In early 1706, Jean Brown, a 41-year-old servant residing in the parish of Penninghame, Wigtown, became the subject of intense ecclesiastical and judicial scrutiny. Despite her status as a *servitrix* and her insistence that she was unmarried, witnesses consistently testified to the contrary, confirming that she was indeed wed and had mothered at least one daughter. During a series of four interrogations held between January and March of that year, Jean provided recorded confessions in which she maintained that her involvement with the supernatural began sixteen years prior, when she claimed that spirits had first appeared to her.
The legal proceedings culminated in a trial held on September 3, 1706, under the reference C/EGD/2453. Jean did not attend the proceedings, having successfully escaped custody before a verdict could be rendered in her presence. Consequently, the court found her guilty of witchcraft in absentia, and as a result of her absence and the weight of the evidence presented, a sentence of excommunication was formally passed against her.