20. There’s Fiendish, and There’s Bathing In Your Victims’ Blood Fiendish
The Guinness Book’s record for most prolific female murderess belongs to Countess Elizabeth Bathory de Ecsend (1560 – 1614). The owner of vast estates in what are now Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania, Bathory tortured and killed hundreds of young women between 1585 and 1609. She was not only prolific, but also probably history’s most vicious female serial killer. Among other things, she bathed in her victims’ blood – not in a figure of speech kind of way, but quite literally.
She was born into the Bathory family, a distinguished aristocratic lineage that ruled Transylvania as a de facto independent principality within the Kingdom of Hungary. The future countess was raised amidst great wealth and privilege, received an excellent education from top-notch tutors, and at age twelve, was betrothed to a prominent Hungarian aristocrat. A year later, however, she got pregnant by a commoner, so her fiancee had her lover castrated, then torn to pieces and fed to the dogs.
