The Elizabeth Bathory Episode: Was a Hungarian countess the world's most prolific serial killer?

Prolific serial killers are reigned in by some specific parameters. Learn more about Elizabeth Bathory and why she was known as "Bloody Mary".

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to podcast. I'm
editor Candice Skips in Joints day by my ever so
curious staff writer Josh Clark, who always comes with a

(00:21):
smile and a question. Yeah, I do have a question
and a smile. If you can hear that or not,
but thanks for having me, Candice. You want to hear
my question? I'm all airs. Well, first, let me ask
you know much about serial killers? I do? I do.
A serial killer is someone who has physically, with their
own hands, murdered three or more people. Yeah, and usually
with a cooling off period in between. That's the basic definition, right,

(00:44):
all right, Well, let me ask you about the most
prolific serial killer of all time. Uh. Actually it was
a woman, six fifty victims over fifty four years. No
one's even come close to that. Some guy in Brazil
murdered like three hundred um and actually he's on the
loose right now, so look out Brazil. Um. The The

(01:05):
woman we're talking about is Elizabeth Bathory. She was a
Hungarian countess and she was kind of raised around violent.
She saw a gypsy, uh, sewn up in a dying
horse's stomach with his head sticking out and left to
die along with the horse. Some she kind of took
witnessing things like that and translated it to her own life,
murdering servant girl after servant girl with the help of

(01:27):
some accomplices and um. One of the real hallmarks of
Bathory's murders was that they were very bloody, and apparently
she actually bathed in the blood of her victims. There's
actually a a figurine that you can buy a Bathory
in a bathtub full blood. Uh So, you know this

(01:47):
seems a little out there. What do you think? Is
it fact or is it fiction? You know, I'm on
the fence about this one. I'm gonna say it's a
little fact. It's a little fiction. And I think one
of my my favorite healents of Elizabeth Bathory's disgustingness is
when a serfferent girl stole a pair, you know, just
trying to get her her five fruits and veggies a day,

(02:09):
and she was pretty ticked off, and she actually beat
the heck out of this girl and sort of accidentally
she noticed as that blood was being splashed all around,
some of it inadvertently landed on bathroom skin, and she
thought it gave her skin a very luminous, rosy glow
and thought it could be used as sort of a
cosmetic elixir of sorts. So we know, based on some

(02:32):
servants accounts, that she held this belief, but whether or
not she actually filled up bathtubs full of their blood
and take a bath is an entirely different story. And
to be honest, a lot of the details behind Elizabeth
Bathrooy are pretty fuzzy because she never actually went on
trial for these murderers. Some of her accomplices did, but
her family tried to shelter her and save her because

(02:54):
she was nobility. So in the end she was walled
up into a room and pretty much left to die,
so a lot of the truths died with her. Indeed, well, fantastic,
thanks for clearing that up. You are so welcome. So
if you want to learn more about Elizabeth Battery, you
can read with a Hungarian Countess, the World's most prolific
serial killer on how staff works dot com for more

(03:16):
on this and thousands of other topics. Because at how
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