Vampires Fact and Fiction Vol.I

I have been thinking about this for a looooooooong time and I can't begin to understand why no one else has brought this topic up when the discussion of vampires comes up. What if the creation of the modern vampire image is just the human minds way of dealing with the blood thirsty, murderers and serial killers in our midst? Everytime I watch some special on vampires on the Discovery Channel or History Channel they mention Vlad Dracula and how he was supposed to be the inspiration for Count Dracula in the book Dracula. But I have thought for awhile that the most Stoker took from Vlad was the freaky name; a lot of what the count in the book does reminds me a lot of Countess Elizabeth Bathory. She is often mentioned as an after thought when talking about vampires but I think she resembles Dracula a lot more than Vlad.Similarities1. A rich aristocrat2. Consumes the blood of the innocent to stay young3. Creepy oogey boogey helpers to keep their secret4. Lives in a huge castle in the middle of nowhere surrounded by peasants5. People go in and never come out6. The surrounding peasants/villagers are scared shitless7. The law never catches on or just decides to do nothing about it Elizabeth has much more in common with Dracula as opposed to Vlad who is and was regarded as a hero by Rumanian's. Yeah he was downright freaky to us westerners, but his crimes do not resemble the counts crimes in the books. The whole blood drinking thing is just a rumor that is starting to fall out of favor. I don't believe Vlad terrorized many peasants, on the contrary he had a thing for taking out the nobility. And Count Dracula didn't impale his victims on stakes.So my theory is that Bram was researching and came across both Vlad and Elizabeth and probably some other peeps and decided to base a character off of their crimes and personalities. He took the majority of his inspiration from Elizabeth and the gender and name from Dracula.