The Blood Countess [Elizabeth Bathory] And Her Reign Of Terror
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Noggin. And I do my makeup at the same time. If you're interested in true crime and you like makeup, I would highly suggest you hit that subscribe button because I'm here for you on Mondays. Okay, you ready? Well, let me tell you. Today's story is just... You know, it's like that. Most of us, if not all of us, maybe are familiar with like the evil villain cliche that involves like a

a countess bathing in her victim's blood, maybe to just retain beauty or youth. But do you know where like it comes from? Because it actually comes from somewhere, right? Well, today we're going to be talking about one of history's most prolific female serial killers, whose name you probably have never heard of. Please welcome to the stage, Elizabeth Bathory, the blood countess.

Sorry I had to, I just felt like that was the right thing to do in that moment. So today's story takes place in Hungary and you best believe I'm probably going to be pronouncing a lot of these words incorrectly. I'm trying my best and that's all I can do and I apologize, okay?

So Countess Elizabeth Bathory, she was born into the noble family of the Bathory's estate in either 1560 or 1561. So we're going back like 20 years or something.

Historians, they actually really don't know exactly when she was born because there was no written record of her exact date of birth at the time. So it's like around there. Elizabeth's father, his name was Baron George VI Bathory. He was brothers with the Voivode of Transylvania, Andrew, don't even, Bonaventura Bathory.

The Voivode of Transylvania was the highest ranking official within the Kingdom of Hungary from the 12th century to the 16th century. So this dude is very powerful is what I'm getting at. He probably wouldn't appreciate me calling him a dude. Sorry about that. So this is the 16th century, you know? And people back then, they really didn't play around. Because what was going on was Elizabeth,

her parents were actually blood relatives. The Noble family took the saying, "Keep it in the family" to like a whole other level. Actually, they were probably the inventors of "Keep it in the family".

But the whole reason why they would do this is because they wanted to preserve their royal bloodline. How do you do that? You sleep with your cousin, you know what I'm saying? Don't do that, but I'm just saying that's what they were doing. So growing up, it seemed like Elizabeth had it all, you know? She came from a family that had it.

She had education that people could not get, and she had tons of social power. And just like you and I, she had her own insecurities as well, you know? Elizabeth, she had faced some physical issues throughout her childhood, and we all know that.

and well into her adulthood as well. All of Elizabeth's life, she would suffer from intense and frequent seizures, which historians have assumed to be caused by epilepsy. Epilepsy was extremely common in children who were born as a result of family inbreeding.

No, I'm not saying if anyone has epilepsy then no, but that's what, okay. So the medicine workers in the 1500s can't say, you know, they were experts on epilepsy or epileptic tendencies, but there were a disturbing, like a variety of disturbing and

creative treatments used on those who were looking to combat seizures. I mean, it's the 1500s, you gotta start somewhere. I don't blame them. So one of these treatments, oh yeah, it's creative, included rubbing the blood of someone who was not epileptic on the lips of the person needing the treatment. So they would just get some blood and be like,

You know, like I said, it's very creative. How'd you think of that? Another treatment they did involved a concoction, a mixture of sorts, consisting of a non-epileptic person's blood and a crushed up piece of their skull. So the person had to be dead. Take some of their blood, get some of their skull, okay? Crack it.

Mix it all together in like a pot stew, I don't know, a drink. But they would then drink it, okay? And they believed that it was helping or curing the seizures. Oh yeah, could you imagine if medicine was like that today? Go get a body! Many historians believe that, you know, Elizabeth was doing this at a young age. Her parents would be, you know, setting her up with a doctor. A doctor?

and having her do these treatments and many historians have speculated that these treatments were so ingrained in Elizabeth, her lifestyle as a child that she leaned on similar practices in her adulthood when she began her murder spree, which we'll get into. But maybe because she was introduced to it at such a young age and did it throughout her life, it was just kind of, I don't know, normal or something. Makeup.

So besides the fact that they were super rich and like owned everything, Elizabeth grew up the same way that any other girl or royal girl did. Her parents raised her in a very religious household. In school she learned Latin, German, Hungarian, and Greek. And at the age of 10, she was engaged to be married.

Act 10: So being assigned to specific marriages was commonplace in royal families, as these marriages often served as political agreements between two powerful families and not so much about like, "Oh my God, I love this person." It's assumed that this was the case in Elizabeth's arranged marriage. Elizabeth was set to marry this man named Ferenc,

I don't know if that's right, I'm really trying. And this man, Ferenc, he would later become the chief commander of the Hungarian troops in the war against the Ottomans. Okay, so here's where it gets a little drama, okay? Like this is where it gets a little juicy. Before their marriage, when Elizabeth was 13 years old, she allegedly gave birth to a child. Oh yes, baby. A child that was not fathered by her husband to be, Ferenc.

Oh, nay nay. Nay nay. It's believed the parent of this child was some kind of peasant boy who did work for the royal family. A peasant? No. When Elizabeth's family found out,

I can't speak for them obviously, but I'm sure that they were not happy, okay? They knew that this child would ruin the family's reputation and that would not happen, no. Now it's unclear if like Elizabeth wanted to keep the baby, what her feelings were at all, but the family forced Elizabeth to give away the baby to a local woman who was heavily trusted by the Bathory family, but they were pissed.

You cannot have this baby, now go sleep with your cousin. Damn kids. When Elizabeth was 15 years old and her husband, Ferenc, was 19, the two of them got married in one of the royal palaces in 1575. It was said that the royal wedding was

Super grand, there was over 4,500 guests that attended. I'm sure they knew all of them. So Elizabeth, she held a higher social and political standing, you know, than her new husband. So it was best for Ferenc to take the last name Bathory, because she was much bigger than him. So he did that and they kept the last name Bathory. So a wedding gift.

to Elizabeth. Ferenc, he gifted her his family castle, right? Oh my God, a castle? You shouldn't have. Before the couple moved into their new castle, Ferenc, he ordered his workers to build a custom torture chamber for Elizabeth to use on her victims. And every inch of the chamber was built to Elizabeth's specifications.

She was like, "Okay, I want chains and whips over here." And we will get into her torture chamber in a minute. I'm just kind of like building up to it, okay? Farinik loved working. It's his favorite. This passion of his, loving work and dedication would often mean that he would be gone for months at a time. And while Farinik was away, Elizabeth would play.

And on top of that, she would serve over their estates and manage their business affairs. So she did get work done too when, you know, Ferenc was away. But outside of her daily duties, living in a castle, Elizabeth was said to have brought in various lovers that kept her husband's bed warm while he was away. Historians believe that Ferenc often participated in Elizabeth's torturous hobbies as well. But when

When he was there at home, like Elizabeth wasn't as bad because like she didn't wanna be judged. But when he was away, like she would really amp up.

So Elizabeth and Ferenc, they had been married for 25 years. When Ferenc, he died January of 1604. All of the records surrounding his death state that he had been suffering from some kind of illness for around three years prior to his passing. The illness was unknown at the time.

"Fernick was experiencing extreme pain in his legs." I think I'm saying his name wrong. Let me just triple check. I just feel it in my soul that this is incorrect. - Fitting. - What? Elizabeth's husband had an illness and it was unknown at the time, but he was experiencing extreme pain in his legs.

And the pain, it had gotten so bad by 1603, he had become completely disabled. After his death, Elizabeth had essentially nothing preventing her from torturing and killing to her heart's content. The ways in which Elizabeth would torture and murder her victims were brutal, and they often varied depending on what her mood was. You know, she's like, "I'm in a bad mood today."

And then it would be like really bad. Her victims were almost always girls, and they would be between the ages of 10 and 14, so young girls. In the beginning of Elizabeth's torture spree, she mostly preyed on young peasant girls as they were very easy to catch, very easy to obtain, and rarely they were sought after when they went missing or they wound up missing.

Nobody seemed to really care. These girls were mostly the daughters of servants who were lured into the castle on empty promises of work. Elizabeth seemed to become a little bored of the young peasant girls and wanted to up it up a notch. They were becoming too easy for her. She's like, "Hmm, who can I shift my focus on?" So instead she began to

who put all of her focus towards taking the daughters of the higher ups in the social class. These girls were often sent to Elizabeth's women's quarters by their parents in hopes that they would learn quarterly etiquette. Like, "Honey, you're gonna go learn how to like set the table." And instead they get murdered. Elizabeth had four trusted collaborators working with her on occasion who were,

They would help like abduct the little girls at random from outside of the castle. Elizabeth trusted them. I'm sure they did it 'cause they probably were gonna get murdered if they didn't. Elizabeth and her collaborators, they showed no mercy for these young girls. For them, it was just like something to do to pass time. Something they did for entertainment and satisfaction. Dot com slash makeup.

So what was described most consistently when it came to the killings included severe beatings, okay? Burning or mutilation of the hands, biting, that's right, biting the flesh off the faces, arms, and other body parts.

Sometimes they would simply freeze or starve their victims to death. One victim had part of her breast bitten off, yeah, her boob bitten off by Elizabeth, and then the victim was forced to both cook and eat her own boob, flesh, her own flesh.

Elizabeth was infamous for jamming pins and needles under the fingernails of her victims. Some victims that were badly beaten and hanging on to life, Elizabeth would cover them, cover the body, cover the victim in honey, tie them down on a table,

And then get this, and then the ants and the bees would all come in slowly, just torturing, biting, stinging, and just going to town on this person who's covered in honey. That's different level of crazy. Elizabeth is a different level of crazy. She's creative crazy, where it's like, where did you think of that?

Okay. Occasionally Elizabeth would use red hot irons, coins and even keys to leave deep burn marks on her victims. And she also did this in their lower regions as well. A lot of ladies, this is a side note, a lot of ladies don't like to be called crazy. Like don't call lady crazy, but I think it's safe here to say that Elizabeth was flipping crazy. Okay, like Elizabeth.

"What are you doing? I don't think you should..." Like, how did she think of these things to do, you know? Elizabeth's torturous crimes have led historians to believe that they were sexually motivated, but no one knows for certain what exactly possessed Elizabeth to become this horrible, disturbed,

Bitch, I said it, she's a bitch. She's like a ghost I would be afraid of. Don't come for me. Most assume that she committed such horrific crimes out of pure sadistic pleasure. So Elizabeth would lure these girls into her little chamber, right? And she would just, it really depended on her mood,

what they were gonna get. Like, what, were they gonna get an iron? Or was she gonna eat them? What? Surprised me, you know, it was like, you just never knew. And then once she was done, she would drain her victims of their blood. She would pour it into a cup and just a slice of lime.

and she would drink it. I'm kidding about the lime, but she did drink the blood of her victims. Again, it's believed that she was drinking the blood because it could help with her epilepsy, but also she believed that it would keep her young and youthful, healthy, vibrant, gorgeous, you know? So she was drinking a lot of blood,

Can't be good. As a result of her frequent and intense cannibalism, Elizabeth Bathory obtained the nicknames of both the "Countess of Blood" and "Countess Dracula". That's a good one. Not good because it's a real story. So I still can't believe that this is real. You know, when I was reading this whole story, I was like, no, really? Just haven't heard of someone so crazy in so long. I think the last time we heard something so crazy, it was like Ed Gein.

To this level. Between 1590 and 1610, Elizabeth was responsible for kidnapping, torturing and murdering hundreds of young girls. In one of her private journals, Elizabeth claimed to have taken more than 650 victims over the course of 20 years. Do you understand that? 650 victims?

She pretty much got rid of the whole town. I mean for years and years and years, Elizabeth was committing these horrific crimes and Elizabeth truly felt like she was untouchable. I'm in charge here. You know, I mean she was, she'd been doing it for 20 years and was getting away with it because they couldn't say anything to her really. Her family's status in the local

meant that for the most part, like she could be able to fly under the radar and face no consequences for her actions because you know, I know people. So then in 1610, Elizabeth had been once again growing bored of the victims that she was getting at the time. They were too easy. She wanted victims with a higher social status, you know, important people's kids. I think of that as like her, it's a power move.

Elizabeth and her four collaborators, they began abducting the daughters of local nobles. Not a good idea. Not a good idea. The nobles, they're not like the lower class and the peasants, okay? They panicked when their daughters disappeared. The panic, unlike the concerns of the servants and peasants, it was loud because they were powerful people. So more shit was gonna get done because they're powerful people. Being like, where's my daughter? I can't find.

You know, and the servants and whatnot, they just all ignored them. It still kind of works like that today, fact. So the noble families, they got together and started chatting about their daughter's disappearances. And they're like, "Hey, you know, your daughter went missing, your went missing." You know, they're putting the pieces together. They all sound pretty damn similar. And the common denominator seems to be Elizabeth. On December 10th, 1610, Count,

He was really close to Elizabeth and Elizabeth's family. Anyways, but he decided to investigate, you know, the rumors that were going around about Elizabeth being involved with the girls that are missing. At the time Count Thurzo was in charge of judicial matters in Hungary. The only reason he was even bothering to investigate the allegations in the first place was because there were crimes against young girls of the nobles.

There were rumors circling around about Elizabeth before, like this isn't new information, but it was coming from servants and peasants, you know? So they weren't really like considered important simply because, you know, peasants, ew.

So this isn't new information necessarily, but now that, you know, the nobles are involved, they're like, we definitely have to go and like search or investigate Elizabeth. So this guy goes to, you know, he heads to Elizabeth's castle and he's going there because he needs to look around and investigate the situation. When he gets there, you know, it's all dark and spooky. Well, I don't know, but...

You know, it sounds like it would be in my mind. Anyways, but he goes to the castle, he goes inside, he's like looking around for Elizabeth. I don't see her, where she at? He then hears like some noises coming from like a room maybe, a small room off in the corner, you know, so he's going over there, "Elizabeth, is that you?" He goes, he's going to check it out, right? He peeks inside the room because the door's open, and what does he see? Well...

Let me tell you. He looks in and he sees what seems to be Elizabeth and what also seems to be a young girl tied up. And at that moment, he had just realized that he had just walked into the middle of Elizabeth torturing someone.

There was a letter found from this man and he had written it like to his wife after he had visited the castle. It went on to say that like he had discovered one girl already dead and then he had saw another girl that had been tied up to be preyed on in the near future. So once this was found out, Elizabeth and her four accomplices, they were arrested like that.

All of the people associated with assisting Elizabeth in her crimes, even those who were simply ordered to bury bodies, they were also arrested, questioned, and subjected to torture until every bit of the truth came out of them. There were servants who were working for Elizabeth and also did help with her murder spree, and they were also sentenced to death, which kind of sucks because I feel like

the servants really had no choice. Like if they didn't help her, they were probably going to get killed. And if they did help her, it would, I mean, obviously killed. And then their kids are also getting murdered. So it was kind of like a lose-lose for them. What a rough time.

So the death sentences of the servants, of course the murder, I'm sorry, the execution, it went fast. Like it just happened like that, you know? But officials were really struggling, like wondering what they should do with Elizabeth because she's from a royal family. They can't just execute her. So they were debating, what do we do? And they came up with the stupidest idea. Let me tell you, typical rich people shit. They didn't want to put her family on trial because it would bring a lot of negative publicity.

publicity and it would ruin their reputation. Local witnesses came forward one by one and they were there to provide details and information about just you know, various bodies that had been found beaten and tortured to death. Multiple servants admitted to having seen Elizabeth prey on her victims and abduct them for her evil selfish purposes, but they couldn't say anything because

They're servants. Elizabeth's private journal was combed through in an attempt to determine just how many girls the blood countess had murdered over the years. You know, they didn't have like an actual number. But there was never a clear answer as to how many victims there really were. Most people believe that she killed around 650 girls because in her diary she said that, but like they don't really know, you know, but they think, yeah, maybe it's around there more or less. It's a fucking lot of people, okay?

Instead of being sentenced to death in the same manner as her accomplices, instead they put Elizabeth Bathory into her castle. You see what they did was they walled off a room with no windows. They walled that off.

put some little bricks, whatever they did, they put her in there. It was essentially a makeshift prison within the walls of her very own castle. And there is where Elizabeth Bathory would live the rest of her life in isolation, in her own castle, in this prison. Like, do you think that she really stayed up there all the time?

They say that she had a bodyguard or like a, I'm sorry, security or something, making sure she stayed up there. But I have a feeling, I'm sure at one point, maybe she was like, can I just like go out for a walk or something? Like, come on, come on. On the evening of August 20th, 1614, Elizabeth is remarked to have claimed that her hands were cold. The bodyguard overseeing her house arrest sentence told her, quote, it's nothing mistress, just go lie down and dwell.

At 43 years old, Elizabeth laid down in her bed and died an uneventful death, unlike those of her hundreds of victims. Yeah, she died super boring.

Lame. And that my friends is a story of Elizabeth Bathory and how she did some effed up chisnets to almost maybe, who knows, 650 victims. That's insane. I mean this is, this feels like a movie. Like when I was reading it and stuff, I was like this, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I want to believe it is because it just sounds so perfect but at the same time, what the, it's real.

Okay, anyways, so effed up story, right? And get this, this is what like made me laugh. Elizabeth's parents were so worried about their reputation when she got pregnant with that peasant boy's baby, remember? Well, I wonder how they felt now, you know? Or after the fact, how'd that work out? And that my friends is a story about Elizabeth Bathory, the blood countess.

Let me know your thoughts down below. Do you think she had 650 victims? Do you think she was bluffing? Do you think we really know the truth? With these old stories, it's always hard to know. Like, I mean, I'm sure it is, there's truth in there, but how is it not like a...

It's like a game of telephone, you know? I hate that. That's why I kind of avoid stories that are this far back because it's like, is it the truth? We don't know. But 650 victims, I feel like it's way too many. Like that's a whole village. Nobody did anything. I don't know.

I don't know. But I do think like she killed people for sure. I don't know. That's just my thoughts though. I don't know what I'm talking about. I wasn't there. So, but that's just the facts that are out there right now about Elizabeth Bathory. Thank you guys so much for hanging out with me today. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Make good choices. Yeah, let me know who you want me to talk about next week. I really love and appreciate you guys so much. And you know, that's really all I can say because I just do. I hope you know that. Alrighty, I'll be seeing you guys later. Bye.