Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts

Prior to the Killing series, Bill O’Reilly’s books were an extension of his cable news persona, including commentary on current affairs from a generally right-of-center perspective and a no-nonsense attitude. For example, in 2010, he published Pinheads and Patriots: Where You Stand in the Age of Obama, depicting a stare-down between Obama (presumably the pinhead) and O’Reilly (the patriot) on its cover. In 2011, however, O’Reilly broke from the pattern of his previous books and published Killing Lincoln with Martin Dugard, a popular history of the events leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865. Killing Lincoln later became a limited television series on the National Geographic Channel, narrated by Tom Hanks. The book was a major bestseller but received criticism when Ford’s Theater (the site of Lincoln’s assassination, now a museum) refused to sell the book due to textual inaccuracies. O’Reilly dismissed this move as a bad-faith attempt to undermine his credibility. Killing Kennedy followed in 2012 and was also adapted for television. In 2013, O’Reilly and Dugard published Killing Jesus, an account of the crucifixion that places it within the context of Roman imperial politics and the Jerusalem power structure. Like other Killing series installments, it sold very well but also came under criticism when the authors insisted that it was a factual account without relying on any historical scholarship. The next book, Killing Patton, was criticized by professional historians for suggesting that World War II general George Patton, who died in a car accident in Europe, was in fact assassinated by Soviet agents.

Skeptical treatment by historians peaked with 2015’s Killing Reagan, which elicited an intense furor. The term “killing” is used in a non-literal sense—Reagan survived the 1981 assassination attempt, living until 2004. However, O’Reilly and Dugard suggest that the damage done by the would-be assassin’s bullet accelerated the symptoms that ultimately led to his Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Many conservatives, including those normally friendly to O’Reilly, denounced this theory, prompting a fierce debate that unfolded on radio and cable television. Subsequent volumes have largely shifted the meaning of “killing” to “defeating,” including 2016’s Killing the Rising Sun about the Pacific Theater of World War II, 2017’s Killing England about the American Revolution, 2018’s Killing the SS about the post–World War II hunt for Nazi war criminals, and 2022’s Killing the Killers about the US military campaigns against Al Qaeda and Islamic State. 2022’s Killing the Legends stretched the concept of killing further to discuss the harmful effects of celebrity by comparing John Lennon (who was shot and killed by a fan in 1980), Elvis Presley (whose unhealthy lifestyle led to his death at the age of 42), and Muhammad Ali (who experienced Parkinson’s disease as a likely result of his boxing career). Killing the Witches marks the first in the series to focus primarily on female victims.