Bessy Hartman

Bessy Hartman is one of the two groundskeepers of the Nemeton Monastery along with her husband Ogden in the game Koudelka. Along with her husband she kills any and all visitors to arrive at the Monastery by poisoning them until they are too weak to resist Ogden as he chops them up alive.

Bessy's husband Ogden Hartman was the captain of a pleasure boat called the Princess Alice until one day it hit an iceberg and sank. Ogden was blacklisted, not just as a sailor but in every field he applied for and the tragedy followed him around for years preventing him from getting a job. Ogden at last did get a job one day as a servant at the Heyworth estate. Patrick Heyworth was a wealthy scientific researcher and his wife Elaine hired Ogden and Bessy on her husband's behalf. Elaine was the first person other than Bessy to not only believe that Ogden tried to avoid the iceberg but assured him that it wasn't his fault and it looked like Ogden and Bessy had a place to spend their remaining years happily employed to recover from their dark past.

One day Patrick left the estate to go to town for some supplies and took Ogden with him to help. When they came back they found Elaine dead, Bessy told them how she had been killed in the robbery by bandits. Patrick fell into a deep depression as did Ogden and Bessy who knew they owed Elaine everything. One night though Patrick took in a traveler seeking shelter and while there Patrick told the traveler his sad story. The traveler then revealed himself to be a Cardinal of the Vatican and told Patrick a story of his own, a story about a book called the Émigré Manuscript. The book was said to be able to bring the dead back to life and the man assured Patrick he was a student of the very man who had written it and was himself over 300 years old. Patrick begged the Cardinal to use his knowledge and influence to steal the book from the Vatican. The Cardinal accepted Patrick's Bribes and retrieved the Émigré Manuscript for him.

Sure enough Patrick found the book was genuine and indeed did record the details to raise the dead. But Patrick needed to make an appropriate blood sacrifice. Ogden and Bessy were glad to help Patrick in acquiring what he needed. At first Patrick struck with small animals but eventually had to move to larger ones, eventually he accepted he had to kill humans for the sacrifice. He would find someone, Bessy would poison them so they could die in their sleep and then Ogden would kill them and chop their bodies and send them down to Patrick's laboratory in the lower levels of the Monastery. Eventually the deaths got far more brutal, rather than using vagabonds and beggars Patrick had to made connections with the Royal Medical Society to get his human supply from the slave trade, the shear volume of people required caused Patrick to get an automatic guillotine that would kill them quickly, to make them chop easier Bessy had to poison them with paralytics instead of pain killers and Ogden had to start chopping the remains into more pieces to make them dissolve faster in the cauldron Patrick was brewing the remains in. But the entire time Patrick, Ogden and Bessy kept themselves going by assuring themselves it was all for Elaine.

After more than 200 sacrifices Patrick had enough people to meet the sacrifice requirements and brought Elaine back to life however she came back to life as a soulless monster, Patrick became depressed and guilt-ridden that not only had he killed over 200 people bloodily but that doing so had only served to reanimate his wife's remains as a flesh eating monster and penance fed himself to the creature. Ogden and Bessy however had not heard from Patrick and rarely saw him since his research kept him busy and themselves had never been to the lower levels for fear of disturbing his research and so even after Patrick himself was dead and the resurrection failed Ogden and Bessy still made a habit of poisoning then chopping up anyone who came by and using the dumbwaiter to send the remains to the lower levels.

In the game, Koudelka, Edward, and James are all trapped within the Monastery as the latest guests. The three survive the initial poisoning attempts and explore the estate to try to unravel the mystery of the Nemeton Monastery. Eventually Koudelka is caught and about to be chopped up alive by Ogden but at the last moment is saved by Bessy who shoots her husband. Bessy had finally had enough of the murders and after saving Koudelka and releasing her turns her gun on herself commenting that her husband would be waiting for her and she didn't want to keep him waiting.