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Countess Elizabeth B\xe1thory was a Hungarian noblewoman and one of the most wealthy and powerful aristocrats in eastern Europe during the late 16th and early 17th centuries.\xa0 Together with her husband Ferenc N\xe1dasdy, a military hero known as the Black Knight of Hungary, B\xe1thory held numerous estates, lands, and villages.\xa0 She also currently holds the Guinness World Record for being the most prolific female serial killer and most prolific murderer of the western world.\xa0 B\xe1thory had been accused in the testimonies of over 300 witnesses and survivors of some of the most horrific tortures and murders imaginable before she was arrested, even by medieval standards.\xa0 Her victims were her maidservants and lesser noble prot\xe9g\xe9s, all girls, with some as young as ten years old.\xa0 Years after her death, a legend had formed that B\xe1thory had even routinely bathed in and possibly drank the blood of her virginal victims, believing that the pureblood had retained her beauty.\xa0 Some claim that B\xe1thory's story became the partial inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula, along with her more famous sanguinary neighbor, Vlad the Impaler.\xa0 But were any of the accusations against B\xe1thory true?\xa0 Was she merely a victim herself of a political and gender-biased conspiracy aimed at confiscating her riches and properties?\xa0 As we'll learn once again, the truth behind our legends is often shrouded in a fog of conjecture misting through a forest of unknowns.\xa0 Join us tonight as we examine the case of Elizabeth B\xe1thory who, regardless of her actual guilt or innocence, will be forever known as, "The Blood Countess."
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