EP. 84 MASSACHUSETTS - The Salem Witch Trials
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Warning. The following podcast is not suitable for all audiences. We go into great detail with every case that we cover and do our best to bring viewers even deeper into the stories by utilizing disturbing audio and sound effects. Trigger warnings from the stories we cover may include violence, rape, murder, and offenses against children. This podcast is not for everyone. You have been warned. Our story for today starts over 300 years ago in the town of Salem, Massachusetts.

In the summer of 1692, the townspeople of Salem all gathered around near the bottom of Gallows Hill and they grow increasingly excited when they see the authorities wheeling in a woman named Bridget Bishop. She was considered rebellious in their town. She had been married multiple times, dressed inappropriately, was known to frequent taverns, but worst of all, according to the young girls in town,

Bridget's ghost had been visiting them at night and attacking them. No one ever witnessed these attacks and Bridget adamantly denied them, but it didn't matter. Over the past few months, witchcraft had taken over the town of Salem and the Puritan church was determined to rid their town of the devil. And the only way to do that was to hang the accused witches at the gallows.

As Bridget Bishop walked up the ladder that was leaning up against the tree, tears streamed down her face. All she could think about was that she was about to die for a crime she did not commit. In the seconds before her hanging, Bridget looks out at the crowd, scanning their faces. Among them, she sees neighbors and old friends who are now angry and screaming for her to hang.

The people of Salem are excited to watch her die, and the energy only grows stronger as the rope slips around her neck. Little did they know Bridget was not a witch, but it was far too late. Her fate was already sealed thanks to her accusers. And before she knew it, the hangman throws her off the ladder, and for the next few minutes, she slowly struggles underneath the rope.

That day, Salem had executed their very first witch, but it definitely wouldn't be their last. Over the next few months, hysteria and paranoia spread like wildfire through the small village of Salem. Neighbors were turning against each other, families were being torn apart, and even the most respected members of their town were being accused of witchcraft.

This is the story of the Salem Witch Trials. I'm Courtney Browen. And I'm Colin Browen. And you're listening to Murder in America. ♪♪♪

The hunt for witches actually did not start in Salem, Massachusetts. In fact, four years earlier, the city of Boston, Massachusetts had just hanged their last accused witch, a woman named Goody Glover. But going even further back in time, this witch hysteria had been going on for a while, and it all started in Europe. In 1486, the publication Malleus Maleficarum, also known as "The Hammer of Witches," was released to the public.

And this publication, at the time, attempted to teach the people of Europe the true evils of witchcraft. It taught one how to identify a witch, and more importantly, how to destroy them. With the publication of this book came mass hysteria surrounding witchcraft. And it festered all throughout Europe. In the century before the Salem Witch Trials, it's believed that around 80,000 suspected witches were executed in Europe.

And there, witches weren't hung at the gallows like they would eventually be in America. They were burned at the stake.

But soon enough, this witch-hunting mania made its way over to the American colonies. And, as we stated earlier, Salem wasn't the first community to execute witches in the New World. There were witch hangings in the decades prior in Boston, Connecticut, and Virginia. But Salem definitely was the most memorable of all the witch hunts. And it all started in the year 1692, when the people of Salem would get their first taste of witchcraft.

At this point in time, Salem was a polarizing place to live. The Puritans had actually arrived there 66 years earlier in 1626. And when they came over, they were hoping to build a community based on their Puritan values. Now obviously their plan wasn't exactly off to a great start.

since they had to massacre the indigenous individuals and steal land to get there, but in their minds, now that the people that were once inhabiting the land were out of the way, this was their land and they were going to create a Christian utopia. But it wasn't that easy. There was still a lot of chaos in Salem Village after the war.

There was a lot of bloodshed, refugees were still in town, property disputes were going on, the taverns were full, and in the eyes of the Puritan church, order needed to be restored. The only problem was that Salem Village had already gone through three ministers within five years. No one seemed to be able to handle the job.

That was until 1689 when a man named Samuel Parris decided to step up to the plate and he was officially elected the town's minister. Reverend Parris was a strong-willed man and his first order of business was to whip the villagers into shape and make Salem a godly place. He starts by cracking down on the people who didn't seem to live by his teachings.

A new rule was set into place where members of the Puritan church had to be baptized and confess their faith publicly. Some members of Salem were very pleased with these rules, and some people weren't. And it's around this time where we start to see a lot of tension in Salem. And as the tension grows, so does the amount of fire and brimstone in Reverend Parris' preachings.

He was known to yell at his congregation, screaming out spiritual rules that they had to follow. And if these rules weren't adhered to, the individual would be banished to hell. And eventually, he starts using his sermons as a way to talk poorly of Salem's committee members. In a short period of time, Reverend Parris becomes so disliked within his community

that the villagers actually refused to pay his salary. But there was one man in town who really liked the Reverend and his name was Thomas Putnam. Little did anyone know that the friendship of these two men was about to change the town of Salem forever.

At the time, living in Reverend Parris' home is his wife Elizabeth, their 9-year-old daughter Betty, and 11-year-old Abigail Williams, who was a relative that moved in with the Parrises after her own parents passed away. Also living in their home is the family's slave, a Caribbean woman named Tituba. At the time, everything seemed to be going well for the Parris family, as the Putnam family, at Thomas' urging, had begun to financially support them so that Reverend Parris could continue on with his preachings.

But in January of 1692, everything would take a turn for the worse when the young girls living in the home started exhibiting some strange behavior. During the night, they would both wake up the house with their piercing screams. When Reverend Parris came upstairs to see what was going on,

He saw Abigail and Betty grotesquely convulsing. They were screaming, throwing their bodies around, contorting their limbs, and they had a wild look in their eyes. Confused and terrified, everyone in the family comforted the girls until they began to calm down. Once everything was settled, they asked the girls what happened, but they didn't have an explanation. The girls do admit that they feel a little sick and feverish, so they treat them with some home remedies, but nothing seems to work.

After several of these fits, Reverend Paris becomes paranoid. What's happening to these girls? Is it the work of the devil? Just to make sure, he decides to have a local doctor named William Griggs come to evaluate them just to make sure they aren't sick. And sure enough, when the doctor takes a look at the girls, he can't seem to find a diagnosis.

Now, being a devout Puritan himself, the doctor gives the girls his spiritual diagnosis, telling Reverend Parris, quote, they were under an evil hand. Suddenly, all of Reverend Parris' fears had come true.

Someone in Salem, possibly someone with a grudge, was using witchcraft on his girls. And I think it's important to note that these girls lived with one of the most aggressive ministers in the town's history, a man who was constantly preaching about eternal damnation and the devil.

So they were forced to constantly hear these terrifying sermons about how the devil was in their town. And at just 9 and 11 years old, the girls were obviously impressionable. And we'll get into more of that a little bit later, but back to Dr. Griggs.

After hearing the doctor's spiritual diagnosis, Reverend Parris knew that he had to keep it a secret. He couldn't have people in town knowing that his girls were possessed, flirting with the devil. But keeping this secret was next to impossible. By now, several ministers in town had seen the girls' fits, and it wouldn't be long until word got out that witches were operating in Salem.

Once word got out, it was all anyone could talk about. We all know how small-town gossip spreads, and this was a hot topic for the people of Salem Village. After a while, more girls in town started experiencing these same fits. One was 17-year-old Elizabeth Hubbard.

Elizabeth was an orphan, and after her parents died, she moved in with her great-aunt and uncle, who just so happened to be Dr. William Griggs, the same doctor who evaluated Abigail and Betty. Now, sadly, her great-aunt and uncle treated Elizabeth more like a servant than they did a family member. And we obviously don't know the reasoning as to why these girls started acting like they were possessed, but it's likely for Elizabeth, she was simply tired of being treated like a servant.

And she craved the same attention that the other girls were getting According to Elizabeth, the people of Salem began visiting her in her dreams And they were physically harming her She said they would pinch her and prick her with needles while she lied in bed Neighbors, friends were approaching Elizabeth in these nightmares and assaulting her But then, just as quickly as the dreams came, they were gone And again, all of these "ghosts" that were visiting Elizabeth were real people that she knew in town that weren't dead

And because Elizabeth was older than the other girls, her testimony of being bewitched was even more convincing for the people of Salem. Just days after Elizabeth's confession, panic and paranoia take a hold of Salem. The villagers now know that there is a witch in their midst, and every outsider is now a suspect. Another girl who began experiencing these fits was 13-year-old Anne Putnam, the daughter of Thomas Putnam, who was good friends with Reverend Parris.

Now, one thing to note about Thomas Putnam was that his father was one of the richest men in all of Salem. But when his father died, Thomas was only left with a small portion of the wealth. And this was very upsetting to him. After all, Thomas had a large family and he could have really used the money. But instead of blaming his misfortune on his father, he blames it all on the devil.

And this theory of demonic interference is confirmed even further when Thomas' daughter Anne begins having these fits. At the time, Thomas is well connected in the church through Reverend Paris and soon enough the ministers in town began warning the public about these witches and their sermon. After all, their town was run by Puritans who had already been heavily preaching about the devil

and the warnings of witchcraft even before it became an immediate issue in town. And now that there were suspected witches in Salem, it really gave them something to preach about. Reverend Lawson, a minister who had actually witnessed the girls' fits first hand, served as a guest speaker at one of these church services, and in his sermon he went into detail about what he witnessed.

He told the congregation that the girls had experienced awful, loud, violent outbursts and would curse and burst out in cries of pain as their bodies contorted. He told the congregation about their "voices shrieking in a way that made cold shivers run down your spine." And now that the churchgoers of Salem were learning the official story of the horrors that were happening, the Salem court system stepped in.

Now, these officials are actually called magistrates, which basically means they are the authorities. But once they see the panic surrounding witches, they open an investigation into these claims. The inquiry begins on March 1st, 1962 and the first person the magistrates speak to is Am Putnam.

13-year-old Anne tells the Salem magistrates that Reverend Parris' slave, Tituba, had been casting spells on her. She said that Tituba sent an apparition that would torture her at night by pinching and pricking her skin. Now, these false accusations were already horrible, but Anne wasn't finished just yet. Tituba, in fact, isn't the only witch that she knows of.

Her two neighbors, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne, are witches too.

According to a piece written by Sarah Jobe on the witch trials, Sarah Good was an outcast. She had been married multiple times, she and her husband barely had any money, and they survived by renting rooms out of people's houses in Salem. She also had two children, and life was not easy for she and her family. Sarah was considered to be a beggar, and she often scared children in the city, making her the perfect candidate to be a witch in the eyes of the wealthy and more privileged in town.

Something that you'll learn throughout this story is that typically, the people accused of being witches were female and of a lower class. Like we mentioned earlier, Tituba was the first accused and she matched the criteria because she was a slave and Sarah Good was really no different. No one wanted Sarah in Salem to begin with, so she stood no chance against these accusations.

The other woman accused was Sarah Osborne, and she too was not favored within her community. Sarah was poor, and she struggled with anxiety and depression. In Sarah's second marriage, she had married her servant, an act which was heavily frowned upon by the upper-class Puritans who ran the town at the time. And Sarah and her servant had even moved in together before they were married, which, as you can imagine, was at the time a huge scandal.

So, after interviewing Abigail, Betty, and Elizabeth, magistrates John Hawthorne and Jonathan Corwin came to the conclusion that they now know the identity of the three witches operating in Salem. These supposed witches were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba.

So they bring the women in for an examination, and first, Magistrate John Hawthorne interrogates Tituba, saying, Tituba, what evil spirit have you familiarity with? Tituba professes her innocence, but they don't believe her. They then ask her, Why do you hurt these children? I do not hurt them, she whispers back.

Hearing this, Hawthorne snorts and demands an answer to his question. "Who is it then?" Taking a deep breath, Tituba begins to realize that the magistrates will never truly believe her unless she plays along. So calmly, she replies, "The devil, for aught I know." Intrigued, Hawthorne's eyes intensify before asking, "Did you never see the devil?"

Tituba responds, "The devil came to me and bid me serve him." At this point, Hawthorne knows he struck gold. It's official, Salem Village was harboring at least one witch, but he still needed more information. "Who have you seen?" Petrifying everyone within earshot, Tituba reveals to the group that there were actually five other witches who were afflicting the girls.

and that two of them were Sarah Osborne and Sarah Good. According to Tituba, the other witches had actually been the ones that forced her to afflict the children, saying, "They lay all upon me, and they tell me if I will not hurt the children, they will hurt me."

Hathorne asks Tituba at this point if she felt remorse for hurting the children, and she states that she does. She explains that if she hadn't done what the other witches had told her to do, she would have suffered an excruciatingly painful death. And it's at this point when the session takes a terrifying turn. After being pressed for more information by the magistrates, Tituba volunteers more information, stating: "Last night there was an appearance. It said 'kill the children'.

As chills run down his spine, John Hathorn timidly asks, "What is this appearance that you see?" "Sometimes it's like a hog. Sometimes like a great dog. Sometimes a man trying to seduce me with pretty things like a yellow bird. Sometimes there are rats, one red and one black.

Tituba's story grows more and more twisted the longer she speaks. While confessing, Tituba also admits to pinching and stabbing Elizabeth Hubbard and Ann Putnam with a spectral knife that she was forced to make. She tells John Hathorne that Sarah Good and Sarah Osborn were strong witches that could transform into hairy creatures, winged creatures, odd two-legged creatures, a woman in a white hood with a topknot, or a man dressed in black with white hair.

She also states that the witches would ride on sticks and would sic wolves on their victims. Hathorne now knows that Tituba had sealed her fate by confessing, but still needed more out of her. In fact, in John Hathorne's mind, he needed enough information to condemn Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne as well. Do you see who it is that torments these children now? Yes, it is Good. She hurts them in her own shape.

Excellent. In Hathorn's mind, he's taken one witch down and has only one more to go. And who is it that hurts them now? But Tituba is done. At this point, she claims that one of the other witches has suddenly taken away her sight, and she goes blind, screaming. I am blind now. I can't see. And with that, the questioning ceases for the day.

Now, keep in mind that even though she did admit to all of this, Tituba was a slave and we all know how false confessions come about. It's also been said that Tituba's confession was forced by her owner, Reverend Paris, and she only admitted to it after a severe and relentless beating.

But regardless of the validity of the confession, for the religious authorities in town this was enough. So on February 29th, 1692, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. In jail, the three accused witches were shackled together with iron.

You see, back then, it was believed that iron actually took away the magical powers of witches. So by restraining them with iron, they couldn't harm anyone else while in jail. But what do you know, even after their arrest, the young girls in town continued to have these fits. But there was a shift coming.

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The next woman to be accused of witchcraft was a woman named Martha Corey, and she and her husband Giles were full-on members of the Puritan Church. They had been members for quite some time, but they had somehow managed to remain outsiders in the village. According to the church, Martha was one of the most scandalous women in Salem.

Giles had been her second husband, but that wasn't the only reason that they believed Martha was a temptress. Her son Benjamin, who she had given birth to during her first marriage to a man named Henry Rich, had much darker skin than either Martha or Henry. This led the townspeople to believe that Martha had been cheating on her husband, which at the time was a grave sin.

Back then, committing adultery with a non-white person was a whole different level of a sin. On March 12th, Ann Putnam confesses that she had seen the specter of Martha Corey and the woman was quickly arrested. During this time, two other young girls, Mary Walcott and Mary Warren, suddenly become afflicted by witchcraft and they too begin experiencing these fits.

where they have visions and night terrors. The next person that the girls accused of witchcraft was not lower class like the previous three. Her name was Rebecca Nurse, and she was a 71-year-old very respected Puritan saint in Salem. Rebecca Nurse had children, grandchildren, and up until this point, she had lived a good and wholesome life. But that was all about to change. Even though Rebecca was respected in her community, she did have issues with one family in town.

That family was, of course, the Putnams. You see, Rebecca and the Putnams lived next to each other and they had been feuding over property boundaries for years. So, as you can imagine, it was very convenient for the girls to accuse Rebecca of being a witch. It's also interesting to note that Rebecca's brother was actually Sarah Osborne's first husband, and she too had been accused of witchcraft by Thomas Putnam's daughter. It's very obvious, looking back at this series of accusations, that there was a pattern here.

All of these new accusations had been brought against people who seemed to be Thomas Putnam's enemies. Coming to a head in March of 1692, Thomas Putnam filed a formal complaint against Rebecca Nurse, accusing her of using witchcraft on his daughter. And once again, to reiterate, this revelation was shocking to the people of Salem. Rebecca Nurse was loved by the community.

and wasn't what you would call an outsider. She was a grandmother, a full member of the church, and was at the time so sick and elderly that she had to be physically dragged to the courthouse for her interrogation.

While sitting inside of the old wooden courthouse, Rebecca's frail little figure cowered in the corner of the building, as Abigail Williams testified that the old woman had in fact terrorized her that very morning. And before anyone can react to Abigail's statements, Ann Putnam falls to the ground and her limbs contort as her mouth stretches into an open-mouthed scream. Terror falls upon the crowd of onlookers.

The formerly innocent-looking elderly woman had suddenly shifted into an old hag, afflicting the young Anne Putnam right before their very eyes. Magistrate John Hathorn then steps in and forcefully questions the withered-looking woman. "Are you an innocent person relating to this witchcraft?" Shaky and slow, it takes Rebecca a moment to respond, but before she can, one of the afflicted shrieks, "Did you not bring the black man with you?"

Again, it doesn't matter that Rebecca proclaims her innocence over and over, and it didn't matter that just a few days ago she had been very well liked by the community, because seeing this as irrefutable evidence that Rebecca Nurse was indeed a witch, she's quickly arrested and the witch hunt continues. Now, just a side note, it's widely believed that Thomas Putnam was actually feeding his daughter the names of people that he didn't like in Salem, so that he could profit from their deaths.

He was using this witch hysteria to his advantage, and many people would have to pay the ultimate price because of this. And obviously, this was not very Christian of him. It wouldn't be long until Ann Putnam would name another witch operating in Salem.

At that point, they were on a roll. No one in a position of authority was questioning the visions, the messages that the girls were feeding them. No one took a step back and thought about this whole ordeal with any sense of rationality. No one second-guessed the validity of the bewitched young girls' claims. You see, in the years before the witch trials, there had been a growing sentiment of discontent in Salem.

In 1691, the year before the trials, a severe drought had crippled the food supplies of Salem, going into the winter months, and the fear of living alone in the New World, especially after the infamous King Philip's War which was fought between the colonists and indigenous tribes, had marred the people of Salem and the surrounding communities with an almost inescapable feeling of anxiety, depression, and anger. It seemed that with the Salem Witch Trials, the Puritans had finally reached a boiling point.

At this point, just a month or so following Betty and Abigail's first attack, five accused witches sat locked in iron shackles in the Salem jail, awaiting a decision on their fates. The accused witches were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, Tituba, Rebecca Nurse, and Martha Corey. And there was no way that any of them could have anticipated how awful their lives were about to get.

From the start, Sarah Good had nothing in life except for her 4-year-old daughter, Dorothy. And even Dorothy wasn't safe from these accusations. On March 24th, Magistrate John Hawthorne issued a warrant for the little girl's arrest, which appeared to be more like a kidnapping to onlookers.

You see, Mary Walcott, Mercy Lewis, and Ann Putnam had accused the toddler of witchcraft, claiming she had been "biting them like some rabid animal in their dreams," and they even showed tiny bite marks on their bodies to prove it. The girls also claimed that the toddler would beat, choke, and pinch them while she demanded they sign the devil's book.

After Dorothy's arrest, they kept the toddler in jail and interrogated her for weeks before she's left to rot in a cell on a 50-pound bale. Her life from that point forward is lived in a dark, cold hole, starving and alone. Soon after though, one of the afflicted girls, Mary Warren, insinuates that she never actually had any affliction at all.

She even hinted at the time that the other girls were lying about the whole thing, a revelation which shocked the entire village. And just when the congregation started to question if they were overreacting, the other girls retaliated.

On April 18, 1692, the remaining group of afflicted girls all filed a formal complaint of witchcraft against the former member of their own group, Mary Warren. By the time that this happened, Mary's master, John Proctor, and his wife, Elizabeth, had also become suspects. Mary Warren is ultimately pardoned, but the testimony that she provided painted the Proctors in a very guilty light, and they're quickly arrested, taken away in chains, and led back to the town jail to await their fate.

Meanwhile, Ann Putnam reveals the name of another witch, or in this case, a warlock. The girl claims to have been terrorized by the evil spirit of Giles Corey, Martha Corey's husband, but he's far from the last.

In fact, the circle of suspects grew far beyond the five Tituba originally implicated. The stain of hysteria had quickly spread throughout Salem Village like the plague. The list of suspects now included Rebecca Nurse's sister, Sarah Cloyce, John and Elizabeth Proctor, Giles Corey, Abigail and Deliverance Hobbs, Mary Eastie, and Bridget Bishop. But what nobody could have predicted was that the next person accused of witchcraft would be a minister.

A man named George Burroughs was one of the previous ministers of Salem. Shortly after he was appointed, he resigned. He found that the Salem crowds were too difficult to preach to. When he was serving as a minister, the village had fought with George over his salary. They also failed to provide him with parsonage, or a home to stay in.

Instead of living in a home provided to him by the church, George found himself living with the Putnam family. It was while he was living with them that George suddenly lost his wife during childbirth. As the sole provider and now caretaker for nine children, he did what he had to do and he married a rich widow named Sarah Hawthorne.

Sarah had been formally married to Judge John Hawthorne's father, William Hawthorne, and this action angered the entire Hawthorne family.

By the time April 30, 1692 rolled around, all the hocus-pocus surrounding the witch spectacle had been dragging on for over two months, but no one had yet been tried. All of the accused had continued to sit in jail as the possessed girls continued to complain of supernatural torment night after night, and the authorities had held more interrogations and made more arrests. John Hathorn and the other magistrates didn't want to act too hastily.

But pressure from the outside was making it difficult. They were after one person in specific. This "man in black" that all of the girls had spoken of. This "man in black" was suspected of being the devil, the ringleader of the entire satanic operation. So when Mercy Lewis told the townspeople that she had seen the specter of George Burroughs in her nightmarish visions, it all began to make sense to the congregation. George had previously left the church with his tail between his legs over money.

And while he had friends in town, he had amassed an even larger number of enemies. It was also common knowledge that George had never even officially been ordained as a minister, and this was good enough for the magistrates and the congregation to make a decision. As George Burroughs was eating dinner with his family, officers from Portsmouth barged into his house. Startled and afraid, George put up a fight against his arrest, but it was useless.

He was seized and dragged back to Salem in iron chains. On the group's way back to town, a massive thunderstorm rolled in above, which frightened George's captors into thinking that this storm was Satan's attempt at rescuing him. George Burroughs is examined on May 9, 1692 and interrogated by his wife's stepson, Magistrate John Hawthorne.

The suspicions of the magistrates were based not only on the testimony of those afflicted, but also the testimonies of some former members of his congregation, and also the fact that both of George's ex-wives were dead.

In fact, George was actually accused of using witchcraft to murder his ex-wives, a fact which is corroborated by Ann Putnam, who told the judges that she had seen two shrouded women in her visions that told her they had been brutally murdered by their husband. Of course, the women were presumed to be Sarah and Hannah Burroughs, George's ex-wives,

George was also accused of possessing superhuman strength. At the time, having above average physical strength was unusual for a Puritan minister, as they were typically underfed, pale, and studious. But Burroughs, they concluded, was different. It was said he could haul huge loads over long distances without any help.

and he could travel as fast as a horse, which is clearly witchcraft.

Hearing all of this, George protests, revealing he had achieved the aforementioned feats of strength with the help of an indigenous companion. The magistrates are quick to interpret George's companion to be the devil himself, and he is jailed. Two days later, Margaret Jacobs, one of the accused, confesses to being a witch. This could be because word had gotten out that any witch who confessed wouldn't be executed, and to many of them, it was the only way of getting out of this situation alive.

That being said, Margaret Jacobs also implicates two men in helping her serve the devil: Minister George Burroughs and her very own father, George Jacobs. The court rejoices, knowing that they had finally found the leader of the Salem Village coven. From then on, it made no difference that George continued to protest his innocence, for he was already jailed and shackled with iron.

George is also put through a humiliating physical examination while he waits for his trial to begin. This inspection involved having his entire body inspected for any marks or blemishes. If marks were found, they would be stabbed with a sharp pin to see if they bled. If no blood flowed from the wound, it was assumed that George bore the stamp of Satan. Despite passing this first test and bleeding every time he's poked, George is still kept behind bars.

As allegations continued to pour in throughout the month of April, little to no evidence was needed to make an arrest anymore and the small cramped jail was soon overflowing. A shocking number of people began to confess and with each confession more and more accomplices were implicated. In fact, between 1692 and 1693,

200 accused witches are named. Mary Warren confesses around the same time as Deliverance and Abigail Hobbs, and they all begin naming those who worked alongside them. This included William Hobbs, Abigail's father and Deliverance's husband, Edward and Sarah Bishop, Nehemiah Abbott Jr., and Mary English.

all friends and family of the quote-unquote witches. Nevertheless, George Burrow wasn't the only person arrested on April 30th. Susanna Martin, Dorcas Hoare, Philip and Mary English, and Sarah Morey were all apprehended. This new influx of people meant that the trials of those already accused were to be postponed.

At this point, Tituba, Sarah Osborne, and Sarah Good, the first three suspected witches, had been sitting in jail for more than two months, and it didn't seem like there was any end in sight. Tituba, who was somewhat used to the hardship of living life as a slave, managed to survive in jail alright, but the other two women were struggling. Sarah Good was pregnant at the time and also had to endure knowing that her little girl Dorothy was also imprisoned somewhere in the same jail.

When the time came for her to give birth, Sarah is forced to birth her child on a filthy, cold, barren floor and without assistance from anyone except for her cellmates. Sarah names the infant Mercy, but she doesn't live long enough to see the outside of the dark, damp prison cell. Mercy died in her feeble mother's arms shortly after being born.

and Sarah Osborne was faring no better than Sarah Good. In 1692, her age of 49 made her a fairly elderly woman, and she was already in poor health before being held prisoner. The living conditions only made them worse, and on May 10, 1692, Sarah Osborne died in prison, becoming the first official victim of the Salem Witch Trials.

At the time, William Phipps had just been appointed governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony and like Samuel Parris, he was determined to whip this community into shape. By the time he was named the new governor, it was clear he was a jack of all trades. He worked as a shepherd, treasure hunter, captain, and knight.

And by the year 1961, he had become fast friends with some influential men from Massachusetts, including Reverend Increase Mather and his son, Cotton. Being acquainted with the Mathers had given William the political advantage he needed to land the governor position.

and on May 14, 1692, he returned from a London trip with the new Massachusetts Charter in hand. The new charter established Massachusetts as a province of Great Britain instead of a colony, which meant things would be changing for the residents of Salem Village. Less than two weeks after his return,

The new Governor William decides that something needs to be done about the chaos unfolding in Salem. So he appoints a court to hear and decide, with William Statton acting as Chief Magistrate. The court is now staffed with nine judges instead of two. And it should be noted that both Increase and Cotton Mather were opposed to using spectral evidence in court.

agreeing, quote, it were better that 10 suspected witches should escape than one innocent person be condemned. No one listens. The trials continued and things were about to get messy.

Summertime had come to Salem, and the landscape that was previously blanketed in snow was now a vibrant green. The birds cheerfully sang, and the warm sun was beating down on the gathering group below. It was a perfect day, aside from the chill running through the crowd congregating at Gallows Hill. And we're talking a literal chill.

People at the time who were gathering near the gallows all reported feeling a sickly cold in the air, although the day was sunny and warm everywhere else in town. At the time, the townspeople were sure that this cold was the witches' specters running their icy, ghostly fingers down their necks, taunting them. Suddenly, the sound of a rattling horse-drawn cart can be heard grinding its way up the hill. At the top of the hill, the cart slowly screeches to a halt.

A few guards get out, followed by a woman, whose man handled out of the cart and violently shoved forward. It was Bridget Bishop. Not one eye from the crowd that looked at Bridget showed the slightest hint of remorse, empathy, or regret in them.

You see, Bridget had a bad reputation in town even before the trials. Known for her love of wild drinking parties coupled with the fact that she had been widowed three times, Bridget had seemingly taken priority in the new court's eyes and had quickly and suddenly been sentenced to hang after digging her own grave. As Bridget protested her innocence earlier in her trial, she had shouted, "I am innocent to a witch. I know not what a witch is."

With a sly grin, one of the magistrates then concluded, How can you know that you all know witch, yet not know what a witch is? And to that question, Bridget had no answer. And on June 8th, 1692, she is the first person to be formally sentenced for witchcraft in Salem. And on June 10th, she is the first person to be murdered for it.

The last words she would hear would be the official instructing her to step towards the steep, rocky ledge. She would then feel a rope being draped around her throat as she stared out into the eyes of the village that betrayed her. As she looked out, all she could see was a blurry sea of angry faces as she was shoved forward off the ledge.

As Bridget died, the sounds of the creaking rope and wood pierced the air. And all that was left of Bridget Bishop was a limp corpse swinging in the wind.

Immediately following Bridget Bishop's murder, the court adjourns until June 30th, while it sought advice from some of the most influential ministers in New England. A collective response, dated June 15th, reads: "1. The afflicted state of our poor neighbors that are now suffering by molestations from the invisible world, we apprehend so deplorable that we think their condition calls for the utmost help of all persons in their several capacities.

2. We cannot but, with all thankfulness, acknowledge the success which the merciful God has given unto the sedulous and assiduous endeavors of our honorable rulers to detect the abominable witchcrafts which have been committed in the country, humbly praying that the discovery of those mysterious and mischievous wickednesses may be perfected.

3. We judge that, in the prosecution of these and all such witchcrafts, there is a need of very critical and exquisite caution, lest by too much credulity for things received only upon the devil's authority, there be a door opened for a long train of miserable consequences, and Satan get an advantage over us, for we should not be ignorant of his devices. 4.

5.

When the first inquiry is made into the circumstances of such as much lie under the just suspicion of witchcrafts, we could wish that there may be admitted as little as is possible of such noise, company and openness as may too hastily expose them that are examined, and there may be no thing used as a test for the trial of the suspected. The lawfulness whereof may be doubted among the people of Gaunt, but that the directions given by such judicious writers as Perkins and Bernard be consulted in such a case. 6.

Presumptions whereupon persons may be committed, and much more, convictions whereupon were may be condemned as guilty of witchcrafts, ought certainly to be more considerable than barely the accused persons being represented by a spectre unto the afflicted, inasmuch as it is an undoubted and notorious thing that a demon may, by God's permission, appear, even to ill purposes, in the shape of an innocent, yea, and virtuous man.

nor can we esteem alterations made in the sufferers, by a look or touch of the accused, to be an infallible evidence of guilt, but frequently liable to be abused by the devil's legionnaire. 7.

We know not whether some remarkable affronts given to the devils by our disbelieving those testimonies whose whole force and strength is from them alone may not put a period unto the progress of the dreadful calamity begun upon us in the accusations of so many persons, whereof some, we hope, are yet clear from the great transgression laid unto their charge. 8. Nevertheless, we cannot but humbly recommend unto the government the speedy and vigorous prosecution of such as have rendered themselves obnoxious.

according to the direction given in the laws of God and the wholesome statutes of the English nation for the detection of witchcrafts. Roger Toothacre was one of the first English settlers to the New World, sailing aboard the Hopewell in 1635 as a baby, cradled in the arms of his mother. He grew up to be a physician and a folk healer who specialized in hunting witches.

Never could he have imagined that one day he would be condemned to die as one. It just so happened that one of the tooth-acre's biggest competitors in Salem was Dr. William Griggs. Coincidentally, the person that would accuse him of witchcraft in May of 1962 was William's servant, Elizabeth Hubbard.

The fact that Toothacre had to use magic to kill witches had also made him guilty of witchcraft in the congregation's eyes. So, after being accused, he is arrested and shipped off to the jail to await his trial. On June 16, 1692, he became the third victim of the Salem Witch Trials and died in prison from natural causes at 57 years old.

Sarah Good, one of the first accused by both the girls and Tituba, was a 39-year-old housewife that had lived her life in poverty, and it was now time for her trial. During her trial, Sarah's husband William Good comes forward, claiming he was fearful his wife was a witch because of her "...bad carriage to him," indicating that she didn't meet his expectations of a wife.

She was also accused by neighbors of challenging Puritan values and accused of spiritually possessing two other women. When she's brought into the courtroom to stand trial, the afflicted girls begin to rock back and forth while moaning and screaming. Later, one of them falls into a fit, and after it ceases, she claims that the spirit of Sarah Good had walked over and attacked her with a knife. When questioned on the validity of this claim, the afflicted girl held up a portion of the knife that had apparently broken off in her hand during the struggle for everyone to see.

Upon hearing this egregious statement, a young man steps forward from the crowd and tells the court that that exact shard had broken off of his knife the day before, and the girl had simply witnessed this and stolen the scrap to be used later in court.

To confirm, the knife and the wooden shard are held next to each other and placed together. It was a perfect fit. Judge William Stoughton turns to the young girl and scolds her for over-exaggeration, but instead of immediately halting the trial and questioning everything that the girl has ever said, he moves on with his interrogation of Sarah Good. The afflicted accuser is never reprimanded and her motives are never questioned.

After being found guilty, Sarah Good cursed Judge Nicholas Noyes, saying, "I'm no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink." The elderly, church-going, well-respected member of the Salem community, Rebecca Nurse's trial began on June 30, 1692. As was the custom, as with all the others accused of witchcraft, Rebecca was not allowed to have a lawyer and was forced to defend herself.

During the trial, many members of the community testified on Rebecca's behalf, defending her honor and her Christian ways. However, while in the courthouse, the afflicted girls would break out into fits, claiming that the spirit of Rebecca was tormenting them. During her defense, Rebecca stated, "I have got nobody to look to but God," and she maintained her innocence the entire trial. Initially, the jury found Rebecca Nurse innocent, but due to the recurring spasms and fits of the girls, they reopened and reviewed her case.

While reviewing their decision, the jury asks Rebecca to explain what the remarks she had made about another accused witch, Deliverance Hobbs, meant. In her trial, Rebecca had stated that Deliverance Hobbs was "of her company." To some, this statement implied that the two had both signed a pact with the devil. Rebecca Nurse, who was old and hard of hearing, didn't hear the question at the time, and she doesn't respond. Her silence is then interpreted as an admission of guilt.

So the jury reverses their decision and changes their verdict to guilty and swiftly condemns her to death by hanging. - But how are all of these people being convicted of witchcraft without any real proof or evidence? Well, it's due to something admissible in court back then known as spectral evidence. Spectral evidence wasn't really real evidence. It was rather testimony taken at face value as hard fact.

All of the testimony of the afflicted girls, the visions they had, the spiritual attacks that they suffered, the visions of the accused witches consorting in the woods and nightmares that they had endured, all of this is spectral evidence. And yes, this was admissible in court and was used to convict all of these people.

Back then, if you had claimed you had multiple dreams about your neighbor hanging out with the devil in his backyard, you could then start screaming and flailing about, acting like you were just attacked by said neighbor. And the craziest part is, they would believe you, and they would even use you as evidence in their court case. Elizabeth Howe, one of the accused witches, was implicated mainly by members of the local Purley family.

The Purleys claimed that they knew that their 10-year-old daughter was being afflicted by Elizabeth Howe's witchcraft after she had begun having fits and complaining about being pricked by pins and needles. The Purleys even said that their daughter told them, "I could never afflict a dog as good Howe afflicts me." And after talking to the doctor, the family had confirmed that their daughter was indeed under an evil hand. Accusers Mercy Lewis, Mary Walcott, and Ann Putnam sealed the innocent Elizabeth Howe's fate

After their afflictions flare up as she enters the courtroom, and the group begins again writhing on the floor while screaming like banshees. Like the others before her, Elizabeth is quickly found guilty and sentenced to die at Gallows Hill. Unlike the rest of the accused, 70-year-old Susanna Martin wasn't a stranger to being implicated in witchcraft. Back in 1669, she was formally charged by a man named William Sargent, Jr.

In turn, Susanna's husband George Martin sues William back on two counts of slander, one for accusing his wife of being a witch and the other for saying one of his sons was a bastard and the other was an imp. The court at the time upheld the witch charge and dismissed everything else.

However, a higher court later dismissed all accusations against Susanna. And at this point, all charges that had been brought about are dropped and the Martins move on with their lives. In 1686, George died, leaving Susanna a widow, but it wouldn't be long before her second witchcraft accusation surfaced in 1692. Except this time they were a lot more serious.

These accusations against Susanna were made by several Salem community members, including Joseph and Jarvis Ring and John Allen, who claimed Susanna was to blame for his oxen drowning in a nearby river. Susanna would later be tried, claiming her innocence like so many before her, even attempting to prove it by quoting the Bible freely.

something witches are not supposed to be able to do. Cotton Mather, a local Puritan minister, countered her defense, explaining how the devil's servants were capable of putting on a quote, innocent and godly show to manipulate and deceive. Interestingly enough, Cotton Mather actually recorded in writing some of the court proceedings that he was overseeing.

And to give you an idea of how unlawful all of these proceedings were, here's how Cotton Mather himself described the trial of Susanna Martin: "As soon as she came in, Marcy had fits. It is goody Martin. She hath hurt me often." Others by fits were hindered from speaking. Marcy Lewis pointed at her and fell into a little fit. Ann Putnam threw her glove in a fit at her. "What? Do you laugh at it?"

Well, I may at such folly. Susanna laughed. Is this folly? The hurt of persons? I never hurt man or woman or child. She hath hurt me a great many times and pulls me down. Then Martin laughed again. It should also be noted that Susanna Martin was forced to undergo a physical examination for physical evidence of witchcraft on two separate occasions. This happened to most of the victims of the Salem Witch Trials.

To understand what evidence the authorities were looking for, you have to understand what a familiar is. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, a, quote, Familiar, in Western demonology, is a small animal or imp kept as a witch's attendant given to her by the devil or inherited from another witch. The familiar was a low-ranking demon that assumed any animal shape, such as a toad, dog, insect, or black cat.

End quote.

So, when searching for evidence of witchcraft on the accused, the authorities in Salem would search for a body deformity known as a witch's tit or a physical protuberance which might give milk to a familiar. After two thorough examinations of her nude body, no such witch's tit was found on Susanna Martin, but the authorities did note that, quote, in the morning her nipples were found to be as full as if the milk would come, end quote.

But by late afternoon, "Her breasts were slack, as if milk had already been given to someone or something." The shifting size of Susanna's nipples and breasts were an indication that she had been visited that day by a witch's familiar or her personal demonic servant, and that was clear evidence of guilt. After everything is taken into consideration, Susanna Martin is found guilty and sentenced to the same fate as the rest of her peers, but they're far from finished.

Sarah Wildes, another woman with a nonconformist reputation in Puritan, Massachusetts, was an easy target for witchcraft. In her younger years, she was whipped for fornicating with a man, Thomas Wardell, and was charged in 1663 for wearing a silk scarf.

A woman with a silk hood was seen back then as being overdressed and thus overly vain, which wasn't a quality that good Puritan women possessed. On April 21st, 1692, John Hawthorne and Jonathan Corwin had ordered Sarah, her stepdaughter, and her husband, Edward Bishop,

to be arrested on high suspicion of witchcraft. And once again, Ann Putnam, Mercy Lewis, and Mary Walcott had been at the center of these accusations. Along with Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, Susanna Martin, and Elizabeth Howey, Sarah was tried on June 30th, 1692. All women would be sentenced to be hanged for their crimes.

July 19th, 1692. A day that will forever be infamous in the sleepy town of Salem, Massachusetts. On that day, Susanna Martin, Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, Elizabeth Howe, and Sarah Wilds were all set to be publicly hung on Gallows Hill.

As the hour of execution drew near, anxiety swelled within the group of innocent women. They were about to face death head on. Later that day, each of the so-called witches were led up to Gallows Hill, fitted with nooses, and hanged from a massive tree that hung over a crevice that sat at a high point in town.

After their bodies stopped twitching and each victim was dead, their corpses were then cut down from the tree and tossed down into a nearby crevice and left to decay in the sun. Now, we are going to go back in time a little bit before the hanging of those five women on July 19th, 1692. And we're going to go back a few months before that, in May of 1692.

It was during that time when a number of new supposed witches had been arrested and thrown into the Salem jail from the Salem village itself and surrounding communities. There are a lot of names involved here in this story and we know it can be a bit overwhelming and hard to keep up with everyone, but let's take a look at what happened to a few of these individuals.

A number of witches who now sat in jail actually came from the small community of Andover, which was located close to Salem. The first of the witchcraft accusations in that community actually didn't begin until late May, when a woman named Martha Carrier was arraigned on witchcraft charges. Martha was the perfect target.

Two years earlier, she had been blamed for bringing smallpox to the community, a disease which killed 13 people. And while she lived in town, she had experienced frequent altercations with her neighbors. In fact, when Martha was initially charged with witchcraft,

The accusation came from a neighbor of hers, a man named Benjamin Abbott, who claimed that Martha had bewitched him and caused him to fall gravely ill after they had gotten into a territorial dispute about property lines. Eventually, Martha is arrested in Andover and transported to Salem to face trial.

Martha's brother-in-law, Roger Toothacker, his wife, Mary Toothacker, Martha's sister, and Mary and Roger's daughter, Margaret, are also arrested and brought to Salem with Martha. It was a common belief that witchcraft ran in families, particularly among the women. The second that Martha enters the Salem courtroom for her trial, the group of afflicted girls once again fall to the floor and begin writhing in pain, crying out in agony.

Martha's neighbors were also summoned to air their grievances against her. And several of Martha's former friends and acquaintances accused Martha of being the one who taught them how to perform witchcraft. And some of these accusations brought against Martha were just so unbelievable. A woman named Ann Foster testified that one time Martha had forced her to ride on a stick with her to Salem Village.

and Martha's own nephew, Alan Toothaker, blamed her for the death of his livestock. Another man named Samuel Preston said she was responsible for the death of one of his cows and claimed that Martha put a hex on them after a disagreement. Martha faced so many accusations that her name from that point forward almost always comes up anytime a new person was accused.

The people of Salem believed that Martha was a powerful witch. It was even said that she controlled a group of over 300 witches in the area. Obviously, this was all untrue. During Martha's trial, an 11-year-old girl named Phoebe Chandler testified, saying, "I was struck deaf and could hear no prayer nor singing till the last two or three words of the singing during a Sabbath-day meeting."

Throughout the trial, the afflicted girls would scream in horror, claiming that at the time, they were seeing all of the 13 Andover smallpox victims as ghosts standing in the courtroom, and they swore that each one of these ghosts stood pointing their dead fingers directly at Martha. Martha obviously knew that the girls were lying, crazy, or both, and in court, she didn't hesitate to express her sentiments.

It is false and a shame for you to mind what these say that are out of their wits, she stated. But Martha might as well have been talking to a wall because no one seemed to hear her.

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The first allegations made against John Proctor didn't happen until he began to defend his wife Elizabeth, who was amongst the accused. You see, according to John Proctor's descendants, he didn't believe in witchcraft, and after seeing all of this nonsense unfolding in his community, he was becoming angry that innocent people were dying. And soon after Rebecca Nurse was accused, that was when John's servant, Mary Warren, began experiencing similar fits just like the other girls.

Seeing this, John Proctor decided to, quote, beat the devil out of her, end quote.

He didn't believe that she was bewitched, but rather that she was just acting out. Now, these beatings are absolutely horrible, but they weren't too uncommon in those times, especially between men and their servants. Now, in the movie The Crucible, about the Salem witch trials, John Proctor, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, is around 30 years old and has an affair with one of the young girls, Abigail Williams, who appears to be around 17 in the movie. But the real John Proctor is in his 60s, and the real Abigail Williams was only about 11.

It is believed, though, that John Proctor possibly did have an affair with his servant, 20-year-old Mary Warren, which could have been a reason why she started having these fits. Later on, Mary would testify that she pulled John Proctor's spirit into her lap, and John Proctor would later say that Mary Warren was a jade, which means she wasn't really held in high regard.

But after she was beaten for her little fit, Mary apologizes for her actions and she even pens a note on a home where the witch meetings were held. She says in the note that the other girls are lying. But because Mary said this, the other afflicted girls are angry. For a while now, they've all been running the show in Salem, and now Mary is calling them a liar.

And if you really think about it, it is a weird switch of power. These highly respected men are used to running the town of Salem and now these teenage girls have the power, where they are essentially choosing the fate of people's lives. When John Proctor begins to vocally express his doubts about the accuser's truthfulness, all fingers point directly towards him.

Mary Walcott and his former servant Mary Warren then both confessed that John had tried choking them and Warren even alleged that John had beaten her for putting up a prayer bell before he forced her to touch the devil's book. Unlike some of the others who were accused, John puts up a hell of a fight and he even challenges the accuracy of spectral evidence along with the rationality of the court.

but in the courtroom John's questions were mocked and he and his wife were tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death on August 5th, 1692. As the pair sat imprisoned, the sheriff seized all of their property and belongings. They sold and slaughtered all of their livestock and threw their children out onto the streets.

Since both parents had been convicted of witchcraft, a high crime, their children were left with no inheritance and no money to their name.

A man named John Willard was taken down in a similar fashion. At the end of April 1692, a short while after he resigned as Salem's constable and publicly denounced the girl's accusations as truth, Ann Putnam began to see his specter. Apparently, John's spirit would reveal to Ann that he was guilty of several murders, and Ann claimed that Josh's spirit "set upon me most dreadfully. He had whipped my little sister Sarah to death, and he would whip me to death if I could not written his book."

Anne also later recalled seeing her dead sister, Sarah, crying out for vengeance against John Willard. On May 11th, an arrest warrant was issued for John, but he was nowhere to be found. The constable that would search for him reported, I went to the house of the usual abode of John Willard and made search for him and in several other houses and places but could not find him.

John Willard had fled and was a fugitive for five days until Anne Putnam herself caught him in the act of tending to his meadow in Lancaster. She swiftly reported him and he was promptly arrested and brought back to Salem Village. At the close of his trial, the magistrates instructed John to recite the Lord's Prayer to prove his innocence. But he refuses. Instead, he laughed nervously.

and said, quote,

August 19, 1692. On that day, the former minister George Burroughs, elderly businessman George Jacobs Sr., suppose which ringleader Martha Carrier, John Proctor, and John Willard are dragged up to the gallows hill. The atmosphere that day was actually jovial. The people in the crowd who gathered to watch the hangings were celebrating.

happy that they finally got to rid the community of the intense evil that hung over it. On that day, the minister George Burroughs was hanged first. And just before his execution, something interesting happened. George recited the Lord's Prayer before the crowd with a noose around his neck.

Something that was thought a witch could never do. In fact, during some of the trials, accused witches had been asked to recite the Lord's Prayer because it was supposedly rock-solid evidence that someone was not a witch if they could indeed recite it. But regardless, after George Burroughs said the prayer, he was hanged until he died.

After this hanging, Minister Cotton Mather, who had been presiding over the trials, had to publicly remind the crowd that had gathered that they were making the right decision in hanging these witches, and that all of the accused had been found guilty fair and square through public trials. Cotton's speech to the crowd was so powerful

that they simply ignored the fact that george burroughs had just recited the lord's prayer and they continued on with the other four hangings after those five supposed witches were hanged it didn't take long for the magistrates to find their next batch of victims luckily for them some were still in custody the elderly and morally questionable 80 year old giles corey had been arrested on april 18 1692 and had been sitting in custody for months

In fact, Giles was kept prisoner for over six months before he and his wife Martha were finally tried during the September 9th sitting of the court. When Martha was first arrested for witchcraft on March 19th, 1692, Giles had believed the accusations against her, until he himself was put in chains for the same charge. According to one of his many accusers, Mercy Lewis, she saw, "...the apparition of Giles Corey come and afflict me."

urging me to write in his book, so he continued most dreadfully to hurt me by times beating me and almost breaking my back till the day of his examination.

Being the 19th April, and then also during the time of his examination, he did afflict and torture me most grievously, and also several times since urging me to write in his book. And I believe in my heart that Giles Corey is a dreadful wizard, for since he had been imprisoned, he or his appearance has come and most grievously tormented me."

When asked for his plea, Giles refused, and according to the law at the time, anyone who refused to plead couldn't be tried. To prevent anyone from trying to cheat justice, the common legal practice for plea refusal was to implement a barbaric method of torture called pain fort et tour, French for hard and forceful punishment. Another name that this process went by was pressing.

When a prisoner was pressed, they were stripped completely naked and tied down to the floor with both arms and legs spread apart, with each limb pointing in a different direction. A plank or planks of wood were laid across the torso of the prisoner, and then rocks or boulders were placed upon the wood until the accused gave up and made a plea. This was the agonizing process of being pressed to death.

End quote.

But although Giles was naked and slowly being crushed to death with rocks of increasing weight, he still refused to enter a plea. Giles, a starving, thirsty, elderly man was essentially being crushed to death and remained steadfast in his refusal of the charges the entire time. After two days of not moving, barely being fed, and having boulders laid across his chest, Giles was asked three separate times to make a plea, but each time he replied with two haunting words: "More weight!"

Hearing these words, Sheriff George Corwin, who was gleefully overseeing the pressing, happily complied, and would at times even stand and jump up and down on the boards himself in an attempt to get Giles to confess. It's well known that Sheriff George Corwin was an evil man who gained a sick sense of pleasure out of overseeing the executions of the witches and their brutal interrogations. One witness to the pressing, a man named Robert Califf, would later say,

In the pressing, Giles Corey's tongue was pressed out of his mouth. The sheriff, with his cane, forced it in again. So, to unpack that statement, Giles, after days of being pressed, began to lose bodily function, and the weight at one point became so unbearable that his tongue grotesquely began to pop out of his mouth and twist towards the sky. Seeing this, the evil sheriff George Corwin used his dirty cane to shove the tongue back into Giles' mouth before he closed his mouth for him.

The group continued with the pressing process until the old man became pale and his lips turned blue, and at that point it was obvious that the rocks had squeezed the life out of him. It was around noon on September 19, 1692, when Giles Corey died, making him the 13th victim of the Salem Witch Trials. Three days after Giles Corey died, his wife Martha Corey was led to the gallows,

She had always been a God-fearing woman who was completely devoted to her church. But she, like many others, carried her fair share of baggage. Even so, it came as a huge shock to the community when she was first named as one of the accused. She had never supported any aspect of the witch trials, simply because she didn't believe that witches existed.

It was public knowledge that she denounced the trials and judges overseeing them. In fact, like her husband Giles and John Proctor, Martha was very outspoken in her beliefs that the girls were lying.

She claimed that they weren't afflicted with anything except for a bad case of dishonesty. Upon hearing this, Mercy Lewis and Ann Putnam made sure to point the finger at Mrs. Corey. Unaware of the amount of paranoia that had at this point infected the village, when Martha goes to trial she swears her innocence, never believing that they could find her guilty. But sadly, this couldn't have been any farther from the truth.

In Salem, if you confessed, you lived. And that's part of the reason why these witch trials got so out of control. In order to save their lives, many of the accused would level accusations themselves against their own personal enemies or family members. And as the amount of accusations grew, they also grew more and more unbelievable.

During Martha's trial, as her accusers were questioned, Martha pleaded with the judges to not believe the crazy rantings of hysterical children. In retaliation, the girls began mimicking her every move, as if she were mind-controlling them with some sort of satanic mind trick. Then, apparently seeing a ghost in the courtroom beside Martha, one of the afflicted, Mercy Lewis, cried out, "There's a man! He whispered in her ear!" Judge Hathorn then asked Mercy if this man that she saw beside Martha was Satan.

And all of the girls nodded. Ann Putnam then said she could see that Martha Corey had a yellow bird sucking on her hand. And apparently, this was all the evidence the jury needed. She was quickly found guilty and sentenced to be executed. Mary Eastie was the sister of Rebecca Nurse. And she was just as unlikely of a candidate to be a witch as Rebecca was.

Still, as the elder of the two, Rebecca had been held in the jail cell for two weeks by the time that her sister Mary stood trial. Mary's trial started on May 31, 1692. Known for being sweet and gentle, she was well into her 50s and had no strikes against her. Mary had a perfect record, but a perfect record was no match for the town's mania.

and she was never pardoned. When Mercy Lewis saw Mary Easty's fingers resting interlaced at some point during her trial, she began to mirror her, doing the same. Then, she began to scream and stagger around the room, yelling in a panic that she couldn't unlock her fingers. They were stuck. Mary Easty must have cursed her. Horrified, Mary stumbles backwards,

Mary regains her composure as the magistrates ask, Raising her chin with resounding fearlessness, she calmly but loudly responds,

"I can say before Jesus Christ I am free. I never complied with Satan, but prayed against him all my days. I have no compliance with Satan in this. What would you have me do?" "Confess if you are guilty," he ordered. Knowing that confessing would buy her freedom, it mattered more to her to tell the truth. "I will say it, if it was my last time. I am clear of this sin." Turning to the accusers, the magistrate asks them, "Are you certain this is the woman?"

And at this moment, the girls suddenly dissolve into a horrific set of fits and convulsions, twisting their arms and legs in the wrong directions, bulging their eyes, screaming in horror and pain, unable to form a coherent word. Then, as Mary stretches her neck, the afflicted girls cry out again, accusing her of trying to break their necks with magic. Mary Easty continued to maintain her innocence until the judges gave up on trying to get her to confess.

So she was released for 48 hours, only to be arrested again on May 20th. Mercy Lewis was unrelenting in her accusations against Mary, and she then claimed that Mary Spector had crawled into bed with her and fondled her breasts. The instant that Mary Easty is put back in chains, the girl's fits cease. She is imprisoned for four long months before she is tried and condemned to die on September 9th, 1692. But she wouldn't be alone in her damnation.

Mary Parker, a 55-year-old widow and North Andover resident, would be executed on September 22, 1692, alongside her very own sister, Alice Parker, and several others named Ann Pudiator, Wilmot Redd, Margaret Scott, and Samuel Wardwell Sr.,

Alice Parker was charged with witchcraft and like all of the others who were murdered, she denied all accusations, wishing "the earth would open up and swallow me, and for mercy from God." Ann Pudiater was a 70-year-old nurse, midwife, and widow. Her late husband had left her a considerable amount of wealth and property.

which made her vulnerable against those wielding power and greed. Wilmot Redd was examined early on, right when the bewitched children were first experiencing their fits. When the adults asked Wilmot what had been ailing the children, Wilmot responded, quote, I cannot tell. My opinion is they are in a sad condition, end quote.

Taking her ignorance as culpability, the magistrates indict her and imprison her for four months until they condemn her to die like the others.

76-year-old Margaret Scott was a perfect example of what a witch should look like, according to the beliefs back in the day. Fitting the description to a tee, after accusations were leveled against her, she was immediately branded as one of the wicked and was arrested pretty late in the course of events. Her incriminators were none other than Mary Walcott and Ann Putnam. The girls were carted over from Salem Village to Andover on June 11 and July 26, 1692, to help initiate and fuel the witch hunt fires in the area.

During her examination on August 5th, a confessed witch named only as MG claimed that she and Margaret Scott would turn invisible and hit locals with sticks in an attempt to hurt them The jury believes the self-proclaimed witch and 76-year-old Margaret's trial takes place on September 15th where she maintains her innocence but is found guilty and sentenced to death

Breaking the mold of what a good Puritan man was thought to be, 49-year-old Samuel Wardwell was married. But the son he shared with another woman was the stain on his perfect record. His wife Sarah had inherited and controlled a 188-acre estate from her first husband after his death. So the Wardwells were considered to be pretty wealthy and powerful.

The province of Massachusetts Bay, back then, however, had recently passed a law which stated that individuals convicted of witchcraft would immediately lose rights to their property and any inheritance passed on to them. So this made the Wardwells a local target, due to the amount of land and wealth they controlled.

14-year-old William Baker Jr. is the first to accuse Samuel Wardwell, his wife Sarah, and their 19-year-old daughter Mercy of witchcraft. After being arrested, hoping to save their own skins, the three immediately confess. However, when Samuel eventually redacted his confession, he was instantly sentenced to death.

and he would be the last person to be hanged in the Salem Witch Trials on September 22, 1692. On October 29, 1692, Governor William Phipps abolished the Court of Oyer and Terminer after realizing that the trials had grown out of control. He claimed that he had experienced an almost change of heart and that all of a sudden he was against the practice of using spectral evidence in court to convict people to be hanged.

A little over a month later, the very last victim of the Salem Witch Trials would die. Her name was Ann Foster, she was 75 years old, and she died in prison on December 3rd, 1692. By the end of that month, nearly all of those imprisoned were released, and the community began to reflect on exactly what had just happened in their village that year. In 1706, Ann Putnam apologized for her actions. She was the only afflictee to show any remorse for her involvement in such a violent scandal.

Samuel Seawall would be the only judge to apologize for the blood of the 23 innocent men and women that he helped to mass murder. Magistrate John Hathorne, one of the key players in the entire ordeal, would never feel any such guilt on his conscience. Until his dying day, he continued to accuse the defendants of lying and firmly believed that they were guilty of witchcraft and got what they deserved.

His great-great-grandson, Nathaniel, would become one of the greatest novelists of the 19th century. But he detested his ancestors so much that he changed his last name from Hathorn to Hawthorne to distance himself from the cold-blooded killer. Nathaniel Hawthorne would eventually become a household name after he published his novel The Scarlet Letter, a book that is commonly read in high schools across America as a part of the yearly curriculum, along with, ironically, The Crucible, the play written about the Salem Witch Trials.

As for the victims that survived this ordeal, they would never be the same. Most were left homeless after using all of their resources to pay for their own room and board while imprisoned, and their reputations were forever tainted.

In 1711, Massachusetts exonerated those executed from any wrongdoing and offered financial compensation to the surviving family members, even though the financial compensation offered was relatively small. It took the state of Massachusetts hundreds of years to formally apologize for what happened in Salem, an apology which occurred in the year 1957.

And by 2002, over 300 years later, the state legislator declared that they had officially found and cleared the names of all arrested, accused, and innocently slain men and women.

But what caused all of this paranoia and murder? Historians, scientists, and other researchers have asked that question for hundreds of years, but to this day, there is no definitive answer. Some scientists have suggested that maybe at the time, some of the townspeople had accidentally been eating the fungus Claviceps purpurea, an ergo from which the drug LSD is derived.

This specific fungus can be found in rye, wheat, and other cereal grasses, which were foods that the townspeople of Salem consumed on a nearly daily basis. Toxicologists have stated that consuming Claviceps purpurea can lead to hallucinations, vomiting, muscle spasms, and delusions, and have noted that the climate in which this fungus grows would have been almost identical to the climate of the swampy Salem village back in 1692.

Other scientists have stated that maybe the town had suffered from an epidemic of a bird-borne illness or even that the girls themselves had been experiencing bouts of sleep paralysis Others though tend to favor the theory that the witch trials were born completely out of the mind and not the body citing the jealousy, spite, religious dominance and hopelessness that ran rampant throughout the village back in those days

Modern day Salem, ironically, has been reclaimed by the witches. Nowadays, it's known as Witch City. The police vehicles in Salem are all painted with full moons and witches on broomsticks. There are loads of metaphysical shops lining the streets. And it's known as one of the world's best places to visit for Halloween. Salem was the setting for the 1993 film Hocus Pocus.

A modern day classic which tells the story of a group of witches who were executed in Salem's early days, who return from the grave and enact their vengeance on the town. Most of the original buildings from the Salem witch trials have been destroyed over the years, but a few still remain, including Judge Jonathan Corwin's home where many pre-trial interrogations were conducted.

Salem is a place where the dead are definitely still alive. There's a presence there in the city, especially around Halloween, an energy that infests every alleyway and every memorial that's been erected in honor of those who were murdered there hundreds of years ago. We could talk for hours about the ghost stories that have emerged from Salem over the years, but we just don't have time to today. I can say though, that I actually got to spend the night in the Joshua Ward house a few years ago, and it was one of the scariest nights of my life.

It's been rumored over the years that Sheriff George Corwin, who lived in the house during the Salem witch trials, used to bring supposed witches home to his basement and torture them there until they confessed. His preferred torture method, allegedly, strangulation.

It's also local legend that George Corwin was so hated upon his death that when he died, he was buried in his basement for years because his family members were deathly afraid that someone would dig up his grave and either steal or desecrate his corpse. I have a vivid memory of being a young kid with my parents, going on a ghost tour throughout Salem and visiting that house.

when i was there as a child i could feel the evil emanating from its walls over the years the joshua ward house has had a number of tenants businesses that rented the property and attempted to run their business within its walls but none of them were able to stick around for more than a few years according to local legend whatever is in the home was just too evil too violent and that brings me to the picture

There's an infamous photo taken inside of the Joshua Ward House that was taken at a company holiday party in the 1980s. It's a Polaroid photo, and it's absolutely terrifying. According to the story, an employee at the party was tasked with documenting the event, and so they were carrying around a Polaroid camera and snapping photos of other employees enjoying their night. At one point, a blonde woman requested to have her photo taken, and the photographer snapped a photo.

However, when the Polaroid developed, it was not a photo of a smiling blonde woman. It was a blurry, bizarre photo of a dark-haired, maniacal-looking woman who no one recognized. We're going to post this photo on our Instagram account @murderinamerica, but let me warn you, it is truly disturbing. It's one of the only paranormal photos that I've ever seen that I cannot explain, and it's a photo that has literally appeared in my nightmares. It is so creepy.

The house is also known to be haunted by a violent entity known as "The Strangler", who many assume to be Sheriff George Corwin himself. Many visitors to the house have reported being choked by an unseen force, almost to the point of passing out. Others have been pushed, scratched and even bitten. It seems that whatever energy is there in the home, whether left from a victim of the witch trials or the evil sheriff himself, seems to be unsettled.

Another ghost story from Salem relates directly back to the trials, and this one is interesting. Remember when we told you that immediately before her execution, accused witch Sarah Good cursed Judge Nicholas Noyes, yelling, I'm no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink. Well, ultimately, in 1718, just shortly before his 70th birthday, Reverend Nicholas Noyes died of a brain hemorrhage.

Allegedly, according to people who witnessed his death, this hemorrhage resulted in a blood vessel being popped in his mouth, causing his mouth to fill up with blood. Other local legends even state that the hemorrhaging caused him to choke on his own blood. But one thing that people can agree on was that there was blood near Nicholas Noyes' mouth after he died. Who knows, was this the result of his actions in the Salem witch trials? Some form of karma? I guess it's just one more mystery to add to the books.

To this day, no one knows the exact location where the bodies of the executed witches and warlocks are buried. It's been confirmed that some of the

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Staying connected is important in today's world. Whether it's hearing the news of a new baby in the family or calling work to let your boss know you're running late, phone service keeps you connected with your world. At AT&T, we know that some Americans face life every day without the comfort and security of having phone service. In certain areas, you may be able to reduce your phone bill with a lifeline discount if you are in a qualifying low-income household.

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The bodies were removed by family members of those who were executed under the veil of night and were whisked away to be buried on family property or in unmarked graves. However, there are still a number of bodies that have simply been lost to time. They've still never been found to this day.

It does make sense though, the actual location of where Gallows Hill once sat, now called Proctor's Ledge, was only identified a few years back in 2016, some 300 plus years after the Salem Witch Trials. But no matter what, I think it's safe to say that looking at Salem today, the victims of the trials got their revenge. Now it's their names that are plastered throughout the town, memorialized with sculptures and heralded as victims in museums.

And those who carried out these crimes are now seen for exactly who they were. Horrible, horrible people. If you ever have the chance, I'd highly recommend visiting Salem, Massachusetts. It's a beautiful, spooky little town with rich, dark history. But as I stated before, it's a history that's still alive and well in the sleepy little town. A history that you can reach out, that you can touch, that you can feel. Who knows, maybe you'll fall under the spell of Salem when you visit.

It will be forever known as the Witch City, after all.

Hey everybody, it's Colin here. Thank you again for tuning in to this week's episode of Murder in America. As always, I want to start out by shouting out all of our new patrons, Gabriela, Kristen Zell, Jordan Fournier, Tyler Phillips, Daniel Cohn, Alexia Chavez, Siley, Logan Beckstrom, Molly Crawford, Lauren Jett, Danny Segrist, Jessica Smith, Xavier Burns, Lauren Ault, Kel, Sylvia Wilson, Katrine Yona, Adrian Ramirez, Sadie Kampsula, Jessica Van Epps, Will

Wilson, Aaron Kaiser, Wendy Tate, Katie Kresge, Kayla Likens, Jamie Martin, Maya, Lachlan Arnold, Bibi Humon, Robert Gonzalez, Bionic Bros 24, Maria Allman, Ty Smith, Sylvia, Sarah Cross, Emma Hyatt, Caitlin Roy, and Martin Contreras.

I'm so sorry if I slaughtered people's names, but that is so many patrons. If you all want to join our family on Patreon, we are revamping it right now. Every episode gets posted on Patreon ad-free. We just got an RSS feed up there, so it's easier to listen to the ad-free versions of these episodes. But thank you all so much for the love and support. It's spooky season, obviously. I really care about the Salem Witch Trial story. Being there when I was a kid, I have distinct memories of what Salem was like and how much it meant to me.

And my family. But if you guys want to see the picture of the ghost that was captured in the Joshua Ward house, along with other photos from the case, just follow our Instagram at murder in America. We're sorry. This episode was delayed. Courtney's car accident definitely set us back a little bit, but we're back on track and we're actually ahead of schedule now. So.

Maybe it was all for the best. But you know what? As always, Courtney and I love you all so much. Thank you for listening. We will be back next week with another brand new episode as we head into the final weeks of spooky season. And I'll catch you on the next one.

Staying connected is important in today's world. Whether it's hearing the news of a new baby in the family or calling work to let your boss know you're running late, phone service keeps you connected with your world. At AT&T, we know that some Americans face life every day without the comfort and security of having phone service. In certain areas, you may be able to reduce your phone bill with a lifeline discount if you are in a qualifying low-income household.

Additional discounts of up to $25 may be available to those living on federally recognized tribal lands where AT&T offers Lifeline. To find out more about Lifeline and other AT&T products and services, call us at 800-288-2020 or go to att.com slash lifeline if you have access to the internet.

Other restrictions apply.