The first person hanged for being a witch in the United States lived in Connecticut in 1647, forty-five years before the famous Salem witch trials and a year before the first documented hanging in neighboring Massachusetts. She was hanged in my city, Hartford, about two miles from where I’m typing this. We don’t know much about her except her name—Alse. Or Alice or Aliss. We know more about her husband, a carpenter, John. They arrived from England as the Youngs, and soon dropped their “S.”

John had some sort of illness…a disease where he shed his skin, nails, and hair. Sounds terribly painful and annoying for a man who had to shave and saw wood and bend and crawl to measure. Documents tell that this illness came and went. Perhaps Alice’s home herbal remedies kept the disease at bay for periods of time.

I visualize her in her garden, tending to herbs she brought with her from her native England. Maybe varieties unknown to those living in the colonies for decades. Maybe she prayed over her garden, asking for guidance and assistance in helping her husband regain his health. Were her words misinterpreted as partnering with the Devil? Or was his occasional recovery considered a miracle, and hence witchcraft. Or was his illness itself perceived as a spell?

In other communities around the globe, those sacrificed were often considered special. If Alice had healing powers, she might have been the Chosen One, given up to ward off future Indian attacks or the spreading epidemics, both common in the 1640s. Her execution might have been a sacrifice for much needed rain.

Or was her death connected to a much simpler reason? Was she exceptionally pretty? Did the women in town protect their own interests? We’ll never know.

Killing our own has never ceased. We see it in the news and in our communities every day.

Sometimes we kill out of fear of difference, really to hide our own inadequacies. Are we willing to make sacrifices today to please a god, or do we no longer believe in God? Or rather, do we believe God is now powerless and immaterial?

This year, the town of Windsor, where Alice Young resided until her arrest for witchcraft, absolved her through an official resolution. It took 370 years for her death—this one death—to be recognized as a mistake. We’ll never fix all of the wrongful deaths we humans have caused over the centuries, but we can go forward learning how to pause before judging.