In the spring of 1699, Jean Umphray, a resident of Newark in the parish of Kilmacolm, Lanarkshire, found herself drawn into the orbit of a burgeoning judicial investigation in Paisley. Between the 19th and 21st of April, a collective testimony was levelled against her by a group of seven individuals—six men and one woman. Within these depositions, Jean was explicitly named and denounced not as an independent practitioner, but as one of the specific tormentors of Margaret Laird, a woman whose own experience had become the focal point of local scrutiny.
Despite the gravity of these accusations, the archival record remains notably sparse regarding any further escalation. Although Jean was clearly identified within the testimony presented at Paisley, there is no extant documentation confirming that a formal trial ever occurred or that the secular authorities pursued legal action against her. Her involvement in the case appears to have concluded with this public denunciation, leaving the ultimate course of her life and the nature of her alleged actions shrouded in the ambiguity of an incomplete historical record.