Being pressed to death was one of the slowest and most agonizing methods of execution in human history

Being pressed to death was one of the slowest and most agonizing methods of execution in human history.

Although the specifics varied from culture to culture, the accused was generally tied down with a board laid atop them, followed by weight after weight — and sometimes it would take the victim up to three days to die as their bodies were crushed. Their bones would break, the person would suffocate, and sometimes their cracked ribs and shards of bone would even burst through their skin — all while stunned onlookers watched. In one case of pressing in 1676, the sight was reported to be so horrific that some of the onlookers took pity on the accused as he suffered under 400 pounds of stones — and jumped on top of him to end his suffering. Go inside the horrific history of pressing to death: Now The story For thousands of years, accused criminals were subjected to being pressed or crushed to death, most famously during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. If you were sentenced to death by crushing, or getting pressed to death, you were in for an excruciating end. While strapped down, you would have intense weight placed upon you, bit by bit, until the weight literally crushed you to death. One of the earliest examples of the execution method was found over 4,000 years ago in Southeast Asia, where a well-trained elephant would crush a disobedient prisoner. If you were lucky, the elephant would squash you like a bug. If you weren’t, the execution was slow and painful. But whether the weight was applied by a human or a pachyderm, the result was still the same. Giles Corey Is Pressed To Death was a successful farmer in the town of Danvers, Massachusetts, about 30 minutes north of Boston. Unfortunately for Mr. Corey, he was swept up in the flurry of accusations made by local women of various bewitchings and specter visitations. Accusations were often made against folks who weren’t well-liked in the community, and Corey — being a convicted criminal after having beaten an apple thief to death — fell into that category. All in all, about 200 people were accused of witchcraft, including Corey himself. A special court was convened to handle the influx of accusations, and Corey went on trial. At that point, he had two options: He could either enter a plea, standing a strong chance of being convicted in the kangaroo court, or not enter a plea at all and refuse to stand trial. Corey also knew that if he chose the latter, the court would order him to be pressed in hope that he would enter a plea. It didn’t matter to Corey — he chose the latter, and decided to stand strong and die with his dignity intact, while also allowing his living relatives to keep his land. Giles was asked to strip naked and lay down, face-up, on the ground. A wooden board was then placed on top of him, and on top of the board, one by one, Sheriff George Corwin placed large rocks. After two days of this torture, through which Giles had remained silent, never crying out, he was asked to plead. Giles did not want his property to be taken, so he never plead either way. On the third day 19 September 1692 he died from being pressed to death. His last words were, “more weight.” Corey’s death by pressing ultimately helped change the way the Salem Witch Trials were viewed by locals.