Because Corey refused to enter a plea, his estate passed on to his sons instead of being seized by the Massachusetts colonial government.

Corey is believed to have died in the field adjacent to the prison that had held him, in what later became the Howard Street Cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts, which opened in 1801.

[12] At the time of the witch trials, Corey was 80 years old and living with Martha in the southwest corner of Salem Village, in what is now Peabody.

Corey was so swept up by the trials that he initially believed the accusations against his wife until he himself was arrested based on the same charge on 18 April, along with Mary Warren, Abigail Hobbs, and Bridget Bishop.

To avoid people cheating justice, the legal remedy for refusing to plead was "peine forte et dure".

This was the process of being pressed:[16] ... remanded to the prison from whence he came and put into a low dark chamber, and there be laid on his back on the bare floor, naked, unless when decency forbids; that there be placed upon his body as great a weight as he could bear, and more, that he hath no sustenance save only on the first day, three morsels of the worst bread, and the second day three draughts of standing water, that should be alternately his daily diet till he died, or, till he answered.As a result of his refusal to plead, on 17 September, Corey was subjected to the procedure by Sheriff George Corwin, but he was steadfast in that refusal, nor did he cry out in pain as the rocks were placed on the boards.

"[19] Samuel Sewall's diary states, under the date of Monday, 19 September 1692: About noon at Salem, Giles Cory was pressed to death for standing mute; much pains was used with him two days, one after another, by the court and Captain Gardner of Nantucket who had been of his acquaintance, but all in vain.

She had a son from a previous marriage named Thomas; he showed up as a petitioner for loss and damages resulting from his mother being executed illegally during the witch trials.

[22] The gruesome and public nature of Corey's death may have caused residents of Salem to rethink their support for the witch trials.

[18] Although Corey's refusal to plead meant that his estate was protected from seizure, it was reported that Sheriff Corwin nevertheless extorted his family by falsely claiming that he could still confiscate the property.

In 1710, Corey's daughter Elizabeth and her husband John Moulton[1] filed a lawsuit seeking damages from Corwin's estate.

"[24] According to a local legend, the apparition of Corey appears and walks his graveyard each time a disaster is about to strike the city.

[27] Corey is a character in Arthur Miller's play The Crucible (1953), in which he is portrayed as a hot-tempered but honorable man, giving evidence critical to the witch trials.

In The Crucible, Giles feels guilty about his wife's accusation because he had told a minister that Martha had been reading strange books, which was discouraged in that society.

[29] Actor Kevin Tighe portrayed Corey in the pilot episode of the WGN television series Salem, in which he is pressed to death in a more-or-less historically accurate manner.