Elizabeth Bathory, known as the Blood Countess, was convicted of unspeakable crimes. The story goes that she tortured and killed virgin women and then bathed in the blood of her victims, believing it would preserve her youthful looks. Her legend partially inspired the tale of Dracula. Bathory is credited with killing 600 people, which is a world record for female serial killer.
However, most of what is told about Elizabeth Bathory was added to the narrative long after she died in 1614. If you go back to the actual investigation and trial, you'll find it severely lacking in evidence. There is no documentation of her torture chambers, and almost all the witnesses were powerless servants. Plus the investigator and the prosecution had powerful political motives for getting rid of Bathory. When you know all this, and how the other "facts" were added later, its easy to see how the whole incident could have grown from nothing at all. Read the Elizabeth Bathory story from another angle at Cracked.
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You *ahem* seem to have done a good bit of research into this story...
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Marines aren't powerful elite with no one to answer to, and back in Bathory's time, the paper trail for anything was scarce at best- you could literally get away with murder. Also, on average, a bathtub will hold 35 to 50 gallons of water(granted I am not sure how big a 15th century bathtub is). An adult will have about 1.2 to 1.5 gallons of blood in them- so to fill even a small tub, you are looking at quite a few people(especially if, as the rumors say, the victims are young females)- and if the killings persist even for a year or two, you are looking at quite the body count. =)
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She may have had other people do that, but I don't think she did that herself with her own hands. Marines during their entire time in the military don't have numbers like that.
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