Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 17, 2013

Elizabeth Canning (1734–73) was an English maidservant who claimed to have been kidnapped and held in a hayloft against her will, and who ultimately became central to one of the most famous English criminal mysteries of the 18th century. She disappeared on 1 January 1753, returning 28 days later, emaciated and in a "deplorable condition", to her mother's home in the City of London. After Canning was interviewed, two women, Susannah Wells and Mary Squires, were identified as her supposed captors and arrested. Local magistrate Henry Fielding investigated Canning's story, interviewing several witnesses. Wells and Squires were tried and found guilty; Squires was sentenced to death for theft. However, the trial judge, Crisp Gascoyne, was unhappy with the verdict and began his own investigation. Upon being questioned, some witnesses recanted their earlier testimony, and evidence from others implied that Squires could not have abducted Canning. Gascoyne had Canning arrested, and she was found guilty of perjury at a trial in 1754. She was imprisoned for a month and transported for seven years. She died in British America in 1773, but the mystery surrounding her disappearance remains unsolved. (Full article...)

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