In the spring of 1662, the legal machinery of the Scottish courts turned toward Agnes Grant, a woman whose life had straddled the parishes of Elgin and Nairn. On the 14th of April, her case was formally catalogued within the records of the Elgin (St Giles) jurisdiction under the reference C/EGD/450. The gravity of the accusations brought against her emerged from the tensions of her local community, centering on a charge that struck at the heart of seventeenth-century fears regarding interpersonal malice and the supernatural.
The specific testimony leveled against Agnes alleged that she had been hired to perform a targeted killing. This invocation of a mercenary motive—that she had utilized occult means to fulfill a fatal request—propelled her into the harrowing process of the legal system, culminating in the formal proceedings documented in trial record T/LA/1839. Throughout the examination, the authorities focused on the intent behind these alleged actions, treating the charge of employing witchcraft to commit homicide as a significant breach of both communal safety and divine law.