20. Getting Away With Murder
Scholars do not know the exact number of people killed by Countess Bathory, but some estimates go as high as 650 victims. Rumors of the goings-on at her castle eventually got out, and the Hungarian authorities conducted an investigation. In December, 1610, the sadistic Countess and four of her accomplices were arrested.
Bathory’s accomplices were tried, and three of them were convicted of murder and sundry crimes, and executed. Elizabeth was connected, however, so she got off light. The authorities reasoned that trying and executing a member of a prominent family like hers would cause too much of a public scandal and bring the aristocracy into disrepute. So she was quietly imprisoned in Cachtice Castle, Slovakia, until her death of natural causes in 1614.