You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history,

and the authors that have written about them.

Gacy, Bundy, Dommer, the Nightstalker, BTK.

Every week, another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True murder. With your host, journalist and author,

Dan Zupansky.

Good evening. There have long been whispers coming from the castle, from the village square, from the dark woods. The great lady, a countess from one of Europe's oldest families, is a vicious killer. Some even say she bays in the blood of her victims.

When the king's men force their way into her manor house, she has blood on her hands,

caught in the act of murdering yet another of her maids.

She is walled up in a tower and never seen again, except in the act of murdering yet another of her maids. She is walled up in a tower and never seen again, except in the uppermost barred window,

where she broods over the countryside, cursing all those who dared speak up against her.

Told and retold in many languages, the legend of the blood countess has consumed cultural

imaginations around the world.

But despite claims that Elizabeth Bathory tortured and killed as many as 650 girls, some

have wondered if the Countess was herself a victim of one of the most successful disinformation

campaigns known to history. So was Elizabeth Bathory, a monster, a victim, or a bit of both?

With the breathlessness of a whodunit, drawing upon new archival evidence and questioning old assumptions,

Shelly Pughak traces the Countess's downfall, bringing to life an assertive woman leader

in a world sliding into anti-scientific reactionary darkness, a world where nothing is ever

as it seems.

In this exhilarating narrative, Pughack renders a vivid portrait of history's most dangerous

woman and her tumultuous time, revealing just how far we will go to destroy a woman in power.

The book you are featuring this evening is The Blood Countess,

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