In the spring of 1597, the city of Aberdeen became the site of intense judicial scrutiny regarding the practice of witchcraft. Among those brought before the authorities during this period of heightened legal activity was Katherine Elshenour. Recorded in the judicial archives under case reference C/JO/3116, Katherine was identified as a resident of Aberdeen, a city where the mechanisms of the criminal justice system were operating with singular focus during the late sixteenth century.
Following the formal proceedings of her trial—indexed as T/JO/1549—the legal process concluded with a definitive sentence. Katherine was found guilty, and in accordance with the prevailing statutes and judicial customs of the time, she was executed later that same year. Her case remains part of the documented history of the Scottish witch trials, serving as a stark illustration of the era’s intersection between local residency, formal accusation, and capital punishment.