In the spring of 1658, the judicial machinery of the Ayr circuit turned its attention toward a group of individuals appearing on the local porteous rolls. Among those summoned to answer for the charge of witchcraft was Bessie Fullertoun, a widow residing in the burgh of Irvine. Her name appeared on a roll dated 31 March 1658, which mandated the attendance of the entire 1658 cohort of accused persons for trial. This legal process culminated in an appearance before the Ayr court on 4 April 1658, marking a significant moment of state intervention into the perceived spiritual transgressions of the region.
However, the trial records for Bessie reflect the stark reality of the mortality rates often encountered by investigators of the early modern period. Despite her inclusion in the formal summons and the subsequent court proceedings, the documentation explicitly records that she was already dead by the time the case reached its conclusion. Consequently, while her name remained tethered to the criminal proceedings of that April, the physical person of Bessie had passed beyond the reach of the court’s jurisdiction, leaving her case as a documented entry in the broader history of the mid-seventeenth-century witch trials in Scotland.