Is This the Portrait of the Most Effective Serial Killer in History?

elizabeth-bathory-tm
Originally uploaded by yehandhow

Countess Elizabeth Bathory had a terrible effect on young women: they always seemed to wind up being tortured and/or dying. She was charged with 80 murders, but legend had the number slightly higher: 650. So very many women went missing in areas of Slovakia, Hungary and Austria that it was rumored that she bathed in blood to keep her youth and beauty. After she was charged (there was no formal trial) she was imprisoned in her bedroom - actually walled up in it with only a small door to pass food. She died mysteriously four years later (there were days of untouched food in the room).

Her legacy was to become a kind of "Countess Dracula" because of the bathing legend. Below is the ironically named "Iron Maiden" - one of Elizabeth's (supposedly) favorite toys.