Teresita Basa: The Dead Do Talk

A trial in January 1979 sent a ripple of paranormal headlines through the newspapers and media of the time. The defense in this court case wanted it dismissed on the grounds that almost all of the evidence had been provided by a--ghost. The defense in the case also implied that ghosts were untrustworthy! The jury in this particular trial admitted it was hopelessly deadlocked. The outcome of a retrial of this case a month later was much different and this part I will talk about later. The two trials involved the murder of a Filipino nurse, Teresita Basa, at the age of forty-eight on 21 February 1977. Teresita was stabbed to death in her Evanston, Illinois apartment. Forensic evidence indicated that she had let a man into her apartment, and that at first he had choked her to the point of unconsciousness and then stripped her and stabbed her between the ribs. The force of the stab wound was so strong that it went completely through her. To confuse anyone who might investigate the man had left Teresita in a position that would suggest a rape had occurred. The man then set a mattress with Teresita's corpse on it afire in hopes of burning up all of the evidence. However, thankfully (although it did nothing for the poor victim)-the fire did not take hold and comparitively little damage was done to the crime scene.

Two weeks after her death, at the Edgewater Hospital where Teresita Basa had worked, one of her co-workers said to another, "Teresita must be turning in her grave. Too bad she can't tell the police who did it." The other former co-worker of Teresita's , a respiratory therapist named Remy Chua, also a Filipino, said in reply, "She can come to me in a dream. I'm not afraid." However, later in the day, as Remy Chua was taking a nap, after a long shift in the locker room she awoke to see Teresita Basa standing in front of her. She ran from the locker room in panic. After this incident, Remy Chua began to have dreams about Teresita's murder. In these dreams she also recognized the man who had committed the crime. One day after this series of dreams, as she lay on her bed, a voice spoke through her mouth in the language of her native land, Tagalog. The voice said, "I am Teresita Basa. I want you to call the police." Remy Chua's husband heard the words, although Remy herself remembered nothing about it after she came out of her trance-like state. The couple decided to do nothing about it.

Once again, two weeks later, 'Teresita' came back and spoke through Remy Chua. This time she named her killer-'Allan'. This was very interesting because 'Allan' was also the man Remy had recognized when she first started dreaming about Teresita's murder. Allan Showery worked as an orderly at the same hospital Remy and Teresita had worked at. A few days later 'Teresita' spoke through Remy again and gave the full name of the murderer as Allan Showery, and said he had stolen some jewellery and given it to his girlfriend. While in the trance state, 'Teresita' through Remy Chua gave the telephone number of someone who could identify the jewellery. She claimed that 'Al' had come to fix her television and killed her. Finally, the Chuas called the police. The police were anything but convinced and it was several days before they questioned Showery. Showery admitted promising to repair Teresita's television, but claimed he had forgotten to do it. However, when the police questioned Showery's girlfriend, Yanka and asked her if he had given her jewellery, she showed them an antique ring that he had given her as 'a belated Christmas present.' After this the police called the number that Remy Chua had spoken in her trance. This number belonged to one of Teresita's cousins and two of her cousins came to the police station and identified the ring as Teresita's. In addition they identified other pieces of jewellery that had belonged to Teresita.

I think this is a very interesting paranormal case and hope to have the conclusion here Thursday evening-along with questions for anyone who reads the posts and would like to comment. This case in particular caused me to wonder about quite a few things about the postmortem state. Thanks again so very much for everyone's thoughtful, thought provoking and intelligent comments!