Additional information
by Roger Kriney (Author)
The Salem Witch Trials, 1692 is the setting for this investigation into a few of the actual cases. The author offers the readers the opportunity to thoroughly examine all the existing written evidence against just four of the accused families and learn everything possible about the witnesses and accusers necessary for investigating their trials. As in any criminal investigation, the reader will find more than suspicion of greed, anger, decades old vengeance and misunderstanding as the basis for accusation and motive. The fingerprints of the religious hands are all over the intense fervor of the community as well as on the judges' misunderstanding and mishandling of the trials. The reader will also find the apparent abuse of young minds by certain adults as the means in order to set the stage for this travesty. The most disturbing thing you will find is the religious justification for all of it.
Author Biography
The author is a true descendant of the witch trials. He descends from 3 of the twenty people who were executed for witchcraft and another who was sentenced to execution but escaped. There were six other ancestors that were charged with witchcraft and either escaped or were imprisoned until their cases were adjudicated, and they were acquitted. He also descends from an additional 26 people that had association with the trials in one form or another through being "afflicted" by the accused, witnesses for and against the accused, a jury member, an accuser and one of the Puritan Clergymen who, as one of the cited experts, wrote one the famous books on Witchcraft in the late sixteenth century. Roger Kriney spent 30 years in law enforcement and is a graduate of the University of Charleston, (WVa) and the FBI's National Academy. He has written two prior novels.
