How did that happen?

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. For example, consider this strange case, one that offers no answers to the question: How could this happen?

It is a typical winter in Salem Village when, without warning, the stillness shatters under the weight of an inexplicable and deadly evil.

For inside one house, the home of Salem’s newest resident, a sacrilege, vile and abhorrent, takes place: Convulsions grip the child. She violently thrashes about the floor, gasping, moaning, screeching. Suddenly, she drops to all fours, barking and braying as she scampers beneath the furniture.

Bewildered onlookers swear the girl’s skin shows pin or prick marks from some unseen force, and as they pray, the child’s screams drown out their words. In a final flurry of rage, the young girl grabs a Bible and throws it across the room.

Welcome to Salem Village, home of the devil.

Come witness a colonial witch hunt, the accused, their confessions, their inevitable executions. Journey back in time to 1692 and consider one of the strangest events in American history.

The search and ultimate disposition of those caught in this puritanical, superstitious web became known as the Salem Witch Trials. “Trials” is a misnomer, however, for what transpired was an inquisition. It engulfed that small Massachusetts hamlet and surrounding areas, and its residue claimed 24 lives, 19 hanged on Gallows Hill in Salem Town.

Those hanged perhaps suffered a better fate than those who did not.

Take the case of 80-year-old Giles Corey. After pleading not guilty to charges of witchcraft, he refused trial, so his accusers had him stripped naked, placed a board on his chest, putting as many stones on the board as it could stand. For two days, Corey’s neighbors watched him die a slow, painful death.

Some victims did not even know the girls who accused them. The vast majority proclaimed their innocence.

Those who confessed did so either after facing jail, the harshness of the trial environment, coercion to confess, or intense pressure to implicate others in order to save themselves. Those who asserted their innocence faced the dilemma of proving it. Pitted against witchcraft charges supplemented by the afflicted girls’ timely fits, those persons accused had little chance for justice.

The real story of the trials seems to be the inordinate amount of importance the court allocated to the accusation, and histrionics, of the “afflicted.”

It begins late in 1691. Several young girls meet in informal gatherings at which they apparently endeavor to use sorcery, perhaps learned from Parris’s household slave, Tituba – to satiate curiosity about their futures. Tituba is a major character in the drama about to unfold.

Originally from South America, she was taken to Barbados as a child and sold into slavery. At some point, she came to be owned by Parris, and essentially ran his household. As the most prominent hypothesis goes, Tituba introduced the girls to native superstitions, thereby creating a “fatal spark” that somehow overcame the adolescent girls. Although this is the favorite, and likely, hypothesis of many historians, it remains unproven.

First to exhibit strange behavior: Elizabeth and Abigail. They scream blasphemies, endure convulsive seizures and body contortions, enter trance-like states, suffer mysterious spells.

Parris has the local physician, William Griggs, examine the girls. His diagnosis? The girls may be affected by “The Evil Hand,” that is, witchcraft.

At this point, 17th century logic becomes evident. If Griggs is correct and the girls are not “diseased,” it follows they are victims of witchcraft. That means a crime has been committed against them.

Within a month, Parris, with prominent residents and village officials, affix the cause: Satan.

About this time, several other village girls between the ages of 12 and 19 begin to act similarly to the four already afflicted. Other females, some older and married join the group over time.

By mid-March, other people testify to seeing strange apparitions of some community members. Accusations spread. Martha Corey is accused of witchcraft; Rebecca Nurse is denounced as a witch, as is Elizabeth Proctor and Sarah Cloyce.

All endure examinations for “witchmarks,” signs of their witchcraft. All endure pretrial and trial questioning. All endure these before “friends” and neighbors. Those asking the questions generally assume guilt as a matter of course, and questions focus on the “how” rather than the “why.”

By April, no trials have been held, the prisons are overflowing with accused witches and charges keep coming.

By now, about 200 people are imprisoned, primarily due to spectral evidence provided via the afflicted, who are kept quite busy by the vast covey of witches in the area.

In May, Gov. William Phips establishes a special court to try the witchcraft cases. Acceptable evidence admitted by the court includes intangible and spectral evidence, direct confessions, the victims’ actions and witchmarks.

With the coming of June, the court decides Bridget Bishop’s fate. Although she claims innocence throughout the proceedings, Bishop is hanged on June 10, the first official execution of the Salem witch trials. It would not be the last. Also in June, Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Sarah Wildes, Sarah Good and Elizabeth Howe are condemned and executed a month later. Says Howe: “God knows I am innocent …”

In July, tentacles of fear continue to spread as Joseph Ballard of nearby Andover enlists the help of the young Salem victims to expose witches there.

In September, 16 more residents are condemned. A few days later, Giles Corey is pressed to death under stones. About the same time, even more residents are hanged.

By now, 20 people have been executed, many more have been jailed and more of the citizenry is questioning the entire process. Gov. Phips begins to receive harsh criticism, while at the same time his wife is named as a witch. The governor then orders that spectral and intangible evidence be excluded from further proceedings. Within days, he dissolves the court.

Remaining cases are heard a year later in Superior Court. No one is convicted.

The witchcraft hysteria is ended.