Elizabeth Bathory- “The Blood Countess” of Hungary ( modern day Slovakia). She is probably the most prolific serial female killer known.
She lived in the late 1500s and into the 1600s in Hungary. She tortured, mutilated, beat, and killed hundred of women and girls in her castle- reports say as many as possibly 600. At her trial in 1610 over 300 witnesses (some survivors as well) gave testimony to her heinous acts. She was a descendent of Transylvanian nobility and was highly educated. She could read and write in Latin, Greek, Hungarian, and German. Elizabeth Bathory was very clever and a sick, sadistic killer of women and girls. The Countess would have her castle servants take in young peasant girls from the surrounding areas under the premise of serving as servants in the castle. And in Castle Csejte they met horrible fates- The Blood Countess would chain them, beat them, bite them, ( often biting chunks of their flesh off), cut them and often bleed them. As years went on, she got so bold as to kidnap young girls of gentry landowners- and that was her downfall. In the end, the rumors of her evil doings to the landowners’ children reached the king, and King Matthias II sent a band of men to Castle Csejte. The scene was so heinous, that historians claim that the eye witness accounts were never revealed fully, except for the evidence of hundreds of bones and bodies of victims. The vile Countess was said to have tortured one young girl into peeling the very flesh off her own arm and forcing her eat her own flesh. There have been rumors that she would bathe in the blood of the innocent victims– but this was never mentioned at her trial. More info here: http://www.crimelibrary.com/seri… —- edit—- News report from 8-22-14 http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/21/tr… It has been pointed out to me that “The Countess” was Hungarian, but resided in Slovakia. So there you go.