The Spanish legend of El Coco frightened children and was used by parents to make their children go to sleep. But what really was behind the horrible legend about the child devouring monster that would come for you?
Go to sleep child, go to sleep now, the coconut is coming and it will eat you
Many Spanish parents spook their children by cautioning them about El Coco, a Boogeyman monster who snatches children away if they misbehave or refuse to sleep. It has also been associated with a horrible crime that was like a manifestation of the old legend.
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Parents warn their children of El Coco using the popular rhyme, “Duermete niño, duermete ya, que viene El Coco y te comerá.” (“Sleep child, sleep now, or else Coco will come and eat you.”
Origins and Cultural Variations of the El Coco Legend
The legend of El Coco has its roots in Galician Spanish and Portuguese folklore, but it has spread to various countries and cultures around the world, each with their own unique variations.
In Spain, El Coco is often depicted as a dark, shadowy figure lurking in the night. Some say that he appears on moonless nights and puts lying children in a sack and turns them into soap.
Other cultures have their own versions of the legend, such as the Bogeyman in English-speaking countries and the Sack Man in France.
El Coco: Francisco de Goya illustrated, Que viene el coco (Here Comes the Bogey-Man), published 1799.
The origins of the legend can be traced back to the 17th century when the first lullabies were written down, where parents would use stories of monsters and boogeymen to frighten their children into behaving. These cautionary tales served as a way to instill discipline and obedience in children, as they believed that the threat of El Coco would keep them in line.
Over time, the legend evolved and became deeply ingrained in the collective consciousness of various cultures. And with time, the tale of Coco spread to Latin America that also put their own touch on the legend.
Terrifying Tales and Encounters with El Coco
Throughout history, there have been numerous chilling tales and alleged encounters with El Coco. These stories have been passed down from generation to generation, fueling the fear and fascination surrounding the legend. One such tale recounts the story of a young boy who was abducted by El Coco and never seen again. The boy’s parents claimed to have seen a dark figure with glowing eyes and a black cloth bag lurking outside their home on the night of the abduction.
Perhaps the most terrifying thing about this is that it is well in with a horrible real crime that happened to a child.
The Real El Coco Francisco Ortega
A real person that has been associated with El Coco was Francisco Ortega. In 1910 he lived in Gador in Spain with no family, alone in his house. He had tuberculosis and was near death.
At the time there was no cure for tuberculosis, but Ortega didn’t want to die. He went to a healer called Francisco Leona that also practices black magic. He told Ortega he needed the blood of a child and 3000 reais to pay the healer.
They kidnapped a seven year old named Bernando from his house and put him in a sack. Leon cut the child’s heart out with a knife and crushed his head with a rock. They drank his blood, put his heart in a jar and used his body to make a medical paste.
Leona got rid of the body with the help of Julio. But Julio didn’t receive any payments so he went to the police and turned them in. They were all arrested and sentenced to death.
The Goodnight Story El Coco
The legend of El Coco is a haunting tale that has been passed down through generations, instilling fear and fascination in children and adults alike. Its origins in Spanish folklore have spread to various cultures, each with their own unique variations of the legend. Throughout history, there have been terrifying tales and alleged encounters with El Coco, fueling the fear and intrigue surrounding the creature.
Spain’s first recorded serial killer was caught killing people up in the Galician mountains. His crimes were horrible in itself, but his defense was even more gruesome. According to him he was cursed to be a werewolf without his human will, and was remembered as The Werewolf of Allariz.
For centuries, the mythical creature of the werewolf has been the subject of countless tales, striking fear into the hearts of villagers and captivating the imaginations of storytellers alike. But how much of this terrifying legend is rooted in truth?
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From the dark forests of Galicia, Spain, to the eerie moonlit nights where the beast is said to roam, this hair-raising journey will leave you questioning what lies beyond our realm of understanding and has since been known as The Werewolf of Allariz.
The Werewolf of Allariz Legend
At the cusp of the 19th century, Allariz, a small town in Orense, experienced a series of horrible crimes. The Galician forest seemed especially dark when 13 people disappeared and were found brutally murdered inside of it.
They found the man that confessed to the murders, but what was especially strange about this was his reasoning for the murderers.
Manuel Blanco Romasanta, the murderer, told a story that no one really wanted to believe. He said when he was a teenager when someone put a curse on his family and he was turned into a werewolf every full moon. During these full moon turns, he lost all human consciousness and because of the beast in him, he killed and devoured the flesh of his victims.
Werewolves: There have been told stories about werewolves since ancient times. Some have even made it into trial. From The Book of Werewolves: Being an Account of a Terrible Superstition. — London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1865.
Romasanta is Spain’s first documented serial killer. His case was a sensation, not only because of the brutality of his crimes but also because of the werewolf claims. The legend of the Werewolf of Allariz had come to life, blurring the lines between myth and reality. Romasanta’s trial shed light on the dark underbelly of human nature and the fascination with the supernatural.
Romasanta Unusual Background
Romasanta, also known as the Tallow Man was born in 1809 in Regueiro in Ourense Province in Spain to a rather wealthy family that provided their children with education. He was one of five children in the family and at first he was thought to have been female. That is why he spent his first sex years being raised as a girl with the name Manuela. When he was six there was a doctor that rearranged his sex to male.
So we might have a case of an intersex person, as the birth certificate said girl, but this was the 1800s, and there was not a science or wording that can confirm it as we know of it today. We do know he lived most of his life as a male though, working as a tailor and married to a woman that passed away. There is no indication of him being involved in her death.
After her death, he left his job and started to travel, mainly to Portugal, and soon started to work as a guide through the mountain passes and deep woodlands among other things.
In the 1840s at the time of a great famine and mass hysteria where the world was seen as a dangerous place, a man named Antonio Gomes showed up in a small village called Rebordechao. He helped with the harvest, worked as a cook, made yarn and worked as a guide to follow people safely over the thesaurus mountains.
He was a short man with feminine features and became very friendly with the women in the town. But then strange things started to happen the next few years as women and children that had hired this man as their guide and trusted him, started to disappear.
In reality, Antoni Gomez was actually Blanco Romasanta that lived under a disguise and was on the run for killing a man that tried to collect a depth.
Although Romasanta kept delivering letters to the families to the disappeared, something was strange. Especially when he started selling the clothes of the disappeared in town. And a rumor started about him selling soap that was made from human fat, hence the nickname, The Tallow Man.
He was brought to trial in 1852 and taken to Allariz where he had the strangest defense. At the time he was arrested he was carrying a lunar calendar.
The Trial of Manuel Blanco Romasanta
The trial of Manuel Blanco Romasanta captivated the nation and brought the Werewolf of Allariz into the spotlight. As the evidence against him mounted, Romasanta’s story of being cursed by a witch and transformed into a werewolf became more and more difficult to believe.
The Werewolf of Allariz confessed to 13 murders and had this to say about his time as a werewolf:“The first time I transformed, was in the mountains of Couso. I came across two ferocious-looking wolves. I suddenly fell to the ground and began to feel convulsions, I rolled over three times, and a few seconds later I was a wolf. I was out marauding with the other two for five days, until I returned to my own body, the one you see before you today, Your Honour. The other two wolves came with me, who I thought were also wolves, changed into human form. They were from Valencia. One was called Antonio and the other Don Genaro. They too were cursed… we attacked and ate a number of people because we were hungry.” — Manuel Blanco Romasanta
The court asked The Werewolf of Allariz to transform in court, but he said that the curse had been broken as it only lasted for 13 years.
The Werewolf of Allariz: Manuel Blanco Romasanta were tried tin 1852 after killing people in the Galican mountains. His defence was that he was in fact a werewolf.
Some experts suggested that Romasanta may have been suffering from a psychological disorder, such as clinical lycanthropy, which caused him to believe he was a werewolf. Others argued that he was simply a cold-blooded killer using the werewolf myth as a cover for his crimes.
The Werewolf of Allariz ended up being acquitted for four of the murders he had confessed to as forensic science indicated that it was actually wolf attacks and not the butchering by a human as the other nine.
He escaped the death penalty as there were people that wanted to study him and observe his claim as a werewolf and clinical lycanthropy as a psychological illness and even the Queen of Spain intervened so that they could study him. He died in prison though under mysterious circumstances only months after arriving. Some say that it was an illness, some say he was shot by a guard that wanted to see him transform.
The legend of the Werewolf of Allariz continues to captivate audiences to this day, serving as a reminder of our fascination with the supernatural and the unknown. Werewolves have long been a staple of folklore and mythology, appearing in stories from cultures around the world.
The Myth of the Galician Werewolf
But where did the murderer take all of the werewolf lore from? The concept of a shapeshifting human was not a foreign concept in Galician folklore at all, and there were many tales and certain rules for a werewolf.
In Galician folklore, it is a belief that the seventh son of a family can become a werewolf, or lobishome. If the child is born normal, it will be born with the image of a cross inside of his mouth. If not, he will become a werewolf.
There are different variations to the myth, but most of them claim that during a full moon, they can’t help themselves to transform and roll in mud before starting to attack people.Every Friday the werewolf will shed his clothes and run off, visiting seven villages and taking another skin from that village. The Enduring Fascination with Werewolves
The Lobishomen: The Galician mythology have told stories about shape shifting people long before the Werewolf of Allariz were caught.
But what is it about these creatures that continues to capture our imaginations? Perhaps it is the idea of transformation, of a human turning into a beast under the light of the full moon. Or maybe it is the duality of their nature, the struggle between the human and the animal within.
Whatever the reason, werewolves have become an enduring part of popular culture, appearing in books, movies, and television shows. From the classic horror films of the early 20th century to the modern-day werewolf romances, these creatures continue to fascinate and terrify us.
So the next time you find yourself walking through a dark forest on a moonlit night, remember the legend of the Werewolf of Allariz and the power that stories have to both terrify and captivate. And who knows, you may just catch a glimpse of something lurking in the shadows, a creature caught between the worlds of man and beast.
The Greenbrier Ghostthe supposed ghost of Zona that returned from the dead to testify that she was in fact killed by her husband and wanted to see him jail.
How do we explain unnatural occurrences that actually makes sense? This is a debate the people of Greenbrier dealt with in Victorian times when the story of The Greenbrier Ghost came about. There is something of a dissonance in the universe as well as in our minds when something like the appearance as a ghost, finds the truth no living people knew.
This is the case of the Greenbrier ghost, the ghost that went to court to testify to get her murderer behind bars. The woman behind The Greenbrier Ghost is now resting in a cemetery near Lewisburg in West Virginia, USA. And she is known as the only ghost that have testified in her own murder trial in the American judicial system.
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Background of The Greenbrier Ghost
In the small and dull village of Livesay’s Mill in Greenbrier County, nothing much happened. Surrounded by lush green scenery of West Virginia landscape, the lives of the people living there, moved slowly along and there were not much talk about ghosts and murders.
The Greenbrier Ghost:Elva Zona Heaster was only twenty three years old when she was killed./source
Then a stranger arrived. The man was a young man, strong and muscular. The new and handsome worker at the blacksmith’s shop usually introduced himself as Edwards, but was called Trout by the rest for some reason. He was a mysterious figure in the new town, but a pretty face can hide dark secrets very well.
It was there he met a farmer’s daughter called Elva Zona Heaster, commonly known as just Zona. She was a popular girl in the Greenbriar County. Not much of her life before marriage is known, but there have been reported she had a child out of wedlock.
Normally a pretty stoic guy, Trout caught the eye of Zona and started courting her. They fell in love and married the same year as he arrived in 1896.
There marriage happened despite her mother’s disapproval. Zona’s mother really hated Trout from the get go he arrived. But from the outside, it was seemingly a happy marriage.
The Death of Zona
The marriage didn’t last long though. Three months after the wedding, it all was about to change. On that late January day in 1897, Trout was at the house of a Martha Jones for a visit. Zona was supposedly feeling sick and had stayed back home. Trout asked if Martha’s son, Anderson Jones could go and look to Zona if she needed anything.
Just a boy of 11 years, he followed his orders and went over to check on Zona. Once there, a horrific sight awaited him as he opened the door. The lifeless body of Zona was found at the foot of the stairs. Dead. She was only twenty three years old.
The local doctor and coroner was called for and when he arrived at their home, Zona was already prepared for the funeral, by Trout. He had quickly carried her upstairs and she was laid out on the bed. This was odd as according to Victorian custom it was the female family and friends who did the washing and dressing of the dead, not the husband.
Zona was dressed in a long gown with a high collar and he had wrapped a scarf around it that her husband said was her favorite, and was the reason behind her attire.
Place of the murder: The home of Zona and where she was killed and supposedly came back as The Greenbrier Ghost, near Rainelle, West Virginia/source
Dr. Knapp, as the doctor was called, did a quick post mortem exam just to have it done. He concluded the cause of death was because of ‘everlasting faint’, more known today as a heart attack. He later changed the cause of death to something completely different. Then it was said she died of childbirth, even if Zona hadn’t said to anyone that she was pregnant, although the doctor had treated her of ‘female troubles’ before her death.
No matter what the reasoning behind Dr.Knapp post mortem exam, it wasn’t a thoroughly one, and it ended up to be completely wrong.
The Grieving Husband by her side
At the wake of Zona held at their home, Trout was unconscionable, cried and cursed the world for taking his wife from him too soon. Mourners, friends and family gathered at their home to pay their respect and to send her off. But Trout didn’t want anyone near Zona’s head and watched over her, making everyone stand back. He added a veil to her and propped her up on pillows, saying he wanted her to be comfortable.
He was weeping and pacing in front of her open casket until she was buried at the cemetery before he finally calmed down. The body of Zona was brought to a hilltop near her childhood home were she was supposed to rest forever. No one that attended the wake and funeral thought it was strange of his intense display of grief, he was after all playing the part as a grieving husband that had loved his wife dearly.
Although it was a bit uncharacteristic for the stoic man the people of Greenbriar had all come to know. So no one thought it strange, except Zona’s mother, she had thoughts on her own.
The Greenbrier Ghost Appears for her Mother
Mary Jane Heaster, the mother of the deceased did not like her new son in law as mentioned before. Zona was her only daughter, and first, she had been taken away from the place she was from to move in with him all the way across the county. And now she was gone for good.
The Mother: Mary Jane Heaster never gave up on the daughter and according to her the ghost of her daughter appeared to her and told the truth about her death./source/ Wonderful West Virginia magazine
The mother knew that her daughters husband had something to do with her death and didn’t believe that she had died of the everlasting faint or that Zona had been with child. She was certain her daughter was murdered and was certain of the culprit. When she was told of the death of her daughter, she reportedly said:
“The devil has killed her!”
In desperation Mary Jane prayed for nights on end non stop, as the bible told her to find answer and guidance to what to do. She prayed that her daughter should come back to her, somehow. Either to tell things as they were, or even just to come and say goodbye.
Restless and in prayer, she stayed this way for several nights. And just as Mary Jane was going to bed one night after intense prayer, a strange light flowed into her bedroom. The light took shape into a human and just for a few moments, Zona was back as The Greenbrier Ghost. And not only did she appear before her mother, she also spoke according to her story.
For 4 nights The Greenbrier Ghost appeared again and again to explain to her mother how it all went down. According to the ghost the night before Anderson found her, she was preparing dinner for her husband.
When Trout came home he was livid. She had made apple butter, a spread and bread. But no meat. In a rage because of the lack of meat for his meal he attacked her and dislocated her neck.
Zona told this wasn’t the first time her husband had attacked and abused her. She told about a sad pattern of Trout’s terrible temper and how she was unable to reason with him when he got into these fit of anger.
On the second night The Greenbrier Ghost visited, she told her mother again how Trout had squeezed her neck and how he snapped it at the first joint and it killed her. The last night the ghost of Zona twisted her head 180 degrees to show her mother. She died, not of natural causes as Trout as well as the Doctor had claimed, she had been murdered.
Digging up the body
The towns gossip traveled about The Greenbrier Ghost. Mary Jane told the neighbors about the vision and that she was on a mission to set things straight. This was the time that the gossip about the handsome blacksmith came to light as well. Firstly it came out that he lied about his name, calling himself Edward and his shady past as a thief, and his troubling past with other women all came back to haunt him just when he thought he had gotten away with murder.
After Zona as The Greenbrier Ghost had related the tale, Mary Jane hurried to Prosecuting Attorney John Preson in Lewisburg. She told him of her paranormal visions, but he didn’t believe them, perhaps of natural reasons. But what did interest him though, was the poor post mortem exam by Dr. Knapp that didn’t make any sense. Could it be that the mother was right apart from raving about a ghost? On that grounds of the poorly exam by the doctor they exhumed her body for a second examination.
The Grave of The Greenbrier Ghost: Although they thought the mother’s visions were nonsense, they decided to dig up her body and examine the body properly. The cause of death seemed to align almost perfect with what the mother claimed that The Greenbrier Ghost had told her in her visions.
This time, Dr Knapp teamed up with Dr Rupert and McClung for a second post mortem that lasted three hours. Dr Knapp claimed it was because of the widowers distress that had made him just do a shallow examination of Zona. Also present at this post mortem was Trout, but it seemed that he had pulled himself together and he was no longer the grieving husband that he had been at the wake. He was calm a they checked her stomach for poison and her vital organs.
Then they started examining the head and neck. Perhaps as medical men they also thought the mothers talk about The Greenbrier Ghost was all nonsense. But when they saw the truth themselves, they whispered among themselves:
“Well, Shue, we have found your wife’s neck to have been broken.”
On the neck of the body of Zona, they found finger-shaped bruises and that her windpipe was crushed. And, just as the spirit of Zona herself told, the first and second vertebrae was fractured. According to their examination she had indeed been murdered and Trout was arrested.
The Greenbrier Ghost takes the Stand
Trout accepted no responsibility of his wife’s murder, and pleaded ‘not guilty’. He was nonetheless charged of the circumstantial evidence that they had found and rounded up after the exhumation. Prison didn’t sit well with Trout and the Pocahontas Times reported that:
“Trout Shue É now in jail awaiting trial for the murder of his wife, has threatened to kill himself.”
During the trial, Trout said the chargers was nonsense, nothing more than the tales of a spiteful mother in law and that he was innocent and didn’t kill his wife. During the trial, they found out that Zona wasn’t his first wife. She was his third, and the first one left him because of his beatings. Her name was Allie Estelline Cutlip.
Trout beat his wife so bad that a group dragged him out of bed one winter night and threw him in the icy water of Greenbrier River as revenge. She gave birth to a child, Girta Lucretia in 1887. She got out though on grounds of divorce four years later. But the second one was not as lucky.
In 1894, Trout married once again. Lucy Ann Tritt died eight months later. But at this death, there was no investigation, and the Pocahontas Times only stated she died ‘suddenly’. But after the death of Zona, the rumors about what really happened to Lucy Ann started circulating again.
When Mary Jane took the stand, she stood her ground, firmly believing it was the presence Zona as The Greenbrier Ghost that solved the case. She also knew stuff no one else did, like what she had been wearing and about all of her injuries. This is not the only time however the supernatural visitation has gotten a headliner in the courtroom, like with the case of the Red Barn Murder in England.
The murder of Maria Marten, a case called The Red Barn Murder got a lot of media coverage in England because of the strange circumstances. The murder was allegedly solved by the appearance of the ghost of the victim, haunting people’s dreams.
But it was on the circumstantial evidence he was convicted and he was found guilty of more than the testimony of The Greenbrier Ghost perhaps. He was sentenced to life imprisonment at the West Virginia State Penitentiary where he died a few years later at the age of 39 in 1900. He know rests in an unmarked grave.
The Greenbrier Ghost after the Trial
It wasn’t that the testimony of The Greenbrier Ghost was the thing that got Trout convicted. If anything, it was brought by the defense to discredit Mary Jane. Was she really seeing her dead daughter? Did she lie? She lived until 1916, and never recanted her original story about the visitations, but she did never appear again.
Now the state remember her as a marker along the highway to The Greenbrier Ghost. The sign reads:
“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 a ghost helped convict a murderer.”
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