Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Elizabeth Báthory: Aristocratic Serial Killer

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Countess Elizabeth Botheri to Etchette was a Hungarian noble woman in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. She was highly educated, spoke at least four languages, had eight children, and lived in a palace. And, oh, by the way, she was one of the most prolific and sadistic serial killers in world history. Learn more about Elizabeth Bothery, aka the Countess of Blood, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? throughline is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now.

Starting point is 00:00:53 Time travel with us every week on the Thurline podcast from NPR. I always try to keep this podcast clean, or as I like to say, as cleanest history will allow. This podcast is one of those episodes where the details of history can get quite gory. So if you're eating or have children listening, be forewarned. Elizabeth Batre was born in 1560 in the town of Nirbatore in Hungary, in what was at the time the Holy Roman Empire. She was born to a noble family. Her father was the baron, George of the 6th, Batari.

Starting point is 00:01:29 From her mother's side of the family, she was related to the King of Poland, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, and the Prince of Transylvania. Outside of her genealogy, much of her early life remains in the realm of legends and stories. supposedly she suffered seizures when she was younger and might have had epilepsy. She was highly educated for a woman of that period. In addition to speaking Hungarian, she could speak Latin, Greek, and German. So to summarize her position, she was rich, educated, and of high social rank. She had everything that someone in the late 16th century could possibly hope for.

Starting point is 00:02:00 I don't want you to think her life was perfect, but given the circumstances of the period, she was at the very top of the pyramid. Later biographers have posited that she witnessed horrible events take place when she grew up as a child. She might have seen instances of torture and executions take place, although there is no evidence for any of this happening. It's all speculation. We do know that she became pregnant at the age of 13 and had an illegitimate child, the father being a local peasant boy. The child was given to a local family and raised apart from Elizabeth. She was engaged that same year at the age of 13 and was married when she was 15 to the Count Fenneritz-Nadazdi,

Starting point is 00:02:36 in what was a pure political marriage. She was married in 1575. Her wedding gift was the castle of Chachitsta, which is today located in Slovakia near the Czech border. Along with the castle was 17 neighboring villages. She was clearly the brains in her family. Her husband, by all accounts, wasn't that smart and was barely literate. He was, however, given the responsibility for all Hungarian troops in a war with the Ottoman Empire, which meant that he was usually gone, leaving Elizabeth to manage affairs herself back home.

Starting point is 00:03:06 He was supposedly a sadist himself, with rumors of him torturing Ottoman soldiers, including setting them on fire while alive. There were also rumors that her husband had the peasant boy who got her pregnant at the age of 13, torn apart by dogs. So far, everything I've mentioned about Elizabeth Batari is not that much different from that of thousands of other noble women centuries ago. What made her different began sometime around 1590. It's unknown when it began or who her first victims were.

Starting point is 00:03:33 However, at some point, young girls, usually between the age of 10 and 14, were brought to her castle. Many of her first victims were poor peasants. They were enticed to come to the castle to work as maids or servants. However, she soon worked her way up to the daughters of the landed gentry. These would have been people above the peasant class but below the nobility. These girls would have been sent to the castle to learn the rules of etiquette from the countess. Slowly, these girls began disappearing. They were being held in a torture chamber inside the castle and tortured for the countess's amusement.

Starting point is 00:04:08 The scope of the torture and abuse seemingly knew no bounds. There were reports of her putting needles under the fingernails of her prisoners. She would use hot objects ranging from coins and keys to hot irons to burn their bodies. Some would be thrust into freezing cold water to suffer hypothermia. There were reports of girls being covered in honey and then being subject to ants and bees. This was on top of the plain old beatings. There were reports that she bit the victims, and at least one case, the breast of one of the girls was cut off,

Starting point is 00:04:38 and she was then forced to cook it and eat it. While she was responsible for most of the tortures and murders, she would reportedly also engage in it with her husband when he was around. The stories became even more macabre. She would supposedly drink or bathe in the blood of virgins that she killed, as she thought it preserved her youth or possibly was a treatment for epilepsy. This went on for years and years. She used at least four servants as accomplices in her crimes.

Starting point is 00:05:05 Rumors, however, began to spread, and bodies began to appear. The problem was, given the political system at the time, the nobility in a given area that they controlled had almost complete immunity from anything they did. They were the law, and the only way something could be done is if someone went over their head to the emperor. Count Nadasni died in 1604. Without his protection, rumors and accuracy were. accusations against Elizabeth began to spread. In particular, one Lutheran minister named Istvon Maggiore began making public accusations

Starting point is 00:05:36 against her in public and in the court of the emperor in Vienna. It wasn't until 1610, almost 20 years after her killing and torture spree started, that the Holy Roman Emperor Matthias II began an investigation. He assigned Georg Terzo, the Palatine of Hungary, to oversee the investigation. And by the way, the Palatine of Hungary, was the ruler of Hungary during the Holy Holy Roman Empire. Terzo assigned two investigators to go and collect evidence. By October 1610, they had 52 witnesses. Then the floodgates opened, and by early 1611, they had over 300 witnesses. In December 1610, they had enough evidence to make an arrest. On December 30th, they headed to the

Starting point is 00:06:15 castle, and according to legend, she was caught in the act. The body of several dead girls were found in the castle, and another was in the process of being tortured. Supposedly, she was found covered in blood, but that is thought to be a later embellishment of the story. In the end, her accomplices were all tortured, confessed, and were then executed. Elizabeth Bothaithi herself was basically just confined to her castle for the rest of her life. Despite her heinous crimes, her punishment was just house arrest. Supposedly, she was walled up in a single room, but there were many accounts of her having free reign of the entire castle grounds.

Starting point is 00:06:49 She died in 1614 at the age of 54. supposedly she was buried in a nearby cemetery, but the local people objected to having her buried there, and she was moved to her family crypt in Etched, Hungary. Today, the location of her tomb is unknown. During the investigation, it was reported that she may have killed between 600 to 650 girls. Even contemporary experts on the subject

Starting point is 00:07:12 who think that the number is too high put the number of victims at no less than 80. Supposedly, there was a diary found in the investigation which documented all of the victims, but that has never been found by historians. Today, she is listed by the Guinness Book of World's Records as the greatest female serial killer in history. There was another layer to the story beyond just the murders, however. The emperor was Catholic, and Elizabeth Botteri was Protestant.

Starting point is 00:07:39 The Botteri family was rich with extensive land holdings, and the emperor was in debt to them. If he could confiscate all of this land and wealth as a punishment, he would get richer and have his debts wiped away. There are a few contemporary researchers who think that the entire affair was nothing more than a conspiracy against Elizabeth Bottheri. It was just an imperial plot to confiscate her land and holdings. The problem is that there's just too much evidence, including the evidence found on the premises during the arrest. Also, her first public accuser wasn't Catholic, but Protestant. Moreover, in the end, most of her land and holdings were in fact given to her children after her death. In the 400 years since her death, Elizabeth Botari has spawned countless legends, and her story has been used in parts of many works of fiction.

Starting point is 00:08:25 Her supposedly bathing in blood became a trope for many horror movies, and her drinking blood became a staple for the entire vampire genre. She has actually appeared as a character in many vampire novels. There is an entire Wikipedia page devoted to her references in popular culture. There are dozens and dozens of books, movies, comics, and television shows about. about her or that were inspired by her. Many subsequent authors who have written about the real historical Elizabeth Bottery have had a hard time dealing with the concept of a female serial killer. There aren't many of them, let alone one who is so prolific.

Starting point is 00:09:01 The consensus of most modern criminal psychologists is that she was simply a sadistic psychopath, who used her position, power, and wealth to indulge in her desires. It was the power given to her by her aristocratic title, which allowed her to conduct her reign of terror unabated, killing hundreds of young girls for over 20 years. Everything Everywhere Daily is an airwave media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. Today's review comes from listener La Empirat Trees over at Podchaser. They write, Great podcast. Gary always makes the topics interesting and the show has become my go-to

Starting point is 00:09:42 every morning while eating breakfast. Such a fantastic way to start the day. Thanks, La Empirat Trees. I have to apologize for today's episode. It might not have been the best companion for eating breakfast. Remember, if you want to leave a review over at Podchaser until the end of April, they will make a donation to help feed Ukrainian refugees, which will be matched by several other podcast companies.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Elizabeth Báthory: Aristocratic Serial Killer

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