Serial Killers Part.3 Elizabeth Bathory

Inthe early 17th century, Hungarian countess Elizabeth Bathory is suspected of murdering hundreds of young women.

Elizabeth Bathory: Who Was She?

Countess Elizabeth Bathory, or Erzsébet Báthory, was a wealthy and powerful Hungarian noblewoman with a king of Poland as an uncle and a prince of Transylvania as a nephew. She was accused of terrible crimes of serial murder in 1610 and was imprisoned in her house at Castle achtice till her death. Bathory is said to have killed at least 600 people, giving her the title of most prolific female murderer in the world.

Marriage and Early Life

Bathory was born on August 7, 1560, in Nyrbátor, Hungary.

Bathory, a lovely and well-educated girl, became engaged to Count Ferenc Nadasdy when she was 11 years old. Before her marriage, she gave birth to an illegitimate child fathered by another man, according to certain stories of her life.

On May 8, 1575, a 15-year-old Bathory married Nadasdy. The couple’s first child was born in 1585, ten years later. Bathory is the mother of five children. Two girls and a boy survived, while two daughters and a son died as babies.

The pair spent much of their marriage apart since her spouse was a soldier who was frequently away battling Ottoman Turks.Bathory inherited Nadasdy’s vast properties after she died in January 1604.

Crimes

Bathory was accused of a harrowing list of atrocities against female servants and small noblewomen who’d come to her for study and training. After her widowhood in 1604 she committed the most of her alleged attacks and killings.

Bathory’s victims were smeared in honey and left outside to be eaten by insects. Young ladies may be stripped nude and placed into lethal ice baths during the colder months of the year. Bathory used stinging nettles to pierce females’ fingers, slash their noses or lips, and whip them with needles. She chewed shoulders and breasts, as well as scorching the flesh of several victims, including their genitals.

Bathory is frequently seen bathing in the blood of virgin victims in an attempt to reclaim her youth. However, no contemporaneous witness testimony (which generally didn’t shy away from gore) back up this heinous conduct. Bathory’s blood baths were first mentioned 100 years after her death, implying that they were invented.

Capture

Count György Thurzó, the lord palatine of Hungary, came at Bathory’s Castle achtice on December 29, 1610, to examine the countess’ alleged crimes against ladies of noble descent (any mistreatment of servants was not a concern to authorities). Bathory was supposedly surprised while abusing a victim, and he promptly imprisoned her in her house (her high status meant she would not be jailed as a common criminal).

The slaves of Bathory, three ladies and one man, were then seized, questioned, and tortured. Their court case began in early January 1611. These servants denied involvement in the killings but acknowledged to burying many dead, ranging from 36 to 51 according to their statements. They implicated a deceased servant, Darvulia, who had worked as a maid and governess, in addition to their mistress and each other. Two of the ladies and the male servant were condemned to death, and their sentences were carried out immediately. The fourth was spared instant execution; it is unknown what happened to her after that. Another lady, who had allegedly used magic to help Bathory, was assassinated shortly after.

Thurzó resumed his investigation into the countess after these executions. Báthory identified 650 fatalities in her files, according to one witness, while the number of deaths fluctuated in other accounts, and the countess’ precise death toll remains unclear. Thurzó also acquired 289 witness testimonies as part of his case.

Death

On August 21, 1614, the body of a 54-year-old Bathory was discovered in Castle achtice (now Slovakia), where she had been imprisoned since 1610. Her body was presumably transported after she was first buried in the crypt on her estate.

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