Famous Cases | Historical Tales | Vampires | Zombies
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Famous Cases | Historical Tales | Vampires | Zombies |
Elizabeth Bathory was born a noblewoman in 1560. Her family held lands throughout Transylvania, and were considered one of the most powerful families in the country. As a teenager, Countess Bathory married a powerful nobleman by the name of Count Ferencz Nadasdy. The Countess took many lovers throughout her marriage.
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| Bathory family crest |
In her mid-twenties, Countess Bathory developed a fear of growing old and losing the beauty that she had come to depend on so greatly. After Count Nadasdy's death in 1604, the Countess moved to her family's lands in Vienna, where her obsession with youth would soon grow dark and evil. In Vienna, Countess Bathory began to dabble in forms of sorcery, attending rituals that would include the sacrifice of horses and other animals.
Countess Bathory's devotion with blood began the day she became angry with a servant girl who had not been performing to her standards. The enraged Countess struck the girl in the face with scissors, and the girl's blood sprayed across her hands. When the Countess went to rinse off the blood, she noticed that her skin looked smoother and younger than it had in years. The tenuous connection between blood and youth had been made, and it was from there that the Countess began her bloody descent into evil.
Convinced that blood, particularly from young girls, was the secret to eternal youth and beauty, Countess Bathory began to devise scheme after scheme to provide herself with what she saw as the elixir of youth. During her reign of terror, which lasted several years, the Countess murdered over 600 people. Some of the women killed were noblewomen like Countess Bathory, albeit of a lower station, who she had persuaded to come and work for her.
The murders were far more involved than a mere slitting of the throats. Countess Bathory tortured most of the servant girls for weeks or even months before they were killed. They were cut with scissors, pricked with pins, even prodded with sharp spikes while suspended in a cage hung from the ceiling to provide Countess Bathory with a "blood shower."
Inquiries into Countess Bathory's crimes began in 1610 and in December of that year, the Countess went on trial for murder. Some have speculated that the trial was brought about so speedily not to bring quick justice for the murdered girls, but to allow the local government to confiscate the Bathory family's considerable land holdings.
No one can perpetrate 600 murders alone, and Countess Bathory was no exception. Erzsi Majorova, the widow of a local tenant farmer, has long believed to be both the instigator and the brains behind the procurement and disposal of the murdered girls. Many other accomplices went to trial, were found guilty and were put to death, each by different methods depending on the roles they played in the crimes.
Countess Bathory's noble status saved her from the death penalty. Instead, she was sentenced to life imprisonment at the top of her castle in Cachtice. Her small room had no windows, no doors, and only a small opening in the wall to allow food to be passed through. That was the total of her contact with the outside world. Elizabeth Bathory died in that room in August of 1614.
The Countess' reputation as a vampire grew not only from her greed for blood, but also from rumors that surfaced during the trial. Witnesses said the Countess bit the young girls and drank their blood outright. Evidence of this has been difficult to verify as her court documents were sealed after the trial due to their scandalous nature. They never resurfaced again in intact form.
Dr. Defecto (Western Regional Director)