The execution of Anna Göldi

Anna Göldi, a Swiss housemaid, was beheaded at Glarus on 13 June 1782 after a conviction for bewitching her employer's daughter. Glarus cleared her name in 2008.

Anna Göldi was a Swiss housemaid. Wikipedia gives her dates as 24 October 1734 to 13 June 1782. She was executed by decapitation in Glarus on 13 June 1782 and has been called Switzerland's "last witch". Wikipedia also calls her one of the last people executed for witchcraft in Europe.

Swissinfo reports that she was a servant aged 48 in the home of Johann Jakob Tschudi, a prominent citizen. The charge was bewitching the family's daughter, aged eight, causing the girl to spit out pins and suffer convulsions, as swissinfo puts it. Smithsonian Magazine gives more detail. It says needles turned up in one employer's daughter's milk and Göldi was dismissed. A few weeks on, one of the daughters said she had vomited metal objects, and her former employer accused Göldi of practising witchcraft on the child. Smithsonian writes that she was tortured to extract a confession, and that she was beheaded with a sword.

The government of the canton of Glarus exonerated her after her death, in 2008.