Ghosts in Court

November 1, 2012 4:54 AM

Perhaps not as well known as Ackley's Ghost, whose legal, if not factual, existence is known to every American law student, the Greenbrier Ghost is still known as the only ghost whose testimony helped convict a murderer. Although commonly used to convict witches, spectral evidence largely fell out of favor after the Salem Witch Trials, until one West Virginia women's ghost accused her husband of murdering her.
posted by Bulgaroktonos (5 comments total)

The Phoenix Wright games don't seem so stupid now, do they?
posted by BiggerJ at 5:01 AM on November 1, 2012

Objection!
posted by Navelgazer at 5:32 AM on November 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Never heard of either of them.
posted by Ironmouth at 12:24 PM on November 1, 2012

“If what the accused judge said about the jinn, then this jinn could be bad and blasphemous…this jinn could have been sent by a bad sorcerer because witchcraft is bad and non-Islamic.”

Saudi Arabia certainly is tough on sorcery.
posted by homunculus at 6:24 PM on November 1, 2012

There's a theater in Greenbrier county that regularly puts on a musical based on the Greenbrier Ghost story, although I've only seen the non-musical version they did back in the 90s and most of what I took away from that was that Trout Shue is a hilarious name.
posted by Copronymus at 7:02 PM on November 7, 2012