A woman beheaded after she was accused of causing a girl to spit pins and convulse was exonerated Wednesday, more than 200 years after she became the last person executed as a witch in Europe.

The decision to clear Anna Goeldi's name came after long debate in the eastern Swiss state of Glarus, and was taken in consultation with the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches.

Several thousand people, mainly women, were executed for witchcraft between the 14th and 18th centuries in Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe. Yet Goeldi's trial and beheading in the village of Mollis took place at a time when witch trials had largely disappeared from the continent.