Abigail Williams born c. In early , Abigail Williams was living with her relative, Betty Parris's father, the village pastor Samuel Parris , along with his two slaves Tituba and John Indian. Tituba was part of a group of three womenβwith Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne βwho were the first to be arrested, on February 29, , under the accusation that their specters ghosts were afflicting the young girls in Parris' household. The three women were questioned separately but were aware of each other and, in a classic prisoner's dilemma , they were turned against each other.
Sarah Good was the first interrogated and held to her innocence. Judge John Hathorne directed all "the children But Hathorne told her, "Sarah Good said that it was you that hurt the children.
Further accusations against many others emerged from the Parris household and others and eventually led to the imprisonment of hundreds and the deaths of more than 20 in Sarah Osborne died in prison in May and Sarah Good was executed on July 19 along with four other women. Members of Parris household all managed to survive the entire episode including Tituba, who was released from jail a year later, when the slaveowner Parris paid her prison fees and sold her.
After the Salem witch trials, Williams disappeared from records circa In Arthur Miller 's play, The Crucible , a fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials, Abigail Williams is the name of a character whose age in the play is raised a full five or six years, to age 17, and she is motivated by a desire to be in a relationship with John Proctor , a married farmer with whom she had previously had an affair. In the historical record, there is no evidence of John Proctor and Abigail Williams ever meeting before the trials had started.
She was portrayed by Winona Ryder in the film adaptation of the play. Abigail Williams is an American black metal band formed in Abigail appears in the film The Sorcerer's Apprentice as a minor antagonist. Abigail is revealed as the antagonist of the video game Murdered: Soul Suspect. In the story, flashbacks reveal that she was hanged for her part in the witch trials.
