Some call her the queen of blood. Others call her the first true vampire. Whatever her label, Elizabeth Bathory has gone down into the history books as a sadistic woman, and whose horrific crimes have made her one of the most infamous women in vampire lore.

Elizabeth Bathory was born a noblewoman in 1560. Her family held lands throughout Transylvania, and were considered one of the most powerful families in the country. When she was teenager, she was betrothed and married to an equally powerful nobleman by the name of Count Ferencz Nadasdy. Throughout their marriage she took many lovers.

At age 25, Bathory began to be terrified of growing old and losing the beauty that she had come to depend on so greatly. After Count Nadasdy's death in 1604, she moved to her family's lands in Vienna, where her obsession would quickly grow dark and evil. Bathory had by this point in her life, according to some accounts, begun to dabble in some forms of sorcery, attending rituals that would include the sacrifice of horses and other animals.

Bathory's personal obsession with blood started quite harmlessly, by all accounts. One of her servant girls had not been performing to her standards, so Countess Bathory struck the young servant girl in the face with scissors. The servant girl's blood sprayed across Bathory's hands. When the Countess went to rinse off the blood, she felt her skin looked smoother and younger than it had in years. The tenuous connection between blood and youth had been made, and it was from here that she began her bloody descent into evil.

Convinced that blood, particularly the blood of young girls, was the secret to eternal youth and beauty, Countess Elizabeth Bathory began to devise scheme after scheme to provide herself with the blood, and therefore the youth, she so desperately sought. During her reign of terror, which lasted several years, some accounts of her murders number in the 600 region or more. Some of these six hundred women killed were noblewomen like Bathory, albeit of a lower station, that she persuaded to come and work for her.

The murders were not as simple nor as straightforward as you might think. Bathory did not deal in simpicities like slitting the throats of the young girls she killed. Most of these servant girls were tortured by Bathory for weeks or even months before they were killed. They were cut with scissors, pricked with pins, even prodded with burning irons onto sharp spikes in a cage hung from the ceiling to provide Bathory with a "blood shower".

No one, not even a noblewoman, can continue these types of crimes indefinitely without questions being raised. The year 1610 marked the first of the inquiries into her crimes. By December of 1610, she was put on trial for her crimes. It has been speculated that the trial was brought about so speedily not only to bring quick justice for the murdered girls, but also (and primarily) to allow the local government to confiscate her family's not inconsiderable land holdings. Many believe the main reason the noblewoman was put to trial at all was for this reason.

No one can accomplish such a venerable feat as six hundred murders alone. Erzsi Majorova, the widow of a local tenant farmer, has long believed to be both the instigator and the brains behind the procuring and the disposal of the murdered girls. Many other accomplices, not named, were also put to trial, and found guilty. All accomplices, including Majorova, were put to death, each by different methods depending on the roles they played in the crimes.

Due to her nobility, Bathory was not allowed by law to be sentenced to death. She was sentenced to life imprisonment at the top of her castle in Cachtice. Her small room had no windows, no doors, and only a small opening in the wall to allow food to be passed through. There were few slits for air, and that was the total of her contact with the outside world. Elizabeth Bathory died in that room in August of 1614.

Her reputuation as a vampire grew not only from her greed for blood to bathe in to maintain her youth, but also for rumours that surfaced during the trial. It was said she bit the young girls and drank their blood outright. Evidence of this was difficult to come by as her court documents were sealed after the trial due to their scandalous nature. They resurfaced later, but were never found in intact form.

Bathory's reputation as a vampire has been celebrated numerous times in film. The movies Daughters of Darkness (1970), Countess Dracula (1971), Blood Castle (1972), Ceremonia Sangrienta (1972) and La Noche de Walpurgis (1972) all have brought Countess Elizabeth Bathory's story to the big screen.

 

In the halls of vampiric crime, few names stand out like that of John George Haigh. Half a century ago, England's newspapers screamed, "Vampire!" The trial of "The Acid Bath Vampire", one of England's most infamous serial killers, was about to begin.
Haigh grew up in Wakefield, England. His parents were deeply religious members of a faith called the "Plymouth Brethren". In order to rebel against the strict teachings of his parents and their faith, Haigh joined the Church of England while he was still a boy. He was a devout follower and spent a great deal of time there as a youngster.

Throughout his life, Haigh suffered from a recurring dream. He spoke of a forest of crucifixes in the dream that would gradually turn into trees that dripped blood. He would see a man collecting the blood into a cup. The man would offer the cup to Haigh, but he always awakened before he could take a drink.

It was the dream, Haigh would confess to the police after his arrest, that made him believe he needed blood in order to live.
Early adulthood was a problematic time at best for Haigh. He was imprisoned several times for fraud and forgery. But his true criminal nature began to manifest in middle adulthood, just after World War II had ended.

In 1944 Haigh rented a basement in London to use as a workshop. It would soon become the grisly testament to his growing need for blood. He killed his first victim in that basement on September 9, 1944. He drained the fresh corpse (William Donald McSwan) of enough blood to fill a cup, and drank it. To dispose of the body, Haigh placed it in a tub and proceeded to pour buckets of acid over it. When the remains had been reduced to sludge, he poured the rest down a manhole in the workshop floor.

That night set the pattern for the future. Victim after victim was killed for blood (and profit, as Haigh tended to commandeer what he could of his victims' wealth) and disposed of in an acid bath. His ever increasing orders for acid and acid bath tanks grew large enough for suppliers to grow curious.

After an extraordinary amount of time, some of Haigh's victims were missed by their friends and family, and the police began an investigation. Eventually, he was arrested by the police. Once in custody he confessed to everything, including his need for blood and why he had killed his many victims.

The press took the idea and ran with it. The words "Acid Bath Vampire" screamed from all the headlines as Haigh was brought to trial. After only 15 minutes of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of guilty. His sentence of death by hanging was carried out on August 10, 1949.

 

The story of Arnold Paole is one of the few vampire histories that has been sufficiently documented over the years to lend it historical validity. In the spring of 1727, Arnold Paole returned from service in the military to settle in his home town of Meduegna, near Belgrade. He bought some land, built a home and established himself in the community. After a short time, he was betrothed to a local girl whose father's land bordered his, and the two were wed.

Paole told his wife that he was haunted by fears of an early death. In the military, he had been stationed in Greece. Local beliefs were that the dead come back to haunt the living in the form of revenants or vampires. While he was stationed there, he told his wife he had been visited by an undead being. Afterwards, he hunted down the unholy grave from which the undead being had come, as was the local custom. He extracted his revenge upon the vampire by burning the corpse. However, the incident affected him so greatly that against the advice of his superior officers, he resigned from the military and came back to Meduegna.

Shortly after his marriage, Paole fell from a great height while working on the farm, and was brought, unconscious, back to his home. He must have sustained internal injuries with the fall, for within a few days, Paole died and was buried in the town cemetery. A month after he died, there were several reports from people around the township who had seen Paole. A few had even seen him in their own home, although these reports do not clearly state what he did while in these homes. For the most part, however, there was little panic stemming from these reports until a short time later. Several weeks after the initial reports, most of the people who had claimed Paole had visited their home turned up dead for inexplicable reasons, and a group was assembled to exhume the body of Arnod Paole.

Vampire Proof
The group consisted of two military officers, two army surgeons, and a priest from the local church. When the group exhumed the body, they found a fresh corpse. There was no decomposition of the body whatsoever, and in fact the old skin and nails had fallen off, and new ones had grown to take their place! The final insult was the fresh blood that rested on the lips of the deceased Paole. When one member of the group staked the body, it cried out and fresh blood spilled from the wound. The group then scattered garlic around the remains, and did the same to each of the graves whereto Paole had sent his newest victims.

All was quiet in Meduegna for several years until 1732, when there was another spate of inexplicable deaths. This time, the town took no chances and immediately sent out a group to the graveyard to investigate. The resultant report has ended up in many history books over time. It was signed by three renowned army surgeons and cosigned by a lieutenant-colonel and a sub-lieutenant. Of all the body they disinterred during the investigation, they once again found no less than 11 corpses which displayed the same marked traits as the Paole corpse. No decomposition, (although many had been interred several months previous to their inquiry), fresh skin grown, fresh blood in the arteries and in the heart. The complete medical report is available in many modern vampire histories. No explanation has been given for the later outbreak of vampirism, although one theory holds that Paole had feasted on local cattle as well as people during his vampiric reign. Then, the theory states, as time passed and the cows were killed for their meat, the vampire qualities were passed on to anyone who ate the meat.