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The Blood Countess: Elizabeth Báthory
28 Plays2 months ago
The Blood Countess--Evil Incarnate, or an elaborate smear campaign? Elizabeth Báthory was a Hungarian noblewoman serial killer active in the late 1500s to the early 1600s. Remembered for her cruelty towards her servants, Báthory is said to be the inspiration for the Evil Queen in Snow White as well as legends about retaining ones's youth by bathing in the blood of virgins. Join Kayley and Siera as Kayley walks us through the story of The Blood Countess and attempts to tell fact from fiction in this gruesome case.
Sources:
https://www.biography.com/crime/elizabeth-bathory
https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1134&context=etd
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elizabeth-Bathory
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-69057709
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Transcript
Introduction to 'True Crime and Punishment'
00:00:01
Speaker
Hey, I'm Kaylee. And I'm Sierra. And this is True Crime and Punishment.
The Enigma of Elizabeth Bathory
00:00:07
Speaker
Today, at long last, Kaylee will be sharing with us the story of the Duchess of Bautori?
00:00:15
Speaker
Did I say it right? Yeah. Well, her name was Elizabeth Bautori, or Bautori is how it's a Hungarian name. So it's kind of an interesting pronunciation but she was also known as she's a countess so she was known as the blood countess so this is a story that there's some debate whether or not it was something that really happened or some elaborate smear campaign and I'm gonna go with that it really happened because of historical some historical facts that we see but strap in this one's kinda gnarly
00:00:53
Speaker
So yeah. Also, um just want to mention off the top, I need every everyone to take a breath and just acknowledge that I'm a dumb American and my ability to pronounce Hungarian names is only as strong as the Google name pronunciation guide that I found is.
00:01:14
Speaker
I'm really confident about Bauturi because i I watch several videos, but the rest of it... I'm a little bit iffy on, and there's one name that I straight up could not find anything to tell me how to pronounce it. So um we'll be using his first name almost exclusively because did find a pronunciation guide for that.
00:01:37
Speaker
So as long as we can all accept that I'm not going to say some things correctly. um If someone out there knows how to say some of these things, I'd love to know. Because i just think it's interesting to be correct, I guess.
00:01:51
Speaker
I'm sorry, Kaylee. I cannot accept that. Oh, I'm sorry. So just feel free to jump in and correct my pronunciation. oh no. i Never mind. I accept it
00:02:02
Speaker
All right. So. Elizabeth Bautry. Eagle incarnate or an elaborate smear campaign? Only time will tell. By time, I mean by the end of the episode, you'll probably have formed an opinion. and Her name also, i saw, was Erzabeth.
00:02:19
Speaker
And that's translated to Elizabeth. um I'm going to say Elizabeth because that's the name that she's well known as. um Even though Erzabeth, I thought, was really pretty. It is. It is pretty. Would you name your daughter that?
00:02:34
Speaker
Well, probably not, considering what her namesake would have done. but still, pretty name for a horrible woman. Let's get started. So
Pastor Janusz's Investigation Begins
00:02:46
Speaker
we're going to kick ourselves back in time to 1610. And we're actually not going to start with Elizabeth. We're going to start with a pastor.
00:02:56
Speaker
So we are in the Hungarian town of Kakitei. Um, it's spelled C-A-C-A-C-H-T-I-C-E.
00:03:07
Speaker
But from what I saw, Kakite is how you say it. Probably not quite that broken up, but I had to write myself a phonetic pronunciation. Um, so in 1610, the pastor of the Hungarian town Kakite, uh, he passed away.
00:03:24
Speaker
And so a new reverend by the name of Janusz This is a name I could not find pronunciation for, but it's Ponikenus... P-O-N-I-K-E-N-U-S-Z.
00:03:39
Speaker
um I literally wrote in my notes IDK fam, I don't know. But Janusz came to replace the pastor who had passed away. um But as he got closer to Kakite, the pastor, or the reverend as he was called, began to hear stories of a vampire...
00:03:57
Speaker
a monster who was hidden away in a castle who would mutilate young women. Oh, kind of like some Count Dracula stuff going on.
00:04:09
Speaker
Yes.
00:04:12
Speaker
Ghanoush also noted there was a distinct lack of young women in the town streets and that the townspeople were sullen and withdrawn, seeming to be tense and fearful. And they were warning him,
00:04:24
Speaker
about this monster, this woman eater, this vampire that lived up in a castle overlooking the town. But Janusz didn't pay a ton of mind to local gossip.
00:04:38
Speaker
It was a smaller town, so you can think of old backwoods town stereotype. um So Janusz was a little bit concerned, but not overly disturbed.
00:04:51
Speaker
So, as was a customary, Janusz would visit the countess um in the area. the The not quite royal family, but the political branch of... i'm trying to think of the word. The word was in my head and it's gone.
00:05:06
Speaker
What would a countess technically be? Isn't she sort of related to royalty? Like family, lineage? She is related to royalty. Her her uncle was a king of Poland.
00:05:18
Speaker
But there's a word that I had in my head, and I can't remember what it is. Nobility. Nobility. Thank you. Thank you. it was nobility. So as was customary, Anush would visit the countess in the area. So he would just connect with the noble family.
00:05:33
Speaker
So if you ever watched like a period piece, you might see that rich man. families of nobility or from noble lines would often have a clergyman or just a man of the cloth who would kind of work under them and live on their land.
00:05:47
Speaker
If you've ever seen Pride and Prejudice, you know, Mr. Collins was a patronage. Lady Catherine de Boer. That was the first thing I thought of. Lady Catherine de Boer.
00:06:00
Speaker
Lady Catherine. So Janusz was going to go visit, essentially, the big wig in the area. And the
A Suspicious Visit to Bathory's Castle
00:06:06
Speaker
big wig in this area was a wealthy widow named Elizabeth Bathory.
00:06:14
Speaker
She was a countess and she lived in a castle on the hill overlooking the town of Kakitei. So she had a reputation of being quite the local beauty. She was a beautiful woman.
00:06:25
Speaker
um And she was 50 years old and she so ah lived up to this reputation, even though she was apparently getting over an illness when Janusz went to go visit her. She was courteous to Janusz, but he felt like there was this tension in subdued aura in her castle.
00:06:43
Speaker
There were just things that seemed off. The castle was, it seemed dead. Parts of it, rooms and wings were closed off and seemed deserted. And the courtyard, which normally would be a hubbub, like a center of activity, lacked any sort of life or activity. There was no one there.
00:07:03
Speaker
And her servants seemed skittish and a little distrusting and just kind of beaten down. So that was a little odd. But she seemed pleasant enough. So um after leaving the countess, Janusz would attempt to shake off the gloom and despair of the castle and the townspeople. And he began to go through the notes left by his predecessor, the pastor who had passed away. I don't have a name for this gentleman.
00:07:29
Speaker
We just know that he apparently existed.
00:07:32
Speaker
Unfortunately, Yannoush would not be able to leave the countess behind in like in her castle looming over the town, because in the notes from his predecessor, he found information about the horrors that apparently took place in the castle.
00:07:48
Speaker
He found startling long lists of local women and girls who had died. yes Did the pastor before him die of natural causes? There's no information about it, but based on what we're about to learn, it did seem rather suspect, but it doesn't sound like he was necessarily killed.
00:08:06
Speaker
I thought it suspicious, but there's really nothing to support that other than the fact that he died and he had also done something before he died that was like... Oh, wow.
00:08:18
Speaker
I'm sorry, pray continue.
00:08:21
Speaker
So he found these lists of local women and girls who had died while employed by the countess and was a very long list.
00:08:32
Speaker
Apparently, his predecessor would bury these girls at night at the behest of the countess. She would send a servant to him in the night and implore the pastor to come and bury these girls quickly and quietly.
00:08:48
Speaker
um Did he do it? Yes.
00:08:55
Speaker
What did they look like? Well, usually they were sent to him already in coffins. But the pastor had made notes about this because he was uneasy about the fact that he could not explain how these girls had died.
00:09:14
Speaker
And it made them it made him very reluctant to just bury them without inquiry. He didn't like that.
00:09:22
Speaker
Janus found another note saying the man before him had been asked to bury nine women in a singular night in an underground crypt near the castle. Nine women in one night.
00:09:37
Speaker
And the fact that she already has a supply of coffins on hand, like I find that disturbing. Yes. So screwing up his courage, Yannouche would go to this crypt because as the pastor, he had a key.
00:09:51
Speaker
Because he was in charge of burying the dead last rice, that kind of thing. That was a pastor, a reverend's duty, so to speak. He went to the crypt and inside he found nine box style coffins stacked in the corner.
00:10:05
Speaker
And he noted they'd been left carelessly. They were not nailed shut. They were just stacked in a corner. of this They seemed to be of very little importance to whoever had left them there.
00:10:17
Speaker
Inside the coffins, Janusz would find nine dead women, as he knew he would. Based on the pastor's notes, however, the state of their bodies was shocking.
00:10:28
Speaker
These women had been mutilated. Some had been burned partially, all recovered in dried blood an excessive amount. Worst of all, Yanush noted that the bodies, some of them were littered with bite marks.
00:10:43
Speaker
Having some of them, not just bite marks, but ripping bite marks. Something had bitten these people and ripped the skin, still in there in the mouth of whatever creature had done this, and had done it to rip the skin, not just to bite someone.
00:10:58
Speaker
having torn the skin as if it had been ripped from the bone or someone was trying to rip it from the bone. The most disturbing part was that these teeth marks were obviously human. Oh, no.
00:11:10
Speaker
No, no, no. I thought we were leaving cannibalism behind with the Donner Party.
00:11:16
Speaker
The worst part is I don't think this was cannibalistic. It was just cruel and violent. Were they alive? When they were bitten? Yeah. Yes.
00:11:28
Speaker
We'll find out, yes. Oh my goodness. but Okay, continue. So, Janusz was terrified, but he would immediately write to his superiors in the capital city and be like, yo, um nine dead women, crazy things, the countess is weird, i don't know what's going on.
Attempts to Expose the Countess
00:11:48
Speaker
So he wrote this note. And he sent this report with a messenger and was just going to wait until he received word of what to do. Or, you know, hopefully the king's men would rain down and figure this out for him.
00:12:01
Speaker
However, Yannush's messenger would return to him and say that the countess's guards had found him on the road, stopped him, confiscated his note, read and had him return to town without the note and did not allow him to deliver it.
00:12:18
Speaker
no So Janusz, fearing for his own life at this point, attempted to flee the town. Yeah, I'm fearing for his life. Oh, sorry. I'm fearing for his life too right now. Yeah.
00:12:29
Speaker
So he he attempted to flee. He was going to leave and just go see his superiors himself and and and figure this out from afar. um Just like his note, though, he would be stopped by the town guards.
00:12:43
Speaker
They would turn him back around and order him to return to his church.
00:12:50
Speaker
no how many guards were there could he just run a different way if you should get out of there run of the night you knew shit it's like get out of it buddy but yanush decided what he would do is he would gather details from the villagers he'd heard those stories stories whispered at the vampire on the hill and everything like that and he found out That the pastor had been burying these women at the behest of the countess for years.
00:13:18
Speaker
Until he began to refuse based on the sheer volume of dead women and the fact he did not know how these women died. Good for him. After that, ah the townspeople told him that bodies had just been found dumped in the area.
00:13:33
Speaker
oh Four mutlet like mutilated women's bodies were found in a grain silo. Some were found in a canal, cornfields, the forests, everywhere, ditches on the side of the road.
00:13:43
Speaker
There would be mutilated women's bodies just found, unburied.
00:13:52
Speaker
Eventually, Janusz would smuggle a letter to authorities, detailing everything that he'd learned and what he'd seen.
00:14:00
Speaker
What happened after that letter made it to the authorities is so gruesome. What we found out was so gruesome, so bizarre, that we're still talking about it hundreds of years later. Now we're
Elizabeth Bathory's Origins and Rise
00:14:11
Speaker
going to jump back in time.
00:14:13
Speaker
Even further? Yep, we're going to go to 1560.
00:14:18
Speaker
Oh, I didn't look up a pronunciation for this. Born in Nyabartar, that's probably wrong, Hungary, is now Slovakia on August 7th, which is two days after my birthday, and I don't like that. 1560, Elizabeth Bautery was born into wealth and political and social power.
00:14:36
Speaker
Her family controlled Transylvania and her uncle was actually the king of Poland. um His name was Stefan Bautery. I also saw somewhere that i pronounced Istewa, Istewa Bautery, but it's it's spelled like Stephen.
00:14:52
Speaker
So Stefan is what I would think. But either way, Bautery was the king of Poland. Again, this is also where we see the pronunciation of Urzjabet, which it's Urzabet, Urzjabet as well. um But we're going to say Elizabeth to keep my life easier.
00:15:09
Speaker
At the age of 11, Elizabeth was engaged to a man named Ferenc Nadashti. How old was Ferenc?
00:15:21
Speaker
He was born on October 6, 1555. fifteen fifty five So he was five years older than her. A little less than five years. Okay. So she he was 11 and he was 16. sixteen um And they were just engaged at this point.
00:15:35
Speaker
But in 1575, she would marry Ferentz. So if we're going to do some quick math there. She was 15 and he was 20. So not like the most egregious age gap we could have seen in the 1500s, but still. Yeah. Kind of nasty.
00:15:50
Speaker
Yeah. It seems like a lot. The difference between 15-year-old and a 20-year-old is crazy. There's a lot of difference there. Maybe not back then, but... Yeah. yeah um We have some like information about Elizabeth.
00:16:04
Speaker
It was said that she was a peculiar child. And there's not a ton of historical information about her, but it is rumored that Elizabeth, before she was married at 15, fathered a bastard child that was born and smuggled away in secret.
00:16:20
Speaker
So as not to shame the family, but that can't really be 100% proven. But it is said that she wasn't quite normal for the day. Interesting.
00:16:33
Speaker
Did she torture small animals or wet the bed? Because those are two signs of a potential serial killer. We actually don't know about that. It was surprising she didn't torture small animals, given what she's going to do humans later. But, oh my goodness. Allegedly.
00:16:47
Speaker
Anyway, so when the couple married, they would actually be gifted Castle Kakite from the Nagashti family. So that's crazy, you know.
00:17:01
Speaker
Yeah, like like wedding bells are ringing. Here's a castle. Like. Sorry, Kaylee. You're 15. Here's a castle.
00:17:10
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. She's 15 and she already has her whole castle. Sorry, Kaylee. You will not be getting a castle as a wedding present. ah Well, I mean, maybe my future husband might be super, super wealthy and just give me a castle.
00:17:22
Speaker
Judging by the story, you should probably stay away from nobility. But I guess just a wealthy man would be fine. I'm not nobility myself, so I really can't marry you. Another, something that was kind of cool to me, like, something interesting.
00:17:35
Speaker
um So we know Elizabeth as Elizabeth Boutry. That was her name. She didn't take on her husband's last name of Nadashti because she was actually socially higher than him.
00:17:47
Speaker
Being from the higher nobility, he was a count, but believe his was a count by marriage to her. oh So or she wore the nobility pants. Yep.
00:17:58
Speaker
So she kept her name because she was of higher standing. Their children did take his last name. And they they did have children. um i was going to say, if I were their child, I would so totally take my dad's name instead of hers. oh Yeah. so so yeah So since she was of higher standing, she got to keep her name. And i think that's kind of cool.
00:18:19
Speaker
I'm sure like his family, when this came out, we don't know her. am I? But they would have... Okay.
00:18:30
Speaker
I saw between like four and five children. I believe the the correct number is five. um But Elizabeth and Ferentz would have five children from 1585 to 1595. So at this point, she's 25 to 35 having her children.
00:18:47
Speaker
So they didn't have kids for like 10 years, which... Okay, that's good. Probably wise. Yeah. um Two would pass away in infancy, but two daughters and one son would survive. So Ferenc was actually a soldier, so he was away ah quite a lot fighting the Ottoman Turks.
00:19:03
Speaker
And so Elizabeth would spend most of her time in their marriage kind of without her husband, just chilling in their castle with their children. So they had cut not necessarily a turbulent marriage. was just a distant one.
00:19:14
Speaker
um and It was an arranged marriage. Who knows knows how much affection was actually exchanged between the pair.
00:19:22
Speaker
But Ferenc would pass away. Ferenc would pass away in 1604. After nearly 30 years of marriage. And it was after her husband's death.
00:19:34
Speaker
That some really troubling rumors about li about Elizabeth. Started swirling around town. This is when we would hear that women started disappearing and there was a vampire on the hill and all that kind of thing.
00:19:47
Speaker
So, what was old Lizzie doing up in her castle on the hill?
The Brutality of Bathory's Actions
00:19:52
Speaker
ah Well, to put it simply, she was a raging sadist. And she started by torturing her servant girls. Now, this is Hungary in the 15 and 1600s.
00:20:03
Speaker
um It really wasn't that big of a deal if you chose to beat your servants to death for insolence. Because you're nobility. You can do no wrong.
00:20:13
Speaker
So it wasn't necessarily that it was odd for her to be extremely violent. um But the number of servant girls who would be tortured would it was abnormal.
00:20:25
Speaker
Let's say it that way. Let's see. I got a lot of my information from a book called Female Serial Killers How and Why Women Kill by Peter Voronsky. me tell Let me tell you.
00:20:37
Speaker
let me tell you It was ah a lot to read, let's say that.
00:20:44
Speaker
Do-do-do-do-do. Give me one second while I find the quote.
00:20:50
Speaker
I'm going to give you a little bit information about what happened to these peasant girls. Here's a quote I found in Peter Voronsky's book that I found interesting. Disciplining one's servants to death it was, in the sixteen hundreds perceived as excessively cruel and impolite, but nonetheless it remained an aristocrat's prerogative.
00:21:09
Speaker
A lot of this comes out later. And it's kind of, i i debated how to tell this story for a while because there's a lot of information that comes out after her trial because we do get to have a trial.
00:21:22
Speaker
Oh. But I think it would be kind of better to give you a little bit of upfront information about what she would do and then kind of build from there. Okay. Yeah, look for it. Okay.
00:21:33
Speaker
So it was said that Elizabeth just basically, she liked torturing these girls. She liked to be cruel and violent. And on some level, as an aristocrat, that was her right. She could, they were her servants and they were paid.
00:21:48
Speaker
They were paid employees, um which meant she paid essentially to do whatever she wanted. and it was said that she was very, very exacting. So if if one of her hairs was out of place and the girl who did her hair, she would she would beat them.
00:22:03
Speaker
She would instruct her other servants to beat them. she would if If her clothes weren't ironed properly, the girl who did it would be essentially tortured. So said that she would push needles into the girl's fingers and under their fingernails.
00:22:15
Speaker
She would cut their noses and lips. ah She whipped the girls with stinging nettles. It was also reported that she was a biter. So she would bite the girls' shoulders and their chest and as well as burn their skin, um including their their genitals. it was it was It was done so long ago that modern day researchers have looked at it and said a lot of this aggression towards like the breasts and the genitals and things like that, that is some it's weird and it's sexual.
00:22:41
Speaker
But really can't prove anything because she's – spoiler alert, she's dead. So like we can interview her and see like, well, why did you do that? ah Because quite frankly, she – we don't know why she did it.
00:22:54
Speaker
To be honest, I don't think we need to know why. You just should not do that. And the fact that she did it is disturbing. Yeah. um So we don't know if it was like some sort of like weird obsession with women.
00:23:08
Speaker
saw it positive. Maybe she was a lesbian. i'm I don't think lesbians would just start killing people. I don't know. um But it was the 1600s. So maybe she was just really repressed. I don't i i digress. um So she didn't she she was an elaborate torturer. She she got creative.
00:23:25
Speaker
um So it was said that at one point she had a servant girl stripped naked. And they forced her into a cold ice bath.
00:23:37
Speaker
And then she instructed her other... was during the coldest part of the year. She instructed other servants to pour water on this girl until the water started to freeze on the surface of her skin.
00:23:48
Speaker
And it was done to kill her. It wasn't done to to torture her. It was to torture her to death. And she knew what she was doing. There was also reports that some of these girls, they she would...
00:23:59
Speaker
Also force them to strip naked, cover them in honey, and tie them up outside so that insects would literally bite their flesh and kill them.
00:24:10
Speaker
ah Oh my goodness. Creative. Everyone's so clearly... she clearly enjoyed this it was something she did for her own personal pleasure um in fact there were stories uh that came out from some of her servants that she would be sick and lying in bed and she would still call for one of her servant girls to be brought forth and whipped in front of her so she could watch ugh disgusting ugh this wasn't unknown by the townspeople they knew that their daughters were going missing
00:24:48
Speaker
um They knew they were dying, strangely. And so they would report this to authorities, but the authorities really didn't care. That's unfortunate. Because these were just peasants. Were the peasants drawing the connection to the Countess's castle? Like, could they refuse to work for her if she, be if she like, I don't know, summoned people?
00:25:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. um And eventually people would but' start refusing. so she would go to further towns out outside of where she was at where maybe she wasn't as well known and she would hire people from there and she basically burned through a lot of servant girls her death toll is reported to be in the 600s oh my goodness that's insane yep this is over several years and some pity her husband who married into this but it's also said
00:25:41
Speaker
Oh, gross. Oh, sorry.
00:25:46
Speaker
of his wife's proclivities and also oh gross that will okay i thought oh i'm sorry I thought sorry this all started after he died. So this was going on before he died. That's when rumors started coming out about her. That were more well known. Okay.
00:26:03
Speaker
And we'll get to why. Because she starts – the reason she gets caught is because she got cocky. Okay. Which often happens with serial killers. But anyway, you said some of it the insects were his idea or something? Well, that was his idea. there is read somewhere that apparently – would let me see i can find it basically he would gave her gave her tips essentially and he said well we did this in war so here's what you do they wasted honey in a war there was one where it said that let me see if i can find it hold on here it is here to this is directly from the book i'm read directly
00:26:47
Speaker
It says, while at first was blue that Elizabeth began killing her killing spree after her husband's death, witnesses testified that the murders began while her husband was still alive and with his knowledge and participation.
00:27:00
Speaker
So here's a quote from, I believe it's from um trial transcripts that we we have. and At Savar during summer, his lordship Count Ferenc Dashti had a young girl undressed until stark naked while his lordship looked on with his own eyes.
00:27:14
Speaker
The girl was then covered over with honey and made to stand throughout a day and night so that she would be covered in insect bites. She collapsed into unconsciousness. His lordship taught the countess that in such a case, one must place pieces of paper dipped in oil between the toes of the girl and set them on fire.
00:27:32
Speaker
Even if she was already half dead, she would jump up. Oh my goodness. So he gave her tips and pointers. Basically, a lot of what they did, they it was said that Elizabeth would beat girls until ah she had to change her clothes because they were soaked in blood.
00:27:50
Speaker
um There's a story about one of her servant girls apparently stealing a pair. And I believe that's one of the ones that she kind of gets caught for. um But she had beat her until there was so much blood. It was like on the hem of her clothing.
00:28:05
Speaker
And then she stabbed her with scissors and, you know bit her. And basically the girl did not die quickly or easily. Let's see.
00:28:16
Speaker
Oh my word. The kids, the kids that they had, did they know that all this was happening? From what I see, I don't believe it was hidden from them. ah But it's said that she had like a room where she would torture them.
00:28:31
Speaker
um my goodness. She also was like, here's another thing that was said about her. she pinched them, left girls out in the snow. She would beat them so hard that one could scoop up the blood from their beds by the handfuls.
00:28:47
Speaker
Oh Oh my god. Oh my attack them with knives um singed a girl with a candle and one time her ladyship this is direct one time her ladyship lay sick and therefore could not be anyone herself so a servant was compelled to bring the victims to the countess's bed where she would rise up from her pillow and bite pieces of the flush from the girl's necks shoulders and breasts oh my goodness so
00:29:16
Speaker
She was just bad all around. But yeah, she was creative and elaborate. And it she would and she would torture girls for everything and anything.
00:29:28
Speaker
um Under the guise of, oh, well, you're in my employ. You're in my employ. So i if you don't do what I want, I'm going to beat you. And no one could really stop her. Which what she was doing was illegal because it was murder. She was killing people with the intention of killing them.
00:29:44
Speaker
So it's not just that her servant girl, you know, did something wrong and she beat her and then accidentally killed her. Right. To beat someone to death with the intention to beat someone to death, even in the 1600s and 1500s, was not okay.
00:29:58
Speaker
But the government didn't care that much because they were peasant girls. Right. What got her caught, essentially, other than the brave work of Yanoosh, who would suffer greatly for this.
00:30:10
Speaker
Wait, please tell me, does he at least live? He doesn't. He lives. But he would essentially have a nervous break and he would start hallucinating. At one point he was screaming that the Countess had sent wolves and dogs to kill him.
00:30:25
Speaker
um And that they were he was de condemning the beast back to hell or something. But there people were there and they said nothing was there. He was yelling it. blank space oh no but he he lived essentially like in fear that he was going to be killed yeah can't blame him there but what got her caught was essentially she got cocky and it was starting to get hard to get servant girls to come work for her understandably around 1610 25 young women from minor noble families were invited to stay with battery her cattle
00:31:01
Speaker
She went for nobility? Yes. Oh my goodness. Several of these girls would disappear. When parents asked about their daughters, Elizabeth told them that one of the girls had lost her mind and decided to to kill a bunch of girls to steal their jewels and their jewelry before being overcome by guilt and killing herself.
00:31:25
Speaker
Oh my goodness. When the parents of the accused girl demanded their daughter's body back, Elizabeth refused and said that the girl was buried immediately in unconsecrated ground because of her suicide.
00:31:39
Speaker
Not the murder, the suicide part. And whoops, unmarked grave! We don't know where she was actually. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. The other girls who hadn't been robbed and murdered of the 25...
00:31:53
Speaker
um all died of a weird disease that just cropped up in the castle. Oh my word. That's what she you told them. All of them. And they had to be buried immediately because they didn't want that disease to spread around to other people.
00:32:07
Speaker
oh my goodness. So now you can't have your children's body back because i weird disease, you know. COVID-2 or something because it the fifteen hundred So we had bury them quick so it didn't spread around.
00:32:19
Speaker
She said she buried them secretly because she didn't want word of an epidemic spreading and scaring the locals. That's why I didn't tell you your kids died. Oops.
00:32:30
Speaker
Oh my goodness. I would not take that lying down if I were a parent. And they didn't. Good. The government started to give a rip because now nobility was saying, yeah, our daughters are gone. And it seems weird.
00:32:43
Speaker
And then like, oh, shoot, this is the woman who we've been getting reports about her killing local peasants for a while.
The Arrest and Evidence Uncovered
00:32:49
Speaker
we probably to do something about that. So what they did was they sent a prince to deal with it. This was actually Prince George or Giggory.
00:32:59
Speaker
Terzo? Terzo?
00:33:03
Speaker
um He was her cousin, I believe. And he was dispatched to visit Elizabeth at Castle Kakite to see what was going on after reports of these missing noblewomen. Reports from the priests that were saying, yeah, weird stuff's happening.
00:33:20
Speaker
they reported four bodies that were apparently dumped over the walls of the castle in plain view. Oh my goodness. So these are the reports they're getting. So when Thurzo, or George, we're just call him George.
00:33:32
Speaker
When George walked into the castle with his um his traveling party, and he reportedly stumbled across the still warm body of a servant girl who had been brutally beaten and stabbed to death, left in the courtyard doorway.
00:33:50
Speaker
oh my goodness. Now this servant actually has a name that we know. Around Christmas, I believe it was December 29th, a young girl named Doricza, D-O-R-I-C-Z-A,
00:34:08
Speaker
from she was Croatian from the town of it's Redneck, R-E-D-N-E-K, it's definitely not pronounced Redneck, but like probably Redneck or something. um She was apparently caught stealing a pair.
00:34:19
Speaker
Elizabeth was enraged and she ordered that the girl be taken down to the laundry room, which is apparently where she did a lot of her murdering, stripped naked and be tied down. And then she and her other servants who she would order to assist her um took turns beating this girl to death ah with a club.
00:34:39
Speaker
Apparently, it's it's reported that Elizabeth was so totally soaked in blood that she had to change her clothes. you know And they beat this girl late into the night and she wasn't dying. Oh my goodness.
00:34:51
Speaker
Elizabeth apparently told one of her female servants to stab this girl to death with a pair of scissors. And this is where that body that George dripped over, that was this this girl's body. And they were going to dispose of the body the next morning.
00:35:09
Speaker
So since he found that body, his raiding party that had come with him, they basically already like, well, here's our proof. There's that there's a a body here.
00:35:19
Speaker
yeah um So they demanded entry into the castle ah where they discovered two more brutalized bodies within the manor house. And at the bottom of a tower, many decayed remains were found. oh So yeah, just kind of hanging around.
00:35:38
Speaker
They also, it's part of legend that George walked in on Elizabeth sitting in her chambers chewing on a girl, essentially. But that's ah it's more legend than what we know from trial documents.
00:35:51
Speaker
Okay. ah But he was, George was disturbed and he immediately called for Elizabeth to be locked up in her home. She couldn't be Normie arrested because she was nobility. So she couldn't be with the common folk.
00:36:04
Speaker
Of course not. it's Common street throughout thugs, not our countess murderer.
00:36:11
Speaker
Honestly, I would say that, but for the safety of the street thugs.
00:36:16
Speaker
Yeah. So essentially what happened after this, we'll go through her trial relatively quickly.
Trial and Political Undertones
00:36:23
Speaker
It was a bit of a hush hush thing. Why?
00:36:26
Speaker
Because her family didn't want the, um, didn't really want the scandal. And if she was arrested and thrown into prison, the state could could seize her land and her assets, which her family, of course, did not want.
00:36:41
Speaker
Because, first of all, that's mega embarrassing if your relative has been a murdering girls for years. Let's just say that. What they ended up doing.
00:36:53
Speaker
Elizabeth herself thought she was beyond the law. The law could not touch her.
00:36:59
Speaker
Lizzie. so Which wasn't quite true. She could be put to death. Her status did not save her from that. But had she been put to death, the crown could have taken her properties and her money and all that jazz.
00:37:13
Speaker
and Another thing that this kind of goes into when we talk about the um possibility of this being a smear campaign slash political intrigue. It's actually reported that the Hungarian king had borrowed money from Lizzie.
00:37:29
Speaker
And he was in debt to this wealthy widow. So if she had been killed, the crown's debt would be canceled instead of being paid out to her surviving family members.
00:37:42
Speaker
So king really would have benefited from killing her. Let's just say it that way. Yeah. um So George actually made sure that Elizabeth's trial would take place in his jurisdiction because he could ensure that her property would remain in her family and that her debts would be paid or needed to be paid to her surviving relatives.
00:38:05
Speaker
Okay. We have actually lot of records about Elizabeth and that's because there was this kind of rumor going around that her she was the victim of a family plot to steal her money.
00:38:21
Speaker
um and She was entirely, entirely innocent.
00:38:26
Speaker
I mean, there's that girl they found. Yeah, all the bodies. Yeah, no, no. No way, Lizzie. Thanks to George's thoroughness, we have a lot of court transcripts and witness testimony.
00:38:41
Speaker
That's where we find out about these what she did to these servant girls. because remember, their bodies were buried quickly or discarded quickly. So it was testimony from servants that we heard everything about what she did.
00:38:57
Speaker
so we have court transcripts, witness statements, just a lot. George's own correspondence. And just basically a lot of records from this time. So she was tried and guess what? Found guilty.
00:39:08
Speaker
Crazy. But she was nobility and they didn't want her killed because then all of her money would go bye-bye and all of her property would go bye-bye. sad. I know. Let's see. i have this fire in my nose.
00:39:22
Speaker
Do-do-do-do-do.
00:39:25
Speaker
I have this in such terrible order.
00:39:30
Speaker
She was convicted of about 80 murders. um Some say 50, some 51. But people, servants would put it a much, much higher number.
00:39:41
Speaker
But since she was a noble woman, she couldn't receive a peasant's death. Oh no, no. Instead of being executed like she should have been and like her alleged accomplices were,
00:39:54
Speaker
She was locked away in her castle. Are you kidding me? She ah allegedly was boarded into... Some say she had full run of the castle, but based on this line in a um court document, 1610, 29th of December, Elizabeth Boutry was put in the tower behind four walls because in her rage, she killed some of her female servants.
00:40:19
Speaker
That was from a priest's diary of the time period. Oh my goodness. Because that's what George did when he found her. He locked her in her house. And that was her official punishment. She was locked in her house.
00:40:31
Speaker
That is unacceptable. She needed No. no She had some older women, older servants, who were her alleged accomplices.
00:40:42
Speaker
There were four accomplices. One was a young man and three were older women or just three women. Some describe them as old. Two women were put to death. The man was put to death. And the third woman was allegedly let go.
00:40:55
Speaker
and no one knows what happened to her. sixteen ten 1610. And then and later on, another woman and her employee would be charged and tried and executed. So four people died for Elizabeth's murders and for assisting, but not Elizabeth.
00:41:09
Speaker
That's messed up. Like, I agree. If they helped kill those girls, even if they were scared, like you never should do that. So yes, they deserve to die. But I mean, she should have been the first to go. oh my goodness.
00:41:22
Speaker
So Elizabeth lived yep locked away in castle in her castle for four years before she would die of a mysterious illness. So call it karma.
00:41:33
Speaker
I hope it was painful. I'm sorry. mean... But I do hope it was painful.
00:41:41
Speaker
So... Now, we know about this now. um her Her actual like conviction was basically life imprisonment. So, in perpetuous carcerebus, if you want to do the Latin, which is perpetual incarceration.
00:41:57
Speaker
Okay. Um...
00:42:04
Speaker
So, we have a lot of testimony. um so more testimony. Basically, they said that people who testified against her that she would torture her servants for the slightest mistake.
00:42:16
Speaker
They said that she would tear at the mouth of... um She once tore the mouth of a servant girl who had made an error while sewing. Basically. Basically.
00:42:28
Speaker
It was just lot. So her four accomplices testified and then they were killed. Three of them. um And that's where we find out about the needles and her pinching these. results That's where we got all that information.
00:42:40
Speaker
So apparently they were they bricked her in the building. like she wasn't not Not only was she like bricked in, like locked in, she was bricked in. The windows were bricked. There was very small openings for ventilation and food was given to her through like a small opening.
00:42:56
Speaker
But she had very little contact with the outside world. And on August 21st, 1614, one of her jailers saw that she had collapsed on the floor and that she was dead. Good. And all mention of her name was like basically forbidden.
00:43:10
Speaker
For about 100 years, her she was actually rediscovered in 1720. Did they do that because like out of respect for the family or just because it was such egregious crimes or just because they didn't want the scandal? Like why wouldn't people mention her name?
00:43:25
Speaker
Didn't want the scandal. It was embarrassing. She was part of the she was related to the royal family. She was a mega rich. And um also, it's probably really embarrassing that it took them 30 years to actually take this seriously.
00:43:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so many people should have been getting in trouble for this. this So how do we know about her psychosis if it was basically hush hush?
00:43:49
Speaker
um And even in that thing I read earlier where it was talking about how the priest's diary, the public knew That she was imprisoned because she lost her temper and beat some of her servant girls to death. Which really wasn't that big of a deal back then.
00:44:01
Speaker
Which is kind of terrifying considering I definitely would have been a little servant girl in a castle. Given my economic standing nowadays. Getting beaten by Hungarian royalty for not, I don't know, pooping her hair correctly.
00:44:13
Speaker
ah But we know all about her because a Jesuit scholar by the name of Laszlo Taraski. Definitely said that wrong. found her trial records in 1720, excuse me, and he would detail his findings, um including really detailed descriptions of her crimes, which is how we know what she did, and he would publish them in a book, and he published it entirely in Latin.
00:44:35
Speaker
And then later, another man in the 1970s, they, um archival
Debunking the Blood Bath Myth
00:44:45
Speaker
information about Elizabeth Bowsry was kind of released, and also written into a book by another man, which I thought I had his name written down, but clearly not.
00:44:57
Speaker
In the 1970s, we have more information from these actual, like, court records that was put out, um but we have a lot of information about this because, while it wasn't public knowledge, they still had to have court records.
00:45:09
Speaker
So, this is all, like...
00:45:13
Speaker
Legit, unfortunately. i know some people think it was an elaborate spear campaign. um i do think parts of her story are exaggerated. um One thing, if you've ever heard about this um story, Elizabeth Bautry is known as the Blood Countess because it was reported widely that she blaed bathed in the blood of virgins. Have you ever heard that kind of horror movie motif of like... Yes.
00:45:35
Speaker
Yeah, I have. Yeah, it was really common with Lizzie's story. It was said that's what she did. I probably should stop calling her Lizzie. um
00:45:46
Speaker
So we know that Bautry is known for bathing in the blood of virgins. That's why a lot of people say her name Elizabeth Bathory. um It's spelled that way. but This is because a man by the name of Michael Wagner published this info in a book called Articles on Philosophical Anthropology in 1796.
00:46:05
Speaker
He detailed that a chambermaid pointed out that a strand or like a little little chunk of Elizabeth's hair was out of place. And Elizabeth responded by hitting her so hard that the girl's nose sprayed blood.
00:46:20
Speaker
And it blew back and got in Elizabeth's face. And then Wagner also reported that when she wiped the blood from her face, she found her skin rejuvenated.
00:46:31
Speaker
So she began to bathe her entire body in blood. No. The story kind of warps from there. um Some say the blood sprayed onto her hand. Some say that Elizabeth would only believe this to be true if the blood came from aristocrats or virgins or aristocratic virgins, depending on which story you read.
00:46:50
Speaker
um So either way, this is likely untrue. extensive records of her torture and murders are not really likely to have shied away from the gruesome details considering they were literally like yeah she used a candle and burnt a woman in the genitals she bit women on the breast shoulders and everything they weren't shying away from the taboo so i think if she would and they talked about her clothes being covered in blood and her having to change her clothes and scooping blood up by the handfuls i don't think they would have said oh we can't tell them about the blood bathing because that's bones throw too far from normal
00:47:27
Speaker
So I really, ah to put it bluntly, we have extensive information about her other exploits, and they likely wouldn't have left out the info about her playing draining the blood aversions. i It's also pertinent to mention that the first account of these bloodbaths come about 100 years after her death, so it's likely that these are fabricated.
00:47:46
Speaker
yeah so why are we making up more crack things that she did like she did enough oh here's where it is in 1983 a man named raymond mcnally he was a professor at a college in boston found the original trial documents in a hungarian like archive and found no mention of anyone bathing in blood virgin or otherwise so there you go the sentences you never think you'll hear in real life I just, I don't understand the whole concept of like, oh, the virgin blood will be better. Like, how do you know someone's a virgin?
00:48:18
Speaker
I guess if your skin's not rejuvenated. Oh, goodness. Oh, boy.
00:48:27
Speaker
Can't go bathing horse blood.
00:48:31
Speaker
Oh, my. Sounds so gross. It all sounds so gross. She was gross. And I'm so mad that she ought to just live out her days in the castle. Yeah. Yep.
00:48:42
Speaker
Well, she was probably miserable because she couldn't beat anyone to death while she was in isolation. No one let her bite people through the little slots they shoved her gruel through. i just imagined her there with like a little toothpick trying to push it through the slats, trying to hurt someone out there.
00:48:59
Speaker
my goodness. But yeah, so I found a really interesting... When I was doing research for this case, I found this lady's thesis...
00:49:10
Speaker
And she wrote about Elizabeth Bautry and how she thinks it's unlikely that this was politically motivated and that it wasn't true. Because another woman that I found, she is convinced that Elizabeth Bautry is innocent and that everything that's being, she's a professor, this lady, can't remember her name. And I'm going to say some not very kind things about her research, so I don't really want to look it up.
00:49:33
Speaker
Okay. um i it she thinks that it was an elaborate smear campaign that elizabeth bellator was actually trying to do some good in the world and i don't believe that for a second um sorry and and it's probably because the article i read was written by the bbc it wasn't written by the lady herself um had quotes from her but everything she was saying just really seemed like
00:50:03
Speaker
ah kind of a straw man argument of well there's no way she could have done this this sounds crazy I'm like yeah it was crazy murder is not normal oh it's actually like quite a perversion on the human nature human spirit who'd have thunk it but she um said that when she was 17, she found a book about the blood countess.
00:50:28
Speaker
And she remembered, like, she bought it and she just thought it was 650 girls in 30 years. That's crazy. That not doesn't seem possible. And so it kind of seems like her belief that this didn't happen stems from the fact that it's too crazy to have happened.
00:50:45
Speaker
And 650 girls in 30 years, that's 21 girls one girls a year That is, oh I can't believe I'm uttering this statement. But honestly, if you're an aristocrat with so much money and lots of time on your hands, that is totally doable. um Unfortunately, doable is also the word I was thinking of.
00:51:03
Speaker
That seems like she could do it. And quite frankly, it's not like she spree killed a lot. But this lady believes that at one point Elizabeth Bathory spent, I believe it was $26 million dollars of nowadays money on clothing in Venice. Yeah.
00:51:18
Speaker
It's also a rumor that she killed a singer in Venice ah who didn't want to sing for her So famous singer.
00:51:27
Speaker
who disappeared after being coerced to perform for Boutry. But it was $26 million dollars for the clothes. And the lady, the quote was something along the lines of, that's not a personal wardrobe, that's a business expense.
00:51:41
Speaker
Excuse me. yeah I'm like, she's a crazy rich lady. She would pay $26 million dollars for clothes in Venice. Anyway, she also would kill people. But what this lady believes essentially is that all – because coffins were seen being so ferried away from the castle at night.
00:51:58
Speaker
She thinks that these women who disappeared weren't murdered. should They were smuggled out of the area to where they could find better jobs, better life in a not-quite-so-war-torn country with religious and systemic oppression for women. I'm like, she killed women.
00:52:13
Speaker
Yeah. Excuse me, smuggled. not some feminist – Why would they need to be smuggled? Nobody cared about them. The government didn't care enough to investigate their deaths. Essentially, i love that that's her belief. I love that she wants to the positive side of this, but I'm also not going to start saying that Jack the Ripper probably had a good reason for murdering prostitutes. Yeah. likes It was a business expense.
00:52:37
Speaker
and so um And also, if she wanted to help them get better lives, wouldn't like a letter of recommendation and sending them to some of her royal family in better cities or whatever be more beneficial to the women than smuggling them out in coffins?
00:52:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:53
Speaker
Like, I don't understand that lady's reasoning. No. Or just giving them jobs and not beating them. like That would be great. If she has all that money to spend on clothes, why didn't she just pay her servants better?
00:53:07
Speaker
Clearly she
Was Bathory a Monster or a Victim?
00:53:08
Speaker
has small amount coffins. Just the entire story. it's it's It's a romanticized version of events, I think. But anyway. um The thesis I read was basically disproving that by saying yeah,
00:53:23
Speaker
Because people say, oh, she was it was a political smear campaign, that she was maligned by the government because she um gave the king of Hungary money and he was in debt to her. So they did this so he didn't have to repay his debts.
00:53:39
Speaker
And she basically was disproving that by systemically going through and saying, no one would have cared about this wealthy widow because she was also still a woman. Yeah. There was no societal reason. There was no political reason to malign them. And he still had to pay his debts because it went to the family.
00:53:58
Speaker
Because she had surviving children. And so it really, there wasn't enough reason for it to be swept under the rug or for her to be blamed for this. Also, it took a hundred years for her case files to be like public knowledge.
00:54:13
Speaker
So, anyway, that's the story of Elizabeth Boutry, the blood countess, and her dastardly deeds.
Summarizing Bathory's Dark Legacy
00:54:20
Speaker
Sorry if that was confusing. It was ah kind of difficult to figure out how to structure all of it, to go from, like, the priest to her early life.
00:54:27
Speaker
um And then, unfortunately, the torture and, like, mutilation of her servant girls is kind of very short because we know that through testimony because no one really cared enough to investigate it when it was actively happening.
00:54:38
Speaker
So... Yeah, that's Bautry. What happened to... i know you kind of hinted at because you said he hallucinated and stuff, but what happened to Yanush? It wasn't widely reported. um He was not killed by Bautry. He did not die. I believe he stayed in that town for a while.
00:54:56
Speaker
um but or And then he was supported by the um his higher-ups in the church in the capital city. So he was regarded you know for his his part in bringing about justice But he wasn't harmed by Bautry.
00:55:11
Speaker
He also refused to bury women for her. So he stood his ground and he did suffer some mental torment, but he did survive. But after that, record keeping is kind of iffy because was 1610.
00:55:24
Speaker
Yeah. yeah So we do know he did not die at the hands of Bautry or Bautry's men. Okay. Well, good for Yanoosh standing his ground. yes A couple interesting things I found in this case.
00:55:36
Speaker
Apparently, she's the inspiration or partial inspiration for the Evil Queen in Snow White. Okay, I was kind of thinking about that. Like the whole like making her skin young and all of that stuff. Like I know obviously the Evil Queen doesn't bathe in blood, but it just kind of reminded me of Snow White.
00:55:51
Speaker
Yeah. And then I told you before this that there was a literary tie that I was wondering if you were going to catch. And I think you said it almost immediately that it reminded you of Dracula. Well, Vampire on the Hill, Transylvania, like all of that stuff, which I know Dracula is already based on somebody else, isn't he?
00:56:08
Speaker
he is. um It was Ivan um something. i used to know better, but. Yeah, there was another another um ah murderer slash war criminal that he's based off of.
00:56:22
Speaker
But specifically, if you read Dracula, in the beginning, you hear about Jonathan Harker and his journey to go visit Dracula. And that's kind of following like Yanoosh when he went up and he heard these stories and of of this crazy demon on the hill. And that's what happens to Jonathan Harker as he walks and he goes and he travels and he He's warned several times not to go to this castle. And um just like Jonathan Harker did.
00:56:46
Speaker
Where he survived. But suffered some mental strain. Torment when he's found in that hospital. By his fiance Mina. Janusz also suffered some of that as well.
00:56:59
Speaker
So that part is said to have inspired. Bram Stoker. um From his journey up. And his discovery. So yeah. That's. That's a ah ah Dracula thing. So while partially she inspired Dracula, Dracula, while he was a bad character and he murdered people, he wasn't as vicious and violent as Valtteri.
00:57:25
Speaker
Isn't that crazy? a fictional vampire is kinder than real life person. Yeah. One of these days we should just talk about Dracula. Because I love i love the story of Dracula.
00:57:40
Speaker
It's just a beautifully written book. And Dracula himself I feel is an interesting character. Because there does seem to be some sort of strange affection for Jonathan Harker that he has. But... It's just – it's odd. And there's some literary reasons people think that he was kind of – the way he treated Jonathan makes sense.
00:57:57
Speaker
But anyway. We'll have to talk about it. I need to actually read it first. I have only read like this part. Yeah. I've only read a little bit of it. But that's making me think of – have you seen the Ted Bundy documentary where he talks about the one reporter that he would talk to about what he did? No, I haven't seen that. Okay. So that's kind of what it's – we'll just have to talk about it when we talk about Dracula. Tangent Tuesday. Yeah. Yeah.
00:58:20
Speaker
ah literary we should just do one on literary tie-ins because yes you know my my writer i do i thought about getting a master's in literature for a while um but i think i prefer studying it for pleasure as opposed to a grade but yeah so any questions comments concerns i'm really concerned i was gonna say i have lots of concern this is ridiculous
00:58:47
Speaker
I just, whatever happened to her children, do we know? like did they also end to be crazy monsters? Or... i remember reading somewhere that her children might have been not necessarily, like, part of it, but they grew up in this household.
00:59:04
Speaker
So I remember reading somewhere ages ago that maybe one of her daughters or a couple of her daughters also were really cruel to the servants. um But I'm not 100% sure.
00:59:15
Speaker
But I do know that I believe her children inherited her money just fine. So. Yikes. I cannot imagine. Man, I'm glad I'm listening to this in the afternoon, and not late at night.
00:59:29
Speaker
yeah. Let's talk about that because for me, it is 1025 on a Saturday night. I'm sorry. I'm fully alone. My roommates are out of town.
00:59:41
Speaker
I got my dog. But you have no duchess that you have to do her hair for, so at least there's that. That is true. That's true. But he keeps, like, breathing heavy behind me, and it's like... oh I'm a little bit worried about the audio quality for this part. My headphones just died, so... I thought I heard a little bit of feedback.
01:00:07
Speaker
and But yeah, brutal. Just... I don't know. It's just, it's how that happened under the government's notes for so long. And like, it almost makes you wonder, like, would they have taken it more seriously if a servant had reported it and said, I saw this directly or would a servant still have been ignored?
01:00:25
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like a servant would have just been ignored. Like I feel like if she had started killing nobility sooner, then it would have been rectified a lot sooner, but it's ridiculous. And I wonder about like the servants that were helping with it. Like I know it's hard to be a servant in that era and I understand being afraid of her.
01:00:41
Speaker
Like, you know, I can't fully understand it, but I understand the concept. But part of me is just like if she's killing so many people and like making you be a part of that, why wouldn't you all just like try to kill her?
01:00:53
Speaker
i don't know.
01:00:55
Speaker
I feel like if they tried to kill her since she was nobility, even if she'd been doing all this terrible stuff, unless she'd been killing nobility, I guess they probably would have killed them for killing a countess.
01:01:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good point. They finally would have gotten off their butts and investigated just for the wrong reasons. Hey, nobility had to die for them for nobility to care, essentially, which is garbo, but unfortunately that was the world they lived in.
01:01:24
Speaker
Yeah, I'm thankful that we're alive today. For sure. Yeah, I would not have survived being a Hungarian servant, even to a kind countess.
01:01:35
Speaker
I ain't built for that life. Me neither. i don't i don't have like the child-bearing hips or the grain-gathering fortitude.
01:01:49
Speaker
well Cheers to today. Putting that on my dating profile. Alright, let's go ahead and exit the murder highway and stop talking about Elizabeth Boutry and her virgin bloodbaths and just general disgustingness.
01:02:04
Speaker
Anything
Sierra's New Life and Adjustments
01:02:05
Speaker
good happening in your world? Yeah, well, my corner of the world um now is very different from what I'm used to, but I am really enjoying it. I love the school that I'm working at. The kids are amazing.
01:02:17
Speaker
And the people here are so sweet. So i am I've been dealing with some homesickness, obviously. I miss all my friends and I miss my family, but I have settled in a lot faster than I was expecting. And I'm really enjoying it like off the bat a lot more than I was expecting. So I am happy where I am. I'm excited to see everyone in December, but I am happy where I am right now.
01:02:39
Speaker
it's good being happy where you're planted i am unhappy with our time difference which honestly it's working out better than i expected because um i've started of waking up super early which is garbo for me i keep saying garbo i don't know why garbage for me um but it's nice because i can check my text and it's like ah sierra texted me two hours ago but because we're 16 hours apart now so it's like you know i just you know take the time add four and swap it from p.m to a.m or vice versa And Sierra is very self-sacrificing in the sense that she'll be like, oh, want to call it, like, whatever your time? And it's, like, 5
Kaylee's Studio Reorganization
01:03:14
Speaker
a.m. her time or 6.
01:03:16
Speaker
So I'm actually really glad that it's, like, later for me and this is, like, afternoon time for you. Yeah.
01:03:23
Speaker
So what's my good that happened in my week? um
01:03:29
Speaker
I really need to prepare better.
01:03:33
Speaker
Oh, um... oh um I'm reorganizing my house. And so I live in a, right now I live in a very small studio space. And so before this, I lived in an apartment where I have like, you know, a bedroom and a living room and, you know, my own bathroom.
01:03:50
Speaker
Cause, so I have a lot of stuff in a smaller area um And so I've been living kind of cramped quarters. I've not loved it. So I decided to just do the dang thing. I'm not moving out as quickly as I would like to.
01:04:03
Speaker
So I reorganized stuff, moved my couch, moved my couch by myself, which was stupid. And I'll regret that in the morning. um Put my bed up on bed risers to give myself a little bit of extra space. ah The one thing I'm not moving is my bookshelf. it's it's like a It's an attached bookshelf, but it's three big bookcases that are all attached.
01:04:21
Speaker
So it's like nine feet wide and very tall and it has hundreds, probably like several hundred books on it. And that sucker's staying where it's at until I move again. um But yeah, it's been that's it's been kind of nice to kind of get things done. I felt really like good recently, which just like allowed me to actually get some work done and get some stuff some stuff moving um so yeah it's been good for me good um so yeah i'm sorry you guys had hear ah two cases back to back of me rambling on um but next episode should be sierra's case so we'll be back to to our good uh one back and forth uh we appreciate your continued grace as we kind of
01:05:09
Speaker
navigate this new world of one of my best friends being so far away and this time difference as Sierra settles into being teacher extraordinaire. Thank you. Yeah, I do want to clarify. Kaylee has been ready with this episode for weeks. I was the one holding it up because I was, you know, moving and starting the school year. And I'm teaching four different grade levels with English. So there's a lot of prep to go into each class period. So she was prepared. I'm the one that is slowing us down. But hopefully we'll be getting more into a routine now that I'm kind of settled.
01:05:39
Speaker
You weren't slowing us down. We knew when you – like I'm surprised we're recording this as early as we are. You've not even been there a month yet. So – And I still like had to like, so I was sitting at on our friend's couch today saying, I don't know I'm going to tell this story. I've got my notes in weird areas. And then I thought I reorganized it. I still didn't. So, but it's been, it's been um impressive seeing how well you've like settled in just like,
01:06:04
Speaker
gotten straight to work because you know i probably would still be crying ah like i want to go home but i'm not really like i'm not bold i'm not a bold person so don't it's very very happy to see you you flourish thank you oh you know if we record this a couple weeks ago my thing that uh would have been like oh what's something good having was watching you open that can of spam That was so embarrassing, but I was so proud when I finally got it open.
01:06:33
Speaker
It was like – It's an old-fashioned can of Spam. It has one of those like little key things like you put it in and you twist it around, but I broke off the metal part that you're supposed to twist. And so I had to saw it open with a knife and I got it open.
01:06:46
Speaker
Eventually. Best can of Spam I ever had. It's not even actually Spam. It's called Tulip. Tulip.
01:06:58
Speaker
What's the difference? I think just the brand. ah tastes pretty much the same. never had Spam. um I've cooked it, oddly, or like fried it because pre-cooked.
01:07:11
Speaker
I don't, like, clearly I don't eat meat myself. was going to say, you wouldn't like it.
01:07:18
Speaker
um But I imagine it to taste like a Vienna sausage because I have had a Vienna sausage back in my pre-vegetarian days. But i don't know. It's kind of like one maybe. I don't know. My dad really likes Vienna sausages. I do not like Vienna sausages as much, but I also never fried them. I just – I exclusively fry my Spam.
01:07:37
Speaker
So it does taste better fried. Maybe Vienna sausages would fried. I don't know. We always just ate them like, hate to say the term raw dog, like a Vienna sausage, but we ate them straight out of the can.
01:07:50
Speaker
But my my best friend back home, Valerie, she would make this like Spanish style like rice because her family's Puerto Rican. So it was like her grandma's recipe. And they would put like fried, like they put diced Vienna sausages in there.
01:08:05
Speaker
And it was good. It was good rice. I don't know what else went in it. um i probably should ask more questions back that was back before i had a million like food allergies though oh my word i went to a insert local bagel place chain here that you'll know what i'm talking about oh yeah yeah I got like their breakfast calzone thing, and it had rosemary on top of it. Oh, no.
01:08:30
Speaker
I didn't realize until I'd like eaten half. like Not half of it, but the rosemary didn't really start until partway through. so I'm sitting there, and I'm like... Like, hacking. I'm like, hmm.
01:08:44
Speaker
My mouth is like itchy and burning. And Naomi's like, Kaylee, it's right.
01:08:56
Speaker
So, then, like, don't get, like, kind of allergies that, like, lead to anaphylaxis. At least I didn't think I did, but I'm sitting in the car, and, like, I felt like my throat was closed. And I didn't panic enough. Let's just say that. If I've been alone, I probably... I wasn't alone.
01:09:13
Speaker
I was with Naomi and Abby, and then... So, if I've been alone, I probably would have been little bit concerned, let's be real. But... But you know what what I did was I ripped the top off of the thing because it cost me $8. So I was going to finish it.
01:09:30
Speaker
So I ripped the the the rosemary top off and I gave it to Naomi's baby.
01:09:37
Speaker
into pieces for which you know she loved she's just sitting next to me like she's uh she's not quite one she'll be one in a few days actually but she's just sitting there like enjoying herself and she's got this thing now where she likes to try and share food with you but she wanted out of her high turn so like I let her come sit on my lap because I'm a pushover and she knows it.
01:10:03
Speaker
But she's like eating chunks of this bread because it's like bagel bread with like cheese and egg and tater tot because health doesn't matter here. And so she had a chunk of it in her mouth and she just like pulled it out and she held it up to my face and she kept trying feed it to me.
01:10:18
Speaker
And like there's multiple reasons I'm not putting that in my mouth. But the other day she was eating, um, Like a peas and fried spam, ironically. And she was feeding them to Naomi. But she would take them out of her mouth. Or like little s spitty fingers. And be like, here you go. Aww.
01:10:41
Speaker
It's very cute. But it's like... Please don't pull that out. The day she fed me a piece of spitty lettuce. And I'm like... Anyway, I love that kid. She's such a good sharer when we wish she would be. Anyway, that was...
01:10:54
Speaker
ah You can tell Sierra I don't talk as much as we used to because it's a lot more rambly. But next week, I'm actually not sure what Sierra's case and neither is she because life is just full of surprises.
01:11:06
Speaker
i left my notebook in the U.S. Yeah. So I have a note on my computer, I think, and I'll find it and I'll send it to you. And I don't know when our next episode will be out.
01:11:17
Speaker
Hopefully we can keep this momentum going. Yeah. We're going to try to have it done next week. Like recorded, edited, and put up a little bit later than that for the next one. But yeah.
01:11:32
Speaker
But we'll hopefully. but hopefully we'll um we'll keep a good roll. See, like part of the reason part of the reason I wanted to start a podcast was when so when Sierra moved, she still had to talk to me.
01:11:47
Speaker
It's working beautifully.
01:11:51
Speaker
She didn't need it, but this is fun.
01:11:57
Speaker
But anyway... Thank you for joining us for another episode. If you have any case recommendations, pop it down in the comments on Spotify. um i know we're on other sites. I don't know if comments work on those, but let us know.
01:12:14
Speaker
If I mispronounce something, let us know nicely. Please. I'm very, very, very susceptible to criticism. But yeah, if anyone knows how to say like Janusz's last name, please let me know.
01:12:30
Speaker
I like his first name. I think it's a cool name. It's spelled J-A-N-O-S. So it's like, Janusz. I found ah very lovely YouTube video of someone saying Janusz.
01:12:43
Speaker
Janusz. And I was like, thank you. Bautori was easier to find. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you next week. Until then.
01:12:55
Speaker
Be aware. Take care. And we'll see you next week. Bye. Bye.