On September 6, 1661, the judicial records of early modern Scotland formally identified Bessie Turnbull as a subject of legal proceedings regarding the crime of witchcraft. A resident of the parish of Ormiston in Haddington, Bessie was drawn into the turbulent period of the Restoration-era witch hunts, which saw a significant intensification of accusations across the Lothians.
While the formal documentation of her case (C/EGD/1395) confirms her status within the legal system, the subsequent trial records (T/JO/816) remain notably silent on the specific allegations brought against her or the eventual outcome of the proceedings. Consequently, Bessie exists in the archival record as a woman caught within the machinery of a seventeenth-century court, her narrative defined by her parish identity and the administrative documentation of a legal process that left no further testimony or sentence preserved for history.