Murder In America - EP. 36 RHODE ISLAND - The GHOST That SOLVED Her OWN MURDER (3 Stories of Paranormal Activity & True Crime)

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

Join us, as we time travel throughout three different centuries and states in America to explore true stories of crime, murder, death and ghosts... and the spirits of victims who solved their own murders. It's officially OCTOBER, the spookiest month of the year... buckle up everyone, it's about to get dark. And you're listening, to MURDER IN AMERICA. - CHANGE the way YOU BANK with CURRENT!! And don't forget to use our code "MIA" when signing up to get a free $50 credit!! Literally, free $50!!! current.com/mia - Get 20% off your first order and FREE SHIPPING with MANSCAPED, by using code "MIA" at checkout, at the link below! (Trust us... it's worth it!!): https://www.manscaped.com/ - Sign up for BetterHELP and take charge of your mental health with Colin and Courtney at the link below!: https://betterhelp.com/mia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash America. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Life is a journey. I know this. I think we all know this. Some days feel good and other days feel absolutely overwhelming.

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Warning, the following podcast is not suitable for all audiences. We go into great detail with every case that we cover and do our best to bring viewers even deeper into the stories by utilizing disturbing audio and sound effects. Trigger warnings from the stories we cover may include violence, rape, murder, and offenses against children. This podcast is not for everyone.

You have been warned. Do you believe in ghosts? Happy October, everybody. It's officially the spooky season, the time of the year when the shadows begin to grow even longer when the leaves turn colors and a special chill begins to permeate the air. But the question still remains, do you believe in ghosts? Could a spirit be held responsible for a crime? To the specter of a murder victim returned from the grave to solve their own murder.

In today's story, we're going to dive into the wild tale of the death of a woman named Rebecca Cornell. Rebecca died in quite a bizarre manner, but it was the events after her death that have left true crime podcasters, historians, authors, and even law enforcement officials with more questions than answers to this very day. This is the tale of the good fire, the story of the death or murder of Rebecca Cornell. I'm Colin Brown and you're listening to Murder in America. To start today's story, we will need all of you to hop into a time machine with us. Here, I'll open the door. All right, Guys, today we are going all the way back to the year 1673. Hold up a second, everybody.

Let me just initialize the flux capacitor. Okay, everybody, buckle up, hold on tight. Initializing time travel in three, two, one. Everybody make it okay? That was quite the hop. Okay, good. It's the year 1673 in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. America at the time wasn't even America yet.

The Revolutionary War wouldn't occur for another 100 years. In addition, America at the time was a newly found land, and the people of America were highly religious, and very, very superstitious. In fact, the Salem Witch Trials, the infamous legal proceedings which claimed the lives of 19 innocent men and women in nearby Massachusetts in the year 1692, wouldn't occur for another 20 years. But why are we telling you this? Well, because it's important to understand that at the time, the people who lived here still believed

in witches. They believe that at night, deep in the dark forests of Rhode Island, you may be able to commune with the dark Lord, Satan himself, and the people of New England most certainly believed in ghosts. Saturday, February 8, 1673 was an average day for Rebecca Cornell. Rebecca was a 73-year-old woman who was held in high regard in her community, as she was a She belonged to the Cornell family, a well-known and influential group in the small town of Portsmouth. Rebecca's husband, Thomas Cornell Sr., was one of the original settlers of the Americas,

and was heavily involved in the early American colonial history. Thomas, in fact, is related to a lot of prominent figures throughout American history. He's related to one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, founder of Microsoft Bill Gates, U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon, and the famous pilot Amelia Earhart. And even crazier, he's related to the axe murderer Lizzie Borden, who a lot of you will probably know. Rebecca and Thomas Cornell had immigrated from England to Boston, Massachusetts, in the year 1638, and the two and their children eventually settled in Rhode Island. Rebecca, Thomas' wife, was a simple woman who cared for her sons,

kept to herself and just enjoyed the life that she and her family had built in this new and unknown territory. Thomas Cornell Sr. died in 1655 and had been gone for almost 20 years at this point. And Rebecca had remained a widow over the years. From now on in this story, when we refer to Thomas, we are going to be referring to Rebecca's oldest son, Thomas Jr. But even though Rebecca had found peace living as a widow after her husband's death, something would soon happen in her home that would thrust her family into the spotlight. Like we said before, Saturday, February 8, 1673 was an average day. It was winter in Rhode Island, and as Portsmouth was a community situated on the Narragansett Bay,

snow covered every inch of the ground. The house that Rebecca called home was situated close to the frozen bay. Seagulls fluttered throughout the air and frigid whitecaps crashed over and over again on the nearby rock. On that specific evening, Rebecca sat in her home, in her usual chair, most likely enjoying puffs of tobacco from a pipe. There were a number of people living in the home at the time, including Rebecca's son, Thomas Cornell Jr., Thomas' wife, Sarah, Thomas' son, Edward, and other family members, and even a man named Henry Strait, an apprentice who boarded with the family.

On that day, Thomas Cornell returned home from his work in town and chatted with his mother, Rebecca for a few hours as she sat relaxing in her sitting room. At one point, Thomas left his mother alone in the sitting room at around seven that evening and began to wind a, quote, quill of yarn, an activity that although time-consuming, he very much enjoyed. Thomas was half-finished winding the yard when he was called to join his family for dinner in the large dining room that had joined his mother, Rebecca's sitting room. On that chilly February evening, the family dined on salt mackerel.

Macrole is a type of fish, and back in that time, this would have been considered a very fine meal. However, that night, Thomas explained that his mother would not be joining the family for the meal because the salt mackerel made her dry. It has also been theorized by some historians that Rebecca chose not to join them that night because, due to her advanced age, she may have had no teeth. But the truth remains unknown. After dinner, Sarah Thomas' wife sent her stepson Edward to ask if Rebecca wanted some boiled milk for dinner. Boiled milk would have been an easy meal for Rebecca to enjoy at her advanced age, and since she skipped out on dinner, Sarah assumed that she would be hungry.

So, Edward walks over to Rebecca's room. At this point, 45 minutes to an hour had passed since Thomas had left her room. after talking with her for a few hours. But when Edward opened the door to his grandmother's room, he was met with a large, bright fire. Edward called for help, demanded that he be brought a candle as well in order to inspect the fire, and quickly the rest of the family rushed into the room.

On the floor was a charred body. A man named Henry Strait, a hired man who lived in the home with the family, put out the flames in a hurry, and began to inspect the body. Strangely, when he first laid eyes on the corpse, he believed that it was a member of the local indigenous population. Allegedly, he shouted out, Here is a drunken Indian burnt to death. You see, at the time,

colonists were used to indigenous individuals breaking into homes and committing crimes. So it really wasn't that odd for Henry to believe that this burned body could have belonged to an intruder. As Henry placed his head down near the smoking corpse, he spoke in an indigenous language and attempted to see if the man or woman was alive. But soon after this, Thomas, Rebecca's son,

would realize just who this corpse belonged to. Thomas quickly realized that it was his mother, Rebecca, who was lying dead and burnt on the floor. And allegedly, he cried out, Oh, Lord, it is my mother. A servant who worked for the Cornell family, a man named James Mollies, later recalled that the only way he could tell

the body belonged to Rebecca was by her shoes. The body had been burnt so badly that it was virtually unrecognizable, neighbors were quickly alerted and soon an all-male panel of witnesses were brought into the home to inspect the charred remains of Rebecca Cornell. The next day, the coroner from Portsmouth quickly gathered together a 12-man inquest panel to inspect the body and find out exactly how she had died. The 12 men tasked with examining Rebecca's body did a poor job. Allegedly, they failed to remove all of her car.

clothing. Whether this was because of the rigor mortis that had set in on the charred in gooey remains, or the fact that at the time, it was probably frowned upon for members of the opposite sex to remove the clothing from the dead body of the other sex. It remains unknown. But nonetheless, the panel concluded swiftly that Rebecca, quote, was brought to her untimely death by an unhappy accident of fire as she sat in her room, end quote. And thus Rebecca Cornell's death was labeled an unfortunate accident. Her body was buried in a small, small, cold plot in the family cemetery that bordered the frozen bay, and it seemed like the case was closed. But seemingly, Rebecca Cornell was not truly dead. It was two days after she was

buried, and the dead of night when Rebecca Cornell returned from the grave. First, it was her brother, John Briggs, who saw her ghost. At the time, in 1673, John Briggs was a grandfather, and an important man who had played pivotal roles in the history of Portsmouth. As John laid in his bed on that chilly February night, the wind whipped the sides of his house. Then, suddenly, his room became cold, and he was startled awake when his bed sheets were pulled up and down twice. When he opened his eyes, he saw a bright light within the room. And as he began to focus on what he was seeing, he noticed that there was a woman, standing by his bed, and he called out...

In the name of God, what art thou? And the apparition answered. I be how I was burnt. According to John, he could see that the ghost was burned badly around the shoulders, face, and head. Although John's description of the ghost of his sister didn't match the description of her dead body when it was discovered a few nights before burned in her own home,

he still reported that he knew it was her. John interpreted Rebecca's saying of the phrase, I WAS burnt as saying that there was something else that happened to her before her body was set ablaze, that she was set on fire intentionally. Some have theorized that John was simply sleeping and encountered the specter of his sister in a dream. Others believe that he didn't see her ghost. And another camp of individuals believed that John invented this whole story to place more emphasis on the investigation into the strange death of his sister. Either way, though, John came forward to friends, family, and the authorities with his story, and thus began a formal,

investigation into Rebecca's death. As words spread throughout Portsmouth about the appearance of Rebecca Cornell's ghost, local officials decided that they needed to take action. And so, in an unprecedented move, they had her body exhumed from the grave and re-examine. And this time, they removed all of her clothing. Upon taking a second to look at Rebecca's body, local coroners and physicians noticed that, Indeed, Rebecca had a wound on her body near her heart. Specifically, they wrote down the wound as a suspicious wound on her uppermost part of the stomach.

It's unknown whether or not the coroners created this wound due to pressure from the public officials or not, but either way, it was determined by a team of investigators that the wound was caused by an instrument, or the iron spindle of a spinning wheel. Surgeons who examined Rebecca's body also noted clotted blood in and on Rebecca's body, a condition which was consistent with a blow to the chest. Shortly after this new autopsy was performed, officials declared that Rebecca had died not only from burns, but also from a suspicious wound, and Thomas, her son, was taken into custody. When questioned by authorities, Thomas claimed that he was innocent,

that he believed that coal or ember had fallen down from his mother's tobacco pipe under her clothing, as she sat in her chair smoking and that she had accidentally set herself ablaze. It was then when authorities began to question the story that Thomas had given them. After a short time, the trial of Thomas Cornell Jr. began, and boy, this was a doozy. Banking can be really annoying. Everybody makes mistakes, but unfortunately, oftentimes banks aren't prepared to help you out when you've made one yourself. I've overdrafted my checking account multiple times in the past and had to pay high fees for making that little mistake. It makes no sense to punish someone for not having enough money by charging them more money. It's infuriating. But that

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change, and it can also help you track your spending habits so you can see when and where you spend your money the most. For a limited time, Current is giving a $50 sign-up bonus to new customers who sign up for premium and set up a direct deposit of $200 or more. That's right. Current will deposit $50 right into your account. Enter our code MIA during sign-up or visit current.com slash M-I-A to claim your offer. And remember, don't forget to use that code M-I-A during sign-up. Download the current app, sign up in less than two minutes, and enter code M-I-A during sign-up. Now let's get back to today's three spooky murder stories. A number of witnesses were called to testify during the murder trial, and they told the court about a number of suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Rebecca Cornell.

For one, although Thomas had told authorities that he believed his mother Rebecca had accidentally set herself ablaze after smoking her pipe, no pipe or pipe pieces were found on the floor of the home, after her body was recovered. In addition, it was brought up that even if Rebecca had dropped hot coal onto her person from her pipe, why had she not called out for help or simply extinguished the fire herself? But still, questions remained. Thomas wouldn't have wanted the fire to burn for 45 minutes in the sitting room, given that he lived in the lavish home.

And he definitely wouldn't have wanted his entire home to burn to the ground. So a lot of it just didn't really make sense. Other witnesses offered up some strange inconsistencies in the events of that night for the court to consider. Henry Strait, the man who initially believed that Rebecca's body belonged to that of an indigenous person, had an interesting fact to share. Although Thomas claimed that his mother didn't join the group on the night of her death for dinner because she couldn't handle eating salt mackerel, Henry claimed that in the past, Rebecca had indeed joined them to eat salt mackerel,

and she had had no issue doing so. It was also stated during the trial by one of the men that lived with the Cornell's that the grandchildren in the family usually spent their time before dinner in the sitting room with their grandmother. On the night of Rebecca's death, Thomas had chosen to spend time with her alone, which was strange. There were also others that had alleged facts to share. It was claimed that Thomas was overdue in rent payments to his mother. It was also claimed that Thomas failed to care properly for his own mom, and that he could. kept the house cold purposefully despite her. It was also said that he forced her to work on the family farm, even though she was pretty old and age. Two witnesses testified that Rebecca had

told some acquaintances that she wanted to take her own life, either by stabbing or drowning. She wanted to end her own life before it was taken from her. It was also alleged that Rebecca planned on moving out of the house that she shared with Thomas, and that she wanted to be able to. And that she wanted to to move in with one of her other children. And so, a flawed picture of the relationship between Thomas Cornell and his mother Rebecca was painted. And soon, Thomas was convicted of murder, a conviction made with no physical evidence, and he was sentenced to death by hanging. Keep in mind, there was never a murder weapon recovered. There were no fingerprints, no footprints. There was absolutely nothing

physically that would point to this death being a murder. But regardless, Thomas was sent to the Gallows. And in May of 1693, after being convicted using, in part, spectral evidence, a.k.a. the testimony of his own mother's ghost, Thomas Cornell was sent to the gallows and hanged until he was dead. Interestingly enough, just a short time after her husband Thomas was executed, Thomas's wife, Sarah, gave birth to their final child, a daughter who she named Innocent. In a strange twist of fate later in life, Innocent Cornell would marry a man named Richard Borden. And yes, years down the line, after many generations, the Borden family would welcome a daughter named Lizzie, who would go on to be one of the most famous parent killers in American history.

Many people at the time, and people still today believe that Thomas was completely innocent, that he never killed his own mother, and that he was unjustly executed for a crime that he didn't commit. But I will say that we don't really know what the answers to this story are. Did Thomas murder his own mother? Or was he innocent? Some of the testimony definitely leads one to believe that Thomas could have indeed been responsible for the death of his own mother. But other facts, other theories contradict that and lead one to believe that he could have been innocent. But either way, that chapter is closed.

and it was a really long time ago. So there probably will never be a way to truly get the answers to this mystery. But either way, it's an intriguing story. Now, let's hop back in the time machine. We have to break the tradition of our podcast for this episode and head to another state for our second story. But trust me, it'll all make sense once we get there.

Courtney, are you ready? Let's go. Okay, back to the flux capacitor. I'm going to type in 1873, exactly 200,000. years in the future. Okay, let's do this. Yep, and we are in sunny West Virginia, 1873. What a time to be alive. All right, it's 1873 in West Virginia, where a young woman named Elva Zona Hester was born. Elva would go by Zona, and there wasn't a lot of information about her early life, but according to historians who were familiar with her case, she had a pretty average upbringing. Now,

Now, back in the late 1800s, having a child when you weren't married was very frowned upon. And unfortunately, Zona would give birth out of wedlock in 1885. She was left alone to raise her baby, and she was under a lot of pressure to succeed and give her baby a good life. Then, along into the small town of Richland's West Virginia, came Erasmus Shoe. Erasmus Stribling Trout Shoe was a handsome young man who, at the time that he arrived, arrived in Greenbrier County was going by the name Edward. He was a drifter who picked up work where he could and traveled frequently. When Edward arrived in this new community, he began working in a blacksmith shop owned by a local

businessman named James Crookshanks. Only shortly after Edward got into town, he met Zona, and the two fell deeply in love. It's interesting to note that Zona's mother, a woman named Mary Jane Hester, expressed her distrust in Edward to Zona immediately, but she couldn't put her finger on why she didn't like him. But nonetheless, Zona and Edward were soon married on October 20th, 1896, moved away from the area to the community of Livesey's Mill, and began building a new life with one another. But there were a lot of alarming things about Edward's past that he had never told his new wife about. For example, obviously his name was not Edward and was in fact Erasmus. He had previously

served out a prison sentence in the penitentiary for stealing a horse. and he had already been married twice. Both of these previous marriages had ended in some sort of tragedy. The first marriage fell apart when Edward's wife took his son and abandoned him, fleeing from Edward to escape the years of physical abuse that she had endured at his hands. Edward's second wife died of a sudden and unexplainable death. Apparently, she was helping her husband fix a chimney, standing beneath him while he was up on the roof working.

when all of a sudden a brick fell from the roof and struck her in the head, killing her instantly. Edward was never charged with her death, and soon afterwards when he arrived in Richlands, he met Zona. On the morning of January 23rd, 1897, Edward was working in the blacksmith shop when he took a short break and headed to a home of a neighbor who lived close to the shop. He asked the young son at the house, who oftentimes did chores for Zona and Edward, if he could run over to his house and ask his wife, if she needed anything from the store as she had been feeling sick that day. And so the young child ran over to Edward's house and was met with a grisly discovery. At the bottom of the stairs in the log cabin laid Zona, dead. She was face down with one arm outstretched and her legs sitting straight. Her other arm was tucked beneath her chest and her head tilted slightly.

The child ran back to the blacksmith shop to inform Edward about what he had just found. When he heard that his wife was presumably dead, Edward rushed home to as fast as possible and then called the local doctor in coroner to come out to the home and try to help bring Zona back to life. But by the time the doctor arrived at the log cabin, he was met by a peculiar sight. Edward had already dressed Zona's corpse for burial and was wailing with grief. He had dressed her in a maroon dress, placed a high collar and scarf around her neck, and wrapped in tied a veil around her neck. obstructing all views of Zona's neck and making it almost impossible for doctors to tell how she died. After a brief examination, Dr. Knapp concluded that Zona had died of quote-unquote everlasting faint,

a.k.a. a heart attack. He would later go on to note that she had died due to complications stemming from pregnancy, but Zona wasn't pregnant at the time of her death. After the brief examination of Zona's corpse, Edward asked the doctor to make no further examination, of the body, and the news was spread into the community that one of their own had randomly died. A wake was held for Zona before her burial, but according to Mary Jane, Zona's mother, Edward was acting bizarre the entire time. He stood at the head of the casket for almost the entire event, shielding people from touching Zona's neck or head. He had also covered up the neck even further with another veil and messed with the scarf, and it even propped Zona's head. And it even propped

Zona's head up on some pillows, claiming that he wanted her to be comfortable. To Mary Jane, Edward's cries of grief seemed very ingenuine, and she would soon find out why. Mary Jane was a very religious woman, and after her daughter died, she prayed for nights, asking for a sign that Zona was all right, begging for Zona's spirit to return so that she could say goodbye. And apparently, somebody was listening to those prayers, because just a few nights later, Zona did. did pay her own mother a visit after many nights of praying one night after she said her words to god mary jane laid down in bed to rest but was suddenly awakened by a strange phantom light that entered her room this glowing light began to take a human form and suddenly her daughter zona was standing

in her own room but this ghost didn't just appear as some sort of silent omen it spoke zona's spirit told mary jane that the night before she died she had cooked edward a dinner at home while he was at work and had had it prepared by the time he arrived home that evening. However, she served good bread, preserves, and apple butter, and didn't prepare any meat. The fact that there was no protein on the table seemingly sent Edward into a rage, and he attacked Zona, placing a hand on each side of her neck. Before she could react, his large hands had twisted her neck and dislocated it, an action that would quickly end her life. She also told her mother that Edward had oftentimes been physically abusive towards her and beat her frequently.

Zona's ghost would go on to visit Mary Jane every single night for the next three nights. This would make four nights of ghost sightings in a row for Mary Jane. On Zona's spirit's second visit, she told her mom once again that Edward had popped her neck, specifically the first joint. And during her last visit, apparently Zona's ghost twisted her neck around 180 degrees, to illustrate to her mother just how broken her neck really was. And after that, she vanished and was never seen again. Armed with the testimony from her dead daughter's ghost,

Mary Jane headed into nearby Lewisburg to pay prosecuting attorney John Preston a visit. Initially, John laughed off Mary Jane's story of paranormal activity, but he did make contact with Dr. Knapp. And after learning that Dr. Knapp had indeed performed a rushed examination on Zona's corpse at the request of her husband, Edward, and following up on a gut feeling, John ordered Zona's body to be disinterred so that investigators could take a second look. After taking her body out from the fresh grave in which she had sat, three doctors examined Zona's body and, and a weird twist.

Edward was actually present in the room for this examination. He showed no fear when they were looking over her lower body, but became visibly nervous and anxious, as the doctors approached her neck. As soon as they removed the scarf and collar, the doctors were met with a truly shocking sight. Zona's corpse had finger-shaped bruises on her neck. Her windpipe had been crushed,

and most surprisingly, her neck was fractured at the first and second vertebrae, precisely as Zona's spirit had claimed to her mother only days before. Edward was quickly arrested and charged with Zona's murder. After a brief but powerful trial in June of 1897, Edward was found guilty of murdering his wife and was sentenced to life in the Moundsville State Penitentiary, where he died three years later at a young age. It should also be noted that the Moundsville Penitentiary is now known to be one

of the most haunted locations in the entire United States due to some of its extremely dark and sordid history. At the trial, Mary Jane would say to the jury, quote, It was no dream. She came back and told me that he was mad and that she didn't have no meat cooked for supper. But the second night she told me that her neck was squeezed off at the first joint and it was just as she told me, end quote.

After Edward was arrested and the truth about Zona's murder came to light, Zona was reburied and her ghost was never seen again. But her legend has taken hold of the small county of Greenbrier, West Virginia. And it seems like a. will never let go. This case was extremely important in the world of crime and justice, because just like with Rebecca Cornell, it's one of the only known cases of a victim coming back from the

dead to solve their own murder. It really does sound similar to the case of Thomas Cornell and his mother Rebecca, doesn't it? Okay, well, we need to hop back in the time machine and get back to, well, almost the modern age. We're going to the year 1977 in Chicago, Illinois, for our final story. Courtney, you buckled in? Yep. Okay, hold tight, everybody. Let's do this.

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Head to Monscaped.com and use our promo code MIA. Anyways, guys, if you didn't hear about enough bloodshedding in that ad, let's get back to the gruesome story. Okay, here we all. Okay, it's now August 1977 in Chicago, Illinois, and two police detectives named Joseph Statula and Lee Eppelin have been investigating a murder for six months and have no leads. The victim? A woman in her 50s named Teresita Bassa, who had moved from the Philippines where she was born to America in the 1960s to study music. Eventually, Teresita had found work as a respiratory therapist at the Edgewater Hospital in Chicago. At around 9 p.m. on the night of February 21st, 1977, the Chicago Fire Department was called

to put out a fire in Terracita's apartment. While extinguishing the fire, the fire department made a shocking discovery. Underneath a burning mattress in the unit was her nude body, with a butcher knife discovered lodged in her chest. Terracita had been murdered, but initially, there were absolutely no suspects. There was evidence at the scene that pointed to the fact that Terracita had been the victim of a sexual crime. However, eventually after the autopsy, it was found that Terracita had not been raped. The fire in her apartment had destroyed almost all physical evidence that could have been

used to solve her murder. Everything but a handwritten note that read, quote, get theater tickets for A.S. End quote. It seemed that the person who had committed the crime was cunning. They had posed her body to make it appear that she had been raped, even though she hadn't been. And like we just said, there was almost no physical evidence left at the scene due to the fire. On the night of her death, it was discovered that Terracita had been relaxing in her apartment and that she had received two phone calls. One call came through at 7.10 p.m. and during this call, she had to talk with a friend about selling a pair of tickets to an upcoming event. The other call was placed at around 7.30 p.m. and was between Terracita and her friend Ruth Loweb. The call between the two lasted for about 20 minutes,

and strangely, well, Terracita was on the phone with Ruth because she needed to get ready before a male visitor was set to visit her apartment. Ruth was told nothing about who this man was or why he was coming over, but she didn't really think anything of it. She said goodbye to her friend, and she hung up the phone. Months passed after Terracita's murder, and detectives Joe and Lee had made no progress in the case. After interviewing coworkers' friends and family of Terracitas, they had learned that she was a shy and caring woman, who was beloved by her patients at the hospital,

a woman who occasionally dated but was never married, and she had no known enemies. They were stumped, and, after a while, her case went cold. That is until July of 1977. It was on one fateful morning in July of 1977, months after Terracita's murder, when Detective Joe's statula showed up to work and found a note on his desk asking him to call the police department in nearby Evanston, Illinois. Apparently, the Evanston Police Department had come across some information about Terracita's murder. When he called

Evanston PD, an officer told Detective Joe that their department had recently received a call from a Dr. Jose Choua, who lived in Skokie, a suburb of Chicago. The doctor claimed that he knew who had killed Terracita, and so detectives Joe and Lee arranged to meet the doctor at his home to conduct an interview to gather information on the case. When the two detectives arrived at Dr. Schwaw's home, he seemed to almost be embarrassed. The group engaged in small talk for a few minutes when suddenly the doctor asked Joe and Lee if they believed in the occult or supernatural. Even though the two were skeptical, they told the doctor to keep talking. And what he was about to say would blow the case wide open.

Dr. Chua then told the two detectives that he believed his wife, a woman named Remebios, otherwise known as Remy, a woman who was also from the Philippines just like Terracita, had begun to have bizarre dreams involving Terracita. Allegedly, Remy had tried to ignore these dreams, but one night while she was asleep, she had entered a trance-like state and began to speak to her husband in a voice that wasn't her own. While she was in this trance, Remy had identified herself as Terracita Bossa. and had told Dr. Chois that she needed help.

Remy had seemingly been possessed by the ghost of Tera Cita. While in this trance, and while speaking in the voice that wasn't her own, the voice speaking from Remy told her husband that a man named Alan Schoerry had murdered her and told him to go to the police with this information. Skeptical and yet at the same time curious, Dr. Chua played along and learned from this phantom voice that this man named Alan Schoery had arrived at Terracita's apartment to fix her television, and on that same night he had murdered her.

The spirit inside of Remy's body once again told her husband to go to the police with this information and then left Remy's body. Now obviously this was strange, but being skeptical, he ignored what just happened. Remy eventually woke up from her sleep and had no recollection of what she had just told her husband. And the two decided to just forget about the incident. However, a few weeks later, the voice came back.

Remy was once again asleep when supposedly the spirit of Tera Cedar possessed her body and once again disclosed the information to Dr. Schwa. But this time it was different. The voice was angry. It demanded why Dr. Schwa had not notified the police. This time Dr. Schwa would play along and told Teresita spirit that he was skeptical about the existence of the paranormal and the validity of her claims. However, this voice informed the doctor that she could give him proof.

She told him that Alan had stolen unique pieces of jewelry from France, from her apartment, and that after stealing it, Alan had gifted the jewelry to his girlfriend. The voice then gave Dr. Schwaw names and phone numbers for people he could contact who could independently identify and verify the existence of the jewelry. This was when Dr. Schwaw decided that he needed to call the police. Even though they were skeptical, the two detectives decided that they would follow up on the lead, as at the time, they had no others. In addition, the two thought it was strange that Alan Shorri's initials matched the initials

on the handwritten note found in Terracita's apartment after the fire, A.S. First, the detectives ran a background check on Allen. Interestingly enough, they discovered that Alan lived near Terracita, that he worked at the same hospital that she had worked at, even though he worked in a different department. When the two detectives interviewed some of Alan's co-workers, they were shocked when they told him that, indeed, Alan had discussed fixing Terracita's television. It was then when the two decided that they needed to interview Alan. After being brought to the police station, Alan was questioned. At first, he denied that he had ever been to Terracita's apartment.

But after being told that the co-workers of his had already told the police, his story changed. Alan's new story was that, yes, he had indeed been to Teresee's apartment to fix her television, but that once he was over at her place, he had realized that he had the wrong tool for the job and he had gone home. Alan told the detectives that he and his girlfriend, Yanka, had been having electrical issues at home, and after visiting Teresita's apartment, he had gone home immediately to work on the supposed issues with the home's wiring. But after the interview, the detectives decided to go speak with Yonka themselves. And what she told the detectives shot them. She said that she and Alan had never had any electrical issues in the apartment,

and that Alan would have no idea how to fix any sort of electrical issue anyways. During this interview with Yonka, the detectives asked her if her boyfriend Alan had given her any jewelry lately. And shockingly, she told them that, yes, Alan had gifted her some jewelry in February, the same month that Teresita was murdered. Alan had told her at the time that the jewelry was a late Christmas gift. In fact, at the time of the interview, Yonka was wearing a few pieces that Alan had gifted her. So the detective decided to bring her down to the station for a formal interview. Once back at the station, the detectives placed calls to all of the numbers that Dr. Schwall had provided that allegedly came from the spirit of Teresita. The numbers belong

to people that the spirit claimed could identify the jewelry. As soon as Alan learned that the detectives had found out about the jewelry. He immediately confessed to Teresita's murder. He said that he had planned to rob Terracita on the night that she was killed and that he used her invitation to fix her television as the perfect time to strike. He had murdered her and then searched her apartment for money that he planned to use to pay his rent. But after finding only $30, he had stolen some jewelry, set the fire, and fled the scene. Alan was then arrested and charged with murder, and he eventually pleaded guilty in exchange for a sentence reduction. Allen Showery was given 14 years for murder, four years for arson, and four years for robbery.

However, he only ended up serving five years in prison before he was released on parole. Detective's Joe and Lee, to this day, claimed that a ghost indeed solved her own murder. Others are a little unsure. After some digging, it was found out that both Terracita and Remy were respiratory therapist at the same hospital in Chicago. the same hospital where Alan had worked. Allegedly, while working at the hospital, Remy had encountered Alan and had been afraid of him. Did Rimi make up these claims about Terracita's ghost possessing her

to provide a tip to investigators about a creepy coworker? Maybe. But that still doesn't explain the jewelry and the phone numbers. It seems like this is just one of those mysteries that don't really have a good explanation. Okay, Courtney, let's hop back in the time machine, say goodbye to Chicago. We're heading back home to Texas, 2021. Okay, everybody, buckle in. Three, two, one.

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For you wonderful Murder in America listeners as well, guys, you can get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com slash MIA. Once again, that's betterhelp.com slash MIA. Anyways, let's get back to our story. So here we are at the end of our story. I hope you guys enjoyed the cheesy time machine kind of aspect to this episode, hopping back between centuries to tell these different stories that all related to each other. It is very interesting, though, that in all three of these stories, there was a specter or a presence that returned to solve their own murder. In some cases, the spirit was very detailed about what had happened to them. Look at Teresita, telling the doctor through his own wife that there was jewelry, she gave phone numbers.

That's very specific information. And we don't know the truth behind all three of these stories. we don't know if these ghosts really did show up to solve their own murders, but they are interesting because in all three of these murders, the spectral evidence was used by authorities to either convict these killers or discover who they were. And that leads me to ask you one more time the same question. Do you believe in ghosts?

Do you really think it's possible for a murder victim to return from the grave to inform investigators about who had killed them? we here at this podcast don't really know. And that's kind of the beauty of it, the mystery, the unknown. And it really brings us back to that same question that we started this podcast asking you guys. The dead don't talk. Or do they? Happy October, everybody.

Hey, everybody. It's Colin. Happy October. We are so excited that it is the spookiest month of the year. We're so unbelievably happy that we have all of y'all listening out there online. We just hit a million plays, and it's all thanks to you guys. You guys are the ones that are making this shit happen, and we could not be happier to have you. You, the one who's listening to this, listening to the show.

If you want to follow us, go follow Murder in America on Twitter and Instagram. You can follow me, Colin Brown on Instagram. Courtney is Cortch, Shan. You can go look up the YouTube channel, The Paranormal Files. Courtney and I just posted a murder ghost hunting video on there this week. And with this episode, I really want you to keep asking that question. The dead don't talk. Or do they?

I don't know. Maybe one day we'll find out. But either way, we'll see you on the next to everybody. And once again, happy October.