Ep. 60 - Did The Ghost of Teresita Basa Solve Her Murder?

The headline from the Chicago Tribune asked, "Did voice from grave finger murder suspect?" The question is startling, implying that a ghost solved a murder case. This isn't the first time that a ghost solved a murder case in America. The Greenbriar Ghost is a famous case from 1897 that many people believe actually happened. The same is true of the Teresita Basa murder case. Did her spirit inhabit the body of one of her coworkers and lead the police to her killer?

The case of the Greenbriar Ghost is not only unique in the supernatural world, but for decades, it was a one of a kind tale in the annals of the American Justice System. In 1873, Elva Zona Heaster was born in Greenbriar County, West Virginia.  In 1896, she met and fell in love with a drifter who was passing through Greenbriar named Erasmus and they married soon after.  A young boy running an errand for Erasmus to the home that Zona and Erasmus shared, found Zona dead at the bottom of the stairs.  The local doctor gave the body of Zona a cursory examination after Erasmus had already moved the body to the bedroom and dressed Zona in her finest dress.  The doctor made the exam brief, as Erasmus seemed very overcome by grief and the doctor decided that Zona had fainted and fallen down the stairs.  During the wake and before burial, Erasmus was very watchful of the body, concealing Zona's neck and keeping people away from the body.  After the burial, Zona's mother attempted to return the sheet that had been in the coffin back to Erasmus, but he refused to take the sheet.  Zona's mother decided to keep it and she washed it because it seemed to have a strange odor.  The minute the material hit the water, the water turned red and then the sheet turned pink.  Try as she might, Zona's mother could not remove the stain and she took it as a sign that her suspicions about Erasmus were true: her daughter had been murdered!  For four nights after this, the ghost of Zona appeared to her mother. The ghost would explain that Erasmus had been cruel and beaten her many times.  On this final beating, the ghost claimed that Erasmus had broken her neck and she turned her head almost completely around to show her mother. Zona's mother went to the Prosecutor and Zona's body was exhumed after the doctor admitted he had not done a thorough examination.  It was proven that Zona's neck was broken and even more incriminating, her windpipe had been crushed.  Erasmus went to trial and his defense tried to make Zona's mother appear crazy by asking her about the ghostly visits, something the prosecution had avoided. Zona's mother was unwavering and the people of the town believed her, so the plan of the defense backfired. Erasmus was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, where he died three years later. Zona's ghost was never seen again and a plaque on Route 60 commemorates her witness with these words: "Interred in nearby cemetery is Zona Heaster Shue. Her death in 1897 was presumed natural until her spirit appeared to her mother to describe how she was killed by her husband Edward. Autopsy on the exhumed body verified the apparition’s account. Edward, found guilty of murder, was sentenced to the state prison. Only known case in which testimony from ghost helped convict a murderer." 

An early morning call came into the Chicago Fire Department on February 21, 1977. Residents of the Pine Grove Avenue apartments were reporting that there was a strong smell of smoke in the building. When the firemen arrived at the apartments, they set out to find what was causing the smoke. Thick, dense black smoke was coming from the door of an apartment. They broke down the door and found that the fire was contained to just the living room. They put out the fire and saw that it was a mattress that had been burning. There seemed to be something beneath it and when they raised it, they found a naked woman. A butcher's knife was sticking out of her chest.

The police were called and the woman was identified as Teresita Basa. Teresita had been born in the Philippines in 1929. She loved music and wanted to make that her life. She graduated from the University of Assumption in Manila in 1960 with a Bachelor's degree in music. In the Philippines, it was hard to find work in the music industry, so she decided that she needed to go to America and she set her sights on Chicago, Illinois. From there she planned to enroll in music classes at Indiana University, which she did, earning a master's degree in music. But finding work in music wasn't any easier for her in America, so she set her eyes on something else. Teresita got a job at Edgewater Hospital and worked her way to becoming a respiratory therapist. She was making enough money to continue pursuing her dream and so she worked on her PhD in music at night. Her love for music, led her to teaching the neighborhood kids the piano for free. 

And now Teresita, who had only wanted to create a life for herself with music, was dead. She was only 48-years-old and seemed to have no enemies in the world. Her body was sent off for an autopsy and it was found that the lone stab wound to the chest was the cause of death. She hadn't been raped. Police initially thought this had to be a robbery that went wrong. The apartment that had been clearly ransacked and it appeared that some jewelry had been stolen. Friends and co-workers were interviewed. Her colleagues described her as reserved and intelligent. A friend named Ruth Loeb filled in details about Teresita's final hours. She said that Teresita had left the hospital around 5:30 pm and the two women spoke for 30 minutes on the phone until Teresita had to end the call because she had a male visitor. Ruth had no idea who that male visitor was. 

There was very little evidence, especially because of the fire. One potential lead was a note in Teresita’s handwriting that said, "Get theatre tickets for AS." No one seemed to know who AS was though. The police wondered if this was the male visitor that Ruth had mentioned. Like so many cases, this one went cold for several months and then the police got an incredibly strange tip that would break the case wide open. The lead detective for the case, Joseph Stachula, got a call from a doctor who worked at the same hospital as Teresita. His name was Jose Chua and he was also Filipino. He explained that he felt a tad bit foolish, but also compelled to call because the information that he had seemed very important. His wife Remy was a sensitive and she had been having visions about Teresita Basa. On top of that, Remy had gone into trance-like states and Teresita's spirit spoke through her. Dr. Chua said that Teresita had said, "Doctor, I would like to ask for your help. The man who murdered me is still at large." At first the doctor thought this was just his wife talking, but it seemed so strange because she was talking in her native tongue of Tagalog, which she rarely used. And her voice seemed to have a different tone to it. So he asked "Who are you?" To which she replied, "I am Teresita Basa." Then she told the doctor who murdered her. She said it was Allan Showery.

Many people would probably wonder why the police would give this tip any of their attention, but both the doctor and his wife Remy worked at the same hospital as Teresita, they had a name that matched the initials A.S. and as Detective Stachula told Adam Selzer in his book Mysterious Chicago: History At Its Coolest, "I talk to pimps, prostitutes, drug addicts in the Belmont area. Dr. and Mrs. Chua are educated, intelligent people who live in a $90,000 house – a distinct change for me. I wanted information on this murder. I listened and acted on what they told me."Allan Showery also worked at Edgewater Hospital. He was a respiratory technician, so he worked often with Teresita. He was having a tough time financially and so Teresita would pay him to do small jobs for her. You know, handy man type stuff. According to information from a Remy trance, Teresita had apparently asked Showery to come over and fix her broken TV. The visit was friendly until Showery noticed an expensive pearl ring from France sitting on Teresita's finger. He asked about it and she said her mother had passed it down to her. Teresita's ghost also gave them the phone numbers of people who could identify the stolen jewlery. 

The police paid a visit to Showery's apartment and found his girlfriend, Yanka Kamluk, there. She was wearing the pearl ring. They got confirmation from a cousin of Teresita's that it was the stolen ring. The police ran Allan Showery through their database and found that he had prior robbery and sexual assault convictions. They hauled Showery in for questioning. At first, he denied everything and claimed he had never been to Teresita's house. His alibi was that he had been home all night with his girlfriend. They confronted him with other information they had obtained after talking to co-workers who said that they had heard Teresita and Showery talking about him coming over to fix her broken TV. That seemed to crack Showery's resolve and so he admitted that he had gone to her apartment to fix the TV, but realized shortly after looking at it that he didn't have the capabilities to fix it. So he said that he left right after that and headed home to his girlfriend to work on some electrical problems they were having. The girlfriend was questioned about the information Showery had given and she was like, "What electrical problems?" That didn't help Showery in the least.

The girlfriend was pressed further and asked about the pearl ring. She was at first reluctant, but they explained to her that it would be benficial if she was cooperative. She told the police that Showery had given her some jewelry in February and said it was a belated Christmas present. Teresita had been murdered in February. The girlfriend gave the police all of the jewelry and they confronted Showery with it and he knew he was done. He admitted that he had killed Teresita Basa. And he admitted that he had planned on robbing her that night because he knew she had money. Showery said that he never even looked at the TV. He just killed Teresita the minute she let him in and he grabbed the jewelry and $30 in cash. Then he decided to stage the scene as a rape, so he ripped her clothes off. Then he set the mattress on fire to destroy evidence. 

The case ended up going to trial because Showery changed his admission of guilt to not guilty. Showery claimed his confession had been coerced because the police threatened to jail his pregnant girlfriend. His defense claimed that the visions and trances had been made up. The defence lawyer, William Swano, said, "Never in my knowledge has a man been arrested because of a vision." Guess he didn't know about the Greenbriar Ghost. He tried to the case thrown out. The Prosecutor's Office told The Washington Post, "It's not like we're going to cross-examine the voice or anything of that nature. We're really not interested in the supernatural aspect of this trial. The voice was an initial tip, but the evidence was developed independently." The first trial ended in a hung jury because they were divided as to whether Showery had been framed for the murder. Someone who knew the victim claiming to become possessed by the victim was pretty hard to believe. Before the retrial, Showery plead guilty of armed robbery, arson and murder and was sentenced to 4 years for robbery, four years for arson and 14 years in jail for murder to be served concurrently. This sentence was eventually reduced to four years because of good behavior. Fourteen years is pretty low for all of that, so even though there was no official word of a plea bargain, there probably was something like that. And incidentantly, Wine and Crime Podcast reported that the defense attorney William Swano was paying off judges in Chicago during this time. Perhaps there was something with that in this deal too. 

Now, there are many skeptics who just can't accept this possession story. They reason that Remy was a coworker of both the victim AND the perpetrator and she could have heard things in the hospital. Maybe she heard Showery talk about giving his girlfriend jewelry. Perhaps she knew he was going to Teresita's place the night she was murdered. Perhaps it was easier because of her Filipino culture to claim a possession than to having actual knowledge of the crime. This could have implicated her in the crime. Maybe she was intimidated by the police. Showery's lawyers did try to suggest that Remy was the real killer and that she'd sold Showery the jewelry. Then she came up with the "possession" idea after losing her job at the hospital. The police say she was "never truly considered a suspect."

There are people outraged that this kind of testimony could be brought into a trial. Sheldon 121 wrote on reddit, "And how could testimony from a ghost be considered during the trial? This was a witness that could never be interrogated (Teresita’s ghost, not the doctor’s wife.) How could testimony from a woman “possessed” by a “ghost” be accepted into court? Couldn’t the defense argue that the Doctor’s wife was mental or lying or dreaming or having a hallucination from drugs or illness, etc? You need to find a suspect guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and I don’t see how this evidence could provide such proof? Showery’s admission of guilt should have been enough." 

Or perhaps Teresita really was seeking justice and found a way to get her message through. Did the ghost of Teresita Basa solve her own murder? That is for you to decide!

The Chuas went on to write a book, A Voice From The Grave, co-authored by their friend Carol Mercado. The case was featured in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries and then, in 1996, turned into a tele movie,Voice From The Grave. 

Source: https://imgur.com/a/resolution-of-teresita-basa-lRVHesW