Spencer was given a posthumous pardon by Superior Court Judge John C. Blue, concluding 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"...
When a sow gave birth to a malformed, one-eyed piglet it was considered a manifestation of God's proof of Spencer's sins
In 1645, Thomas Hogg, another servant in New Haven, was imprisoned for several months for very similar crimes. A sow gave birth to two deformed piglets that allegedly resembled Hogg. However, Hogg never confessed to the crime, and the requirement of finding two witnesses could not be met
