In the early spring of 1659, the legal apparatus of seventeenth-century Scotland turned its attention toward Bessie Stevenson. According to the extant records of the Court of Justiciary (case reference C/EGD/1881), legal proceedings against Bessie were initiated on March 2, 1659. While later notations associate her residence with the town of Dumfries, the contemporary documentation regarding her specific origins remains ambiguous, leaving the geographical context of her life somewhat obscured by the limitations of the archive.
Following the judicial process, the outcome of her trial (T/JO/1878) was definitive and severe. Bessie was found guilty of witchcraft, a charge that carried the ultimate penalty under the statutes of the time. In accordance with the prevailing practices of the era, the sentence was carried out through the method of strangulation followed by burning, marking the final stage of her encounter with the Scottish criminal justice system.