• 6 months ago
In 17th-century Hungary, Erzsebet Bathory is alleged to have murdered 600 servants. She bathed in their blood in a quest for eternal youth

Category

📺
TV
Transcript
00:00How did she turn into this woman who would, by her own hands, do things that are hardly
00:19fit to tell?
00:20These are the stories of terrible deeds.
00:24She was probably the most unique female serial killer that I came across.
00:30Of crimes written in blood on history's pages.
00:35Seasoned firemen fell to their knees from the stench of death inside the room.
00:40Across time and across continents, something united these murderers.
00:46I think Dr. Hazard was a serial killer and a sadistic one at that.
00:52Apparently that's where she performed autopsies, in that bathtub.
00:56Something more than wicked determination.
00:59She was one of the worst killers of all time.
01:01It was possible for her to get away with anything.
01:05Something more than menacing minds.
01:08This is almost a museum of death of her own design.
01:11The answer lies behind the masks of deadly women.
01:16Those stories tell us who we are as people and what our dark side is.
01:21My grandfather made veiled references to an evil person who had been in the family.
01:47The family did not want to talk about Elizabeth.
01:52They just knew this was a bad person.
01:58Dennis Bathory Kitz is a haunted man.
02:01The comfort of his home in Vermont can't shelter him from the horrors performed in his family
02:07name more than 400 years ago.
02:11I struggle with what the Countess did all the time, in part because I've built a website
02:16about the Countess and I get a lot of very, very hostile email.
02:21And I begin to realize how much this has cascaded down through the centuries.
02:31Countess Elizabeth Bathory was a Hungarian noblewoman at the turn of the 17th century.
02:40She was cousin to the King of Hungary, of Transylvania, considered the most beautiful
02:46woman in the realm, educated, brilliant, trilingual, a woman whose castles formed a line between
02:53west and east.
02:54A diplomat, the Countess negotiated treaties between these two great empires.
03:03But by night, another creature emerged, the Countess of Blood.
03:13There is evidence that hundreds of servants went to that castle and never came back.
03:20It's believed Elizabeth was one of the world's worst serial killers, murdering perhaps 600
03:27of her servants.
03:30The numbers are astounding until you do the math.
03:34And if you think of the fact that she lived into her 50s and probably began this as a
03:38teenager, so she had 40 years to kill 600 of her servants.
03:46Let's say for the sake of argument that she only killed 10 percent of what she's rumored
03:51to have killed.
03:52In all her career, FBI profiler Candice DeLong has never encountered murder on such a scale.
04:0060.
04:01And that would still make her one of the most prolific serial killers in the history of
04:05the world.
04:09Elizabeth's personal death toll dwarfs any in modern crime.
04:14Even more disturbing is why she murdered.
04:20There is a tale that this began because the blood fell on her skin when she was hitting
04:26a servant and she thought that it made that skin younger.
04:35Elizabeth believed blood would preserve her youth and beauty.
04:40In a macabre prologue to the fictitious Count Dracula from nearby Transylvania, the countess
04:46drank her victim's blood.
04:50But unlike Dracula, Elizabeth was cruel fact.
04:56Vampirism is a clinical term used by psychiatrists throughout the world.
05:00It is a behavior of consuming blood.
05:06For criminal profiler Candice DeLong, this bizarre ritual is not unique to the environs
05:14of Transylvania.
05:16I'm aware of cases in the United States, one very recent and one 30 years old, in which
05:22the individuals, both males, killed people for the sole purpose of consuming their blood.
05:33Perhaps it was wanting some sort of youth from these young people.
05:37Perhaps it was just some sort of a mental defect that did not translate to the rest
05:43of her life.
05:45Dennis is consumed by his ancestor.
05:49He gives blood as symbolic compensation and is driven to unearth the reasons for Elizabeth's evil.
05:57How did she turn into this woman who would, by her own hands, do things that are hardly
06:05fit to tell?
06:08What can you say about this kind of behavior?
06:14Modern science may have an answer to Dennis's painful question.
06:19You see, before women began taking iron replacement therapy, they would lose iron each month with
06:26their menstrual period.
06:28And so many women were iron deficient.
06:31When you're iron deficient, your hemoglobin level drops.
06:34Forensic pathologist and county coroner, Dr. Janice Amatuzio, knows the human body's secrets.
06:44For 20 years, she's examined the dead, bringing their stories to life.
06:49Blood is a real phenomenal source of iron.
06:53Perhaps she thought it would make her look more vibrant or younger because perhaps she
06:59was iron deficient.
07:04By drinking this blood, she got a rosy glow to her cheeks because she finally got her
07:10hemoglobin up to the level it was at.
07:19Was the blood countess self-medicating for anemia?
07:23It's something Dennis had never considered.
07:27But he thinks there must be more behind the terrible crimes of his ancestor.
07:41She bit her victims.
07:50She would bite their flesh.
07:58What could turn a noblewoman into a vampire?
08:02Those stories tell us who we are as people and what our dark side is.
08:08Dennis is determined to find out.
08:18The dark side of human nature also fascinated Michael Kelleher until he learned too much.
08:28I've spent so many years dealing with so many violent people that I want my later years
08:34to be part of the natural process of what it is to be human.
08:42The author and former profiler now searches for peace.
08:47That involves nature.
08:49It doesn't lie.
08:52It doesn't manipulate.
08:53It accepts everything.
08:57And it's part of who we are.
09:00While working on his book, Murder Most Rare, Michael came as close as he dared to a host
09:07of deadly women.
09:09My original interest in female serial killers came from the misguided perception in the
09:15United States that there weren't any, or that there was at most one, which to me seemed
09:20inconceivable.
09:21So I found nearly a hundred since 1900, both in the United States and out, and stopped
09:28at that number.
09:32The killer intriguing him most is Vera Renzi.
09:36She was probably the most unique female serial killer that I came across.
09:51She was clearly intelligent.
09:53She had resources.
09:54She murdered in her own home.
09:56She controlled the environment in which she killed for years and years.
10:06The daughter of a very well-to-do family, a pretty girl, but a wild girl, who wound
10:13up being, well, I don't know how to put this delicately, one heck of an efficient serial
10:19killer.
10:27In the 1930s, in Bucharest, Hungary, Vera Renzi murdered her lovers, each and every
10:35one of them.
10:42After two failed marriages, the beautiful Vera invited a long line of suitors.
10:55She allures.
10:56She draws this male in, and this wouldn't be happenstance.
11:02This male would be selected by her, and she would use her allure, her tacit beauty, her
11:11money, her sophistication, to draw him in, in a sexual way.
11:22This would be his last night on earth.
11:29His dinner would be well-seasoned with something not to his liking that would kill him.
11:41Vera's seductive dinners were laced with arsenic.
11:49Arsenic is a popular method of poisoning that we've seen throughout the centuries.
12:02What will happen, the individuals who take it, first of all, will begin to feel sick.
12:09It causes a disruption of the membranes of the stomach, something called hemorrhagic,
12:15meaning blood-filled, gastritis, meaning inflammation.
12:19So they'll get a stomach ache.
12:26I would imagine that she would only let him know at the very end when he began to suffer
12:33intensely from the poison.
12:45She would be conveying to him that he'd never leave her, ever.
12:56Vera's plans don't end with death.
13:05She had a propensity for preserving her murdered males in zinc coffins in her basement.
13:13The symbolism of trophies for serial killers is maybe something to brag about their event,
13:21even though they may not brag about it to another person.
13:24To them, they say, I've got this.
13:28An airtight zinc casket in Vera's damp basement may have provided the ideal conditions for
13:34a type of mummification.
13:37Adipocere formation, where the fats in the body complex with the salts, calcium, sodium,
13:50in water or in moist soil and form a soap-like or waxy consistency.
13:57Then the bodies will be preserved and eventually become hardened, almost stone-like.
14:03What drove Vera Renzi to such a macabre ritual?
14:07Modern analysis suggests she was simply looking for love.
14:13Her first husband allegedly cheated on her, and this infuriated her.
14:20She had a terrible fear of rejection from males.
14:27Vera set a course for revenge, but in a way that preserved the adoration of the men who
14:31followed.
14:34Everybody wants to be loved, and once you have it, you always want to have it.
14:40But many of us lose it.
14:42We lose things that we love, as well as people that we love, and we usually go on.
14:48We'll mourn the loss or grieve or move on to something else to replace it.
14:52We don't kill.
14:58Vera replaced love from the living with love from the dead.
15:04She killed for more than a decade until a suspicious wife called police to Vera's basement.
15:16They found 35 zinc coffins.
15:23Among the preserved victims, her two missing husbands.
15:35She lived 400 years ago, but the countess's murderous motives still elude Dennis Bathory
15:46Kitz.
15:53His ancestor inhabits both his rational and creative mind.
16:01He's composing an opera about her.
16:18Over time, the countess's behavior became more extreme as she yearned for youth and
16:24eternal beauty.
16:28She would not only drain this blood to drink, but she would drain the blood and bathe in
16:33it and cover herself in it and luxuriate in a bath of warm blood.
16:44We have to hear the story of Elizabeth because it reminds us that there are things we have
16:49to attend to, things that we have to prevent from ever happening again.
16:54Dennis decides that to finish his work and to truly understand his murderous namesake,
17:01he must go to the scene of her crimes.
17:09Two hundred years after Elizabeth's reign, another deadly woman would become legend in
17:15the French Quarter of New Orleans.
17:19The incident had such an impact on the city that for many years, many people wouldn't
17:24walk on the same side of the street as the house, others avoided the block completely.
17:29Amateur historian and tour guide, Kalila Smith, makes a regular stop at 1140 Royal Street.
17:36The door was bolted and locked from the outside.
17:38They could hear screams and cries coming from within.
17:43The fortunate ones were dead.
17:45It was here in 1834 what's believed to be the city's most horrendous crime was discovered.
17:52I think that the history of New Orleans is far more bizarre than anything any fictional
17:56writer could possibly come up with.
18:04Madame Delphine Mallory was an A-list socialite with money and connections.
18:09Her husband was a surgeon, a very prominent surgeon in the city, and she was from a very
18:15wealthy French family.
18:21They were best known in the city for their lavish cocktail parties that they would throw
18:24on entertaining the upper echelon in the city, and they threw them quite frequently.
18:36But Madame Mallory was not all she seemed.
18:46As she was preparing for one of her cocktail parties, she was being attended to by a little
18:50twelve-year-old slave girl by the name of Leah.
18:56Leah accidentally pulled a madam's hair as she was combing it, and in a fit of rage,
19:04Madame Mallory pulled out a bullwhip and proceeded to beat this little girl.
19:08Trying to flee the beating, the little girl plunged to her death in the courtyard below.
19:16Madame Mallory was brought before the courts for the death of this child, but because she
19:22was so influential, because she was rubbing elbows with all the upper echelon, she was
19:25given a mere slap on the wrist, a mere $300 fine.
19:31Madame Mallory's notoriety would have ended there if it wasn't for a fire soon after.
19:39The story is still talked about by firemen today.
19:43Well, that night, the alarm came in for a house, and when the firemen got there, they
19:49found a fire in the kitchen, and the slave told the firemen to go up to the third floor
19:55of the house and check it out.
19:59The door was bolted and locked from the outside, yet they could hear screams and cries from
20:05within.
20:11A seasoned fireman, who had obviously had experience with death before, literally felt
20:15her knees vomiting from the stench of death inside the room.
20:19The firemen found a house of horror.
20:34It took a house fire to lay bare Madame Mallory, the New Orleans socialite, as a serial killer.
20:41Upon entering one of the apartments, the most appalling spectacle met their eyes.
20:45Corpses, people, slaves that were chained to the wall.
20:50Seven slaves, more or less horribly mutilated, were seen suspended by the neck, with their
20:55limbs apparently stretched and torn from one extremity to the other.
20:59It was just a real tragedy up there that they found.
21:16That Madame Mallory had blood on her hands seems beyond doubt.
21:21Her motivation is less clear.
21:24One theory suggests Madame Mallory and her doctor husband were doing their own scientific
21:30research.
21:32Well, people used to dig up graves and dissect bodies.
21:36This wasn't usually something done for a bizarre sacrifice.
21:41This was done out of human curiosity.
21:46In the 1830s, knowledge of anatomy was limited.
21:51A curious but warped mind might see powerless slaves as lab rats.
22:07And back then, we didn't even know precisely how blood circulated and how the body worked.
22:13It was fascinating.
22:15That might have been the excuse, a quest for medical knowledge, but to be performing it
22:20on live people?
22:22No, it goes way beyond that.
22:26The scant surviving evidence also points to another motivation.
22:30The only word that comes to mind is a sadist.
22:34A sadist derives pleasure from inflicting pain on another individual.
22:41The pain can be physical, or emotional, or sexual.
22:49And still, there's another possibility.
22:53The truth of the matter is that no matter how cruel her behavior, it might have been
22:57aimed at trying to solve a crime.
23:01Lester Sullivan, archivist at Xavier University of Louisiana, thinks Madame Mallory was a
23:07might have been conducting her own cruel criminal investigation.
23:13Shortly before the mansion caught on fire, there had been a rebellion on one of the plantations
23:19her family owned, Down River in St. Bernard Parish, in which her own mother was killed.
23:27Obviously, she's got people chained and she's interrogating them under duress, probably
23:34involving torture and such.
23:38I mean, it takes a certain kind of ruthlessness to take this kind of action, to take the law
23:42into one's own hands.
23:48Sadist, scientist, or avenger?
23:50We may never know.
23:54Somehow the Lillaris escaped.
23:56Now, it's a mystery what happened to them.
23:58Many people believe that they wound up going down to the river and jumping ship.
24:03Some people say they even went back to Paris.
24:07Whatever Madame Mallory's motivation, one thing, more than anything else, made her secret
24:13slayings possible.
24:15Power.
24:23In the hands of deadly women, it's a lethal weapon.
24:28As the sick and gullible discovered in Washington State.
24:38Linda Hazard was a leader.
24:40She was a speech maker.
24:42She commanded attention wherever she went.
24:46I mean, if she was somebody today, she'd be a household name.
24:48She'd be a superstar today.
24:51Dr. Hazard.
24:53I mean, it is the perfect name for a woman who perpetrates this type of crime.
24:57A doctor named Hazard.
24:59I mean, it's perfect.
25:03When crime writer Greg Olson moved to Olalla, Washington, he found the perfect subject.
25:11Turn-of-the-century medicine, quackery, greed, everything that you would ever imagine that
25:18you think is contemporary to today was going on back then, of course, and it happened here
25:24in Nowheresville.
25:30In 1911, the sick and the wealthy were lured to these backwaters from Europe and the U.S.
25:38on a promise.
25:42They came to cure their ills.
25:48Two wealthy sisters, Claire and Dora Williamson from England, were typical of Dr. Hazard's patients.
26:00The girls, they came, they thought this was going to be a holiday in the country.
26:04They were excited about going.
26:06They couldn't wait to get to Olalla.
26:08They had no idea what was in store for them.
26:11For an upfront fee of $100 a week, the sisters would receive only a starvation diet and a
26:19place to die.
26:23The diet that she developed was very strenuous.
26:27I mean, it was limited to two eight-ounce glasses of a broth a day, either a tomato
26:33or an asparagus broth was what she gave her patients.
26:36As a rule, fasting has been known throughout the centuries as a way to purify one's body
26:44and therefore purify one's mind.
26:54There is no medical benefit to starving.
26:58Starvation causes death.
27:01Common sense should have warned patients off the treatment within days.
27:07But Dr. Hazard's power usually prevailed.
27:13The power of her mind and the power of her conviction was intoxicating for people.
27:17I mean, people would listen to her and you could not help but believe what she was saying.
27:24The sisters, like many others, persevered.
27:30After we have gotten over the first day or two, maybe even three, we are no longer going
27:36to feel hunger.
27:38We're going to at first feel a bit alert when we're starting to burn all the fats.
27:42But as we get through the fat and start burning off the protein, we're going to begin to get
27:48listless.
27:51I think Dr. Linda Hazard was a serial killer and a sadistic one at that.
28:03You don't even have to be a doctor to know if somebody has only fed diluted tomato juice
28:07to the brain.
28:09You don't even have to be a doctor to know if somebody has only fed diluted tomato juice
28:13to the brain.
28:16You don't even have to be a doctor to know if somebody has only fed diluted tomato juice
28:20on a daily basis that they eventually will die.
28:28She knew this and she continued on with her experiment.
28:33Dr. Linda Hazard's dietary experiments are remembered to this day.
28:39I didn't know what a concentration camp was until after World War II.
28:45And then I saw pictures of it.
28:47And that's what those people looked like.
28:49As a little girl, 80-year-old Louie Hazard and her husband, Dr. Linda Hazard, went to
28:53a concentration camp.
28:55Dr. Linda Hazard and her husband, Dr. Linda Hazard, went to a concentration camp.
29:00As a little girl, 80-year-old Lucienne Pandarvis had some frightening visitors.
29:06Escapees from the Hazard Clinic.
29:10My mother used to feed them.
29:12Because they had to go right by her door.
29:16And she couldn't stand it.
29:18She would give them something to eat.
29:22First, our immune systems are going to start to malfunction.
29:26And along with that, we're going to have this profound weakness.
29:30And then, eventually, we're not going to be able to maintain our blood pressure.
29:38They grew weaker and weaker.
29:40But each time that they would complain about it or ask about it, Dr. Hazard would tell
29:44them, the cure is imminent.
29:46Just a few more days.
29:48Hang on just a bit longer and you'll have perfect, robust health.
29:52It'll just come in an instant.
29:57Fortunately, the Pandarvis family didn't succumb to Dr. Hazard's spell.
30:04And she also used to come down to the house because my dad had ulcers and he was sick.
30:10And she was going to cure him.
30:12But my mother and father had no part of what she was doing.
30:16Claire and Dora Williamson consumed only broth for two whole months.
30:22Dr. Hazard's allure was finally overtaken by the will to live.
30:30Claire knew, this is my last chance.
30:32If I don't get out of here, I'm going to die.
30:34And if I die, my sister's going to die.
30:38So Claire said, I'm going to die.
30:40I'm going to die.
30:42I'm going to die.
30:45So Claire, somehow, we don't know how she even had the strength.
30:49Somehow she crawled out of that attic and got out there to the woods and made it halfway
30:53down the hill before she realized she could go no further.
30:58Feeble and disoriented, Claire's escape was short-lived.
31:03Claire!
31:04But when she heard Dr. Hazard's voice, it's just like a spell.
31:08Something came over her and she realized, I can't fight this.
31:12Unfortunately for Claire, there'd be no saving her.
31:28There was no end to Dr. Hazard's, really, her skill, if you want to call it, or her evil.
31:33I mean, not only did she treat these patients as their physician,
31:37she also acted as a coroner and did the post-mortem examinations on each one of her patients.
31:44Dr. Hazard's failures were never registered.
31:48To the medical world, her victims died of various diseases.
31:54The fact that the patient weighed less than 50 pounds was never on the certificate.
31:58It was always cirrhosis of the liver or something.
32:00Something like that would be listed as a cause of death.
32:04Today, the Doctor's House of Cruelty still stands.
32:10Its secrets not all together lost.
32:15You know, in this house, right here in this very spot,
32:17she was involved in actually cooking or preparing something.
32:21So it's a strange feeling knowing that you're part of history living here in this house.
32:27The original bathtub is in there.
32:29And so apparently that's where she performed autopsies, in that bathtub.
32:35The Jones family think they may be sharing this place with Dr. Hazard's victims.
32:41It's funny, sometimes you'll be standing here washing dishes and just out of the corner of your eye,
32:45it's like there's a face just right there in the corner of the window.
32:48And so you'll look up and there's nobody there.
32:52It's eerie. There's always somebody here in the house with you,
32:55even if the house is empty and it's just you.
33:00But Claire Williamson's death was a turning point in Dr. Hazard's career.
33:10Although there's no record of how,
33:12Dora managed to get a message out and was rescued.
33:17Dr. Hazard was convicted of manslaughter and jailed for 18 months.
33:23But she would be back.
33:27This is what's sort of outrageous, really.
33:31She leaves town and then she comes back.
33:34And the local people who knew all about this just sort of looked the other way.
33:43Within eight years, Dr. Hazard had renewed her practice.
33:47Within eight years, Dr. Hazard had renewed her practice.
33:51Her starvation diet again on the menu.
33:59There were more deaths.
34:02The number is somewhere between 20 and 40 people.
34:04And we think some of them were disposed of here in this ravine.
34:09The killing only stopped when the doctor herself became ill.
34:13The killing only stopped when the doctor herself became ill.
34:16This is kind of sweet, really, in the end.
34:18Linda Hazard got pneumonia and she told the world,
34:21I'm going to cure myself by using the fast.
34:27Justice came at her own hand.
34:29Justice came at her own hand.
34:31And she fasted for, I think, 25 days before she, basically,
34:35And she fasted for, I think, 25 days before she, basically,
34:38killed herself and died by her own treatment.
34:59I think she had something to prove.
35:02I believe she did everything for the cure.
35:05That she really believed that by bringing this to people,
35:08that she was going to change the way we deal with medicine.
35:15For criminal profiler Candice DeLong,
35:18it was delusion that killed Linda Hazard and her patients.
35:22A delusion is a strong belief in something, an idea, a concept,
35:28that has no basis in fact,
35:31and the person believes it despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
35:42Could delusion also explain the crimes of Countess Bathory?
35:49The victims are supposed to be buried around here.
35:53Her descendant, Dennis Bathory Kitts, has traveled to Slovakia
35:57to Czechice Castle, looking for clues.
36:01It is an incredible spot.
36:03It is an unbelievable kind of frightening place.
36:12There is the rumor that in the dark side of that wall,
36:15where the forest grows down quickly into the valley,
36:19that the servant girls were dumped.
36:33The Countess' quest for blood to keep her young
36:36was as powerful as it was perverse.
36:45Was it a simple iron deficiency
36:48or grotesque delusion?
36:51The kind of woman who brutally murders for blood,
36:55to my way of thinking, is probably delusional or psychotic.
37:01Ignored and isolated,
37:04the blood Countess lived beyond reproach by the townspeople below.
37:09Peasant servants could be killed without repercussion.
37:12It was possible for her to get away with anything here,
37:15because the only people around were her trusted servants,
37:19other royalty, and those who would never speak again, the girls.
37:30Countess Bathory was locked in a deadly cycle of delusion,
37:34with nothing and no one to bring her back to reality.
37:39Oftentimes, the more a person tries to get that thought out of their mind
37:43or that feeling out of their heart, the less they're able to do so.
37:47And oftentimes, the more the individual thinks about it,
37:51it kind of develops a life of its own, it feeds on itself.
37:59Although many generations separate Dennis from his ancestor,
38:03he feels obliged to redress the crime.
38:07There comes a time when the people who perpetrated the evil have to say,
38:11even if it's generations down the line,
38:13we're sorry for having done this to you.
38:18Dennis is about to visit the small town of Chukhtitsa,
38:22from where many of the Countess's victims came.
38:26He has no idea what sort of reception he'll receive.
38:31Many in Chukhtitsa claim a family connection
38:34to the life and crimes of the Blood Countess.
38:39Dennis has invited 20 of the town's dignitaries, including the mayor,
38:43to an appropriate venue, Pizzeria Bathory.
38:49This is a reconciliation meal today,
38:51to reconcile the Bathory family with the people of Chukhtitsa.
38:55What will they make of this thoughtful American,
38:57following his obsession to the other side of the world?
39:04The moment arrives for Dennis to make his peace.
39:14I said, first of all, that I wasn't wearing black,
39:17which is the color of night,
39:19but I was wearing black,
39:21I said, first of all, that I wasn't wearing black,
39:24which is the color of night,
39:26and I wasn't wearing red, which is the color of blood,
39:28but instead I was wearing violet,
39:30which is the color of healing.
39:33I said that it was time for a healing
39:35between the family of all the Bathories,
39:38which I was representing today,
39:40and the people of Chukhtitsa,
39:42for the deeds that were done 400 years ago by the Countess.
39:45And I hoped with the gift of friendship,
39:48it would be better both today and in the future.
40:03And I would like to thank you for all you've done,
40:06and you are welcome anytime here,
40:08and I'm not angry with you anymore.
40:13You are our friends, you are not our enemies.
40:18Thank you.
40:22Elizabeth Bathory.
40:27Vera Rincey.
40:31Delphine Valori.
40:35And Linda Hazard.
40:38All in the grip of a human failing,
40:40seated tragically in youth.
40:45We know from studying killers
40:47that oftentimes the fantasies that they have,
40:50that they end up acting out in their murder,
40:53is a fantasy that they started having in their early teens.
41:01Vera Rincey, perhaps her father left her,
41:05perhaps she was abandoned by both parents,
41:07but whatever it was,
41:09it left a very, very serious scar on her psyche.
41:15Research conducted by the FBI into serial killers and sadists
41:20revealed that the vast majority of them
41:23come from families in which they were mistreated as children.
41:28And oftentimes these children are abused.
41:35They act out the obsession because they believe or they feel
41:39they will feel better and it will be over with once they do.
41:44And for a while they do feel better after they commit the act,
41:48but the feeling doesn't last.
41:50The act never lives up to their fantasy.
41:53Why? Because a fantasy is in your mind
41:56and you can control every aspect of it.
41:59Reality is much different.
42:07Dennis Bathory Kitts has one last question.
42:11Dennis Bathory Kitts has one last appointment to keep
42:18to confront the blood countess face to face.
42:24I think this painting is absolutely frightening.
42:29The eyes, the pose, the stillness,
42:33and when you know what happened behind that stillness,
42:36it's even more terrifying.
42:42Elizabeth never cheated age nor death.
42:46After murdering a noblewoman, her bloody history was exposed.
42:54She was walled into her castle tower.
42:57The only mercy, food pushed through a slot.
43:02She died alone and old.
43:06Her obsession unrealized.
43:12Power, search for youth, madness.
43:17It's so impossible to know what it is that drove her to do this.