deathmtn

Around this time, “Word was beginning to spread about her [Elizabeth Bathory’s] sadistic activities”. A single woman in middle age of independent means, with power, accused of unspeakable crimes? But that never happens.

…

Of the 289 witnesses interviewed by Thurzó’s interrogators, 229 stated that they knew nothing but hearsay; twenty-nine stated that they knew nothing at all; two were guessing, and four claimed to have first-hand knowledge of Báthory’s crimes but did not say how... Twenty-five witnesses claimed to have seen corpses — without any knowledge of how they had died — or injured girls without any knowledge of how they had come by their wounds. Three witnesses unhelpfully referred the interrogator to the (executed) accomplices... One doctor testified that he had examined a girl with flesh ripped out of her shoulder and buttocks … but does not state whether she was employed by, or indeed had anything to do with, Elizabeth Báthory. Only two witnesses were willing to testify that they had themselves been present at a scene of torture and/or murder.