Inside the Serial Murders of The Blood Countess

Hi everyone, before today's episode, we want to tell you about What the Fact. It's a new show from Conor Tomlinson, who you know from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum, and Carter Roy from Murder, True Crime Stories. Every week they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Conor's infectious energy will make you realize history is the most fascinating thing on Earth. Follow What the Fact, wherever you listen, or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact is on. This is Crime House. Hi, mommies. Hi. Would you like to play a game? Yes I do. A game called "Would You Brother?" We made it up. You've never heard of it before. This episode takes us away back in time to the late 1500s to discuss the world's first female serial killer, a woman who had a taste for blood and a desire for eternal beauty. Today we are covering the story of Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian noblewoman from the 17th century whose sadistic love of torture earned her the nickname, The Blood Countess. Tales of Her Violence have turned Elizabeth into a real life of empire story, but before we get into it, we are going to pick two shocking moments from the story, and we're going to let you decide which one do you think is the lesser of two evils? Here are the choices. Would you rather surrender your body and your beauty to the toll of time as we all are forced to do or trade your soul for eternal youth even if the price was paid in blood? If you chose the second option, are you okay? Although I will defend the second option in a way, because when I was first thinking of why would I ever choose that, I think the only way for me to possibly choose that was if someone, like a child of mine needed care far into adulthood, where it was like I couldn't ever die. You're thinking as a mommy. I'm thinking of as a mommy. But as a non-mommy, no, no. But for Elizabeth Bathory, the woman at the heart of today's story, that choice, it was so simple, so easy, clear, youth, youth over mercy, vanity over mercy. Over humanity. Between 1590 and 1610, Elizabeth Bathory's castle became a place of horrors. She and four of her loyal servants are said to have murdered hundreds of women and girls. As whispers of her cruelty spread across Hungary, one rumor drowned out all the rest. The Countess bathed in her victim's blood, not for power, but for beauty. Welcome to Crimes of the Paranormal, a crime house original powered by paved studios, where your hosts Sabrina Diana Brogat and Corinne Vienne. Every Tuesday, we're exploring a different corner of the True Crime universe, examining cases that left a permanent impact on society. This season, we're diving into cases where the evidence doesn't end at blood stains and fingerprints, but drifts into something unexplainable, into the unknown. If you're loving Crimes of, please follow rate and review us wherever you listen. It helps us build this community and we love hearing from you. To get early access and ad-free listening, subscribe to the Crimes House Plus community on Apple Podcasts. You can also catch us on YouTube where we include visuals that bring every case to life. Today, we're talking about a murderous noble woman of the 16th and 17th century, Countess Elizabeth Bathory, better known as the Blood Countess. Elizabeth had everything, she had land, power, and riches, but she also had a dark secret. And if the legends are to be believed, her thirst for blood left hundreds dead, making Elizabeth one of the most prolific serial killers ever. A warning before we begin. This episode contains descriptions of murder, torture, and violence to women and children, and a whole lot of blood. Another disclaimer at this case is incredibly old, so there's a lot of debate as to what actually is historically true. That being said, we want to tell you the history of Elizabeth Bathory, her upbringing, her reign of terror, and the paranormal legacy she is left behind. This week we are asking, how far would you go all for beauty? Not as far as she did. It's virtually impossible to know the exact number of victims that Elizabeth Bathory claimed. Many of the people that Elizabeth killed were buried in unmarked graves, so their names are lost to history, unfortunately. Only one of these crimes would be horrific enough, but Elizabeth didn't stop at just a few murders, no. She was charged with killing 80 women and girls, but some actually believe that number is much closer to 600. The brutality of her crimes and the shocking number of victims has cemented Elizabeth Bathory as a murderer of mythic proportions. So to this day, she is known by other names, the Lady Dracula, or more commonly, the Blood Account Pass, and I am wearing red in honor of this story, and I'm wearing white because I wish her soul was pure that none of this had ever happened. Well, it's actually appropriate because her spirit sometimes they say she's a lady in white, others say that she's a lady in red because she's covered in blood. So you're the aging naturally, I'm the bathing in blood for eternal use, until I'm not her. I promise. No. So I do wonder if she lived in this time, would she still be so evil or could she take some of that, the desire, because we'll talk about this, but there's definitely needles and things involved in some of her torture, but I do wonder, could she have channeled that energy into being like a plastic surgeon or doing like Botox on people? Like would that have C-sheeted her need for sticking needles in people hard to know, but you hope so. Yes. We'll never know. Yeah. But even without these wild rumors, the story of Elizabeth Bathery is undeniably chilling. Yes. And white growth. Elizabeth was a woman with immense power and influence. What's up, little psychos? I'm Investigators later, host of the Psychopedia podcast. Psychopedia is a true crime podcast, delivering real, raw, and insanely gripping episodes every single week. I dive deep way beyond the headlines to uncover a staggering amount of details about heinous true crime cases, while also exploring law, criminology, and psychology theories to better understand the twisted mind of the perpetrator, because exploring the darkest corners of the human psyche is my absolute favorite activity. Every episode is peppered with top quizzes for you, the listener to engage with, because I gotta keep you sharp and on your toes at all times. Psychopedia is true crime like you've never heard it before. Investigated and delivered with pleasure by me, your Dark Queen, who's been on the front lines fighting for victim justice and exposing the darkness others might shy away from. Be sure to subscribe, follow, and listen to Psychopedia everywhere you get your podcasts. Girls came to her castle, dreaming of learning from such a noble woman. Instead, they learned only of agony, and were met with a brutal demise. As Elizabeth Bathory with all her power could do whatever she wanted, and what she wanted was to kill. A top a steep, moonlit hill in western Slovakia sit the ruins of Ceta Castle. By day, the castle welcomes hundreds of visitors, but locals know not to come here after dark. They say the air turns different once the sun sets, becoming heavy, electric, like history coming back to light. But tonight, one man has no choice, the caretaker. He's on his nightly rounds, locking the gate after the final tour. At the simple task when he's done hundreds of times before, he's heard the stories, the legends, the history, the whispers of the blood countess, and her murderous, torturous acts, the countless women and girls whose lives she stole within the walls of this fairy castle, the infamous baths, the blood paths. But that was sentries ago. Surely those ghost stories that people whisper in the dark or just old wives' tales meant to send shivers down your spine? Soon though, the caretaker will realize, maybe these ghost stories are told, because they are real. As the man turns his key, locking the gate, a sound troubles him. It's a woman's scream, faint, but unmistakable. He spins on his heels, now facing the looming castle, and he listens. An eerie quiet unsettles into his core, the sound of his heartbeat proving dreadful. But nothing is more terrifying than the scream that echoes through the night sky. It's coming from inside. At first, he fears the tourist locked inside, so he climbs the stone steps, flashlight trembling in this hand. And he calls out to the woman, asking where she is, but there's no response. And suddenly the air changes and it feels like he's walking through ice. The hairs on his body stand straight, and a sharp, metallic smell consumes his senses. It is then that he sees her, a tall woman standing at the top of the stairwell. He is striking, she's poised, and she is dressed in a blood-red gown. The woman stares at the man for a long moment before parting her lips and whispering, "Bring me my mirror." Before he could process, this woman before him simply disappears. Gone, vanished into thin air, and it is in that moment that the caretaker understands. Those were not just stories. The spirit of the blood countess is very much alive. Spooky, very spooky. Tonight we are telling the story of Elizabeth Bathory, the blood countess, the crimes, the legends, and the hauntings that live on. So let's start at the beginning, before she murdered all of the maybe hundreds of innocent women and girls, before she bathed in blood and before her ghost haunted the ruins of a castle. Elizabeth Bathory was born on August 7th, 1560, which I hate that she shares an August birthday with us. She's a Leo. We're only a few days apart. I know. Except, you know, I was born in the 21st century. It would be very interesting to do her birth chart and astrology, especially of this case. Anyway. A future episode. Tag in and leave her. Okay. So she was born on August 7th, 1560, in the Kingdom of Hungary, and she was born into the world of nobility, a family of princes and cardinals, and her uncles, Stephen Bathory, later went on to become the King of Poland. Her family was one of the oldest and most established in this country, aka, they had a lot of power and influence, and she could get away with pretty much anything. And also I did read something that her parents both had the same surname before getting married. Well, all the cousins married back then. Yeah. Because that's what they did in the royalty in reading. I'm hoping that there were cousins, not just brother and sister, actually. I think there were cousins. Yeah. But so with this, being born into nobility, came a lot of privilege for Elizabeth. She had wealth, grand of states, access to education, and she never needed for anything. And then anything she wanted, she got. With this nobility, though, came a darker side. I guess with the era, 1560s, came a darker side as well, because it's 1560 hungry, steeped in chaos, torn between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburgs. The countryside was ravaged and wore famine and plague. So violence was just like an accepted part of life. Public torture and executions were not feared or frowned upon. They were viewed as actual entertainment. And the Bathory family came from a long line of fierce warriors who saw violence as a means to an end. And I feel like that context is really important because it tells us how the type of society Elizabeth was growing up in and what she saw every day, like the violence she saw every day, was a normal part of life. And so it's safe to say that she inherited more than just her looks and DNA from her family, but also their bloodlust. But the time Elizabeth was born, the Bathories had been ruling over the local peasantry for centuries. So they kept their power by instilling fear in everyone, even if that meant enacting violence, which there was a lot of violence. And she was raised in this giant estate, the religions of servants and butlers and handmaidens. And she spent most of her childhood in one particular castle, Castle Etchid, raised by a series of governesses. She was educated in many languages, household matters, and in violence. And rumor has it that terrible things had happened there. Yes. It is said that as young as five years old, Elizabeth began attending events where she would bear witness to decapitations, hangings, public floggings. People even talked about their home that Elizabeth grew up in as a house of horrors. And it's like, what does that do to a child just generally, but then also like for her, she's being told that she's relating or like of the status of the people doing those things. Right. So it's not like she fears and sees herself as like a potential victim. It's like, that'll be you one day, like you'll be enacting this violence. Killing. Right. Terrible. But also this like, unfortunately, wasn't super out of the norm for this time period. The nobles were very notorious for treating people, especially their servants, super horribly. Yeah. They actually like monsters. They treated anyone who was beneath them as like, big or even human. I'm imagining what Elizabeth grew up in as like game of thrones. Yeah. I was featuring that too. Yeah. Everyone around her was either powerful and violent or expendable, in quotes, viewed as, and they are for treated as trash. And apparently her own brother was a sex fiend and abused women and then he would run around town naked and drunk. And then Elizabeth's aunt Clara proved to have quite the influence on her. Clara was bisexual and reportedly brought Elizabeth to orgies, showed her how to make love to women. And not only that, Clara also had a taste for violence and was apparently the first person to teach Elizabeth how to torture someone else. Why does the aunt not have the reputation of writing the original? I'm a proud aunt and I'm teaching my niece to say, I say, guess what? And she goes, chicken bite. Yeah, that's way more appropriate. That's, like, this is horrifying. That's the auntying that I want to be doing. Oh. Yeah. So it's also rumored that Clara, her aunt, had murdered two of her four husbands and Clara was also into witchcraft and introduced Elizabeth to all sorts of people involved in dark magic, which is a bummer because we love witchcraft, it doesn't have to be a negative thing. No. But being called a witch these days is such a compliment, such a compliment. So also again, let's just right at the top here state this that it is hard to verify, a lot of the details of this story because one, it was so far back in time. And with the long span of time since then I feel like things have to spin. But are these rumors true or are they not? We don't really know. We're not here to determine that, but we love historic rumor and historic tea. So we're going to report it all. Did Elizabeth's aunt really practice witchcraft? Did she teach Elizabeth? Had a torture someone. These are the answers we're looking for, but we won't find them. No. But thanks to historians like Kimberly L. Kraft and her book on Elizabeth Bathory. We do know that Elizabeth struggled with her physical and mental health while she was a child. She had epileptic seizures and she would frequently go into fits of rage. But this was also the 16th century. So there were no medications to cure those types of things and many illnesses were mistaken. They just didn't know, they didn't understand what they were. No. Whereas nowadays we could also be like, hey, you're a child of somewhat of incest that probably didn't help. Yeah. There's a lot going on. Yeah. Let's go to therapy and maybe see a medical doctor. Right. Like 100 years ago, they're like, let's scoop part of your brain out or lobotomize you. It's just horror. That wasn't that long ago. No. So yeah, she definitely didn't have the care that she needed. So she just simply lived with all of her issues and lived with violence all around her. But here's the thing. While we cringe at these details and horrors, Elizabeth favored them. She loved it, lived for it and loved it. There's even a story that, okay, this is really gross. Just content morning. I made sure that I was saying they really grew some things, but it's also going to be painful for you because you've delisted some of the things you're going to say in this episode. And I was like, this is fucked up. It is. I might faint. But I'll just lean back. Stay in your chair. Like we said earlier, Elizabeth at a young age was witness to a lot of public executions, but there is one story that claims that she was witness to an accused criminal being sewn into the stomach of a dying horse left there to die. Yuck. Yeah. And as. There's a hobby that's not it. Like there's just other things. What'd you think? Like, even a young kid, you'd be like, oh, this is horrifying, like, shield my eyes. But right. As the story goes, young Elizabeth is watching the entire process, not blinking, not batting and I. Instead, when the whole ordeal was done, she left sociopath. So if it wasn't already clear, Elizabeth's battery did not have a typical childhood, even for that time. Another seemingly bizarre bite today's standard is the fact that in 1575, when she was only 14 years old, Elizabeth was married off to 19 year old count for Ren's nadochti and moved in with him. In his castle, it was the nadochti castle. And by all accounts, Elizabeth was a very beautiful wife and mother, she was a mommy. She and for Ren's had five children, although only three of them survived past childhood, which was a more common thing, you know, for multiple kids back then. But for years, the family lived very peacefully in the nadochti castle, at least it seemed that way. And then, when Elizabeth was 24 years old. in 1585. Some strange things started taking place. At least this is the first time people start to note that the strange things are happening, who knows how long it been happening before this. But in 1585, a young, servant girl died suddenly and without explanation, which wasn't necessarily a problem because people hardly, unfortunately, hardly blinked tonight when peasants passed away. Yeah. But what was strange is that when the priest came to bless the body, the custom was to have the body laid out on a bed for the blessing. That was the custom. But no, this girl's body was already sealed in a coffin. Doesn't that remind you a little bit of the zone of Easter shoe case? Yeah. And Elizabeth was like, no, it's okay, this young girl died of cholera. And I'm hiding the body. So we avoid the spread of disease. So the priest is not able to look at the body. And I'd be like, oh my gosh, brilliant. Thank you. Thanks for keeping me safe. And that's what the priest felt like the priest was like, okay, great. Totally believe that. Yeah, I'll accept that. But he believed that at first. Yeah. But not too long after they laid the servant girl to rest, Elizabeth called upon the clergy again. And when they arrived, they saw a strangely large casket ready to be taken away. And just like the last one, the coffin lid was nailed shut. And Elizabeth explained, there wasn't just one body in the coffin this time. They're actually two bodies. So the assistant pastor pulled Elizabeth as I was like, um, hey, why are there two bodies in there? And Elizabeth who irritated at the question, no mood to explain, snarls to the pastor that both of the girls had died right after one another. And that's it. And the pastor let the peasants be gone. It simply did as he was told and took the large coffin away. Caffin and took the large from Jersey. Caffin. Feels more Boston than Jersey was constant. Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, the pastor simply did as told took away the large coffin. That's a Hungarian accent. And you're like trying to possess by Elizabeth battery. That would be horrifying for everyone involved. But yeah, so I think that the pastors were like, oh, maybe there's just a cholera outbreak. And these people are dying. Or maybe it most definitely was a lie. Because as we know, now we know, those girls definitely did not die of cholera. They were murdered. Elizabeth studies a silver thread running through an elegant handmade gown. She follows the intricacies with curiosity. She is not looking in amazement. No, she is studying it, looking for mistakes. The servant girl who spent weeks fixing this dress washes on in fear. And then Elizabeth's face falls. Elizabeth has counted not one, not two, but three mistakes. And in a quiet fury, she looks at the servant girl, stares at her. And it is in this moment that the servant girl's face drains of all color. She knows what that mistake means. In a split second, Elizabeth snaps. She thrusts the dress into the girl's face that quiet fury replaced with red, hot, unpredictable rage. Elizabeth paces in front of the terrified girl, pontificating the best punishment. What will satisfy her the most? Should she press a hot iron on her cheek? Should she scratch her face with the sewing needle? Whatever her choice, she knows one thing for certain. She wants to draw blood. She wants to watch the skin tear apart until the vessels rupture and blood flows freely. And as she savers the fantasy, she decides her method. She picks up a heavy club and tells the girl to strip naked before her. Elizabeth then gives an order. Hold out your hand. The girl obeys. Her limbs trembling. And without warning, Elizabeth smashes the club into her hand. Reflexively, the girl cries out in shock and pain, which Elizabeth doesn't like. She reigns blows onto the girl's hands until they're a broken, bloody mess. And this torture is just beginning. Once the damage is done, Elizabeth hands the girl a needle and thread along with some fabric and tells her to sew. She watches with delight as the girl tries to grasp the needle with her mangled fingers. She lets us go on for a few minutes until she sighs, now bored. The countess grabs the needle, then repeatedly shoves it into the girl's arm, all the way up to her shoulder. Again, the girl instinctively tries to crawl away, but there is no escape. Elizabeth drops the needle and grabs the whip. And with a smile on her face, she wails on the girl until she's dead. And Elizabeth is covered in blood from head to toe. Her once white dress now soaked through a crimson red. She steps over the lifeless body of the servant girl and simply calls out to her advisor. She needs a new dress and another servant. This is like so sick, but what's even more upsetting is that the actual, like, you wrote a more muted version of the torture that she enacted on people. Like, it is so much more graphic. It's so much more graphic. That's the one that I was like, you're gonna struggle a little bit. I know. Well, that's thank you for texting me every day. There is a hand, there is a part. I was writing it and then this morning I reread the whole part because you just let me put some pieces and I was like, hey, this is gonna be horrible to sit there. The one part. Sorry. And this is not because I'm enjoying the story or like, okay, with what happened, but because I love writing and I love getting into the details, there was that one line of like, she wanted to witness the skin tear apart. I got really gruesome. Should I post the fanfic on our? No, no, no, no, I'll say I made it. But honestly, one of the worst parts of all of this is that Elizabeth's staff, they all knew that something terrible was going on. Like, everyone knew that she was this evil person because they would hear these muffled screams. They would see the occasional blood stains on the walls of her chambers. But no one was in a position to do anything or say anything. Right, because if they said something, it's more likely that they would be next rather than anything happening to Elizabeth or Elizabeth's stopping. And just like the girl who had to keep trying with her mingled fingers to sew, it's like, you still have to try to do anything that this woman is telling you to do. Yeah, it's your job. Meanwhile, Elizabeth's lust for violence was growing stronger and it's really not clear when her enacting the violence started. But most retelling say it happened and started after moving into the castle with her husband for rents. But I have a feeling and I think this is a safe feeling to have that she probably grew up treating people this way. And then it escalated over time. Yeah, definitely, definitely. I mean, I called her a sociopath earlier, but like I feel like this just relates to modern day serial killers. Like this is so. Not obviously like most serial killers get this exact exposure and castles with sort of torture. But like, this is how a lot of kids that are showing those signs start off where like they're witnessing things or they're enacting things. They're taking animals, doing these things to try to like experiment to find what they'd like, what sort of torture gets them off in a certain way. Yeah. So it all started out as a way to discipline her servants, but then it clearly turned into pleasure. And Elizabeth started looking for even the smallest of errors. So like the dramatic retelling, we were sharing like a poorly sewn gown or a crooked apron or even just like someone speaking out of turn. All it took was one slip up and you were taken to the Countess's chamber and then punished. Yeah, it's so horrible. And this went on for so long. Not too long ago, we first mentioned the victim who died of cholera. But by 1601, 16 years later, servants were dying so frequently that the site of a dead servant on the castle's ground was commonplace. Like let that sink in. Just sing a dead body. You're like just another day at the castle. Yes, it's the 1600s. There's a lot of illnesses and stuff and people were dying of plagues and all and whatnot during this time period. But no, this is not seeing like a body that has died of an illness. These bodies are bloody mangled and beaten. Yeah, no, like this is standing out as something that is extreme and different. And the death toll was so high that there was no way to smuggle the bodies out in caskets anymore like she previously did. But Elizabeth was also so wealthy, she was so powerful, she could do whatever she wished. And she wanted to find even more sadistic methods of torture. And it's so wild because it's like what was everybody thinking at the castle at the time? Like what was happening in the surrounding area? How could no one stand up? She had kids herself. Like what was going on with her kids? I know. Okay, so I always say because I am so fascinated by this time and history. But I always say that if I were to live in it, I would have preferred to be one of the peasants or like one of the people that supports that because I want to hear all the drama. But I don't want to be a part of it. I wouldn't want to be in her castle. No, because imagining a castle without the blood can countess, I'm like, oh, there's so much staff here. They probably hear so much drama and so much going on. But this is a castle that was probably shrouded in fear. Yeah, I know this is a very scary place to be. And it's also like, why is no one doing anything? - In fact, she had a tutor. And not the like math science tutor, language tutor, no, no, this was a torture tutor. Was it not her aunt? Surprisingly, she, I guess I had two tutors, her aunt, and then she had her start with her aunt. - Yeah, her first exposure. - But this woman, her torture tutor, was a local woman named Anna Darvulia. She became a beloved member of the Countess Bathory's Court. And Anna, now she is not like a prim, proper, Bridgerton-esque woman. This is a quote, this is how she's known through town. Wild beast in female form. Which I kind of love. - I do like that, but not obviously knowing that she enjoys torture. - I just like this idea of like the 1600s, where women are expected to fit this specific. - Right, she's the wild beast. - With the wild beast, beware of Anna. - And you should have, because to put it very bluntly, she was a violent, sadistic woman who knew the ins and outs of all kinds of terrible forms of torture. So by 1601, she was acting as Countess Bathory's personal advisor in how to torture and kill, specifically her servants. Anna's preferred method of killing was to beat someone to death, delivering up to 500 blows before the victim's body finally succumbed to death. - I said so terrible. - And since she was a close confidant of Countess Bathory's, she was allowed and even encouraged to kill and torture with Elizabeth by her side, but also to do that on her own accord too. Anna Elizabeth would sit and watch Anna. She loved it. She loved to learn and according to rumor, she loved to bring other people in to assist with her kills. People like her very own husband. That's right. Her husband, Forens, murdered with her. Some couples go to therapy, Forens and Elizabeth tortured and murdered together. - They should have therapy, really. - Should have. - Should have, but instead both Forens and Elizabeth began exploring their own preferred ways of torturing people. Apparently, Forens like to humiliate servants by making them stand naked in front of him. And one story alleged that he had a young servant cover herself and Huddy and made her stand outside and just let all the insects and things come at her. Meanwhile, Elizabeth's interests were more pointed, literally, because she apparently liked sticking girls with needles and pins or cutting their flesh with knives. - I would much rather be naked and honey, 100%. - I will say, I think Elizabeth also enjoyed making women strip down naked and then she would do the violent acts. It was almost like a humiliation and just more power. - Yeah, truly. There are some very, very horrific accounts of the types of torture, Elizabeth, Anna and Forens used. There is another story where they forced a servant girl who, God forbid, she said this. They were traveling in a carriage and she spoke up saying she was thirsty. And so Elizabeth made her basically get naked and go into freezing cold waters and wade in them up to her neck until Elizabeth decided it was over and she kept pouring water over her head. It's like ice cold water. It's freezing temperatures outside. She finally leapt the woman out, but the girl died of hypothermia. Not that I condoned violence, but this does feel like a bug's life came a bit too late for this. I wish those people all of the peasants had watched a bug's life and been like, well, there's so many more of us than them. We can fight back against Elizabeth and Forens. - Unfortunately, that was not the case. - No. - They didn't have control of the army and stuff, you know? - True, true. - But okay, so the big question here is clearly Elizabeth didn't care about whether her victims lived or died. All she cared about was having victims. But if she's torturing this many people and this many people are dying, it makes you wonder where did she get her victims. - This woman had a team, which is so upsetting. She had a team of servants who helped her find, torture, kill, and dispose of these victims. There was a young man named John and three women, Helena, Katarina, and Dorothea, and all of these people had other normal duties around the house and actually Helena was the wet nurse for all of Elizabeth's children, which is so interesting that she would nurse a child and try to give them nourishment in life and then turn around and be like, "I found this 10-year-old girl for you to kill Elizabeth." But she had no choice. It's one thing where Anna Darbulia was kind of a component in a part of her entourage, but these other members of her posse are her servants. Like they have no choice. You kind of have to do what she says or you end up being the one who's tortured. Anyway, so together with the help of Anna Darbulia and this group of ghoulish executioners, they would torture and kill dozens of young girls, some as young as 10-years-old. Other times, I would simply provide victims to Elizabeth who would then beat, stab, or otherwise brutalize these children in whatever way she pleased. And many of these girls were more or less sold to Elizabeth as workers and therefore completely under her care. They were expected to be polite, submissive, and unquestioning in their loyalty to the Countess and anyone who held power. So let's say if Helena, the wet nurse, demanded that a young girl come to her in a strange, in her room of the castle, that girl had no choice but to obey. For years, the system worked and the Count and Countess were able to torture and kill whoever they wanted with pretty much zero consequences. Yes, there were rumors and yes, there was gossip around the town in the castle and like people probably whispered about it and made comments about it, but they had no power over the noble, higher class. And for ends in Elizabeth were basically untouchable. They were untouchable, but Anna wasn't. The rumors of what went on at Nadochti Castle were so persistent that the local clergy actually heard about it. And although for ends and Elizabeth were beyond the reach of the clergy, Anna didn't have the same protections. And as Easter of 1602 approached, the priests in town were thinking about taking a drastic action, which would be excommunicating Anna. And at the time that was a really, really terrible punishment because that meant that Anna couldn't enter heaven in the afterlife. Which is so, why did you think you could? Bitch, like what? That's crazy. It is crazy. Yeah, so. But like I feel like that's just how it was. Like if you went to church and you practiced your religion, then like you could go to heaven. But she's not practicing their religion at all. She said, look, what about Dash on that kill? What about that? She confessed her sins. That's like the first, yeah. And you go to confession, it's all wiped away, right? Ultimately, and this irks me, the clergy decides not to do anything. Which is like, why? Why? Wow. We know why. Yeah, sure. They're money. They're bought off. Yeah, right? There's sizable donations. And actually, there was a significant donation to the church from Forens, which once that happened, things started to quiet down. The priests dropped the idea of excommunicating Anna and they believed that they had come to an understanding with Forens, right? You'd give us money and they'll ignore all of the mass murder happening around us. And I think they were also like, hey, can you tone it down? Stop. OK. Please. Please. For us. Yeah. For your afterlife. That's what they were hoping for. Yeah. Forens, he is extremely conscious of his image. So he was a celebrated boy hero. And he was like, this is not a good look for me. If you start outing me for torture and murder, even though he was torturing a murder and like that, plus his image, you are what you do. Yeah. And so following this incident, there weren't as many whispers about the violence in the castle because the money kind of bought some peoples being more quiet. Yep. And then on January 4, 1604, Forens died from an illness. And yeah, death is sad. People outside of the castle, AKA people who didn't know the truth of the violence, I think there was this feeling of hope because they thought maybe for friends was actually the initiator and the leader of all the torture and murder that was happening within the walls. But it wasn't. But things were quiet in the kingdom of Hungary after Forens' death. Yeah, but not because friends was the perpetrator, but because Elizabeth, as a now widow, was expected to be in mourning for at least a year and not to be seen in public. So she went and traveled to Vienna. Best year of course people's lives. Hungary was quiet and there were less murders there. Yeah. Austria, watch out. Yeah. So she went to Vienna instead. And widowhood did not curb her appetite for torture instead it made her ravenous, which is just a pretty way to say that she took the pain from her husband's death and channeled it into murdering more undeserving and innocent people. Was she capable of feeling pain from her husband's death? It's what I'm curious about, like, I don't know. Was she actually sad or was she just like, oh, well, it was convenient having another person? Well, because this is a big question. Because like, yes, we can look at her childhood and how she was brought up and be like, oh, yeah, rightfully so that would fuck you up and make you think violence is OK. But then all of the nobles are growing up with this during this time, not all of them are murdering 600 women and girls. for fun. Anyway, here Elizabeth is in Vienna and the sounds of her victim screams were so loud that they were heard by monks living across the street. And then after Vienna, Elizabeth returned to Hungary and moved permanently into Castle Tata. In this castle became the execution block for so many unsuspecting and innocent victims. It is said that majority of her tortures and murders occurred inside or around Castle Tata, which is why Castle Tata is said to be so haunted. You understand why. But even though nobody was coming after her yet, Elizabeth's position in society started to become more in jeopardy around this time. She's now 50 years old. She's without friends. Her war hero husband to protect her, to protect their lands. And now her political rivals are circling. Yeah. And she's hoping for the king's protection, but there's not much she can do with someone else. Another noble family decides to kind of like descend and move against her. And she's getting older. She's past childbearing age. So there wasn't many options. Not like she can remarry another noble man for power. Right. But so in public, she puts on a brave face acting as the unshakable leader of a powerful family, but privately Elizabeth started to spiral. She needs to be in control. Right. And she's also really desperate to hold onto her youth, because it seemed to her that her biggest problem was that she wasn't as desirable in her older age. She was losing her youth, losing her beauty. But maybe there was a way to get it back. And all it would take was a little bit of blood. The soft flicker of candlelight traces Countess Elizabeth's face. She squins at her election in an ornate mirror before her. But the expression on her face is not one of pleasure. It's one of disappointment. She is displeased with the woman staring back at her. Despite the face belonging to her, she hardly recognizes it. A stranger. She sighs. And changes focus to the headdress resting on her head. A meek voice speaks up to inform the Countess that the headpiece appears crooked. Regret instantly consumes the servant girl, as those words seem to linger in the air. She wishes she could swallow them back, but they hang there heavy, palpable. And Elizabeth turns slowly. Eyes narrowing. And then she strikes the servant girl. Her hand colliding with the girl's ear so hard that the skin in her nose bursts, and a fine sprite of blood flies through the air, landing on Elizabeth's cheek. As the servant girl collapses to the ground in a heap of tears, Elizabeth turns back to face her reflection, chillingly calm. She admires the blood painted upon her face, and slowly wipes it off with her hand. And that's when she sees something unusual. The spots on her face that moment to go were covered in blood. They appear different. Brighter, softer, more youthful. And that is when she gets an idea. She knew how to steal back time. The answer was simple. The blood from youthful girls. And from that night on, Elizabeth's battery began to bathe in blood. Absolutely sick. It's hard to say, again, for sure, if any of this really happened, and whether or not Elizabeth really bathed in her victim's blood or not, but this just serves as one of the many potential reasons why she did what she did. Yeah, like in time did someone say, "Oh, she was probably bathing in the blood because she thought it would make her younger." Because that almost feels-- You want to give us a purpose to her, her effect acts. I feel like she doesn't actually truly care what people think of her now. Because if she did, why would she do any of this? Right. Just sick. Okay, but around this time in 1607, the blood countess rumors started to take shape. Apparently Elizabeth was obsessed with her appearance, and it was known that she would go into these, like, fits a fury where she would smash mirrors in the castle because she wanted to live more beautiful, more youthful, and she was so upset at the image that she saw reflected, and she would do anything to improve her looks. Up through the early 1600s, the countess and her conspirators only chose victims who were peasants, some members of the poor class who didn't have as many family members available to look out for them. But by 1607, it was estimated that her list of victims had already reached 200, and that's 200 individual lives that were snuffed out. And also, these victims, again, like, even if they did have family to care about them, their family of, like, the poor people who were in a position couldn't say anything or do anything. Right. And I feel like when you were in that position too, it's like, I feel like so many people sent their children away to castles to work, and it wasn't any odd thing to not see them for like a year. Exactly. But then in 1609, everything changed because Elizabeth lost one of her greatest accomplices, Anna Darvulia. She died of a stroke, which sent Elizabeth into a spiral of anger and panic. She apparently was more terrified of aging, more terrified, more than ever before, and now she's like, I need guidance. And again, according to legend, Elizabeth turned to black magic. Elizabeth started meeting with a forest witch who would perform spells for her, and it was this witch who gave the contest a new idea. The blood of the peasantry was not going to be strong enough for her anti-aging potion that she's so desired, which she really needed was noble blood. So Elizabeth employed her four servants to start looking for girls for more well-to-do families. And to accomplish this, the group of servants had to search well beyond their own town of Jada. So part of this had to do with her growing reputation as a violent terrifying person. They were like, ooh, too many people in those summer rooms, let's go far enough that no one knows who you are, or at least anything personal about you. Yeah. So the servants searched far beyond their town, going as far as Vienna, Austria, to seek out aristocratic families who had not heard anything about Elizabeth. This group of girl catchers would sell the families online. So basically, they'd tell their parents, like, hey, you should send your girls to this finishing school. They're going to learn from one of the greatest noble women in Europe. And it was like this really attractive thing, where it's like, okay, people are going to study under Elizabeth, just like any kind of class. Totally. And so this was a really attractive idea for so many rich families. And they very happily just sent their daughters to go live with Countess Bathory in her home. Little did they know that they were really sending their daughters to their graves. So between 1609 and 1610, Elizabeth ran this so-called school as a new kind of torture chamber out of Castle Tata. Girls were shackled together and beaten savagely. Townsville regularly saw the Countess and the company of these young girls. And girls' faces were bruised and disfigured. One witness later recalled seeing girls strung up, hanging from the ceiling by their hair. Bodies continued to pile up, rumors were spreading far and wide. And despite her decision to go after rich victims, the Countess had this like arrogance and she's like, I'm not worried. I'm untouchable. But she's been untouchable her whole life so far. So of course, the delusions continue. Other members of the castle staff, local grave diggers and regular townspeople all knew that going to this school was a death sentence. And in addition to including her accomplices in the torture, Elizabeth started having other members of her court come witness the crime. So she's like putting on a show and she thinks that everyone else is going to enjoy it because she does, but they're being forced to. She even had her courtmaster stay and watch as she stabbed a young girl's fingers one by one because this girl was too clumsy. Oh, yeah, yeah. He saw countless of other cases like this where girls had their mouths forced shut with needles or had their hands beaten to a pulp with a hammer. Oh, this is so horrific. This is gross. Elizabeth's violence. It was becoming increasingly brazen and there was just one problem with her new plan, though, right? Because normally gossip about her behavior wasn't a very big deal to Elizabeth because she had power over everyone in her town. So no one could do anything. She'd been killing girls for decades, getting away with it. Someone finally has the confidence to go against her, hear some money, be quiet, leave. Yeah, that's perfect. It worked great for her. But unlike the families that she had taken the lives of their daughters before, these are the parents of rich girls who are paying attention to their kids going to finishing school. And so they come to the school. They come to visit and check on their kids. How is everything going? I must see my child. Or I haven't heard from my daughter. What's happening? Demanding to see their kids. So Elizabeth is like, no worries. I know how to fix this. I will just send the girls out to go see their parents to call their concerns. But the girls look like shit. And so this does the opposite. Like they emerge from the school. They're visibly weak. They are so obviously treated horribly. And so the parents are horrified. They demand that something be done to stop this evil, sadistic countess. And these complaints, they traveled up the local government chain. Eventually it reached the desk of the king of hungry himself and when he heard about the noise. girls being tortured and killed, he declared that Elizabeth Bathory had to be convicted at once. Finally, but this is decades. Oh my gosh, it's been forever. It's literally only within the year that she changed her methods and started going after a noble woman that people paid attention. It breaks my heart. Although I love the forest switch for making her change her tactics and get caught. So on December 29th, 1610, George Thurzo, the Visory of Hungary, stormed into Elizabeth Bathory's home and he and his men detained her. They also detained the four servants who'd been helping the Countess were tortured themselves. They're poetic justice. Yeah, although it's like, oh, it's all complicated. But so through the torture, they eventually confessed to their crimes. Yeah. And during the court investigation that followed over 300 people, including members of the staff, the four servants, towns, people, everybody testified about the horrific things that they had seen over the years. 300 people. It's not like, oh, like two or three people come from come forward. It's like, oh, 300 people have are finally like, I can come forward. It's safe because she is in custody. Well, she killed almost. I know. You were over 600. So it's half of her victims just coming to be like, hey, I think she might be dangerous, but you know, it's crazy. So basically, yes, she's charged with murder of 80 victims, although a lot of people do believe that the number is much higher, some saying as far as 600 murders, especially because she's just like dumping bodies now. Yeah. Like they're not leaving in caskets and being counted in marked. No, they're just being dumped on the castle property. So her four accomplices were tortured for their crimes and executed. But Countess Bathory, she was not sentenced to any prison time. At all. No, she is basically put on a house arrest and gets to live out the rest of her days at Castle Chaita. So I find she's so frustrating. So frustrating. Until her death at the age 54 and 1614. It's like, how does that happen to her, but then like someone else like looks at another person wrong and they're in the same exact position as she is and then they're like executed by their husband. Well, she's living in a castle too. Doesn't that mean she still has servants? A bug's life. Come on, guys. I don't feel like I don't remember anything about a bug's life now. And I might need to rewatch it. Yeah, you do. It's a good lesson. But yeah, this is crimes of the paranormal. So her story doesn't end with her death. No, there are countless stories about the blood countess and her ghost from her apparition appearing in the castle ruins to people hearing the horrible screams of her victims, which I hate that one. That's sad. There's also supposed curses and even a rumor of a vampire. Ooh, let's get into the vampire legend. Yes. Most of this comes from the belief that she bathed in blood, which gave her the sort of like female Dracula vibe. Yeah. But there are also some other reasons too. So after Elizabeth died, she was reportedly buried in the castle's church, which the local villagers were very upset about. So there was such an uproar about it that Elizabeth's remains were supposedly dug up and then moved to her hometown. There's no record of Elizabeth's remains in the Bathory family's crypt, which then led to rumors that Elizabeth was never buried at all. There's also another iteration of this legend that says that when they brought up her casket, it was empty like the body was no longer in it. But I do as much as I want a vampire story to be true, I think a lot of this comes from like an overly dramatized detail spun out of the bathing in blood stories because that truly is the most enduring part of like when I think of the blood countess. Yeah, I'm picturing someone bathing in blood from the story we've told like that is so visual needles. I can't get over the needle. So I just picture her, you know, drawing blood yes from everyone. She earned the name the blood countess because of that narrative. And it also evoked a lot of imagery around vampires. And then so there's speculation that Bram Stoker was partially inspired by Elizabeth Bathory when he wrote Dracula, although there's no confirmation. Yeah, there's no direct evidence, but you know parallels are easy to see and also I think there is direct correlation between Dracula and Vlad the Impaler and they're very similar. Yeah. The terrifying castle perched on a hillside, a mysterious aristocrat who feasts on blood. It's all there, but that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of real paranormal encounters with the ghost of the blood countess. Whenever I hear the word aristocrat, I think aristocrats. It's like I almost feel like aristocrat has been replaced with the word aristocrat in my brain. This little cute white cat, the little pink everybody wants to be. No, me loves that. That's another thing I do as an aunt. I watch aristocrats with my niece. I don't teach her how to kill. You should be proud of that. Anyway, the ghost of the blood countess. So ghost hunter's international actually did an investigation at the castle. And while they weren't able to catch anything on camera because it's hard to. Yeah. They saw a strange dark cloud and they had plenty of other paranormal events happen to them off camera. They've also been plenty of sightings at Castle Cheta over the years. You can also go and explore the castle ruins for yourself. And maybe you'll catch a sight of a woman dressed in white that people claim is a little spiss ghost. There's a local historian that says they've also been sightings of a transparent figure that mumbles over and over again. I'm getting hold. I'm getting hold. You know what? I hope that her half her life is just like trapped in front of a mirror with her looking at the worst that she could ever picture herself as looking and dies her torture. Yeah. Like literally on her deathbed. That's what she has to look at. Yeah. So it's thought to be a Elizabeth living out her worst nightmare. Others have seen Elizabeth's victims that manifest a shadowy figures or even full body apparitions. Most of them appear to be like young girls who are very sad and crying. And some people say that as you wander the ground, you can hear disembodied voices calling out to you. I'm so curious about, oops, sorry, I'm bringing your set. It's just like mirror mirror on the wall. Who's the very same? Very snowy. Yeah. I'm so curious where if this had any bit of inspiration. Well, the next couple of sections about the paranormal makes me think that there is more. So another paranormal tale has to do with the fact that Elizabeth was rumored to have dabbled in the supernatural during the later years in her life. So she obviously was convening in the forest with a witch who advised her to seek the blood of noble women. And one of the witches told her to quote, find a black cat or hen, kill it with a white stick, keep the blood and smear it on your enemies. And if not their body, then at least the clothes and not so stained with blood that your enemy can hurt you more. And that has led a lot of people to believe that Elizabeth had dabbled in some black magic, which you alluded to earlier. Although you brought up a really good point because I was bummed to hear that she went and met a forest witch who told her to go after noble women. I'm like, oh, come on, be a good witch. But you brought up a point like maybe she made that advisement to get her caught. Yeah, because you, well, you can't tell her, hey, stop killing. Right. That's never going to work. Right. So you have to outsmart her with her own yeah, tactics. And she did get caught. So I'm team that forest witch was a good witch. Elizabeth Bathery apparently owned a special circular cake that she could place a communion wafer on. And when she did that, it allowed her to see the image of a person that she wanted to curse or bless. And she hardly ever wanted to bless. Yeah, who's she blessing? Yeah, she would curse people. She used the cake in this power to bestow harm upon political amenities and more youthful young women. Whatever the truth is ghost or not, the story of Elizabeth Bathery, the blood countess is haunting on its own. Oh, yeah. And you and I were like privately talking about this before, but this is so reminiscent of Delphine Lullary in New Orleans, who was born in 1787. So it's like 200 years later. Right. Elizabeth Bathery reincarnated. Oh my gosh, especially just like the way that she'd hang people, torture them. And there was like a part of this episode where it was like, was she actually bathing in blood? I'm like, well, Delphine did like she literally made blood masks. It was like, oh, you know, like you put on your little like mask from Sephora. No, she did blood, the blood of her servants that she tortured and killed. And while this is all a terrifying terrifying story, and it is true that Elizabeth Bathery was accused of and like convicted for murdering 80 people, there are a lot of elements of this story that over time have become more dramatized. We can't say for certain that the blood bath part is true. I did want to ask you what the most haunting part of this episode was for you. I mean, all of it's super disturbing. I hate it every bit, but I think like your graphic retelling of like what it could be like to be tortured by her, where it's like you're already disfigured. Yeah. And being forced to try to sew. Yeah, it's just like picturing the anxiety that that person is feeling knowing that they're never going to do something successfully and they're just buying time between like when when their life is going to end. Right, because they don't miss that. That's the thing with torture is like everyone who's being everyone, I imagine the people who are being tortured are just like, please just keep kill me but they have to wait and they have to keep in during the pain the worst pain of their life. Yeah. I think that's what's so fucked up. It's like the torture is so painful but it starts smaller where it is just there's so much mental torture. I really want to see a freeze frame on your face. Draying like some of the gruesome I think those are like this. Yeah. Breathing through. That could be our thumbnail. But okay. Yeah. I think like to wrap up this story I think in a way if she was really obsessed with youth she did get what she wanted. It's some 460 plus years later and we're still talking about her. That's true. Does it make her Elizabeth Bathory the blood countess eternal? Yes. And now I wish we didn't ever talk about her. I'm like, I hate her. Now we do have to say that during the investigation that took place back in the 1600s and none of the witnesses mentioned the idea of Elizabeth Bathory bathing in her victims blood. Right. These stories only came up over 100 years after Elizabeth's death when a Jesuit priest wrote about her. But here was a woman obsessed with beauty, obsessed with youth and holding a position of unimaginable power over an entire class of people in entire town. Yeah. And if she wanted to use the blood of peasant girls to say beautiful forever she certainly could do it. Yeah. And in a way that is what makes this story so terrifying. So regardless of why Countess Bathory did these horrible things the fact remains that she was able to do it with basically no consequences for decades. She had unchecked unstoppable power in a period of history where violence was just the norm. Where potentially hundreds of missing peasant girls wasn't that big of a deal. At least not at first. There's no telling how many more victims she would have claimed if she hadn't decided to go after the noble girls. And we should also say so much of this comes from rumor. But it's entirely possible that the accusations against Elizabeth were manufactured by political rivals or that they were true. But whatever the extent of her crimes were, there's no denying that the blood countess is one of the most terrifying figures in history. Yep. In the end, Elizabeth got too greedy in her violence. And this was her downfall. After decades of terror, the blood countess's reign finally ended. Thank you so much for listening. We are your hosts, Sabrina Diana Roga and Karin Vienn. Join us next Tuesday for another peek inside another crimes of the paranormal. And if there are any cases that you would like us to cover, let us know in the comments. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on all social media at Crime House. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Crimes of wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference. We love you all so much. Bye, Mommies. [Music] Did you know the most feared pirate in the Atlantic, the man who terrorized an entire ocean for years, may never have actually killed anyone, or that the real Golden Age of Pirates was the most democratic workplace in the Western world. I'm Connor Tomlinson from Love on the Spectrum, and history is my thing. And I'm Carter Roy, and this is what the fact. Every week we take the most unbelievable true things in history and tell you the whole story behind them. Carter sets the scene, Connor brings the facts, the deep cuts, and the genuine belief that this is the most interesting subject in the world. It is. This is the history lesson. You actually wished you had in high school. New episodes every Wednesday follow what the fact on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, Music, or subscribe on YouTube at what the fact pod. A woman once survived a fall from more than two miles up because she crashed landed on a nest of furious fire ants. A 13th century Pope once condemned black cats as these servants of Satan. A lumberjack once survived near decapitation by his own chainsaw. Now these aren't tall tales. They aren't urban legends. They're real events. I want to take a quick moment to tell you about the unbelievable. A new podcast from the history channel and rewind studios. 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