Elizabeth Bathory
She is probably the most prolific serial female killer known.
She lived in the late 1500s and into the 1600s in Slovakia, though she was Hungarian. 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.
Gilles de Rais
Rais was a Breton who fought against the English, often serving alongside Joan of Arc. A year after Joan was burned at the stake, Rais retired from military service and returned to his family’s castle, at Machecoul. From there, Rais began a campaign of sadistic sex murders, killing between 60 and 200 children. He preferred boys between the ages of 6 and 18. His victims were generally blue-eyed and blond-haired, and were usually kidnapped from the village of Machecoul and the surrounding areas, or lured to his castle.
His first victim was a 12-year-old messenger who was hanged by his neck on a metal hook and raped before being put out of his misery. More and more children started to disappear and suspicion arose. Unfortunately, the locals were too terrified to go up against one of the most powerful men in France. Rais had a specially built chamber where he would restrain his victims while he proceeded with his grotesque sexual acts.
He would kill them with a variety of methods, which included dismemberment, decapitation and disembowelment. He enjoyed watching them die, sometimes even laughing.After some difficulty, a case was finally brought up against him. Rais stated at his trial that he admired the heads and body parts of his more beautiful victims. He was arrested in September of 1440, and indicted on 34 counts of murder.
He would eventually confess to the murders under the threat of torture. Rais was found guilty of murder, sodomy and heresy and was hanged and then burned on October 16, 1440, along with two of his servants. Rais was granted the right of confession after expressing remorse.
He refused to admit he was a devil worshiper and professed the strength of his faith. Gilles de Rais would become one of the first known serial killers in history. The guilt and conscience that he would show, when not taken over by the urge to murder, only confirmed how depraved and mentally disturbed this man was.