Anna Goldi

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Anna Göldi (also Anna Göldin, ca. 1740–1782) is known as the "last witch" in Switzerland. She was executed for murder in June 1782 in Glarus.

Anna Göldi worked as a maidservant for a Glarus physician, who reported her for repeatedly having put needles in the milk of one of his daughters, apparently by supernatural means. Göldi at first avoided arrest and the authorities of the Canton of Glarus advertised a reward for her capture in the Zürcher Zeitung on 9 February, 1782. Göldi was arrested and under torture admitted to being in a pact with the Devil, and was sentenced to execution by decapitation.

Göldi's official sentence was for the murder of her second child which had died shortly after its birth, official allegations of witchcraft were avoided, and the court protocols were destroyed. The sentence does therefore not strictly qualify as that of a witch trial. Still, because of the apparent witchhunt that led to the sentence, the execution sparked outrage throughout Switzerland and the Holy Roman Empire.

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