Execution of George Spencer

George Spencer (c. 1600 – April 8, 1642) was the second person in history to be executed in Connecticut. He was executed by hanging for charges of sodomy after being convicted for an alleged sexual act with an animal, in which it was falsely claimed that Spencer had fathered a female pig's offspring despite this being impossible.

After a review of the case in 2015, Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue, writing in a book he published, concluded that Spencer's confession was coerced and thus inadmissible, while also stating that Spencer's alleged crime of fathering a piglet was "biologically impossible". Spencer's case was described by Blue as the "first verifiable false confession in American history". Nevertheless, while it would've been impossible for Spencer to father a piglet, he confessed to bestiality with the pig immediately prior to his execution.