8th-Graders Lead Effort to Pardon Wrongly Convicted ‘Witch’

Karla Hailer, a fifth-grade teacher, shoots a video where a memorial stands at the site where five women were hanged as witches more than 325 years ago, in Salem, Mass., on July 19, 2017. Stephan Savoia/AP Photo

BOSTON—More than three centuries after a Massachusetts woman was wrongly convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to death, she’s finally on the verge of being exonerated—thanks to a curious eighth-grade civics class.

State Sen. Diana DiZoglio, a Democrat from Methuen, has introduced legislation to clear the name of Elizabeth Johnson Jr., who was condemned in 1693 at the height of the Salem Witch Trials but never executed.