Chapter 1
Crimes are reported all over the world. Some of the crime mysteries get solved by intelligent detectives and police officers, while most of them languish in files due to lack of proper evidence. Once the pieces of evidence are retrieved, they are put forward to court, where the judge presides over the verdict.
This is a unique criminal case that was almost closed due to a lack of evidence. Evidence and their related information in this particular case were provided by none other than the voice of dead person. The American police agreed that this case was solved by a spirit, and the voice of dead person.
The justice system of any country runs on evidence. Spirits and paranormal does not find any relevance in judgment. But in this unique story, the detectives not only gathered evidence based on the information received from the voice of dead person, and also were able to prosecute the offender.
Teresita Basa was born in 1929 to a wealthy family in the Philippines. She was raised there and completed her formal education. She moved to the USA in 1960 for higher education and obtained her Master’s degree in Music from Chicago. She also completed her training as a respiration therapist and was selected to work in Edgewater Hospital in Chicago.
Teresita was an unmarried happy woman with limited friends and used to live alone in her apartment. During the daytime, she would work in the hospital, and during the evening, she would spend her time providing piano tuitions to the kids of her apartment. Though she had some boyfriends, the relationship did not mature to marriage.
Chapter 2
Teresita was 47 years old living alone in her apartment. 21st Feb 1977 was a similar routine day for her. She returned to her apartment from the hospital at 6 PM. She received a call from her friend Ruth Loeb at around 7.30 PM, discussing the usual stuff. She used to talk to Ruth regularly, as he was one of her closest friends.
Both of them talked for about 20 minutes during the conversation she mentioned that she was expecting a visitor, also had to complete some household tasks, so she hung up. Ruth didn’t ask her for the visitor’s name.
It was the last call she made. A couple of hours later, the neighbours found that smoke billowing out from Teresita’s apartment, and it was getting denser with every passing minute. The fire department was informed by them. The fire department personals entered her apartment and doused the flames.
They observed that Teresita’s body was lying under a mattress in a naked condition, almost in a half-burnt state, with a knife was planted deeply on her chest. Detectives from the homicide department were informed.
Chapter 3
Arriving at the scene they concluded that who so ever murdered Teresita wanted to destroy evidence by putting over piles of cloth over her body plus placing a mattress on top of her setting it on fire as well.
The detectives also observed that her apartment was ransacked but could not figure out if anything was missing as she was living alone in her apartment. Moreover, as the body was discovered in the nude condition they suspected it to be a case of rape. They also found a reminder ticket attached to the mirror stating that “Get theatre tickets for A.S”.
Detectives started working on theories of robbery or rape as the motive behind the gruesome murder. A few days later, the post-mortem report cleared that the victim was not raped. They interviewed all the persons knowing Teresita, such as her friends, classmates, co-workers, and neighbours.
Everyone interviewed concluded that Teresita was a polite woman truly dedicated to her work. She didn’t have any enemies, and they seemed shocked, as to how someone could kill a woman like her.
Chapter 4
Within a couple of months, the detectives gathered much information about Teresita but still could not reach any conclusion related to her death. They approached the public to provide them any leads on the case, but nothing conclusive got reported.
One morning the detective Joe Stachula received a note on his desk, about an informer related to Teresita’s case. The detective came in contact with Dr. Jose Chua, who lived in the Skokie suburb in Chicago. Dr. Chua was also a Filipino working as a doctor in Chicago.
Dr. Chua felt embarrassed while talking to the detectives, and asked them whether they believed in paranormal activities. The detectives were amazed on hearing that.
Dr. Chua continued that her wife Remebios was having trance-like conditions for the last couple of days and he believed that she has been possessed by the spirit of Teresita. He further continued that her wife was talking to her by name in a voice that was not her original voice.
The spirit of the voice possessing his wife Remebios wanted him to contact the detective department and help her otherwise; his wife could face the consequences.
Chapter 5
The voice of the spirit also informed him that she was murdered, by a man named Allan Showery. Dr. Chua confronted the voice of spirit, by stating that he is a medical practitioner and doesn’t believe in this. The same recurrences started happening continuously to her wife every night.
In the morning, when her wife woke up, she didn’t remember speaking anything like that. During the night, the same thing used to repeat, and she seemed to be under some spirit speaking in a different voice in a condition of trance.
Dr. Chua then asked the voice, if she had any evidence that she could provide to claim that Allan Showery was her murderer. To which the voice agreed to provide him with the evidence. The voice of the spirit continued that after murdering her, Allan took her jewellery and had given it to her girlfriend. The stolen jewellery was given to Teresita by her father, and he would recognize the jewellery.
To save his wife from the daily trance-like situation that prevailed, when the spirit takes over her body and changes her voice and speaks about punishing the offender, he approached the police for help.
Chapter 6
Dr. Chua also mentioned that neither he nor his wife has ever met Teresita before, but somehow the spirit of her engulfed his wife. Detective Stachula remembered the sticker that said, “Get theatre tickets for A.S” that was obtained from the crime scene. So he decided to crosscheck the provided information.
A brief background check revealed that Allen Showery knew Teresita. Allen showery used to visit her apartment for repair works to the electronic equipment, and he was working as an orderly in the same hospital. The detective was now convinced about “A.S” scripted on the sticker was indeed Allen Showery.
The detective enquired with Allen’s girlfriend whether she had lately received any jewellery from him, to which she surprisingly replied in affirmative and showed the jewellery that she had received. Detectives confiscated those and got it confirmed from Teresita’s parents that they were indeed her jewellery.
The detective arrested Allen, upon interviewing; he denied even going to Teresita’s place. When the detective stated that there are people who overheard that he was going to fix the television set at Teresita’s place, he accepted.
Chapter 7
Upon confronting Allen, he confessed that he went to Teresita’s place to fix her Television set, and as she was expecting him, she opened the door. Allen said he wanted money to pay his rent, so he robbed her jewelry and left but had no idea of her death.
Allen was arrested, and his case went to trial. His counsel argued that his client should only be tried for robbery and not for murder. Based on the evidence acquired by the detective department, there was a hung jury some of the jury members believed he should be tried for murder as well.
He was still a prisoner under trial when the same spirit started haunting him in his prison cell. Unable to withstand the regular possession of the spirit he confessed to his crimes in front of the jury including murder.
Allen was awarded a sentence of four years of prison for robbery, and another four years for arson, and fourteen years for murder. In the end, he served only five years in prison and was released on parole.
This was a unique story where the spirit of the dead person possessed another person to provide all the evidence leading the investigation to its conclusion. Even the American police believed that the voice of dead person helped them to solve the case and punish the guilty.
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