With 600 alleged killings, this minor character in Lizzie Borden should have been the Monster

Monster: The Lizzie Borden story is, of course, about the alleged killings of Lizzie Borden, but after watching a solid chunk of this season, I can say wholeheartedly that Ryan Murphy should have gone with Countess Elizabeth Báthory as the serial killer. 

In the new Netflix show, the stories of Countess Báthory and Aileen Wuornos are woven into Lizzie’s narrative in a bid to outline various aspects of female rage. Though Aileen features pretty extensively in the second half of the season, all the information we learn about Báthory is through the storybook Bridget gifts Lizzie. 

After falling down a rather dark rabbit hole about the Countess, I’m questioning why Ryan Murphy even bothered doing a Lizzie Borden season. 

Who was Countess Elizabeth Báthory? 

Credit: Brandon Marshall/Shutterstock

As told in the Netflix show, Countess Elizabeth Báthory was a Hungarian noblewoman and alleged serial killer born to one of Transylvania’s most prominent families. She was allegedly prone to “violent mood swings” in her youth, and some historians claim she was trained to be cruel by her powerful family. 

After the death of her husband, Count Ferenc Nádasdy, Báthory’s story took a much darker turn as she moved into Čachtice Castle in western Slovakia. 

Was she actually a serial killer? 

Though it’s still a major topic of debate amongst historians, there were rumours, speculation, and reports about Elizabeth Báthory’s untold cruelty. She would later become known as the Blood Countess after acts like stabbing needles into her victims’ lips, cutting off their hands and fingers, and beating them until they died. 

For many years, Báthory’s alleged crimes were carried out without opposition, but she then turned to torturing lower-ranked nobles, and that changed things, researcher Rachael Bledsaw said. 

In the 400 years since her passing, the countess has been accused of killing a whopping 650 young women, though she was only tried for 80 in 1610. Four of her servants were tried and executed for the crimes, but she managed to escape execution and was locked inside her castle until her death. 

She died at the age of 54. 

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Wait, did she inspire Dracula? 

Much like the rest of Báthory’s story, the claims that she bathed in virginal blood are highly disputed amongst historians. Nothing was ever confirmed, but it’s one of the reasons she became known as the Blood Countess in the centuries after her death. 

An even cooler tidbit is the claim that she was the inspiration behind Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but again, it’s a highly disputed fact. Still, there’s no doubting that she inspired countless myths and legends over the years, from Lady Dimitrescu in Resident Evil to the character of the same name in the Van Helsing series. 

Victim, or vampire? 

There’s another aspect to the countess’ story that I just know Ryan Murphy would have LOVED. You see, there are arguments that she was never a monster in the first place, but a powerful woman slapped down by men. 

She inherited a lot of money and power when her husband died, which the King of Hungary was reportedly jealous of. Some scholars of history claim the whole serial killer thing was an invention of men to get her out of the way. 

But why be one thing? Two things can be right; maybe she was taken down by jealous men AND loved killing people? 

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Featured image credit: Netflix