There are many such stories and secret burials in
the layers of history, if you come to know, you will be scared. There was one
such queen. We’re going to
talk about one of the most prolific female serial killers of all time.
Perhaps
you’re aware that she holds the dubious honor of being the most prolific female
murderer, as dictated by “Guinness World Records”, or maybe you’ve heard mention of her
as a key influence for a little novel called Dracula. Even if
you are unfamiliar with the name, then chances are you have heard the stories
about her legendary sadism.
This is the story of one of the deadliest and most
feared female killers in history, Elizabeth or “Erzsebet
Bathory”. Elizabeth was a vampire, a torturer, Human beyond
thinking who bathed in the blood of innocents to maintain her looks. Elizabeth
was known as “Countess Elizabeth Bathory De Ecsed”.
Early Life and Marriage:
Elizabeth
Báthory was born on 7th August 1560 into a family of the
Protestant nobility in Hungary. Her family
controlled the territory of Transylvania and her uncle, Stefan Báthory, was
king of Poland.
She was
well-educated, beautiful and wealthy. She was also virtually
untouchable as a member of the Bathory family. She was born into one of the
most prominent families in Central Europe. As a result, she was lavished with
the very best education and classic upbringing. During her formative years she
learned to speak Hungarian, Slovak, Greek, Latin and German.
She grew up
in the family castle in Ecséd, Hungary. Speaking of family, due to inbreeding
in marriages within it, some of the members suffered from mental illnesses,
including schizophrenia, epilepsy, and other disorders. Elizabeth also seemed
to show signs of imbalance from an early age, suddenly passing from joy to
anger (perhaps today we could talk about bipolarism).
At the age
of 15, in 1575, Elizabeth married
Count “Ferencz Nádasdy”, a member of another powerful Hungarian
family, and later moved to “C̆achtice Castle”, a wedding
gift from the Nádasdy family. Count Ferencz was part of a
group of swordsmen called the Terrible Quintet. And indeed there were some
terrible practices particularly loved by the count, such as torturing the
servants by sprinkling them with honey and then leaving them tied up near his
hives.
*During Bathory’s 29 year marriage to
Nádasdy, they had five children – three daughters, and two sons.*
During her
husband’s numerous absences, Elizabeth Báthory visited an aunt to participate
in orgies organized by the latter. Around the same time she came into contact
with “Dorothea
Szentes”, an expert in black magic. Dorothea, known as
Dorka,
and her servant Thorko introduced Elizabeth Báthory to the secrets and
practices of witchcraft.
Crimes:
A special
room was inside the castle, built by Nádasdy expressly for the purpose of
torturing his servants. Elizabeth began to use this room herself, experimenting
on the servants how to cause pain in different ways, often joined by her
husband, who taught her the “ways of torture”.
It all
intensified considerably when Nádasdy died in 1604 after contracting a
mysterious disease that left him debilitated and unable to walk. This would
have proved unfortunate for the servants because, although he was a tyrant, he
was practically a saint compared to his wife. In fact Elizabeth Báthory
possessed a ruthless evil force that pulsed within her and urged her to do
wickedness.
One of
Elizabeth’s favorite activities was forcing the servants out into the snow
naked in the middle of winter, bathing them in cold water and watching them
freeze like ice statues. Or she would place the servants in spiked cages hung
from the ceiling, torture them with needles or hot irons, sprinkle them with
honey, and release bees or other insects (which she learned from her husband).
Or she would hit them with hot irons or cut their fingers. Once she forced a
waitress to open her mouth wide to the point of having it lacerated.
One day
Elizabeth Báthory slapped a lady servant for badly combing her hair. The girl
spilled blood from her lip and splashed on the Elizabeth face. Her friend Dorka
told her that she looked younger thanks to that blood, and that episode then
became a beauty ritual.
Word was
beginning to spread about her sadistic activities. It was said that she enjoyed
torturing and killing young girls. At first they were servants at her castles,
daughters of the local peasants, but later they included girls sent to her by
local gentry families to learn good manners. A ritual that, at a certain point,
required women of higher lineage, because the blood of the servants was not of
superior quality.She believed that drinking the blood of young girls would
preserve her youthfulness and her looks. Witnesses told of her victims, biting
their hands and faces cutting them with sciss.
Capture:
A Lutheran
minister went to the Hungarian authorities, who
eventually began an investigation in 1610. In December of that year Elizabeth
was arrested and so were four of her favourite servants and intimates, who were
accused of being her accomplices. They were tried and found guilty. Three of
them were executed and the fourth was sentenced to life imprisonment.
During the
trial, the Countess Elizabeth was never allowed to speak for herself and this
favor was not granted to anyone else. After the torture and interrogation, all
but one of Elizabeth’s personal servants were executed.
Elizabeth
Báthory’s trial became public and saw over 300 witnesses and survivors speak
out against her, telling a story of suffering and death that made the court
shiver. Obviously this became a serious scandal.
Death:
The body of
a 54-year-old Elizabeth Bathory was found on August 21, 1614,
in Castle Čachtice (located in present-day Slovakia),
where she’d been imprisoned since 1610. She was initially buried in the crypt
on her estate, but her body was likely moved afterward.