She Devils Around the World

by Sylvia Perrini

  Helen Henderson, who grew up in the area composed a song about Minnie Dean.

  Minnie Dean is also mentioned in a Dudley Benson song, "It's Akaroa's Fault."

  In 2009, it was reported in a local newspaper of the area that a headstone had mysteriously appeared on Minnie’s grave with the following words etched on it...

  Who placed the headstone is a mystery.

  RUSSIA

  DARYA NIKOLAYEVNA SALTYKOV

  Daria Saltykov, née Ivanova, (1730 – 1801) was married at a young age into the wealthy Saltykov family. By the time she was twenty-six, she was already the mother of two sons. Sadly, she became widowed. Her husband left to her a significant estate. With her two young boys and numerous servants, she lived here alone. It was here that she embarked on her sadistic and torturous treatment of her female servants.

  Families of girls who disappeared on the estate complained to the authorities. However, because Daria Saltykov belonged to a rich and noble family and had acquaintances in the Russian Royal Court, the accusations about her were disregarded. Moreover, the relatives of the girls who complained were frequently penalized for doing so.

  Finally, the families of the girls got a petition together and presented it to the Empress Catherine II. With the numerous women reported missing, the Empress had little choice except to start an investigation. As the numbers of missing or dead women and girls was so large, the investigation spanned over the course of six years. During this time, Saltykova was held in custody until 1768.

  The investigators interrogated many witnesses and studied in detail the records of the Saltykova estate. The investigating authority counted as many as one hundred and thirty eight questionable deaths. They concluded that they were mostly caused by torture and ascribed to Saltykova. However, the inquiry could only positively prove thirty-eight of them to be directly related to Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova.

  The Empress was uncertain how to punish Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova. The death penalty in Russia had been abolished in 1754.

  Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova.

  Empress Catherine II wanted to punish Darya in a unique way to prove to the people that such ill treatment by the nobility towards their servants would not be tolerated. Maybe, due to the Empress’ love of the theatre, she devised a plan for Darya’s total humiliation. She had Darya chained to a chair for one hour in the public square for public display, with a sign tied around her neck proclaiming: “This woman has tortured and murdered”.

  Flocks of people came to gape at her during her hour of public humiliation. A chronicler present wrote, “Darya’s eyes were not of this world”.

  Following this public humiliation, she was sentenced to life in prison in the Ivanovsky Convent.

  Ivanovski Convent.

  The court stipulated that she was to be incarcerated in a dungeon in chains and darkness. She was confined on October 18, 1768 to an underground cell. After 11 years, in 1779, Darya Saltykova was transferred to a cell in one of the monastery buildings. This room contained a window with shutters. Her behavior was recorded. Darya would spit at curious spectators that came to view her, shove a stick at them through the window, and would generally revile them. She died in her cell, after 33 years of incarceration, on November 27, 1801, at the age of 71. She was buried next to her relatives in the Donskoy Monastery.

  MADAME POPOVA

  Women who lived in the Samara area in Russia, and who were unhappy with their husbands, would seek the help of Madame Popova. She claimed that she ran a service liberating women from cruel and brutish men. Madame Popova would charge a cash deposit before the murder of the husband and the rest after the job was completed. She ran her business for thirty years, starting in 1879 before being arrested in 1909.

  She would meet the man she was to murder and then slip poison into his drink or food. Her crimes were not discovered until one wife, unable to live with the guilt, confessed to the police. Madame Popova confessed fully to having murdered over three hundred men. She stated that her work was a much needed service, as she saved the women from a life of misery. She stated that she only killed men who mistreated their wives and had never murdered a woman. She remained unrepentant until the end.

  Madame Popova was executed by firing squad.

  SOPHIE CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH URSINUS

  Sophie Charlotte Elisabeth Ursinus, nee Weingarten, entered the world to an aristocrat family in Glatz, Prussia on the 5th of May in 1760. When she was nineteen, she married a much older man, Theodor Ursinus, who was the counselor of the Supreme Court.

  Glatz

  The Privy councilor was old, deaf, and passionless; not the ideal man for a lively, handsome, girl of nineteen. Soon after their marriage, they visited Berlin where amid the wealthy, busy, social circle of the capital, Madame Ursinus soon began a liaison with Rogay, a handsome, young, Dutch officer.

  Reportedly, Theodor Ursinus accepted this affair. Sophie told friends that she and her husband agreed to consider themselves as a legal couple and nothing else. Theodor Ursinus wished his beautiful young wife to make herself happy and enjoy life in her own way. Moreover, he even went so far as to write to Rogay, urging him to visit his wife during one of his long absences.

  During one of his visits to the Ursinus household Rogay became ill. The doctors diagnosed tuberculosis. Sophie nursed and fed Rogay herself but somehow he left the household and moved to another place. Shortly afterward he died. It later emerged that shortly before his death Sophie Ursinus had bought a sizable amount of arsenic.

  Was Rogay perhaps aware that Sophie was poisoning him and made an escape, albeit too late?

  Three years later on the 11th of September in 1800, Privy Counselor Ursinus died suddenly just a day after celebrating his birthday, despite at the time being in fairly decent health. Sophie, for his birthday dinner, had made him some treats. In the night, he sickened and died. Sophie sat with him alone and sent for no help. Although her actions for not seeking help were frowned upon because of Theodor’s age, no suspicions were aroused.

  The following year, Sophie visited her wealthy maiden aunt; Christiane Witte. On the 24th of January in 1801, Christiane’s doctor paid her a visit and left finding her well. During the night, she fell ill and died. No one was with her except Sophie who once again sent for no help but let her aunt die in her arms. Christiane Witte left Sophie a substantial inheritance. It was found out later that Sophie had bought, shortly before her aunt’s death, a sizable amount of arsenic.

  Toward the end of February of 1803 Sophie’s servant, Benjamin Klein, fell ill following a disagreement with his mistress. Sophie kindly gave Benjamin some medicine and a bowl of soup. These items aggravated his illness. Benjamin began to feel uneasy. A few days later, Sophie offered him some boiled rice; Benjamin declined the offer, saying he felt too sick to eat. He suspected there was something in the food which was damaging to his health. He became further suspicious when he noted how carefully Sophie disposed of the uneaten rice. The following day, Sophie brought him stewed prunes; these she proclaimed would make him feel much better. He accepted them with false gratitude. He gave the bowl of prunes to a fellow servant and asked her to take them to her brother who was an apprentice of a celebrated apothecary. The apothecary tested the prunes and found them liberally seasoned with arsenic.

  The apothecary visited the magistrate with his findings. The magistrate, after hearing the testimony of the servant and the lady's maid, ordered the arrest of Sophie Charlotte Elisabeth Ursinus.

  People, as happens when events like this occur, began to talk. It was remembered that Sophie’s husband and aunt, to whose last days she had paid meticulous attention and whose fortune had fallen to her, had both died rather suddenly.

  The authorities exhumed Theodor Ursinus’s body. The autopsy examiners were unable to confirm poisoning with arsenic. However, from the condition of the bodies’ organs and evidence of contraction of the limbs caused by convulsions, there was a grave suspicion of arsenic poisoning. Christiane Witte’s b
ody was next exhumed and this time the examiners were certain that Sophie’s aunt had died as a result of arsenic poisoning.

  Sophie Charlotte Elisabeth Ursinus' trial for murder ended on the 12th of September in 1803. In an effort to save her life and honor, Sophie had argued over every detail the prosecution raised. She did confess to the arsenic on the prunes but insisted that she had meant no harm toward Benjamin and had ‘no intention of murdering the man’.

  “What good would that do her?” she had asked. “He had no money to leave.”

  Sophie Charlotte Elisabeth Ursinus was found guilty of the murder of Christiane Wittes and the attempted murder of Benjamin Klein, her servant. The handsome, wealthy, widow of forty was sentenced to spend the remainder of her days in the prison fortress of Glatz.

  Fortress of Glatz

  Sophie’s days in prison were not like those of her fellow inmates who labored in heavy chains welded to carts. In the prison, she was allowed a female companion and rustled around in silk and satin dresses over the stone, gray, slab floors of the fortress. She gave parties for guests and was frequently visited by distinguished strangers.

  She received a pardon after thirty years and in 1833 rejoined the high society of Glatz. Once again, she played the part of an aristocratic lady and entertained lavishly. An invitation to coffee with the Poisoner, as she had become known in Glatz, was a matter of curiosity and a star attraction of the day.

  A year before her death in 1836 she ordered her own coffin. She left instructions that she should lie in state with white gloves on her hands, a ring on her finger containing the hair of her late husband, and ‘his portrait' on-her-bosom. Five carriages filled with friends and acquaintances followed her to the grave, which was adorned with green moss and an abundance of flowers.

  When the priest had ended his discourse, six poor boys and six poor girls, who Sophie had cared for in her lifetime, stepped forward and sang a hymn in her honor. Female friends and others, who Sophie had acted as a benefactress, filled the grave with their own hands and arched the mound over it. It was a bitter cold morning, but the churchyard could barely contain the crowd.

  Sophie Charlotte Elisabeth Ursinus died in 1836 at the age of seventy-six.

  SLOVAKIA

  ERZSÉBET BÁTHORY

  Over the years, much has been written about Erzsébet Báthory. If all of it is true, it makes her the biggest serial killer in history. The official charge against her and her accomplices was eighty murders, but many have speculated the number was, in fact, between three hundred and six-hundred and fifty.

  She has fascinated people since her crimes became uncovered, and many legends have arisen and been written about the life and times of Elizabeth. She has become immortalized in fiction and film as a vampire, lesbian, and witch. Erzsébet Báthory, it has been said, bathed in the blood of the young women she murdered and tortured. On her arrest, her relations walled her up alive in a tower of her castle. Her shocking story has inspired gothic horror fans around the world for the past four hundred years.

  Erzsébet Báthory

  Erzsébet Báthory, known more typically in the West by the English name Elizabeth, joined the world in 1560, the daughter of Baron George Báthory and Baroness Anna Báthory. She was of royal blood and related to princes and kings, bishops and cardinals, and the cousin of the then Hungarian Prime Minister Thurzo. Her uncle, Stephen Báthory, had been king of Poland. Elizabeth, for her time, was well educated and spoke fluently in Hungarian, Greek, and Latin in an era when many Hungarians of her high class- were almost illiterate.

  Her beauty, lustrous black hair, and pale skin were well-known. In 1575, at the tender age of fifteen, she married Ferenc Nadasdy, known as Hungary’s “Black Hero” for his bravery in battles with the Turks. Elizabeth kept her birth name, and Ferenc added it to his less noble one becoming Ferenc Báthory-Nadasdy. Following her wedding, Elizabeth became mistress of the Nadasdy estate and lived in the Castle Sarvar. Here, Elizabeth and Ferenc enjoyed reputations as brutal masters and became renowned for their cruel behavior. In the times they lived, it was not unheard of for the nobility to wield their power in brutal beatings or even killing those they considered below them. It was an era that held the aristocracy for no account of their actions. However, Elizabeth and her husband, despite the times, had a more fearsome reputation than most.

  Nádasdy and Erzsébet had four children together; three girls: Anna, Ursula, and Katherina and a son Paul. They had, as had been normal in that era among aristocrats, a governess and a wet nurse. The wet-nurse, Helena Jo, was later accused as one of Elizabeth’s accomplices in the murders and tortures, along with Dorothea Szentes a.k.a. Dorka, a peasant woman of outstanding muscular strength thought to be a witch, and Johannes Ujvary a.k.a Ficzko, a dwarflike cripple manservant.

  It has been said that Elizabeth learned many of her torture techniques from her husband; techniques he used mercilessly against the Turks he went to battle with, as well as his own servants. Elizabeth was said to be an extraordinarily willing student who took to the art of inflicting pain on her servants with a passion.

  Ferenc, as a soldier, was frequently absent from the dark and gloomy marital castle they called home, so Elizabeth, to keep herself occupied, took a number of young men as lovers. She also visited her aunt who was infamous for flaunting her bisexuality, and Elizabeth, too, reportedly indulged in lesbian sex.

  It was in Ferenc’s absences from home that Elizabeth began torturing her servant girls for her own entertainment. Not only did she seemingly become infatuated with inflicting pain, she also began showing a growing interest in the occult. She collected around her a villainous band of witches, sorcerers, and alchemists who taught her the black arts. Now, armed with the tortures her husband had taught her from fighting the Turks and a taste for flagellation learned from her aunt, she indulged whole heartedly in her sadism.

  Elizabeth’s husband Nádasdy fell ill in 1601 and was confined to his bed where he died in 1604. This left Elizabeth, at the age of forty-four, a middle-aged widow. Lonely, she moved to their castle in Vienna where she enjoyed a more active social life but soon returned to her estates in Hungary to enjoy her sadistic torture sessions in private. Elisabeth, known for her vanity, despaired at her reflection in the mirror that showed her beauty diminishing.

  One of many famous tales about Elizabeth describes her slapping the face of a servant girl and drawing blood with her nails. She was convinced that the part of her body where the girl's blood had dripped was remarkably fresher and younger than previously. Her cohorts agreed and persuaded her that bathing in the blood of young virgins would preserve her beauty forever.

  For the next five years, so the story goes, she bathed in the blood of virgin servant girls she had tortured and murdered. She was known to slit the wrist of a girl, fill up a wine glass with the blood, and drink it down. Among other activities ascribed to Elizabeth at this time were hitting her female servants with a barbed whip and a heavy stick and then having them stripped and deposited naked into the snow. Under her window, they had cold water poured over them until they froze into an ice statue. Elizabeth, it was reported, would sit and gaze lovingly at her human sculptures.

  Dorka, her main accomplice, was said to have held girls down while Elizabeth bit the girls. First, she would bite the cheek, then the shoulder, before attacking the breasts, and ripping out chunks of flesh with her teeth.

  Elizabeth owned an immense amount of land and scoured the countryside searching out virgin peasant girls to employ. Times were hard, and it was considered an honor to work for the Countess Báthory, until the rumors began. The girls, who were lured to the castle with the promise of being taken into service, were locked up in a cellar. At Elizabeth’s and her accomplice’s trial, it emerged that they endured unimaginable tortures.

  People down the hill in the village frequently claimed to have heard bloodcurdling screams emanating from within the walls.

  Elizabeth's actions were either unknown or ignored because of
her connections. In 1609, she offered to take in twenty-five daughters of minor nobility for instruction in the ‘social graces’. This is when Elizabeth made a colossal mistake that the authorities could no longer ignore. Four of these girls’ naked corpses were tossed over the castle walls and were later found and identified by the locals. The murder of servant girls might have been ignored, but the deaths of the upper classes, even if they were of limited means, could not be overlooked.

  The King of Hungary commanded her to be arrested, and Count Thurzo tried to save the family name by leading the swoop on her castle. On the 30th of December, he led soldiers in a raid, under the cover of darkness, on Castle Csejthe.

  What these men found within the sinister walls of the castle must have given them years of nightmares. Girls drained of blood, female corpses chained to pillars. In the dungeons, they discovered cells of beaten women but at least they were still alive.

  Dorothea, Ficzko, Helena, and others were arrested and taken into custody. Elizabeth herself was held confined to the castle. As Erzsébet and her cohorts awaited a hearing, officials searched Elizabeth’s castle and the grounds for evidence. Bones, corpses, clothes, and personal possessions of missing girls were discovered.