Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: editor Candice Skips in Joints day by my ever so
Speaker 1: curious staff writer Josh Clark, who always comes with a
Speaker 1: smile and a question. Yeah, I do have a question
Speaker 1: and a smile. If you can hear that or not,
Speaker 1: but thanks for having me, Candice. You want to hear
Speaker 1: my question? I'm all airs. Well, first, let me ask
Speaker 1: you know much about serial killers? I do? I do.
Speaker 1: A serial killer is someone who has physically, with their
Speaker 1: own hands, murdered three or more people. Yeah, and usually
Speaker 1: with a cooling off period in between. That's the basic definition, right,
Speaker 1: all right, Well, let me ask you about the most
Speaker 1: prolific serial killer of all time. Uh. Actually it was
Speaker 1: a woman, six fifty victims over fifty four years. No
Speaker 1: one's even come close to that. Some guy in Brazil
Speaker 1: murdered like three hundred um and actually he's on the
Speaker 1: loose right now, so look out Brazil. Um. The The
Speaker 1: woman we're talking about is Elizabeth Bathory. She was a
Speaker 1: Hungarian countess and she was kind of raised around violent.
Speaker 1: She saw a gypsy, uh, sewn up in a dying
Speaker 1: horse's stomach with his head sticking out and left to
Speaker 1: die along with the horse. Some she kind of took
Speaker 1: witnessing things like that and translated it to her own life,
Speaker 1: murdering servant girl after servant girl with the help of
Speaker 1: some accomplices and um. One of the real hallmarks of
Speaker 1: Bathory's murders was that they were very bloody, and apparently
Speaker 1: she actually bathed in the blood of her victims. There's
Speaker 1: actually a a figurine that you can buy a Bathory
Speaker 1: in a bathtub full blood. Uh So, you know this
Speaker 1: seems a little out there. What do you think? Is
Speaker 1: it fact or is it fiction? You know, I'm on
Speaker 1: the fence about this one. I'm gonna say it's a
Speaker 1: little fact. It's a little fiction. And I think one
Speaker 1: of my my favorite healents of Elizabeth Bathory's disgustingness is
Speaker 1: when a serfferent girl stole a pair, you know, just
Speaker 1: trying to get her her five fruits and veggies a day,
Speaker 1: and she was pretty ticked off, and she actually beat
Speaker 1: the heck out of this girl and sort of accidentally
Speaker 1: she noticed as that blood was being splashed all around,
Speaker 1: some of it inadvertently landed on bathroom skin, and she
Speaker 1: thought it gave her skin a very luminous, rosy glow
Speaker 1: and thought it could be used as sort of a
Speaker 1: cosmetic elixir of sorts. So we know, based on some
Speaker 1: servants accounts, that she held this belief, but whether or
Speaker 1: not she actually filled up bathtubs full of their blood
Speaker 1: and take a bath is an entirely different story. And
Speaker 1: to be honest, a lot of the details behind Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Bathrooy are pretty fuzzy because she never actually went on
Speaker 1: trial for these murderers. Some of her accomplices did, but
Speaker 1: her family tried to shelter her and save her because
Speaker 1: she was nobility. So in the end she was walled
Speaker 1: up into a room and pretty much left to die,
Speaker 1: so a lot of the truths died with her. Indeed, well, fantastic,
Speaker 1: thanks for clearing that up. You are so welcome. So
Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about Elizabeth Battery, you
Speaker 1: can read with a Hungarian Countess, the World's most prolific
Speaker 1: serial killer on how staff works dot com for more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Because at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, let us know what you think.
Speaker 1: Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com