crime-notforgotten:

Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova was a Russian noblewoman born in March of 1730. Her family was very well connected with all the right people and she was born owning the silver spoon as they say. Although she married young, she was widowed by the age of 26. After the death of her husband she became the richest woman in Moscow, inheriting an estate near Troitskoe, where she took up residence with her two sons and around 600 servants. She lived a fairly lonely life in the estate, only having one relationship which ended after he married a younger woman. She became more and more angry and would often take out that anger on her servants. She would torture the women and children in her employ in horrible ways such as beating them, throwing them out of the house naked into the cold, pouring boiling water on them and even breaking their bones for fun. The majority of her victims were women, however she did kill 3 men after killing the ones they loved. There were plenty of complaints to the authorities of the her atrocities, however due to her family connections all were ignored. Finally, after a group of people brought a petition before Empress Catherine the second, did Darya finally get arrested. After a lengthy investigation, 6 years, it was revealed she had killed an astonishing 139 people, mainly women and children. In 1754 Russia had abolished the death penalty so on October 2nd, 1768, Darya was sentenced to life imprisonment. For the first 11 years of her imprisonment she was kept in a wooden room with no windows, her only light being the single candle a nun would bring with her dinner. She was eventually transferred to another room which did have a window, but she would often spit and yell at the people who would stare her through the window. She finally died on November 27th, 1801 (or 1800, its not certain), at the age of 71 after 33 years in jail. Pictured above: a depiction of how she treated her servents and some paintings of Darya herself.