Elizabeth Báthory was born on a family estate in Hungary on August 8th, in 1560 and she spent her childhood at Ecsed Castle. Her father was George Báthory, while her mother was Anna Báthory. Through her mother, she was the niece of Stefan Bathory, King of Poland.

At the age of 11, Báthory was engaged to Ferenc Nádasdy and moved to Nádasdy Castle in Sárvár, Hungary. In 1575, she married Nádasdy and at age 15 she had her first child. Nádasdy’s wedding gift to Báthory was his home, Cachtice Castle, situated in the Little Carpathians near Trencín, together with the Cachtice country house and 17 adjacent villages. The castle itself was surrounded by a village and agricultural lands, bordered by outcrops of the Little Carpathians.

In 1578, Nádasdy became the chief commander of Hungarian troops, leading them to war against the Ottomans. With her husband away at war, Elizabeth Báthory managed business affairs and the estates. That role usually included providing for the Hungarian and Slovak peasants, even their medical care.

During the height of the Long War (1593-1606), she was charged with the defense of her husband's estates, which lay on the route to Vienna. The threat was significant, for the village of Cachtice had previously been plundered by the Ottomans.

She was an educated woman who could read and write in four languages. We know of several instances where she intervened on behalf of destitute women, including a woman whose husband was captured by the Turks and a woman whose daughter was raped and impregnated.

Her husband died in 1604 at the age of 47. His death is commonly reported as resulting from an injury sustained in battle.

Between 1602 and 1604, Lutheran parish priest István Magyari complained about atrocities both publicly and with the court in Vienna, after rumors had spread regarding some of Elizabeth’s activities.

According to legend, Elizabeth (who enjoyed punishing her servants) at some point slapped a young serving girl and the Countess’s sharp nails cut open the young girl’s cheek. Apparently, some of the girl’s blood splashed onto Elizabeth’s hand, and later that evening she was sure that her skin was smoother and more radiant where the blood landed.

Thus began (again, according to legend) several years of bloodletting, so Elizabeth might bathe in young girl’s blood. It is even rumored that she began to drink of this blood, to obtain even more youthful vigor.

The Hungarian authorities took some time to respond to Magyari's complaints. Finally, in 1610, King Matthias assigned György Thurzó, the Palatine of Hungary, to investigate. Thurzó ordered two notaries to collect evidence in March 1610. Even before obtaining the results, Thurzó debated further proceedings with Elizabeth's son Paul and two of her sons-in-law. A trial and execution would have caused a public scandal and disgraced a noble and influential family (which at the time ruled Transylvania), and Elizabeth's considerable property would have been seized by the crown. Thurzó agreed that Elizabeth Báthory should be kept under strict house arrest, but that further punishment should be avoided. It was also determined that Matthias did not have to repay a large debt for which he lacked sufficient funds.

Thurzó went to Cachtice Castle on December 30, 1610 and arrested Báthory and four of her servants, who were accused of being her accomplices. Thurzó's men reportedly found one girl dead and one dying. Another woman was found wounded, while others were locked up.

While the countess was put under house arrest (and remained so from that point until her death), her associates were brought to court. A trial was held on January 7, 1611. The trial was presided over by Royal Supreme Court judge Theodosious Syrmiensis de Szulo and 20 associate judges. Bathory herself did not appear at the trial. Intimidation and torture were part of the judicial process. She was also accused of witchcraft and pagan practices.

The defendants at that trial were:

        Dorottya Szentes, also referred to as Dorko.

        Ilona Jó

        Katarína Benická

        János Újváry, "Ibis" or Ficko.

        (Dorko and Ficko—I mean, Really!)

Dorko, Ilona and Ficko were found guilty and executed on the spot. Dorko and Ilona had their fingernails ripped out before they were thrown into a fire, while Ficko, who was deemed less guilty, was beheaded before being consigned to the flames. A public scaffold was erected near the castle to show the public that justice had been done. Katarína Benická was sentenced to life imprisonment, as she only acted under the domination and bullying by the other women, as implied by recorded testimony.

During the trial of her primary servants, Elizabeth had been placed under house arrest in a single room. She remained there for four years, until her death.

King Matthias had urged Thurzó to bring her to court and two notaries were sent to collect further evidence, but in the end no court proceedings against her were ever commenced.

On August 21, 1614, Elizabeth Báthory was found dead in her castle. Since there were several plates of food untouched, her actual date of death is unknown. She was buried in the church of Cachtice.

In 1610 and 1611 the notaries collected testimonies from more than 300 witness accounts. Trial records include testimonies of the four defendants, as well as 13 more witnesses. Priests, noblemen and commoners were questioned. Witnesses included the castellan and other personnel of Sárvár castle.

According to these testimonies, her initial victims were local peasant girls, many of whom were lured to Cachtice by offers of well-paid work as maidservants in the castle. Later Elizabeth was said to have begun to kill daughters of lower gentry, who were sent to her gynaeceum by their parents to learn courtly etiquette. Abductions were said to have occurred as well.

The descriptions of torture that emerged during the trials were often based on hearsay. The atrocities described most consistently included:

        severe beatings over extended periods of time, often leading to death.

        burning or mutilation of hands, sometimes also of faces and genitalia.

        biting the flesh off their faces, arms and other bodily parts.

        freezing to death.

        bad surgery on victims, often leading to death.

        starving of victims.

The use of needles was also mentioned by the collaborators in court.

Some witnesses named relatives who died while at the gynaeceum. Others reported having seen traces of torture on dead bodies, some of which were buried in graveyards, and others in unmarked locations.

According to the defendants' confessions, Elizabeth Báthory tortured and killed her victims not only at Cachtice but also on her properties in Sárvár, Sopronkeresztúr, Bratislava and Vienna, and even between these locations.

In addition to the defendants, several people were named for supplying Elizabeth Báthory with young women. The girls had been procured either by deception or by force.

A little-known figure named Anna Darvulia was also rumoured to have influenced much of Báthory's early sadistic career but apparently died long before the trial.

The number of young women tortured and killed by Elizabeth Báthory is unknown, though it is often cited as being in the hundreds, between the years 1585 and 1610. The estimates differ greatly. During the trial and before their execution, Szentes and Ficko reported 36 and 37 respectively, during their periods of service. The other defendants estimated a number of 50 or higher. Many Sárvár castle personnel estimated the number of bodies removed from the castle at between 100 to 200. One witness who spoke at the trial mentioned a book in which a total of over 650 victims was supposed to have been listed by Báthory herself. This book was never mentioned anywhere else, nor was it ever discovered; however, this number became part of the legend surrounding Báthory.

László Nagy has argued that Elizabeth Báthory was a victim of a conspiracy, a view opposed by others. Nagy argued that the proceedings were largely politically motivated. However the conspiracy theory is consistent with Hungarian history at that time.

The case of Elizabeth Báthory inspired numerous stories during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The most common motif of these works was that of the countess bathing in her victims' blood in order to retain beauty or youth.

This legend appeared in print for the first time in 1729, in the Jesuit scholar László Turóczi’s Tragica Historia, the first written account of the Báthory case.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, this certainty was questioned, and sadistic pleasure was considered a far more plausible motive for Elizabeth Báthory's crimes. In 1817, the witness accounts (which had surfaced in 1765) were published for the first time, demonstrating that the bloodbaths, for the purpose of preserving her youth, were legend rather than fact.

The legend nonetheless persisted in the popular imagination. Some versions of the story were told with the purpose of denouncing female vanity, while other versions aimed to entertain or thrill their audience. During the twentieth and twenty first centuries, Elizabeth Báthory has continued to appear as a character in music, film, plays, books, games and toys and to serve as an inspiration for similar characters.

At best, Elizabeth Bathory was a spoiled aristocrat who felt her position allowed her to get away with any depravity she desired. At worst she was a demented and sadistic serial killer who enjoyed the suffering of others, and so tortured and killed perhaps hundreds of women and young girls for mere pleasure.