdoms, and so many more. But it wasn’t a prominent tool in Europe until the start of the Crusades.
One unique moment in military history, as far as I can tell, happened in the aftermath of the English Civil War. During the nine-year war between the Royalists and Parliamentarians, soldiers on both sides of the conflict fought for the future of their country. And even when it ended in 1651, much of the military was kept active, known then as the New Model Army.
But when Charles II reclaimed his father’s crown in 1660, everyone was sent home. Many of these soldiers had been in service for years and had very little to go back to. No jobs, no homes, no fortunes. So one common procedure was to give soldiers permission to become beggars. They were literally given badges and papers that made it legal for them to wander certain areas looking for charity or work. And military drummers were no exception.
So there you go…a lot of history in just a few paragraphs. It might not be dark or frightening, but every historical moment needs context. Now, let’s shift gears, shall we?
In the year following the restoration of the monarchy to England, Ireland, and Scotland, in a small town about eighty miles west of London one man had an encounter with one of these licensed beggars. John Mompesson was visiting a friend in the town of Ludgershall. And it was while he was there that he heard the sound of a drum from outside the house, in the village.
Now, John was a former officer in the military. Like a lot of men his age, he’d served in the English Civil War. He knew the traditions and the rules, but he also knew how they were being abused. Plus, being a tax official, he had a professional interest in making sure that everyone with a license to beg did so within the boundaries of the law.
So when he heard the drummer, he asked his friend, who was a local bailiff with a bit of authority. This friend told him the beggar was a man named William Drury, and said that Drury had flashed his permit around town, asking for money and drumming for attention. But John wanted to be sure, so he asked to meet the man.
When John approached Drury, he asked to see the man’s beggar’s badge and paperwork, which would have had the signatures of the military officers who issued the license. Drury cheerfully handed them over. But there was a problem.
You see, John recognized the names on the paperwork. Both Sir William Cawly and Colonel Ayliffe were men he’d served with. So John was familiar enough with their signatures to recognize these as forgeries. Drury was caught in the act, and John had him arrested and taken into custody.
Drury immediately confessed to the local constable, and in an effort to stop his illegal begging, the man’s drum was taken away from him. Drury begged for it to be returned, but instead it was moved to the bailiff’s house, where John had been visiting. So when the beggar was finally hauled off to jail, he went without his precious drum.
That was in March 1661. The following month, John traveled to London for business and was gone several days. I doubt he thought much about the events in Ludgershall or the drummer who had tried to cheat a village.
When John arrived back home, he probably hugged each of his three children, gave his wife a kiss, then made his way toward his favorite chair to rest his tired body after a long day of travel. And there, waiting for him, was a mysterious package.
His wife explained that it had arrived while he was away. But she hadn’t opened it. That was John’s business, after all. Now, maybe it was in a sack, or perhaps it was wrapped in cloth like a present. However it had arrived, John set about opening the package. And then, suddenly, he stopped.
The object inside…was a drum.
KNOCK, KNOCK
It wasn’t just any drum, of course. It was the drum. The beggar’s drum. But according to John’s wife, the drum wasn’t the only unusual thing that had arrived while he was gone.
She told him that the night after his friend the bailiff had dropped off the package, a group of thieves had come to the house. It seemed to her as if a dozen or so men had run around the house, pounding on all of the doors for a short while. And then they vanished.
The next night, the men were back. If they were thieves or bandits, they never tried to break inside. But they pounded. John’s wife knew this because she could hear it loudly inside the house. Needless to say, she was glad for John’s return.
Three nights after he came back from London, it happened again. In the middle of the night, they were both startled by the sound of someone pounding on the front door. John slipped out of bed and grabbed two pistols, one in each hand, and cautiously approached the door. Then, carefully, he opened it.
There was no one there. Outside, the darkness was still and silent. But before he could close the door, the knocking started up again from a different part of the house. Maybe whoever was outside was just confused about which door to knock on. Maybe they needed help. Or maybe they were playing a game. Filled with an odd mixture of fear and frustration, John locked the front door and ran as fast as he could to the other door.
This door, though, was like the first. No visitor was waiting for him on the other side. No bandit was there, gun in hand. The doorstep was empty. But before he could think what was going on, the knocking sounded for a third time—this time from high up on the second floor of the house. John dashed to the stairs as fast as he could.
He probably could have guessed what he’d find. He likely knew it before he opened the door that led out onto the roof of the second floor. But he did it anyway. And sure enough, just outside the door, there was…nothing. No midnight visitor, no bandit, no trickster. Just darkness.
But not silence. Not this time, at least. As John stood there, staring out into the night, he claims he heard something. It was like the sound the wind makes on a stormy night, except it was different, more sinister. He described it as “hollow.” It seemed evil and empty. Almost hungry.
John closed and locked the door and prayed for the sound to stop, and for a while it did. He climbed back into bed, and he and his wife tried to sleep. But the noises picked up again later. This time, the pounding seemed to come from the very air around their home, as if someone were knocking on thin air.
However much John wished it could have been an isolated event, it wasn’t. For the next month, the pounding continued each night. It was loud and constant. Almost rhythmic. Almost…like a drum.
And then the noises crept inside. They were just as loud, but now they were emanating from the room where John kept the confiscated drum, the one William Drury had begged to have returned to him. And John couldn’t help but wonder: What if Drury had died? What if the drummer was dead because of what John had done, and now the man was back to haunt him?
The events that followed were completely unnerving to John and his family. The furniture would shake along with the drumming sounds. But only at night. Only when they were trying to get some rest. It would start up, wake the household, and then fade away after an hour or two.
To make matters worse, that hollow sound—the sound that John had heard outside after returning from London—was back, but like the drum, it had also moved indoors. Week after week, month after month, the torment continued. It seemed as if it would never end.
Then John’s worst fears came to life. You see, if the events so far were indeed caused by the angry spirit of the beggar William Drury, then sounds could hardly be seen as definitive proof. But over time the activity evolved. Objects began to move. John’s elderly mother, who lived with the family, even found her Bible in the fireplace, buried in the ashes.
And then things got personal. It started to attack the family.
GETTING PERSONAL
It was the children who seemed to be the focus of the attacks. So
me nights their beds would shake violently, as if something invisible were slamming into them. Other times, loud scratching noises could be heard beneath the beds. On a few occasions, the children themselves were even affected. Mysterious, invisible hands lifted them up until they were suspended in midair over their beds.
Fearing for the safety of their children, John and his wife moved them to another room in the house where nothing unusual had taken place so far. But once they were settled there, the invisible forces followed them in, and everything continued. And it wasn’t just the children who were encountering the unexplainable.
One of the servants who lived and worked in the household was also named John. According to John Mompesson’s own account, early on the morning of November 5, 1662, this servant named John ran to the room where the children were sleeping because the noises had started again. Across the room, the servant could see two boards that had been placed there, leaning against the wall. And one of them was moving.
I’m not sure what inspired the servant to do it, but he spoke and asked for the board to be brought to him. There was silence for a moment, and then one of the boards floated up from the floor and moved toward him, stopping about three feet from where he stood. The servant extended a hand and asked again, and this time the board moved right into his hand.
John, the homeowner, walked in a moment later to find the servant passing the board back and forth with some invisible force. Frightened by what it might mean, John told the servant to stop, which he did. But that was a breaking point for John Mompesson. Something was in his house—something he couldn’t see or control—and it was interacting with his family.
In early December 1662, John wrote a desperate letter to a relative named William Creed, who happened to be a professor of divinity at Oxford. If anyone had the wisdom and knowledge to help him, John assumed that this would be the man. Sadly, Creed was just as perplexed as everyone else.