The trial of Abigail Williams, who was  arrested for attempted murder, ended in a mistrial on Thursday.

    In a story that involved accusations of witches, magic potions and secret trysts, a jury of 15 left it up to the prosecution as to whether Williams will be tried again.

    Williams, a character in the 1950s play "The Crucible," was played by Alexa Roddy, a student at St. Stephens High School, during the annual Crucible trial held by Hollis Whalen's English class.

    "For her to be found guilty, you have to walk away and say,'There's no way in the world that she could do it,'" said Sherwood Carter, who served as the presiding judge in the case.

    While the play paints a sordid picture of Williams, who in the story follows a life of prostitution in Boston, Whalen's class gives her a chance for justice. This was the first mistrial in the five years she's being hosting the trial. She was found guilty twice and innocent twice prior.

    "It was a great experience," Lindsay Rosenfeld, who played the part of attorney for the defense, said. "It makes you look at the story from an entirely different perspective."

    Rosenfeld built the case around the perceived guilt of Williams and the credibility of Elizabeth Proctor. Proctor, who spurned Williams in the play because of an affair with her husband John, contended that Williams was the instigator of mass hysteria. The hysteria resulted in Proctor being labeled a witch.   

    While on the stand in the  courtroom — or seated in a metal chair at the front of the J.RO.T.C. room at the high school — Proctor said that Williams was the only one in town who declared her a witch, but, Rosenfeld and her team of "defense attorneys" submitted evidence otherwise. Early in the trial a list of comments were submitted degrading Elizabeth Proctor.

    "They were following in the lead of Abigail Williams," she said on stand, " because she is their leader."

    The play, written by Arthur Miller in 1953,  is an allegory for the mass hysteria associated with the McCarthy Era and the Red Scare, a period Rosenfeld said we can learn a lot from.

    "We have to learn from the past," she said during the jury's deliberation. "If we don't learn from our mistakes, if we do the sme things, then we're making the same mistakes that our ancestors made. I think that's part of what Arthur Miller said. The McCarthy period was just absurd."