Countess Elizabeth Bathory

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

In the past serial killers did not need to hide behind the facade of a conventional way of life.

Historic figures such as the sixteenth-century Hungarian countess Elizabeth Bathory were in a position to act with impunity. Elizabeth liked to torture young servant girls to death, piercing them with pins, needles and branding irons. To burn their genitals with lighted candles and then attack them in a frenzy. During the torture sessions, she bit chunks of flesh from the girls.

After these orgiastic rituals of torture and murder, the bodies of the girls were left to the elements or dumped outside the castle walls for scavenger animals. The atrocities continued for yeas without intervention. When Elizabeth began to torture the daughters of nobility instead of peasant girls did the King order a night raid on the castle, catching her in the act.

During the Christmas season in 1609 (or 1610), King Mathias II of Hungary sent a party of men to the massive Castle Csejthe. He had heard rumors that several young women from the area were being held in the castle against their will, if not already killed. Instead of execution as her servant accomplices had faced, Elizabeth was given a special dispensation, and despite having killed hundreds of victims, lived out her days imprisoned in her castle.

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/bathory/countess_1.html