From Beyond
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Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Today's podcast will feature two spooky stories about messages from beyond. The audio from both of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description.

The first story you'll hear is called "Wrong Path Home," and it's about a news report with a frightening secret message. The second and final story you'll hear is called "Mother Knows Best," and it's about one of the very few credible paranormal encounters in American history.

But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please offer to make the follow button a tuna sandwich, but instead of using tuna made for people, go ahead and use a can of cat food. Okay, let's get into our first story called Wrong Path Home.

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Allow yourself to delve into the spooky this season by listening to classics like Stephen King's The Shining and Pet Sematary. There's more to imagine when you listen. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash imagine or text imagine to 500-500. That's audible.com slash imagine or text imagine to 500-500.

At around 9 p.m. on October 26, 2009, a 19-year-old college student named Miyako Hiroka bagged up the last bit of trash inside of the ice cream parlor where she worked, and she dumped it into a bag, and she tied that bag up.

It was closing time, and so Miyako looked around the inside of the parlor, made sure everything was where it was supposed to be, and then she flipped off the lights, threw her purse over her shoulder, she grabbed that bag of trash, she headed outside the parlor, she shut and locked the door, she dumped the trash in a nearby bin, and then began walking towards the exit of the mall, which is where this parlor was located. It was inside of this big mall.

Miyako went to school in a city called Hamada City, which is located on the coast of Japan in an area called the Shimane Prefecture. And Hamada City was a totally beautiful and very remote location with these amazing beaches and unbelievable mountains with all these ski resorts on it. I mean, this was an incredible place to live.

But as much as Miyako did love living there, she was actually far more excited about where she'd be living the next year because she was doing an exchange program. She'd be studying in Russia, and that was so exciting for her.

And in fact, this exchange program was the reason why Miyako had picked up this job at this ice cream parlor, because she came from a family that was not poor by any means, but they didn't have a lot of extra income. And Miyako felt strongly that she really wanted to pay her way to go do this big Russian exchange program, because it wasn't cheap. And so she was picking up as many shifts as she could to save up money to pay her way.

And so Miyako eventually reached the exit of this mall, and she stepped outside into the night, and then she had a decision she needed to make. And she needed to make this decision every night after work. There were two ways that she could get back to her dorm, which was located about a mile away.

The quick way would be to just hop on a bus and have the bus take her to her dorm, but that cost money. And remember, Miyako was trying to save up as much money as she can to pay for Russia next year. And so taking the bus just felt like, you know, not really worth it. And the other option, which was free, was much longer and frankly just plain spooky. And Miyako hated it.

What it entailed was basically just walking to her dorm, but it would mean walking for about a third of a mile through this really spooky forest that looked like it was straight out of a horror movie. Now, up until recently, Miyako's co-worker had always left with her at the same time, and they lived roughly in the same area, and so they would walk together through that forest, you know, saving money, and also, you know, providing each other security as they went through the spooky area. But recently, the co-worker had quit, and so now Miyako was all alone.

And so as Miyako stood there wondering what she should do, you know, take the bus route or take the forest route, she just thought about, you know, next year it's all going to be worth it. I'm going to go to Russia. I'm going to pay my way. It's going to be awesome. And after all, what's the worst that can happen? It's just a few minutes walking through a forest. I've done dozens of times. Before long, I'll be in my brightly lit safe dorm room studying away and everything will be fine. And so Miyako turned and began walking towards the forest.

The following day, a little past 4pm, the owner of the ice cream shop where Miyako worked was standing inside the parlor feeling really annoyed. Because Miyako had not shown up for her shift, and now the owner, who normally did a lot of administrative and managerial things, was stuck at the counter serving all the customers, basically doing Miyako's job.

But when 5 p.m. came and still Miyako had not shown up and the owner had tried calling her and she didn't pick up and there was just no sign of her, the owner went from being annoyed to being somewhat worried. And so after, again, not being able to call Miyako to figure out what was going on, he wound up going through her file and finding her mother's phone number and he called her.

And when he spoke to Miyako's mother, he knew right away there was something wrong. Because Miyako's mother actually was pretty panicked, and she said, you know what? Last night when Miyako was coming home from work, she told me she would call me when she got to her dorm, but I never heard from her, and I haven't been able to get in touch with her since. And so after this conversation ended, Miyako's mother would call the police and report her daughter missing.

And pretty much instantly, the police in Hamada City responded in force. I mean, they launched a huge investigation to go figure out what happened to Miyako. And really, the reason behind that is because Hamada City is this unbelievable place, this secluded, safe place, where things like this did not happen. And frankly, it scared everybody, and they wanted to deal with it as quickly as possible.

And so what police did at first is they went and looked at security footage from the ice cream parlor where they knew she had been working on the night she went missing. And sure enough, at about 9.16 p.m., there's footage of her walking out of the ice cream parlor in the mall. She's got a purse over her shoulder and, you know, she shuts and locks the door. She throws the trash away and then she heads towards the exit. But after that, nobody saw her. There was no more footage. There was no more tips or anything. She just vanished once she left the mall.

And so very quickly, this story gained lots of attention because again, Hamada City is like this quintessential vacation spot. It's so perfect. It's so safe. And to have this girl just go missing, it was scandalous. And so it made the news all over Hamada City. And also people who lived in Hamada City were suddenly on edge at night. You know, what's out there snatching people up?

In fact, Miyako's college, during the few days following her disappearance, they set a curfew for all their students. Like, all their students had to be back in their dorms at a certain time to keep them safe. But again, despite the police really leaning into this case from the jump and putting all their manpower and all their resources into this, they really had no idea what happened to Miyako.

Then, on November 6th, 2009, so 11 days after Miyako went missing, a man who was hunting for mushrooms up on this mountainside about 15 miles away from the ice cream parlor believed he spotted this beautiful mushroom sitting underneath a few fallen leaves. And so excited, the guy runs over and he begins moving away the leaves to grab this big meaty mushroom, but as soon as he grabbed the skin of this mushroom and began to pull, he stopped.

And then he quickly turned and began sprinting back down the path that had brought him up here. And as he was running, he pulled his phone out and he saw he had no service and he just kept on running and holding the phone up, looking for service. And then finally, when he was about halfway down the mountain, he saw he had service in his phone and he called the police. And the second the dispatcher answered, this man began screaming, I found a human head.

When police arrived on that mountainside where this man claimed to have found a human head, well, they confirmed he was right. They found Miyako's severed head right underneath those leaves. And the reason this guy thought her head was a mushroom, a dark-colored mushroom, because it was obvious that Miyako's face had been so badly beaten, and it was all black and blue, before she lost her head. And so this mushroom hunter had literally thought that was a big, big mushroom.

And so at this point, the Hamada City Police shifted their area of search from around the mall and the ice cream parlor where they thought they would find Miyako to this forested mountain area where her head was found. And now, of course, it was no longer a search and rescue. It was a recovery mission. They're just looking for the rest of Miyako's body.

And over the next couple of days, as police searched this forested mountainside, they would find different parts of Miyako all over the place. And then after they had found, you know, all the pieces to Miyako, the running theory, based on what they were seeing, is that very likely she had been strangled to death, and then her body was burned, and then she was dismembered and scattered throughout this forested mountain area. But there was very little evidence about who had actually done this to Miyako.

Miyako had no enemies to speak of. Everybody who spoke about Miyako said she was incredibly lovely and kind, and really there wasn't anybody in her life that would want to do her harm. And also because Miyako's body had been destroyed and left out for so long, any trace evidence left behind by her killer or killers was basically non-existent.

And so the police really had no leads to speak of, they had no suspects or anything. And so they called in psychologists to try to make, you know, a profile of who they thought might have done this. And the best theory anyone could come up with was that this had been a random crime of opportunity, that the person who killed her didn't know her, and that likely her killer was a man who was likely between the ages of 20 and 40. But even that information really didn't narrow anything down, and so quickly this case began to go cold.

But as the police investigation itself began to go cold, the kind of lore around the story was only growing. I mean, this really seemed like a totally unbelievable case considering where it happened. I mean, Hamada City is like this perfect place. How could this happen here?

And so what started as being kind of a local news story, albeit a big local news story, became a major national story all over Japan. And so all these TV outlets and journalists were descending on Hamada City, and they were taking video of the ice cream parlor and of the police department, and filming, you know, Miyako's dorm and her school and her parents' house. I mean, there were people all over the place trying to get any bit of information to report on about this case.

And despite there being dozens and dozens of these live reports basically every day coming out of Hamada City about this case and about Miyako, there was one particular news report that took this case from being, you know, totally unfortunate and sad and tragic and horrible to completely unbelievable and bizarre.

Shortly after Miyako's remains had basically all been found, but they were still doing some recovery operations up on that mountainside, one of these kind of random TV reporters who was in Hamada City to report on this crazy case decided to set up their TV camera so it was pointing towards the dark entrance of that spooky forest that Miyako would walk through to get back to her dorm.

And so this TV news reporter's got their microphone, and you know, they're standing with the forest entrance right behind them, and the cameraman's filming, you know, looking towards this opening of the forest, and the actual report was pretty generic. I mean, this reporter was basically saying, "Well, coming at you live from Hamada City, just outside of the forest where perhaps Miyako was killed." And it was just like that. It was just kind of talking about the case, and there was nothing to it. At least not to the TV reporter and the cameraman who were on site.

Because for them, the entire report was pretty routine. They did their job, they got their shot, they got their report, and then they left. But they streamed it live. So while they were doing it, all these people are tuned in watching this news report live in front of this forest. And something really unsettling happened on this broadcast. While that news reporter was talking, another voice began to be heard by people watching this broadcast.

And it was not the cameraman, and it was certainly not the TV journalist. It was a woman's voice. And there was no woman anywhere near the shot. And after the fact, the journalist and the cameraman would also attest that there was nobody around. It was just them. But this detached, very pained voice said very clearly, and all these people heard it live, "This is very painful. Why only me?"

And so after this news report happened, this story, this case about Miyako, went from being just a Japanese story to being like an international sensation. Because everybody believed when they saw this video that that voice that was heard was Miyako's ghost basically talking on camera. That's why you can't see her. It's her spirit communicating with the living world.

However, despite that drawing even more attention to this case, it didn't remotely help the police actually solve the case. They still had no idea who did this. And that's how this case would stay for years, just totally stalled.

That is, until seven years later, when a police officer was conducting a routine police review of old criminal case files that hadn't been solved, you know, going through them all to see if maybe evidence had been missed, and maybe that was why the case had not been solved. And so this police officer is looking through all these case files, and when they landed on the Miyako case, they did discover a piece of evidence that had been totally overlooked. It was the file of a convicted sex offender named Yoshiharu Yano.

Yoshiharu was a 33-year-old man who had served time in prison for assaults on three different women in Tokyo, which is 500 miles away from Yamada City where Miyako was killed. And because of that 500-mile gap between Tokyo and Yamada City, Yoshiharu had been completely overlooked in terms of being a suspect in Miyako's murder. It just seemed like he was too far away to be involved.

But the police officer who was doing that routine review, they discovered that right before Miyako was murdered, this Yoshiharu guy had been let out of prison and decided to live in Hamada City. And on the night Miyako was killed, when she decided to walk into that forest, well, they found security footage of Yoshiharu's car driving along around that forest and up near that mountain where Miyako's remains were all discovered.

And so this investigator who discovered this piece of information got permission from higher-ups to search Yoshiharu's home where he was living right then. And when they searched his home, they discovered a digital camera with 40 photos on it that would explain what happened to Miyako. It was very clear Yoshiharu had murdered Miyako because some of the pictures contain photos of Miyako and they are just horrible.

But figuring out who Miyako's killer was, was not the end of this case. In fact, it wasn't even the most shocking part of this case. The most shocking part of this case is what happened to Miyako's killer, Yoshiharu, basically right after she was murdered and that voice, that detached female voice, was heard on that TV news report.

Seven years earlier, right around the time that Miyako's head had been found, and also after that voice had been heard on the TV newscast, some people who were driving in a car north of Hamada City began calling the police to report something very strange.

They called the police and said, there is this small white Toyota Corolla car that has two people inside of it. And they've driven to the side of the road and the driver is ramming over and over again against the railing. Like they're smashing into the railing, backing up, smashing over and over again. Like the car is somehow in control. They don't understand how these people are not getting out of the car. Like, what are they doing? Traffic had stopped on either side. It was just totally nonsensical.

And then by the time the police showed up, this car that was just repeatedly driving into the side of this guardrail, it burst into flames with the two people inside still clearly alive and looking terrified. And they caught on fire and died.

Now, at the time, this did make the news. It looked very much like some sort of weird murder-suicide where the driver had intentionally, you know, driven the car until it burst into flames and killed themselves and also their passenger. But it didn't really amount to more than just a really weird news story because there was no connection to the Miyako case. This is like a totally isolated thing.

However, seven years later, when that police officer discovered the link that Yoshiharu was in Hamada City, and then they figured out, yep, Yoshiharu was the killer, well suddenly, that totally weird murder-suicide took on a whole new meaning. Because the driver of that car was Yoshiharu, and the passenger was his mother.

And again, from eyewitness testimony, it didn't really make sense the way this all happened. It was almost like the car was possessed or something that, you know, the passengers couldn't control it. Now, who knows if that's true? But when you combine it with the sound of that female voice on the TV news camera, the

that everybody assumed was Miyako's ghost, saying, this is so painful, why only me? Suddenly, those words took on a new meaning. People thought, you know what it is? Miyako's ghost must have taken control of that car and made sure not only Yoshiharu suffered and died, but his family member died as well, that she was seeking her revenge on her killer.

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This episode is brought to you by Columbia Sportswear. From snowy trails to city streets, Columbia has you covered. Their OmniHeat Infinity jackets are the gold standard in warmth, pushing the boundaries of innovation. Feel the difference as thermal reflective technology wraps you in warmth, whether you're hiking mountains or conquering your daily grind. Visit Columbia.com to learn more. The next and final story of today's episode is called Mother Knows Best.

In the early evening of January 23rd, 1897, a blacksmith named Erasmus Shue stoked his fire inside of his little shop in rural West Virginia and then called out to his 11-year-old helper who was in the back cleaning up.

Erasmus had been planning to head home early that night, however, a last-minute order for horseshoes had just come in, and so Erasmus knew that was not going to happen. He was going to have to work late. And so he was calling for his helper to send the helper to his home, Erasmus's home, to check on Erasmus's wife, Zona. He wanted to make sure that, one, Zona knew he would be late, and two, if Zona needed anything, the helper could go out and get it for her, or help around the house, or whatever she needed.

After the helper had left, Erasmus went back to poking at his fire, but his mind was not on the horseshoes he needed to make. Instead, it was on his wife, Zona. The couple hadn't told anyone yet, but Zona was pregnant. Erasmus and Zona had only just met a couple of months earlier, but they had fallen in love very quickly.

Zona was 23 years old, and she had beautiful dark hair and dark eyes, and a quick sense of humor. She was a total free spirit who had grown up on a farm, and she had never really been away from home. When Erasmus had arrived in the little village called Lydsae's Mill, which was located near a river at the foot of this mountain, and was right near where Zona lived, he and Zona had noticed each other right away.

Erasmus, who was quite a bit older than Zona, he was 35 years old, was tall and handsome with piercing blue eyes, and he had come to this little rural town to set up his blacksmith shop. And to Zona, he was like this amazing new exciting thing.

Zona's family, especially her mother, Mary Jane, did not approve of the fact that Zona and Erasmus had begun seeing each other, mostly because Mary Jane didn't like the fact that Erasmus was so much older than Zona, but Zona was known for being incredibly stubborn, and she loved Erasmus, and so there was just no stopping her.

So, in November, just a couple of months after meeting each other, Zona and Erasmus got married and they moved into a little house together, and very quickly, Zona got pregnant.

And both she and Erasmus were so excited about this that they wanted to go around and tell people. But early on, it was clear Zona had some complications with this pregnancy. She was sick all the time, and she just seemed really unwell, and the doctor who was seeing her knew that it likely had to do with her pregnancy. And so the couple decided that they should just wait and let the pregnancy develop a bit before announcing the news.

So on this late January day, Erasmus began hustling to finish these horseshoes because he really wanted to get home and be there for Zona and make sure she really was okay. And so as Erasmus thought about Zona, the steel he was heating inside of this fire was glowing bright orange and was ready to be forged into shape. And so Erasmus got his hammer and he got to work.

Meanwhile, Erasmus's 11-year-old helper had arrived at Erasmus and Zona's house, and the helper walked through the gate up to the front door of this little two-story home, and he knocked on the front door. But Zona did not come to the door, which the helper thought was odd, because Zona was someone who was always bustling around the home and was very quick to open the door and chat with neighbors. And now, standing in front of this door, the helper couldn't even hear a sound inside of the house. It was like no one was home.

And so the helper knocked again, and after some more silence, he just reached down and tried the doorknob and found it was unlocked, and so he swung the door in. And right away, the helper noticed that the house was totally dark. None of the lamps were lit, even though the sun was setting fast.

And so the helper stepped inside of the house and continued to call out for Mrs. Xu, but there was no answer. And at some point, as the helper turned a corner and looked towards the base of the stairs that led up to the second level, he froze. Because lying on the ground was Zona. She was lying perpendicular to how the stairs run, on her back with one arm over her chest, like she was sleeping at the foot of the stairs.

And so at this point, the helper is scared. He doesn't know what's going on here. Obviously something is wrong. And so very slowly, the helper began moving closer and closer to Zona. And when he was practically right on top of her, he yelled out her name one more time. And when she didn't call back, and her chest wasn't moving, and she was just totally still, he knew obviously something was terribly wrong.

And so the helper at this point turned around and sprinted out of the house and ran back to his own house. And when he got there, he ran inside and he told his mother that he thought Mrs. Shu, Zona, was dead. And so the mother told the helper, run back to the blacksmith shop and tell Erasmus to go home right now. I'll get the doctor.

It would take the local doctor, the same one who had been treating Zona for her pregnancy complications, almost an hour to finally get to Zona's house. And when the doctor arrived, he found the 11-year-old helper and his mother and other neighbors kind of clustered around in the first floor of the home,

And then when he went up to the second floor into the master bedroom, he found Erasmus, who by this point had returned, and he was sitting on his bed, and he had laid out his wife, Zona, so that she was on her back, and her head was in his arms, and he was stroking her hair and rocking back and forth and crying.

The doctor, of course, knew Zona and Erasmus very well because of how often he had been treating Zona for her pregnancy issues over these last few weeks. And so he felt a pit of sadness looking at this scene, but he knew he had to do his job. And so he gently walked over and he put his hand on Erasmus's shoulder and he just said, "You know, I need to examine Zona's body." And Erasmus, at this point, he didn't even look up. He just continued to sob and rock back and forth while stroking her hair.

Finally, the doctor kind of was a bit more forceful in asking Erasmus to step aside, at which point Erasmus did, he got out of the way and positioned Zona flat on the bed, and he made sure her hair was perfectly combed all around her neck. And then Erasmus knelt down right next to the bed and continued stroking his wife's hair and crying, while the doctor at this point kind of moved to the foot of the bed and began looking at Zona and beginning his examination.

And the doctor would quickly confirm that, yes, Zona was dead. And after looking at her pelvis and kind of moving her around, the doctor came to the conclusion that very likely Zona had passed away from pregnancy complications.

Zona's funeral would be held the next day at the local cemetery at the top of this hilltop, and by this point, the word had gotten out that Zona had been pregnant when she died. And so during this funeral, everybody was staring at Erasmus, who was overcome with grief and crying so hard that he could barely catch his breath. And then right before they lowered Zona's casket into the ground, Erasmus made a point of putting his wife's favorite scarf into the coffin with her.

He said his final goodbyes, he shut the casket, and then it was lowered into the ground. But while the mourners were obviously very moved by just how unbelievably grief-stricken Erasmus was, I mean, his whole family was wiped out in one blow, what really stood out to the people that attended that funeral was not Erasmus's reaction to his wife's death, but rather Zona's mother's reaction to Erasmus.

During this funeral, Mary Jane, Zona's mother, didn't seem sad or grief-stricken or in any way reacting to the fact that her daughter had died. Instead, as the funeral went on, Mary Jane shamelessly glared at Erasmus with a look of pure hate and disgust on her face.

And then, after the funeral was over, all the mourners wanted to go up to Mary Jane and Erasmus to pay their final respects to the family, but Mary Jane ignored all these people and promptly left the funeral without saying a word to anyone. And in the days that followed Zona's funeral, Mary Jane's behavior only continued to get more and more bizarre.

When neighbors would drop by Mary Jane's house to drop off food or just check in on her, Mary Jane refused to come to the door. Mary Jane basically began staying up all night. People would see there were candles lit in her bedroom at all hours, and they'd see her pacing around her room and then periodically kneeling on the ground and kind of staring off into the distance.

And then on the rare occasion that Mary Jane actually left her house, she would look totally disheveled and distracted. And as she walked around town, she'd be mumbling under her breath and constantly looking over her shoulder like she was scared someone was following her. And when concerned neighbors came up to Mary when she was out of her house, she refused to make eye contact with them, didn't want to talk to them, and as fast as she could would get away from them.

Whatever was going on with Mary Jane, her husband was not willing to talk about it to other people in town. However, they did notice that he had begun sleeping in the barn, so he was not even staying in the house with his wife.

And then, on the morning of February 21st, so about a month after Zona had died, Mary Jane walked out of her house looking totally clean cut. She was not disheveled. She was not looking over her shoulder. She wasn't muttering to herself. She was standing tall, moving with a purpose, looking totally coherent. And as she moved, the only emotion people could see on her face was anger.

And so Mary Jane, angrily, walking with a purpose, walked her way to the local prosecutor's office. And instead of knocking and waiting to be let inside, she just opened the door and barged right inside.

The prosecutor knew Mary Jane and knew how strange she had been acting over these last few weeks. And so when she came inside, he was alarmed at her sudden presence, but he was also pretty curious as to what was going on. And so when she came in and demanded to speak to him, he was happy to go into his office and take a meeting kind of simply out of curiosity.

But once the two of them sat down in his office, Mary Jane proceeded to tell this prosecutor this totally outlandish story about her dead daughter, Zona, that at first made the prosecutor think, okay, clearly Mary Jane has lost her mind. That's what's been going on over the past few weeks. All this grief of losing her daughter has caused her to kind of snap.

But, by the end of these two hours that Mary Jane seemed to just be kind of rambling about this story about her daughter, the prosecutor started to realize that what she was saying kind of made a lot of sense, and his suspicions began to rise and rise. And so once Mary Jane was done telling this wild story about Zona, the prosecutor was convinced that what Mary Jane was saying had to be true, and so he knew they needed to dig Zona up.

And so after Mary Jane had left, the prosecutor ran to the local doctor's house, the same doctor who had been treating Zona and then also looked at her after she died. And the prosecutor would tell the doctor that, "Hey, we need to exhume Zona and you need to examine her again." And the doctor at first was like, "Wait a minute, what's going on here?" But then after hearing what the prosecutor had to say about this crazy story that Mary Jane had just told him, the doctor agreed that, "Okay, yeah, we do need to do this."

And so, the next day, February 22nd, a team of men with shovels, along with the prosecutor and the doctor, headed up to the hilltop cemetery where Zona was buried, and they dug her casket up, and then they carried the casket down to the local schoolhouse, and then once she was inside, the workers lifted her body, which was fairly well preserved because the ground was so cold.

They lifted her body out and they placed it on a table and then everybody left except for the doctor and the prosecutor. And once the room was clear, the doctor and the prosecutor began examining Zona all over again.

And within about 30 seconds of this reexamination of Zona's body, basically at the exact same time, the doctor and the prosecutor, who were on either sides of the body, saw the thing that Mary Jane had alluded to in her wild story about her daughter. And so the doctor and the prosecutor, they're seeing this thing, they look up at each other, and they can't believe it. Mary Jane's story had to be true. The following is Mary Jane's wild story.

On the day of Zona's funeral, even though Mary Jane was overcome with grief over losing her daughter, the feeling that she really was harboring was hatred towards Erasmus. She hated Erasmus. She had always hated him. But now it was like her daughter is dead and she's forced to watch this guy sob and cry over her daughter's casket. When in her mind, she's like, this funeral is about her. It's not about you.

And so the whole funeral, she's just staring at Erasmus, channeling all of her energy towards hating him. But then, as she's doing this, a new emotion began to creep up on her that she couldn't quite describe. Basically, it felt like something was terribly wrong. And, intuitively, Mary Jane felt like the only person who could explain what this thing was that was wrong, kind of in her life somewhere, was her daughter, Zona, who was obviously dead.

And so this feeling that something is terribly wrong, it completely consumed Mary Jane's mind. And so by the end of the funeral, she wasn't mad at Erasmus. She was just thinking, how do I get in touch with my daughter? I need to get answers from my daughter.

And so when the funeral ended, Mary Jane just left the funeral as fast as she could. She went home, she went into her bedroom, and she knelt down and she began to pray. Not for peace or strength in this difficult time, but instead, she prayed for her daughter's ghost to appear to her and tell her what was wrong.

And for the next month, that is all Mary Jane did. She was obsessed with this idea that she needed to basically conjure her daughter's ghost to tell her what this thing was that was wrong.

And so that was why she was acting totally crazy. All she did was pray and then look for signs that her daughter's ghost had come or was on her way. And so she'd be up all night kind of looking around, hoping her daughter would suddenly appear. And then when she would go outside, the reason she was muttering is because she was still praying under her breath. And she was always looking over her shoulders because she thought her daughter would appear any moment.

And then, finally, one night in the middle of February, so this is a month into Mary Jane's attempts to conjure her daughter's ghost,

She was in her room, she was praying like she normally did with all of her candles lit, and all of a sudden, as she's kneeling down praying, this bright light appears in the middle of her room. And as this light suddenly appeared, the room began to get really cold. And Mary Jane is staring at this light thinking, this is my daughter. But then just as quickly as the light and the cold that came with it had appeared, it disappeared.

And so Mary Jane was both really excited because she felt like, "Okay, the prayers are working. That had to be my daughter's ghost or some sign that my daughter's ghost is going to come here." And so Mary Jane just doubled down on her prayers. She knew she was close to getting her daughter to show up. And so over the next two days, that bright light would appear two more times, and each time it would just quickly disappear. But again, Mary Jane is thinking, "Okay, something's happening. My prayers are working."

And then finally, on the fourth night, as Mary Jane is in her bedroom praying, the light appears in the middle of her room. It starts to get cold. But then instead of the light disappearing, Mary Jane would describe seeing her daughter kind of step out of this light and suddenly appear in the room.

Mary Jane said that her daughter was dressed all in black and her skin was very pale and her eyes were these dark pits and her hair was straight down right over her shoulders and she was staring at her mother. And Mary Jane, when she saw this, even though she had been trying for a month to get her daughter's ghost to appear, now that it seemed to be happening, she was terrified. And so Mary Jane began backing up right as this ghost begins walking towards Mary Jane. But

But then Mary Jane, as she's up against the wall, tells herself, you have to be strong. You need to talk to the ghost. You need to figure out what's wrong. And the only question that Mary Jane was able to come up with was, how did you die? And when she asked this question, Zona's ghost came to a stop. And then when Zona opened her mouth, dirt poured out. And then with a raspy, low voice, she began to tell her mother a story.

She told her that Erasmus appeared to be this wonderful person to the community, but behind closed doors, he was a monster. He hit her and screamed at her over the littlest things, and then on the night of January 22nd, so one day before Zona would be discovered at the base of the stairs by Erasmus' helper, Zona's ghost would tell Mary Jane that Erasmus had become enraged at Zona over the food she had made that night for dinner. He had wanted meat, and she

and she had made something else, and so he was furious. And when Zona tried to tell Erasmus that she would make more food, or there was other food for him to eat, to just please calm down, Erasmus stood up and he grabbed Zona by the neck and he lifted her off the ground. And right at this moment, in this story that Zona's ghost is telling Mary Jane, the ghost would stop speaking.

And this look of abject terror would come across the ghost's face, as if she was suddenly reliving this moment that happened with Erasmus. And as she's standing there with this horrible look on her face, the ghost began to levitate off the ground, and

and then it opened its mouth. And as it did, no sound came out, but instead, it was like all the air in the room was getting sucked into this ghost's open mouth. And then all of a sudden, there was this loud cracking sound as the ghost's head suddenly violently whipped around 180 degrees, but the ghost's body was still facing towards Mary Jane.

And after this happened, Mary Jane is sitting there totally dumbstruck, and the ghost suddenly drops back down onto the ground, still with their chest facing Mary Jane, but their face pointing behind them. And then Zona's ghost turned around and began walking out of the room, and because she had turned her body around, that meant her head, which was facing the wrong way, was now oriented towards Mary Jane again.

And Mary Jane would say the ghost was smiling. And then right before Zona's ghost left, she would say to her mother, "Now do you see what he did to me?" And then Zona just vanished and the room became warm again. And Mary Jane, who was suddenly feeling so exhausted, just sat down on the bed and wept.

Mary Jane had the next morning promptly gotten up and rushed to the prosecutor's office and told him the story of seeing her daughter's ghost and how the ghost had told her that Erasmus had throttled her and that was what killed her.

Now, the prosecutor was really moved by Mary Jane's story, but it was when he rushed to the doctor to ask about re-examining Zona's body to see if she had marks on her neck from where she could have been throttled. That was when the doctor actually told the prosecutor that when he did the examination of Zona's body on the day she was found, he would say that Erasmus spent the entire examination at the head of the bed, cradling Zona's head and brushing her hair, but

But now that he was thinking about it, he could have been covering up her neck with the hair. And then also they thought about the funeral when, right before Zona was lowered into the ground, Erasmus placed a scarf, claiming it was his wife's favorite, around her neck when she was buried. Again, perhaps trying to conceal the fact that there were marks on her neck.

And when they did exhume Zona's body and they removed that scarf that Erasmus had placed, they would see there were marks all over her neck that looked like fingerprints. And then upon further examination, they would see that her neck was actually dislocated and that her windpipe had been crushed. Erasmus would be arrested for the murder of his wife just minutes after the doctor and prosecutor basically at the same time saw the marks on Zona's neck during their re-examination.

During Erasmus' trial, Mary Jane would take the stand and she would tell the story of her daughter's ghost coming to her and explaining that Erasmus had killed her. And the testimony was so compelling that the jury found Erasmus guilty even though there was no motive. Basically, they convicted him on the strength of Mary Jane's ghost story. Erasmus would be sentenced to life in prison, but he would die just three years after being incarcerated from a mystery illness that passed through the prison.

It would also turn out that Erasmus had been married two times before marrying Zona. One of his wives had divorced him for being abusive. The other wife died in a freak accident when she was helping Erasmus fix their chimney when all of a sudden a brick fell loose and hit her in the head. Today, there is a plaque right near the cemetery in West Virginia where Zona was buried that reads, in part, only known case in which testimony from a ghost helped convict a murderer.

Just search for Ballin Studios on any podcast platform and you'll find all of them. If you want to watch hundreds more strange, dark and mysterious stories, just head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin.

So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya.

In a quiet suburb, a community is shattered by the death of a beloved wife and mother. But this tragic loss of life quickly turns into something even darker. Her husband had tried to hire a hitman on the dark web to kill her, and she wasn't the only target. Because buried in the depths of the internet is the Kill List, a cache of chilling documents containing names, photos, addresses, and specific instructions for people's murders.

This podcast is the true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those whose lives were in danger. And it turns out convincing a total stranger someone wants them dead is not easy. Follow Kill List on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Kill List and more Exhibit C True Crime shows like Morbid early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+. Check out Exhibit C in the Wondery app for all your true crime listening.