23. The Aristocratic Murderess
Countess Elizabeth Bathory de Ecsend (1560 – 1614), also known as “The Blood Countess”, owned vast estates in what are now Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania. She also owns the Guinness Book of World Records’ record for most prolific female murderess, having tortured and killed hundreds of young women between 1585 and 1609. She was probably history’s most vicious female serial killer.
She was born into the Bathory family, a distinguished aristocratic lineage that ruled Transylvania as a de facto independent principality within the Kingdom of Hungary. The future countess was raised amidst wealth and privilege, and received an excellent education from top-notch tutors. At age twelve, she was betrothed to a prominent Hungarian aristocrat. Things began going off-kilter soon thereafter.