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What happened to expectant mother who miraculously survived her own hanging execution
Almost 400 years ago, a young English servant was cruelly sentenced to death for committing infanticide, but she was massively misunderstood and miraculously survived.
Anne Greene was born in 1628 in Oxfordshire, England, and worked as a scullery maid for Sir Thomas Reade, a justice of the peace, before she became pregnant with his grandson’s baby aged 22.
The young maid was sentenced to death for having a miscarriage
Greene claimed to have no idea that she was expecting until she miscarried in the toilet, once known as a privy, at roughly 17 weeks. In a desperate attempt to conceal the remains of the fetus born out of wedlock, she attempted to hide it.
Tragically, the premature baby’s remains were discovered by Greene’s master, and he accused her of intentionally killing the baby. Sir Thomas prosecuted his young employee under the Concealment of Birth of Bastards Act 1624, which detailed a legal presumption that a woman who concealed the death of her illegitimate child had murdered the child.
Although a midwife testified the fetus was too underdeveloped ever to have been alive, the young maid was found guilty of murder and was hanged at Oxford Castle on December 14, 1650.
According to reports from the time, Greene requested that her own friends pull at her body while she hung, to speed up the process and shorten her suffering. Around 30 minutes later, she was presumed dead.
By some miracle, Greene survived the hanging
Hours later, her seemingly lifeless body was given to University of Oxford physicians William Petty and Thomas Willis for dissection, but they were stunned when they opened the coffin to find that she still had a faint pulse and was weakly breathing.
Instantly, the group of physicians got to nursing her back to life with bizarre remedies and enlisting another woman to lie with her and keep her warm. Miraculously, within 12 hours Greene was able to speak, and after four days she was able to eat solid food.
Less than a month after her intended death day, Greene was more or less back to full health. While it might have been wise for her to run off into hiding and start a new life entirely, as it could have been presumed that authorities would be keen to give the noose another go, the resurrected young woman was pardoned from execution.
Authorities granted Greene a reprieve from execution while she recovered and ultimately pardoned her, believing that the hand of God had saved her, demonstrating her innocence.
Also, one pamphlet from the time conveniently notes that Sir Thomas died three days after Greene's hanging, so there was no prosecutor to object to her freedom.
The Natural History of Oxfordshire reports that after her resurrection, Greene went to stay with friends in the country, taking her coffin with her. She later married and had three children, before sadly passing away properly in 1665, a decade and a half later than she was supposed to.
Christa Pike was set to be given the lethal injection today
Today, 71 years after the last woman to be given the death sentence in the UK was executed, US federal inmate Christa Pike was set to be given the lethal injection, making her the first woman to be killed by punishment in Texas in over 200 years, before she was granted a temporary stay just an hour before the execution was set to start.
Pike, 50, was just 18 when she was sentenced to spend the rest of her life on death row after she tortured and killed fellow student Collen Slemmer, 19, with the help of her boyfriend in 1995.
Pike’s legal team fought to have her sentence reduced to life imprisonment, citing her childhood trauma involving sexual and physical abuse, neglect, and domestic violence, which was never addressed by prosecutors during her initial trial three decades ago.
While Pike has been granted a temporary stay, the prospect of a 21st century execution raises serious questions about how much has changed over the last few centuries when it comes to prosecuting women with severely impaired mental health.
Three decades after Pike's prosecution, a jury wanted a mom who murdered her three children to walk free
Lindsay Clancy continued to make headlines earlier this month, when a jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict on whether she was guilty of murdering her three young children and her case ended in a mistrial.
The 36-year-old Massachusetts mom has been accused of killing her three kids, Cora, five; Dawson, three; and eight-month-old Callan, before throwing herself out of a second-story window in an attempt to take her own life in January 2023.
Clancy, who survived and now requires a wheelchair, has not denied strangling her children, though she claims she was suffering from undiagnosed postpartum psychosis.
In an interview with The Times, Christa claimed that she feels a “kinship” with Clancy, who has also claimed that her severe mental health issues led her to commit unthinkable crimes.
Christa also said: “We are both females who got into trouble because of uniquely female issues.
“One thing [that] is different, however, is that times have changed a lot on awareness of women's issues since I was put on trial.”
The death row inmate added that she is 'pleased' Clancy is 'getting the help she needs,' arguing: “There are so many women who don't get the help they need: me and others.”