Deadly Women & Dark History: Bathory & Tofana

Two notorious women from history share eerily similar stories that challenge our understanding of female villains and the patriarchal societies that condemned them.

• Giulia Tofana created "Aqua Tofana" in 17th century Italy, a tasteless poison that killed approximately 600 abusive husbands
• Her poison business operated as a covert pyramid scheme disguised as a cosmetics shop, with dosing instructions similar to modern medicine labels
• Elizabeth Bathory, the Hungarian "Blood Countess," allegedly tortured and killed hundreds of young women in the late 16th century
• Bathory was never given a trial, and evidence against her appears politically motivated as King Matthias owed substantial debts to her family
• Both women were raised in extremely violent environments, married off as children, and showed signs of trauma and possible mental illness
• The stories of powerful women throughout history often become exaggerated or sensationalized, similar to false narratives about Marie Antoinette and Catherine the Great
• Many of the most extreme accusations against both women appeared decades or centuries after their deaths, suggesting possible historical distortion
• The podcast hosts suggest the truth likely falls somewhere between complete innocence and the monstrous legends that survive today

Listen to the Black Curtain Club every Monday for new episodes where we explore the darker side of history with a curious, thoughtful approach.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:21

Before we begin today's episode of the Black Curtain Club podcast, we would like to share a quick disclaimer. The views, opinions and statements expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast are their own personal views and are provided in their own personal capacity. All content is editorial, opinion-based and intended for entertainment purposes only. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 2 0:49

All right, we're recording. Hi Becca, Hi Angie, it's been a couple weeks, hasn't it? It's been so long. Oh, how are you doing today?

Speaker 3 1:11

I'm going through it, but I'm ready to dive into this.

Speaker 2 1:14

Yeah, yeah, I think everyone's been going through it. It's been a weird couple weeks, but we're here, right.

Speaker 3 1:22

We're here and nobody can stop us.

Setting the Scene for True Crime

Speaker 2 1:24

So, hi everyone, Welcome back to the Black Curtain Club. And today we have a special treat because we're going to dive into the darker side of history. I'm Angie and I'm here with Becca and we've got a truly, I think, chilling episode lined up. So everyone get comfortable and we're going to again take another dive into history, but this time with I don't know what the fuck I was going to say. I'm trying to do this off the top of my head the true crime twist. Okay, yeah. So get comfy, buckle up, because we're going to give you a real true crime twist. So, and I want to say once again, we blindly chose two true crime stories that once again intersect. I think it just, you know, speaks volumes to how much we are aligned on the things that really get us going.

Speaker 3 2:27

It really speaks to the hive mind that we share.

Speaker 2 2:30

Yeah.

Speaker 3 2:31

That just keeps happening to us.

Speaker 2 2:33

Yeah, for sure. So I'm going to turn it over to you and you can tell us what you have All right.

Giulia Tofana: The Poisoner's Story

Speaker 3 2:39

So for this week, I wanted to dive into a true crime story that has been plaguing me for years and I feel like not a lot of people know about, and this is the story of Giulia Tifana. And for this to make sense, I want to paint you a mental picture, angie, okay, I'm all for it. So we're traveling back in time to 17th century Italy. You're a young woman of marrying age. It's summertime, can you picture it?

Speaker 3 3:10

I can so daily life in this era was very, very different, depending on which side of the wage gap you lived on. Noble women, this was peak Italian romance vibes. We're munching on grapes in the villa and we're drinking wine on the credenza Like, yeah, it sounds great right.

Speaker 2 3:29

Yeah, it does sound great.

Speaker 3 3:32

So this is kind of a trust exercise. Let's continue with the picture you and I, we are not wealthy women.

Speaker 2 3:41

Oh man.

Speaker 3 3:42

This podcast hasn't exactly been lucrative so far. Let's be real. So for fairness sake, let's go ahead and assume you and I would be peasants.

Speaker 2 3:51

Okay, done.

Speaker 3 3:54

In our finest rags, you and I would hardly fetch noble husbands. First of all, we aren't 14 14, so we'd be considered fossils on the dating market. Yes, women of our class could hope for is like a smith or a shop owner on the sketchy side of town. This is not 2025. What would a woman that is stuck in a bad marriage do?

Speaker 2 4:23

I mean I feel like she's got two choices kill him or kill herself. What would a woman that is stuck in a bad marriage do? I mean, I feel like she's got two choices kill him or kill herself.

Speaker 3 4:35

There's no divorce, right? Exactly, there's no divorce. Like you might as well commit witchcraft openly, right? So what if I told you there's a lady down the road with a potion that has helped about 600 other women with the exact same problem?

Speaker 2 4:51

well, I'm sold, I am. I am walking down the pathway directly, do not pass go yeah, but you also.

Speaker 3 5:04

you want to be careful who you share this information with, because this is 17th century Italy, after all, and our story takes place right on the Vatican's doorstep. To tell you her story, she was a poisoner extraordinaire with an alleged kill streak of 600 shitty husbands, who was born in palermo, and there's some speculation as to her exact age when she started her side hustle of toxicity, but there's some evidence to suggest she used her weapon of choice to kill a man as early as the age of 14.

Speaker 2 5:43

Oh my god, you go girl.

Speaker 3 5:49

She got started early. She knew what she wanted to do with her life. She had gumption.

Speaker 2 5:56

I mean, she's a real go-getter.

Speaker 3 6:00

It sounds intense and the details are pretty foggy. One thing we know for certain is that poisoning was a family business. It's said that in 1620, her mother was found guilty of poisoning Julia's supposed father. Her mother gave her the family recipe and Julia fled to Sicily to set up shop with five of her mom's most loyal friends when her mom was arrested for the murder. So when I say shut up shop, shut up shop, shut up shop, shut up shop. Fuck, this is hard today, fuck this is hard today.

Speaker 1 6:43

Shit up shop.

Speaker 3 6:55

When I say set up shop, I'm not talking like a little booth at the market. I'm talking like an Ulta style beauty shop with all of the goodies. She had creams and lotions and all the best cosmetics. And she was also famous for a black market item, a secret little vial of her mama's medicine, and this was called aqua tifana what a name I know it's legendary right. It just gives you chills like it.

Speaker 2 7:22

Literally could not have a better name I mean, it has such a ring to it like it's, I could see it being sold now it's in stores now 1999.

Women's Reality in 17th Century Italy

Speaker 3 7:34

So aqua to fauna is what this little miracle in an ornate crystal bottle is called. The ingredients are something that hasn't quite been identified, but there is a reason to believe it's a concoction of lead, belladonna and arsenic. The effects are Okay. The effects of this odorless and tasteless poison, god, the effects of this odorless and tasteless. The effects of this odorless and tasteless poison are Am I still here? My sound just cut out.

Speaker 2 8:10

You are still here. I'm muted because I was laughing so hard. I'm sorry. Here I go.

Speaker 3 8:15

The effects of this odorless and tasteless poison are listed out by dosage. Mind you, it was said, and I quote four drops is enough to destroy a man.

Speaker 2 8:28

Wow.

Speaker 3 8:30

I know.

Speaker 2 8:31

Potent and effective.

Speaker 3 8:34

So this is literally like the drug information on the side of Tylenol. It gets listed out by the number of doses. The first dose cold-like symptoms, a general under-the-weather feeling, so if a woman had a cold. The second dose we upgrade to man-cold. So this is when they would be like send for the physician. I am most unwell. There are bad spirits in my blood, whatever the hell they would say at the time. On the third dose, all hell breaks loose Dehydration, burning in the throat and chest, vomiting and wicked diarrhea. Yes, by the fourth dose, you are just big time dead, deceased, big time dead.

Speaker 2 9:45

So it's a very well thought out and slow killing process and this is very intentional right, Because, while they're bedridden, the husbands are getting their affairs in order and the widow gets the chance to look like the perfectly concerned wifey at her husband's bedside.

Speaker 3 9:49

The authorities had no reason to search through the cosmetics on her vanity. Those are her silly women's things. This a seemingly perfect crime, right? Well, yeah, I think so right, and it's really cool because it's like the original pyramid scheme, okay, so she and her five friends set up shop and their five friends bring their five friends shop, and she is the tippy tip of the pyramid. So she is like Queen Pharaoh, giulia Tufano, all of her little network of people below her, and she has all of her five friends tell five of their friends, so on and so forth. And then we have the equivalent of 17th century Mary Kay girlhood forward poisoning that literally takes over Italy. They're getting everyonekeeper, smiths, lesser nobility and even some higher ups like gaslight, gatekeep, girl boss, and I wish I could be angry, but when you know the reason that all of these women are doing this, it just makes me sad, you know right.

Speaker 2 10:43

Right, because they're in probably really miserable abusive marriages and they don't have another way out.

Speaker 3 10:51

This is the only way out yeah and I touched on this a little earlier, but I really want to go into what it was like for women back then.

Speaker 3 10:59

We forget how scary childbirth used to be one percent of women died from complications in childbirth at this time, and when you factor in how goddamn young they were we're talking 12 to 17 years old, having multiple children. And here's another fun fact it was socially acceptable at this time for men to abuse their wives. It wasn't even considered abuse, and the only thing that women had was what their husbands left for them after their death. There was no owning property, no owning your own bank account. Marriages were arranged for convenience and the hope of offspring. This was seen as the only way out for a lot of women, and many consider Julia Tufana to be a hero and I'm not going to say one way or the other what I really believe but there's a reason that this story still holds a lot of weight today.

Speaker 2 11:51

Yeah, I mean it definitely has some weight to it. Yeah, I don't even know what to say about that. I mean it's a systemic problem that is still happening today. Right, I mean we still have countries and states that allow men to be abusive to women. Women are still considered as property, as chattel. Yeah, I mean this story absolutely resonates on a lot of different levels Resonates resonates.

Speaker 3 12:32

So I mean I wish I could say that this has a happy ending. But at one point julia's poison ends up in the digestive tract of a big, fancy duke, though it's no longer just the rabble getting picked off one by one, like they got a really big target and it draw. It drew a lot of eyes like especially, they're on the v the Vatican's doorstep. This duke dies. They figure out, well, julia was absolutely involved and that there were a few co conspirators. So in 1650, she and a few of her other dark priestesses get apprehended and executed in jail.

The Rise and Fall of Aqua Tofana

Speaker 3 13:03

But one little nugget here that I find kind of cool, which it's not cool, it's a horrible thing to say. But just because Julia and the others get taken out, this continues to be a thing. Like all of the women who have set up shops selling their own poison, like this little poisoning ring continues well after julia's death and it's the reason why people say that poison is a woman's weapon. Like she is the one who set the bar for this. She started this little enterprise and it continued well after she was dead. And there's something kind of empowering in that and the way that her memory continued to inspire people to do what they could to make a better life than themselves, even if it's something like this, I guess, yeah. Yeah, it's a gray area, right? Yeah, it is.

Speaker 2 13:56

That's what makes it interesting yeah, it is a gray area, but you know so much about history is in that gray area. You know, one person's hero is another person's villain, right, well, that's literally all I have.

Speaker 3 14:10

That is her story.

Speaker 2 14:12

That's a great story. Well, my story that I have is very dark. So I want you to kind of buckle up for this, because it's very gruesome and it's very dark. So I want you to kind of buckle up for this, because it's it's very gruesome and it's very dark, but I think it's an important story to tell.

Speaker 3 14:31

I am strapped on and ready to go.

Speaker 2 14:33

Okay. So we're going to talk about a woman who met who. So we're going to talk about a woman who made bad reputation look like an understatement, and her name is Lady Elizabeth Bathory. So I'm going to dive into one of the most notorious figures in history, and this is going to be quite a ride. So I'm going to take you through a tale that involves hundreds of victims, some pretty gnarly torture methods and a woman who possibly thought bloodbaths were the key to eternal youth. But I asked the question at the beginning of this was she really the monster? Because I think there's a compelling case that maybe history got this one wrong. So I'm going to leave it up to you, Becca, to decide whether she was a true monster or was she a victim of a smear campaign.

Speaker 3 15:36

So you ready you have my curiosity so piqued.

Speaker 2 15:40

All right. So again, much like you, I want to kind of paint you a picture and kind of set the scene for you. Elizabeth Bathory was born August 7th in 1560 in Hungary in a family that really had some serious clout. Her dad, George, was a soldier and part of the Hungarian nobility. So you can see right from the start Elizabeth wasn't some random peasant kid. We're talking big castles, wealth and power. Her family had connections everywhere. But we can also say, if children are a product of their environment, she really didn't have a chance. So I want to talk a little bit about her family, just to kind of give you a picture of what we're dealing with here.

Lady Elizabeth Bathory's Dark Legend

Speaker 2 16:28

So her uncle, Stephen, became the king of Poland after marrying the queen regnant of Poland. And just a side note, I did not pronounce that wrong. I did not know there was a difference between a queen regnant and a queen regent. So just a little fun fact here is a queen regnant is a woman who inherits the crown in her own right but also has reduced status as compared to the queen regnant. So it's a little bit tricky, but there is a difference between regnant and regent.

Speaker 3 17:23

Anyway the queen regent got it yeah.

Speaker 2 17:27

So he married um, clara bathory, and clara has a whole side story. So she allegedly took a lover who killed her first husband and rumor was she killed her second husband by smothering him. There are also yeah, there are also accounts that Clara was a bisexual murderess who practiced sorcery in her spare time and that she actually was the one who taught Elizabeth the dark arts. Now again, I take all of this with a grain of salt, because we know strong, powerful and especially sexually powerful women were often condemned throughout history. So Claire was eventually imprisoned and there are conflicting stories about what exactly happened to her, but basically all of them are terrible conclusions to her story.

Speaker 2 18:21

So let's take the focus back to Elizabeth. She was no stranger to hardship, so as a child she suffered from epilepsy and migraines and back then people really didn't know what to make out of it. She was also known to be a very spoiled child and prone to fits and range and violence. Some thought she was cursed or even involved in witchcraft, which really did not help her reputation at all. I mean, there's nothing like being branded a witch child to really set you up for good fortune, right.

Speaker 3 18:54

Dude, that's honestly. I'm sitting here. I'm like they're blaming her for her epilepsy and her spoiled behavior.

Speaker 2 19:02

Yeah, yeah. But one thing she did have going for her is that she was pretty famous for her beauty. She was known as this tall, dark-haired stunner. So you know, in today's standards she would have definitely been an influencer. So then when she was 15, you know, kind of go back to your story. You know these women were marrying at very young ages. When she was 15, she married this guy named Farrick Nadasi.

Speaker 3 19:36

Oh, that's a name you want to say, in the throes of passion.

Speaker 2 19:40

I said the name wrong. Hang on Farrick Nadasi the Dazdi. So he was a wealthy, high-ranking soldier and he was known to live on the darker side of life. So he was known to often cruelly tortured Ottoman captives and when I was doing research on this I thought this was a really weird. I shouldn't laugh, but this was like a really weird way to pass the time. He was known to stick pieces of paper between the toes of his servants and set the paper on fire.

Speaker 3 20:14

I just thought that was so weird I mean effort it took to make paper back then. I know, right In between the West Coast, I know I'm messed up. I am messed up, it's just so.

Speaker 2 20:34

I just I'm like what the hell? Okay. So you know, I don't know, maybe their marriage was really like some kind of match made in hell. So you think, kind of her with her history and kind of marrying I don't know adjacent or up, that she would have an easy life. Well, while her husband was off fighting, elizabeth had to run the entire state, and so this is where things start to get a little creepy. So Elizabeth's husband is off doing his soldier thing and she's in charge of the household, and I want to remind you, this is at age 15.

Speaker 2 21:10

Some would say that she really took this power and ran with it in a big way. Eventually, people started noticing she wasn't just managing the servants, she might have been torturing them. And so I'm going to pause here just for a moment and say that what I'm going to describe in this next section are all alleged acts that she was guilty of, because, as the story unfolds, I think there's a compelling argument that maybe none of this was true to begin with. I want to kind of like set this you okay, yeah, okay. Well, that was dramatic, okay.

Speaker 3 21:53

Well, that was dramatic. I was leaning in, okay.

Speaker 2 22:04

I'll just shut up. So accounts say that she started using her position of power to punish young girls who worked for her in ways that weren't just stern discipline. We're talking whips burning with hot irons, sticking pins in their skin. I mean, like this was brutal. So I am going to talk a little bit in detail about some of the things she was accused of. Look, I'm a weirdo. I fully admit that I like the details and I want for you to understand the sheer brutality of what she was accused of. So these were some acts of truly horrific cruelty and violence, and much of this evidence comes from testimonies, rumors, political motivations, but some of these crimes have really become central to her notorious legacy, so I think it's important for us to talk about them. An interesting footnote is that it was also alleged that her husband, while he was off at war, would send his wife love letters and I say that in air quotes love letters because they detailed advice on ways of torture. So again, match made in hell, right.

Alleged Atrocities and Blood Baths

Speaker 3 23:09

Yeah, at least they take an interest in each other's hobbies.

Speaker 2 23:15

Right.

Speaker 3 23:18

If he wanted to, he would.

Speaker 2 23:22

So I just want to take a breath here. It's going to get weird. Okay, oh God. Okay, oh God. I want to dive into this first part, which is talking about the torture and mutilation that she was accused of. So she was accused of whipping and beating her victims, often to the point of death. Some accounts suggest that she enjoyed God young girls that she captured using whips, sticks and other instruments to inflict pain. She allegedly used hot irons to burn victims, leaving permanent scars, causing death through severe burns. She would also put red-hot coins in the palms of her servants as punishment. She also engaged in acts of mutilate. Why do I keep saying that she also engaged in acts of mutilation? Why do I keep saying that she also engaged in acts of mutilate? Mutilation, mutilation. Why do I keep saying mutilization? What? Okay, making up words here? Okay, breathe. She was also accused of engaging in acts of mutilation.

Speaker 3 25:02

You know, I heard that she engaged in mutilation.

Speaker 2 25:08

She also engaged in acts of mutilation, targeting her victims faces and bodies. She would put them in spike line cages and hang the cages from the ceiling. There was also accusations that she would cut or slice her victim's skin, often on their hands, face, other visible areas, and a lot of this was as a form of degradation. She was also accused of cutting off body parts like fingers and breasts. She would smear girls in honey and allow them to be attacked by insects, bees and rats.

Speaker 2 25:46

She would also imprison her victims in dark, cold rooms where they were left to starve to death. They were confined to these places with no food or water, sometimes for days or weeks, until they succumbed to the hunger. Another thing that she was accused of is locking her victims outside in freezing conditions where they would be exposed to harsh winter weather. She would force them into cold, unheated rooms and then this would often lead to death by hypothermia, and this was really a cold, slow, painful death, and it would have been excruciating and as agonizing as a way to to perish. So it gets worse from there.

Speaker 3 26:37

Oh my God, yeah, okay, I'm here.

Speaker 2 26:41

So she would also engage dogs and torture. So she would use her dogs to torment her victims. She allegedly set them on young girls, allowing them to maul and tear at the flesh of her victims while she watched. And then, right out of you know, the Hannibal Lecter playbook, it was rumored that she would force women to cook and eat their own flesh. Yeah, there were reports that she herself would partake in human meat.

Speaker 2 27:16

She was also accused of biting flesh off victims and sucking their blood from their wounds, and an interesting side note is that she is said to be one of the inspirations for Bram Stoker's Dracula. I can 100% see that, yeah. So in the same vein, one of the most gruesome or infamous accusations was that she allegedly believed that bathing in the blood of virgins would keep her youthful and beautiful. So witnesses claim that she drained the blood from young girls, either by slashing their necks or stabbing them, and use that in so-called blood baths. And then they not only alleged that she collected the blood, but she again actually bathed in the blood. So this is the part that really became the central part of her legacy, or her legend, and so, yeah, that was rough to get through.

Speaker 2 28:15

The other thing that she was accused of is again practicing the dark arts. So if these reports are true and we're going to suspend belief that this happened, we're talking around 650 or so victims, hundreds of girls, and we still don't know exactly how many she allegedly killed. So you know, if she was doing these, she wasn't exactly subtle about it. I mean, the bodies just had to have kept piling up and up and up.

Speaker 3 28:47

If this was true, there would be some kind of proof. These people didn't just disappear, their bodies went somewhere.

Speaker 2 28:57

Right and you would think so. You would absolutely think so. The other thing that I found in my research is that she was also said to have been extremely promiscuous. She allegedly had a child out of wedlock at age 13, and she would later take on a lover and I put this in here because I know you're going to chuckle at this name so this alleged lover that she took on, he was a local hunk and his name was Ironhead.

Speaker 1 29:31

I mean.

Speaker 3 29:34

He sounds like an X-Man. I know, I mean the Blood Countess and Ironhead.

Speaker 2 29:41

Issue three I read that and I thought I was going to die. I was like really.

Speaker 3 29:49

Ironhead, of course, like with all of the things that are being mentioned, of course they're like oh, and she also had a baby out of wedlock and she had a lover. Look at this loose woman.

Speaker 2 29:57

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, as what as always happens in these kind of stories, things didn't stay quiet too long. In 1610, after years of rumors, elizabeth's crimes were finally reported to the authorities and, to put this in perspective, she was 50 years old at the time, so she had been allegedly doing these crimes for around 35 years. So a guy named Istvan McGarry, a Lutheran minister, who was the one who got the ball rolling on all of these accusations, he got a lot of people to talk Witnesses, survivors, even letters from people who had seen things go down in the castle. So once the reports hit the royal court, they knew they had to do something. So once the reports hit the royal court, they knew they had to do something.

Speaker 2 30:52

But before Elizabeth's husband dies, he entrusts her to a guy named Gregory Thurzo, and he was the Palatine of Hungary and he would also lead the investigation on her alleged crimes. He ordered two notaries to collect evidence in March of 1610, and they came back with testimony for more than 300 witnesses Although, interestingly, the actual preserved records of any of this only showed 13 witnesses. And there was also this alleged diary that lists all of her victims. And I say alleged because this diary is nowhere to be found.

Speaker 3 31:35

Okay.

Speaker 2 31:36

Right, so you're. You're kind of like picking up on the breadcrumbs here.

Speaker 3 31:40

Yeah, Some something's coming through for me yeah.

Speaker 2 31:44

Yeah. So Thurso did have a dilemma. A public trial and execution would have caused a public scandal and would have caused her considerable property and wealth to be seized by the crown. When the authorities did finally show up to arrest her, she was nowhere to be found. She'd gone into hiding. I can't really blame her If she really wasn't guilty of these. Yeah, I mean, I would go into hiding as well.

Speaker 3 32:13

I mean she would be lynched, right. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it's a witch hunt, literally.

Speaker 2 32:17

Right. She knew that this kind of arrest was not going to be a slap on the wrist, that it meant death. But here's the kicker, though After all of this alleged evidence, 300 witnesses she didn't get a public execution like you'd expect. Instead, she was just locked away in a room in a castle and I cannot pronounce the name of this castle, I think it's Catch Tice Castle where she was kept in a bricked up windowless room with only small slits for ventilation and to pass food. She did die in 1614, and there's still some mystery about how she exactly passed. Some say it was old age, some say some say she was done in by someone in her prison.

Political Conspiracy Against Bathory

Speaker 2 33:20

Either way, the one thing that held true was that, uh, she did not die gracefully and she did not die eternally beautiful, like she allegedly thought she would oh no, it did not end well for her no, no neither of them so, in kind of doing some of this research, I did find some interesting things about what was, what else was happening around this whole story, and a lot of modern scholars have investigated every aspect of her life. And one of the questions is was she clinically insane due to incest? Her parents were distant cousins, but this was fairly common in this time period and with royalty. But here's the thing Not everyone born of this construct was a serial killer, right, right. So then the next question is was she a product of her violent environment?

Speaker 2 34:23

Elizabeth witnessed a lot of brutalities as a child. There was one report. It was a little disturbing, but again, because I'm a weirdo, I want to talk about this. So one report was when she was little. She witnessed authorities cut open the belly of a live horse. They stuffed a criminal inside, sewed him up inside of the horse and waited for them both to wriggle in agony until they were both dead. I personally think that witnessing this would severely fuck up a child. I mean, it bothers me to read this, you know, yeah, but this is what she grew up with right.

Speaker 3 35:12

Exactly, she's a product of her environment.

Speaker 2 35:16

So back a little, back up a little bit, and I mentioned Estevan McGarry and how he blew the whistle on Elizabeth. But there's more to that story too. The whistle on Elizabeth, but there's more to that story too. So, yes, he was a Lutheran minister, but his involvement might have been driven in part by religious tensions. So at the time Hungary was under the influence of both Catholic and Protestant factions and McGarry's accusations could have been as much about political and religious motives as they were at exposing Bathory's crimes. Some even think that this was just a smear campaign against her, particularly from rival families who were looking to take down a powerful noblewoman. So there are some historians that have argued that the charges against Bathory were really politically motivated and they were trying to take down this powerful, independent woman. The involvement of her family members, many of whom were prominent political figures, led to some speculation that Elizabeth may have been a victim to just a simple conspiracy. So Bathory's wealth, status and power could have been threats to certain people in Hungary and this could explain why her crimes were reported with such intensity and why she ended up with such a harsh punishment. But wasn't quite. But they didn't go so far as to, you know, hang her or you know execute her right on the spot, right.

Speaker 2 36:58

So many have put on record as a defense of elizabeth that she was this political victim. Um, as thurso made up this whole thing to get rid of a political rival and this is the part that really kind of got me in this whole story he took as soon as he became the Palatine of Hungary, he took steps to imprison Elizabeth. Thurzo had been assisting King Matthias in his efforts to extend his control, and the Bathory family was standing in his way. There was also evidence that King Matthias was after the Bathory wealth. It seemed like the king and his imperial family owed a great deal of money to elizabeth and her entire family and they had trouble paying it back to due to lack of lack of cash flow. So you know what's the question there, what you know. I tend to think that this is leading more to like a smear campaign than actual facts.

Speaker 3 38:14

It definitely lends that way, doesn't it?

Speaker 2 38:17

It does, and it was hugely common to scapegoat women during that time to be involved in witchcraft. Many women were accused, when their husbands dropped dead, of common ailments during that time and also interestingly, this timeline also matches up with your story. I was thinking that. So as you have Aqua Tofana being readily available in stores worldwide, you have this story playing out also in Hungary, I mean the timelines.

Speaker 3 38:55

They really do add up because we're talking about after 1620,. Julia Tafan is executed in 1650.

Speaker 2 39:03

The timelines do add up. Yeah, the other thing was she was never given a proper trial, so there are no official court records of facts. All the confessions for alleged accomplices were given under torture or subsequently executed. This supposed list of victims that could shed light on this has never been found and none of these facts have ever been truly substantiated. It seemed like all of these came from like this wheel of rumors and innuendos and, interestingly, the first account of Elizabeth Bathory's killing spree appeared in 1729, which was a century after her death, and it was in a book called Tragica Historia by a Jesuit scholar.

Speaker 2 39:52

One of the most sensationalized parts of the Bathory story is the idea that she bathed in the blood of virgins. While some of the claims from witnesses suggest that she was involved in blood rituals, it's hard to say whether she literally bathed in it or it was just an exaggerated myth that grew over time. It's possible that the bloodbath stories were an exaggeration from the trial or just later gossip, especially since most of the testimonies came from those who were either her enemies or people involved in a trial. But no trial in a trial, but no trial. Still, the blood, still the blood connection remains part of you know it's, it is the key part of her myth and it's like this wildfire that caught and the accusations seem to have gotten worse each time the story was told. Even centuries later, there are still allegations coming up about her life. Um, I found allegations that were supposedly these new allegations as far as 2016. So, my God, yeah, it's.

Speaker 2 40:57

It's just crazy the things like the story just keeps growing and growing and growing, but that's her legacy. Whatever her legacy is, it still lives on. Some people think she was a straight up monster. Others think she was just a woman who got really unlucky and was very misunderstood. But you know, the story makes people squirm and it's been a tale that has been retold countless of times in books, in TV shows and movies. So I mean, there you have it. That's pretty much the story of Lady Bathory, so I'd love to hear your thoughts Like do you think she was a true villain or do you think she just caught up in a tale that spiraled out of control?

Speaker 3 41:45

Again, like I'm looking at the similarities of our two stories and I'm seeing two children who never got a chance to be children, two women in a time when it was very difficult to be a woman. I think that she might just be a victim of circumstance and media portrayal over something they don't understand. I think that there's. It has a lot of legs, like I can see where it's so sensationalized and these things are so horrible that it's so easy to jump to the conclusion that she was some psychotic murderer. But there's also a lot of credence to the fact. A lot of people wanted to see her fall. They had money reasons, they had personal reasons, religious reasons. She was a woman in control in a time when women weren't supposed to be in control, right, so automatically. It just makes you think.

Speaker 2 42:39

I think the truth probably lies somewhere in between. I think she probably was a very disturbed person just due to her upbringing. Was a very disturbed person just due to her upbringing.

Speaker 3 42:55

You know the, the migraines and the epilepsy, and we don't know what kind of brain damage that caused or that they used to treat it at the time exactly probably gave her arsenic and lead they could for aqua tovana exactly.

Reflections on Women's Historical Treatment

Speaker 2 43:06

Rock, with Davana, exactly, but like you know, and she was married off at age 15. She had to take care of a small little. I mean you could almost look at it as like a small little empire, right. Right, her husband was very cruel. I think that he probably did love her in his way, but he was a warmonger, he was happy being off fighting and torturing in his own right, and so she was kind of left to her own devices. And I think that the truth is somewhere. I think she probably did some cruel things. I think she probably probably did some cruel things, like I definitely could see her, you know, putting the hot coin in her servant's hands to punish them. You know, like these, like him, with the pieces of paper between their toes, you know, just like these weird little ways of punishment.

Speaker 3 44:06

This woman and hold her to a different standard, when everybody at the time was treating the servant class and the less than class like property, like they had the. They had the right to treat them this way and they're demonizing her for doing it and they're sensationalizing her for doing what they're doing.

Speaker 2 44:25

But I think you know it's like today, the rumor mill. You know it's. I mean, we have the internet and things can go like wildfire. You know rumors and innuendos. I mean you look at the powerful, the celebrities, and I mean there are just complete databases on the internet of people that supposedly have this disease and that disease. None of it's substantiated, it's just a rumor mill. So back then they didn't have the internet, they just had word of mouth. And I can see how like a story it could start at point A, which is just like hey, this woman is totally horrible to her servants, to you. Tell it enough times and you get it. You tell that story through a century. I mean it's going to get blown out of proportion. Everyone's going to add their own little twist to it. Everyone's going to just try to sensationalize it. You know I could. Just, you know it's kind of like people around a campfire telling a spooky story.

Speaker 3 45:30

Oh, I'm going to tell you this terrible story about lady bathory, you know well, you look at people like catherine the great, the things that she did for russia, like russia was so united under her she brought the art, she brought science, she shed light on religion and moving towards the future and not getting stuck in the Dark Ages.

Speaker 3 45:51

And they talked about how she, you know, had relations with the horse. And then we have Marie Antoinette, and let them eat cake. Was that really something she said or is that just something that was really fun to say around the time? Is that the meme of the century? This is something that you see it trending throughout history. Powerful women get these accusations and allegations and a lot of it can't be substantiated, but everybody still remembers it.

Speaker 2 46:19

Right, right, exactly. So I think you know I really wanted to tell this story because I just think it's one of these things that people really need to think about and, on the off chance that she is completely innocent of these crimes, I just wanted to pay like a little bit of tribute to her. That you know, we see through the holes now, in 2025, like I see the holes, I see, I see, see the contradictions, I see that you may have been innocent and I want to tell your story and tell it in a light that maybe doesn't paint you as maybe as big of a monster as you've been painted and I, honestly, I feel the same way about julavana, like they talk about her first crime at the age of 14 or 16, killing a man for the first time, getting married off, and like it's just, it's a sad story, it's a sad portion of history.

Speaker 3 47:22

It's easy to look at the murder and be like what a couple of bad women, but it's also really easy to look at it and think these were children and this is the life that they led.

Speaker 2 47:36

Yeah, Well, on that note.

Speaker 3 47:44

I mean they're very interesting stories. We love true crime. We have that touch of darkness in us where we talk about these things and it makes us think and it makes us reflect and I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

Speaker 2 47:56

No, no. Do you want to play us out there, chief? Okay.

Speaker 3 48:04

So this was I'm not going to say fun, this was enlightening. This was I'm not gonna say fun, this was enlightening. This was another true crime episode with Angie and Becca, two weirdos who cannot help but look into the darkness and ask questions. If you enjoyed this, we would love it if you would rate and subscribe wherever you get podcasts, listen to the other episodes that we've put out, because we put our little heart and souls into them, and remember, if you're alone and you have nothing to do, you can tune in and join the Black Curtain Club for 30 to 55 minutes every week on Monday when we release a new episode.

Speaker 2 48:39

I say amen, bye. Oh, we're saying bye, okay, bye, bye, okay, bye, bye. I think I had an out-of-body experience. I wasn't sure we were saying bye.

Speaker 3 49:01

The horse? I'm thinking of the horse.

Speaker 2 49:05

I'm thinking somebody slipped me some aqua to fauna. I have a bit of a. I have no. No, I'm at the, I'm at the woman cold.

Speaker 3 49:17

Fierce.

Speaker 2 49:20

Okay, all right, bye, bye you.