Execution of George Spencer

George Spencer is described as an ugly, balding servant with a glass eye. He is believed to have lived for a time in Boston and while there was found guilty of receiving stolen goods. == Trial and execution ==

When a sow gave birth to a malformed, one-eyed piglet it was considered a manifestation of God's proof of Spencer's sins. Spencer was arrested, and the Puritan authorities deemed the birth a work of God. They believed that this was irrefutable evidence that an act of bestiality had taken place. He was charged with "prophane, atheistical carriage, in unfaithfulness and stubbornness to his master, a course of notorious lying, filthiness, scoffing at the ordinances, ways and people of God". When the trial began the magistrates knew the necessity of having two witnesses to the crime. They used Spencer's retracted confessions as one witness and the stillborn piglet as the other, ruling that this was sufficient to determine his guilt. ==Claim of Wrongful Conviction==

In 2015, Superior Court judge Jon C. Blue wrote a book reviewing old New Haven criminal cases in which he concluded that George Spencer's confession was forced and that the alleged crime of fathering a piglet was "biologically impossible". Blue called Spencer's case the "first verifiable false confession in American history". == Similar case ==

In 1645, Thomas Hogg, another servant in New Haven, was imprisoned for several months for very similar crimes. A sow gave birth to two deformed piglets that allegedly resembled Hogg. However, Hogg never confessed to the crime, and the requirement of finding two witnesses could not be met. == See also ==