Dorothy Talbye trial

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The Dorothy Talbye Trial (1638) is an early American example of a trial of an insane woman at a time when the insane were treated no differently than ordinary criminals. Talbye was hanged in 1639 for killing her three year old daughter because, as she claimed, Satan told her to do so. Although Puritan Governor John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony saw Talbye as possessed by Satan, the penalty for murder was necessarily death.