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Elizabeth Bathory, “The Blood Countess”, is often accepted in the mainstream, without question, as one of the world’s most prolific and sadistic serial killers. A 16th and 17th century Hungarian noblewoman, Bathory is often compared to Vlad “Dracula” Tepes, Gille de Rais and Tamerlane the Great. Women are rarely linked to recreational or sexually motivated crimes. There have been very few accepted female serial killers or, more specifically, recreational murderers, and those who have been recorded as such are often hotly debated as not fulfilling the criteria. Bathory, however, seems to tick all the boxes and her position as an almost all-powerful aristocrat who had the legal powers of life and death over many helps forward many of today’s theories on modern serial killers.
