Thomas Looten
Thomas Looten was a respectable farmer who settled in the town of Meteren in Gelderland on his marriage. However, in 1659, a series of unpleasant stories began to circulate about 60-year-old Looten that unsettled him. People were whispering that he had been bewitching plums to kill local children. So on September 21, 1659, the farmer approached Meteren’s bailiff, Jaques Vanderwalle, asked him to investigate the matter to clear his name.
Things did not quite work out the way Looten had hoped. Vanderwalle did launch an investigation. While it was ongoing, however, he jailed Looten. Within two days, twelve witnesses had come forward to testify against Looten, and an order was issued to search his house for magical implements.
After three weeks, Vanderwalle had examined all the witnesses and told the court he had enough evidence to prove sorcery. The judges visited the hapless Looten and asked if he could offer any evidence to clear himself. Looten claimed he was ” not guilty either in word or deed, ” but he could not prove his innocence.
As luck would have it, the official torturer of Dunkirk just happened to be passing through Meteren. He examined Looten’s body and found a “devil’s mark” which he could pierce with “ a pin as far as its head” without Looten bleeding or feeling pain. The torturer, a veteran witchfinder, with between 500-600 positive ID’s under his belt, declared the witch’s mark to be the real thing.
So Looten was put to the torture. An iron collar was fastened around his neck and slowly tightened to extract his confession. Initially, he held out, explaining he had just wanted to stop the slander and so had come to the authorities. His refusal to submit just showed he had a strong constitution, the torturer told the judges. A little extra ‘persuasion’ could be safely applied. So after a blessing from a priest to ‘exorcise’ him, the torture began again with renewed vigor. This time Looten broke. He confessed he had been a witch for eight years and that the devil had supplied him with money to buy cows and horses for his farm. Crucially, he admitted he had killed the children as accused, by spitting on the plums to bewitch them.
The court did not publicly execute Looten. He died that night in his cell from a broken neck, undoubtedly caused by the torture used to gain his confession- although his jailors said the devil strangled him. His body, however, was taken out and burned publicly on a scaffold. Looten’s estate was confiscated to pay for the whole investigation, including searches of his own home, the jailors- and forty days worth of daily fees for Vanderwalle and the judges. The town of Meteren ended up doing very well out of Thomas Looten’s fall from grace.