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BERN, Switzerland — A woman beheaded after she was accused of causing a girl to spit pins and convulse was exonerated Wednesday, more than 200 years after she became the last person executed as a witch in Europe.
The decision to clear Anna Goeldi’s name came after long debate in the eastern Swiss state of Glarus. She was executed in 1782 even though the Protestant Church council, which conducted the trial, had no legal authority to do so and had decided in advance that Goeldi was guilty, the government said.
The exoneration also was an acknowledgment that an unknown number of other innocent people whose cases cannot be reviewed had been killed over the centuries. The Associated Press
