Abigail Williams (Murdered: Soul Suspect)

"My mark will burn like a brand in the flesh of this town. If it takes me to the ends of eternity, I will personally make the bell toll for every witch of Salem!"

- Words of Abigail Williams, the true Bell Killer.

Abigail Williams is the main antagonist of the 2014 supernatural adventure stealth video game, Murdered: Soul Suspect. She is a little girl found in the ghostly realm of Dusk who watches Detective Ronan O'Connor who later discovers that she perpetrated his death and she is behind the Bell Killer murders within the present day American town of Salem. She was interrogated at the very end of the game, and gives Ronan several clues.

History
Abigail was a child at the time of the Salem Witch Trials. Although is not clear if she had some sort of spiritual powers when alive, it is implied that she may have been an actual witch during her life time, whether or not she knew it.

At the time, for some reason not explained in game, it seems the authorities greatly relied on her accusations over people who supposedly practiced witchcraft. Aware of this, her cruel father used it to his own advantage, forcing her - even tortured her by dunking drowning - to regard his personal enemies as witches and report them. As result she became obsessed in persecuting witches. Eventually, the authorities growing afraid of the traumatized girl, took her on to custody, nearly the end of Witch Trials period.

In 1692 A.D., the local Massachusetts government extinguished the Witch Trials and ordered the release of all people accused of witchcraft. However, the judge of the district of Salem concluded that even under pressure and torturing, the young Abigail would never give up on her persecution against of what she believes as being witches. Afraid of what the girl were capable of doing if released, the judge ordered her death.

A year later in that same era, before she was escorted off her cell in direction of the gallows pole, Abigail carved a symbol of a bell on the floor of the cell and cursed the city through it, promising to "cleanse" the town of all "witches", even if takes an entire eternity to do it.

Events of Murdered: Soul Suspect
Abigail serves as the story's hidden main antagonist under the guise of the 'Bell Killer.' The Bell Killer was a figure she created by possessing members of the police force such as Baxter, Rex, and Ronan O'Connor, and using them to murder psychic mediums, whom Abigail perceived as being 'witches' and believing that they had contracts with demons.

Eventually, Ronan finds Rex, possessed by Abigail, trying to hang Joy at the gallows in the museum. With help from Joy, who is also a psychic medium, the two are able to banish Abigail from Rex's body and her ghost is confronted by Ronan's. While in a state of shock from finding out the truth behind his death, Abigail tries to have Ronan consumed by the decadent vundead ghosts through a pit she summons in the floor. However, Ronan escapes their grasp and instead the souls of the damned pulls Abigail in, officially expelling her soul from the mortal world and consequently ending the Bell Killings.

Powers and Abilities
Abigail Williams has the ability to possess just like any other Ghosts, but her power is apparently either more developed or unique. It gives inhuman physical strength and endurance to the host body she possesses, and she can control all the person's actions at will, without them having any recollection of the events.

She also has the common spirit ability to see flashbacks of peoples past memories, and has the unique ability to evoke Ghosts from the ground.

Trivia

 * Abigail Williams is the only character in Murdered: Soul Suspect who is based on the controversial figure who actually existed.
 * Abigail in Murdered: Soul Suspect is one of the known fictionalized version of the controversial figure of the same name, the other are the ones in Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice and in The Crucible respectively. Even their roles in Salem Witch Trials in the said fiction remain same.
 * Interestingly, Both Abigails in Murdered: Soul Suspect and in The Sorcerer's Apprentice are portrayed with equal age and with their real-life counterparts.
 * But the only thing that made them apart was their personal motivations behind their said involvement:
 * The motivation of Abigail in Murdered: Soul Suspect was her own unquenchable obsession in "purging" supposed witches that roots from being abused and manipulated by her abusive father.
 * Abigail's motivation in The Crucible was using the Trials as her advantage to purges those whom she hates as well as ensure that John Proctor became hers albeit failed.
 * The motives of Abigail Williams in Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice were using the trials to cover her sorcerous activities that led her sealed within The Grimhold by Balthazar Blake.
 * In real life (as well as The Crucible), Abigail Williams' father had died long before the Salem Witch Trials even occurred due to his and his wife being killed in an Indian raid, with her being left the sole survivor.