Random Disturbing Facts About Elizabeth Bathory, History's Most Murderous Woman (15 items)

(#13) Elizabeth Was Walled Up In Her Castle For Life

In the fall of 1610, Thurzo began gathering testimony and evidence against Elizabeth. He raided Elizabeth's chief residence in December and found disfigured and dismembered bodies. The trial began quickly, in January 1611: The first only included peasant witnesses, which was a plus for Elizabeth. She wasn't allowed to represent herself, however, and she didn't appear in court, although her accomplices were tortured to admit her crimes. Her guilt was probably predetermined.
Elizabeth was eventually convicted and walled up in her chamber at her family castle in Slovakia. She only survived for three more years, dying in 1614.
(#5) She Made Girls Freeze To Death In The Snow Or Burned Them With Hot Irons

After marrying The Black Knight, Elizabeth expanded her torture tactics. She stuck young girls in spike-lined cages and hung them from the ceiling and threw others in the snow, tossing cold water on them so they froze to death. Elizabeth enjoyed putting red-hot coins into servant girls' palms; she also thrust pokers into the fire and used them to burn her servants' faces. To top it off, she also tore off their fingers with pincers.
(#7) She May Have Engaged In Cannibalism

Along with the other ways she terrorized imprisoned girls, Elizabeth supposedly bit off chunks of their flesh. According to some stories, she forced one young woman to cook and eat her own flesh - and she may have partaken of human meat herself.
(#14) Elizabeth May Have Murdered 650 Young Women

Between her servant girls and the local noblewomen she recruited to "tutor," Elizabeth slaughtered and tortured many young women. Over 10 years of torture, she reputedly brutalized 650 different ladies, that number reported by a peasant girl who was a witness to these crimes. But she was only officially charged with the murder of 80 women. How many did she kill? We'll probably never know.
(#6) She Smeared Girls In Honey And Sent Them To Be Attacked By Bees

Following the suggestion of her husband Count Nadasdy, Elizabeth smeared servant girls in honey and put them outside for a full day so they would be bitten by bugs and stung by bees. Though the two were frequently separated, Nadasdy would send his wife torture advice from the battlefield while he was away as a sort of "love letter."
(#10) Elizabeth May Have Been An Inbred Psychopath - Or A Victim Of The Patriarchy

In an attempt to understand why Elizabeth was so murderous, scholars have investigated every aspect of her life. Was she clinically insane due to incest? After all, her parents were distant cousins (they were from different branches of the Bathory family), but that was pretty common in Renaissance Europe and not everyone from that time period was a serial killer. Others have argued that various brutalities she may have witnessed as a kid may have triggered her sadistic ways.
But perhaps Bathory's misdeeds were exaggerated because of her explicit sexuality, seen as a threat to the patriarchy. Her pursuit of multiple lovers, in and out of the marriage bed, could have been seen as threatening to the institutions supported by the male authorities who later condemned her. After all, we only know a few basic facts about her life, and a lot of her negative reputation comes from later accounts.