In the autumn of 1678, the legal apparatus of Edinburgh converged upon Helen Laying, a thirty-two-year-old widow of middling social standing from the village of Paiston in Crichton. Her status within the community was reflected in the presence of her servant, Issobel Eliot, yet her standing was irrevocably dismantled by the weight of the allegations against her. Beyond the charge of attending a witches' meeting, the records detail a more intimate and severe accusation: the murder of her own husband. Following the initial reporting of these suspicions, Helen found herself denounced in the legal proceedings of other accused individuals, specifically Marion Campbell and Margaret Dods, a common pattern in the interconnected web of seventeenth-century witch trials.
The judicial process moved with grim efficiency following her apprehension. Between late June and mid-September 1678, Helen provided a series of confessions in which she admitted to having practiced witchcraft for seven years. These depositions formed the core of the evidence presented before the assize. On September 20, 1678, the court in Edinburgh returned a verdict of guilty. That same day, the sentence was carried out in accordance with the customary practice for those convicted of witchcraft: Helen was strangled and subsequently burned.