A woman who was wrongly convicted of witchcraft in Massachusetts in 1693 and sentenced to hang has been formally exonerated.
FILE - Karla Hailer, a fifth-grade teacher from Scituate, Mass., takes a video on July 19, 2017, where a memorial stands at the site in Salem, Mass., where five women were hanged as witches more than three centuries years earlier. Massachusetts lawmakers on Thursday, May 26, 2022, formally exonerated Elizabeth Johnson Jr., clearing her name 329 years after she was convicted of witchcraft in 1693 at the height of the Salem Witch Trials.
“We will never be able to change what happened to victims like Elizabeth but at the very least can set the record straight,” DiZoglio said.In a statement, North Andover teacher Carrie LaPierre — whose students championed the legislation — praised the youngsters for taking on “the long-overlooked issue of justice for this wrongly convicted woman.”
“For 300 years, Elizabeth Johnson Jr. was without a voice, her story lost to the passages of time,” said state Sen. Joan Lovely, of Salem,