The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Unsolved Mysteries by Colin Wilson Page B

Showery when she found herself experiencing an inexplicable panic. Showery was a sinewy but powerfully built black man with an open and confident manner. When Showery was standing behind Mrs Chua, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye – just as Teresita Basa may have when her killer stepped up behind her to lock his forearm round her neck – and, inexplicably, her heart began to pound violently. She decided that she was suffering from nervous problems and asked for time off from work.
    That night her husband heard her talking in her sleep – she was repeating, “Al–Al–Al . . .” She told him later that she had dreamed of being in a smoke-filled room. The next day she felt so ill that she asked her parents to come over. After taking a strong sedative, she climbed into bed. But after a few hours’ sleep she began to babble in Spanish – a language Remy Chua did not speak. Her husband knelt beside the bed and asked, “How are you”? His wife replied, “I am Teresita Basa”. When José Chua asked what she wanted, the voice replied, “I want help . . . Nothing has been done about the man who killed me”. A few minutes later “Teresita” disappeared and Remy Chua was herself again.
    Two days later Remy Chua felt a pain in her chest, followed by aheavy sensation, “as if someone was stepping into her body”. She told her mother (who was still with them), “Terrie is here again”.
    When her husband returned he found his wife in bed. The voice of Teresita Basa issued from her mouth, asking accusingly, “Did you talk to the police”? José Chua acknowledged that he hadn’t, because he needed proof. “Allan killed me” insisted the voice. “I let Al into the apartment and he killed me”.
    The strain of Remy Chua’s “possession” was beginning to adversely affect the whole family (the Chuas had four children). José Chua finally went to his boss at Franklin Park Hospital, Dr Winograd, and told him the whole story; Dr Winograd took the “possession” seriously but believed that the police would dismiss it as an absurdity. He advised Dr Chua to write them an anonymous letter.
    The “possessing entity” had other ideas. The next time Remy Chua went into a trancelike state, the voice demanded to know why José Chua had not done as she asked. He explained that he had no proof. “Dr Chua”, said the voice, “the man Allan Showery stole my jewelry and gave it to his girlfriend. They live together”.
    “But how could it be identified”?
    “My cousins, Ron Somera and Ken Basa, could identify it. So could my friends, Richard Pessoti and Ray King”. She went on to give Dr Chua Ron Somera’s telephone number. After that she told him, “Al came to fix my television and he killed me and burned me. Tell the police”.
    Dr Chua finally decided to do as she asked; he telephoned the Evanston police headquarters. On 8 August 1977, Investigator Joseph Stachula was assigned to interview the Chuas. Their story left him stunned, yet he had an intuitive certainty that they were not cranks. All the same, he could see no obvious way to make use of what they had told him. He could hardly walk up to Allan Showery and arrest him on the grounds that his victim had come back from the dead to accuse him.
    A check on Showery revealed that he might well be the killer. He had a long criminal record that included two rapes, each of which had taken place in the victim’s apartment. Moreover, he had lived only four blocks from Teresita Basa.
    Showery was brought to the police station, and was asked if it were true that he had agreed to repair Teresita Basa’s television on the evening of her murder. He acknowledged that it was but insisted that he had gone to a local bar for a drink and simply forgotten. Asked if he had ever been in the Basa apartment, he denied it. Then, when asked for fingerprint samples to compare with some found in the apartment, hechanged his mind and acknowledged that he had been there some