Teresita Basa: The Dead Do Talk-Conclusion

When Allan Showery was faced with this evidence he broke down and confessed. Earlier I had mentioned the two trials. At the first trial in January 1979 when the defense had asked that the case be dismissed because the evidence had apparently been provided by a ghost, Judge Frank W. Barbero overruled the objection. The jury however, had its doubts and said they were hopelessly deadlocked. During the second trial a month later, Allan Showery changed his plea to guilty and was sentenced to fourteen years in prison. To me -this is one of the reasons I hate plea bargaining-fourteen years for taking the life of someone out of pure greed seems far too little a time for me!

We are left to wonder about some questions in this fascinating case. With most of the parties concerned in the case working at the same hospital, maybe Remy Chua already suspected Allan Showery and used this highly original way ot pointing out her suspicions. Maybe Remy Chua had extrasensory perception and was able to 'pick' Allan Showery's mind in a way that led to her knowledge of his guilt. However, even if this is what happened and Remy Chua gleaned all her information about the jewellery, the television 'repair' motive and the girlfriend from Showery's mind, how could she have possibly obtained the telephone number of the cousins who identified the jewellery from his mind? Even though Remy and Teresita often spoke with each other when their shifts coincided they were not close friends, and she had no reason to know the telephone number, only Teresita could have provided it.

A case in England in 1922 had some curious parallels with the Teresita Basa case. A man named Eric Tombe was shot in the back of the head by his business partner, Ernest Dyer, at the racing stable they ran together at Kenley, Surrey. Dyer had hidden the body in a cesspit and promptly moved to another part of England. Shortly after the murder, Tombe's mother, the wife of the Reverend Gordon Tombe, began having dreams he was dead, and that his body was in a well with a stone slab placed over its opening. Tombe's mother had never been to the stable and did not even know it existed. It was her husband who had finally found it while trying to locate his son. Eric's mother continued to have dreams about her son's corpse and the police apparently decided to search the stud farm, as the case was going nowhere. The police didn't find any wells, but they found four cesspits, each one covered with a heavy stone slab. Eric Tombe's body was found in one of these, hidden in a recess. Ernest Dyer, the murderer, of whose existence the Tombe's had been completely unaware of, had moved to Scarborough, where he continued his unlawful ways by passing bad checks. In an ironic twist to the case, when the police came around to question Dyer about one of the bad checks, he killed himself with a revolver, in all probablility believing they had come to question him about the homicide.

Eric Tombe had been killed from behind, with the back of his head blown off with a shotgun, so there is no possible way he could have provided knowledge of his murder by telepathy. His death was instantaneous and there is a great possibility he didn't even know Dyer had killed him. It is hard to get around the facts of this case taken at face value, that Eric Tombe 'survived' his death and was able somehow to send messages to his mother in dreams of where he was buried. In a very real sense both the Teresita Basa case and that of Eric Tombe are cases of mediumship. Remy Chua first became aware of Teresita Basa when she was napping and felt that Teresita was trying to communicate with her in dreams or trance states that she herself was unware of. She had already given her 'OK' for Teresita to come to her in a dream. Teresita did indeed start coming to Remy Chua not only in dreams, but appeared to take over her person in a trancelike state. Eric Tombe's mother also learned of her son's murder while dreaming. In this twilight state of consciousness both of these women appeared to become mediums. Another thing I think is very interesting, comparing the two cases, is that although we can be sure Remy Chua didn't want to see harm come to Teresita, there was nowhere near the mother-child connection that there was in the case of Eric Tombe. Yet perhaps both of these women had mediumistic abilities-OR-the 'souls' of the two murder victims were strong enough to get their message to the world of the living---maybe because of outrage at the manner of their deaths?

Maybe these cases can best be explained by a connection between the abilites of both the 'alive' and 'dead' parties in combination? I would be interested to know what anyone reading these posts thinks. Thanks again everyone for all of the fantastic comments! The idea for this set of posts came from Colin Wilson's 1988 book, Beyond the Occult-although I had first learned ot the Teresita Basa case in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries long ago-the cases are discussed on pages 261-263 of the book. Peace and be well to anyone stopping by!

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!