Leonarda Cianciulli: The Soap-Maker of Correggio | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

Hey, weirdos. I'm Alaina. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid. Yeah, girl. We're going to get real
morbid today, my friends. Yeah, Alaina is back and better than ever. Not that she You never really went anywhere, but
Thank you. Uh but, you know, this is uh a little far away from the spooky season
um silliness of it all. Oh. say. Uh cuz, you know, like spooky season we got we you know, we like to go
a little more haunted, a little more loosey-goosey with it. then we know that you guys like But you
know, like a you know. You know, you got you want to hear the real stuff, too, and I'm going to get very real on you
today. Oh, god. Uh we're going to be talking about the story of Leonarda Cianciulli. Mm. Who is also referred to
as the Soap Maker of Correggio. I don't know how I personally feel about that. Yes. And whatever your first
thoughts were when I said that, Yep. Yep, correct. Uh also, I'd like to just give a quick little trigger warning
here. Mm. She has a very tragic story, as does her mother. So, like traumatic upbringing.
there's some sexual assault in here, there's some like trauma. It's the whole beginning is pretty rough.
There's also going to be some talk of pregnancy loss. Okay. And you know, that that that kind
of thing. So, just if that's not really your your bag, then I think you can skip
a little ways through and we'll get through all that and then you can get into even more horrible things.
Okay. But yeah, this is going to be a rough one, so just everybody sit tight. So,
Leonarda Cianciulli, her story begins tragically with her mom's story, to be honest. Um her mother, Amelia De Nolfi,
um she was born in Montella Avellino, which is a small village in the south of Italy. Okay. Um Amelia grew up as the
teenage daughter of one of the wealthier families in the region. Uh she grew up very well-off. She had everything she
needed, very easy life relatively at the time. Um she grew up to be an attractive girl.
She was kind, she was well-liked by her neighbors and her friends. Like really just kind of had it all grown up. Yeah.
And in the summer of 1893, as Amelia was coming into adulthood, in that time we're in the late 1800s, so of course
they immediately were like, "Gotta find her a suitor." Let's marry you off. And of course at that time there was no
shortage of suitors lining up for her. Um she again came from a wealthy family, high social status. So, there was an
understanding in that time that she was only really going to be entertaining dates and courting from men of similar
class and status at that time. suitors. Yeah. So, this kept certain men out of the running. Certain men like Mariano
Cianciulli. Uh unlike Amelia, Mariano was older, middle-aged. Uh he was very impoverished
at the time, and he was known around the village for his cruel, nasty, piggish nature. Fantastic. I did notice his last
name though, and I'm nervous now. But he really liked Amelia. I don't like that.
They had never met. He just liked how she looked. knew her by sight and by reputation.
That year, Mariano developed pretty much an obsession with her. Like he kind of stalked her. Um and again,
they had a very large age gap. He was middle-aged, she was just coming into like adulthood, which means like 17, 18.
going to say, right? Yeah. Um and he knew very well that he had no chance in this whole courting of her.
Cuz he's impoverished. Exactly. He was impoverished, he was older, he was just totally out of
everything. Um but he took this as an opportunity to let his true piggish nature out, because Ryan Green, the
author of The Curse, a shocking true story of superstition, human sacrifice, and cannibalism, Oh. little little uh
spoiler there. Okay. wrote quote, "He wanted to tear her down from her pedestal to make her no better than him.
He wanted to ruin her." Oh, god. That's dark. So, one summer evening, Mariano Mariano,
remember, he's like stalking her, he's obsessed with her. He followed Amelia to a party she was
attending with one of her suitors, and he waited outside this estate that she was in. Mm. Um he just lurked in the
shadows, he drank and drank and drank. Oh, no. And after several hours, she came out of this huge estate. She said
goodbye to her hosts, and apparently she started down the path alone, which I was
kind of shocked to read that her suitor was not bringing her home. But was not. Um and she started down the
path. I think it was pretty close by her house. I don't know if that had anything
to do with it. She was being followed, and she had no idea. Right. At first, Amelia thought she was
being robbed, and she told whoever was attacking her that she had no money on her, but then she quickly realized it
wasn't money that he was looking for. Oh. He ended up brutally raping her outside in the dark. That is horrific.
Yeah. When he was done with the assault, he just got up and walked away. What? Leaving her completely confused,
terrified, and alone in a muddy field. In the dark in the middle of like nowhere.
she had seen him. Like and she knew she had seen him around the village. Like she knew once she saw him, she realized
who it was. of him kind of thing. And she just laid there for hours before she got up and
made her way home. Now, Amelia at the time was had a Catholic upbringing. And again,
high social status, Catholic girl in the 1800s. She's going to be forced to marry
him. At the time, she knew nothing of sex other than that it was what two people
did after they were married, and even then, you did it to procreate. That was it.
Yeah. So, she had no context for what had even just happened. Like this was just so
this was so traumatic. It's traumatic anyways, and then they would there was all this confusion along with it.
Right, that's the thing cuz when that happens, like people have something to call it. I can't imagine Oh, yeah, I
can't even fathom and you don't even really know what it is. But you can feel inside of you that
that's wrong. Yeah. And she also, because of this whole upbringing, she had come to believe that
she committed a terrible sin. Oh, god. This was her fault. She did it. And then they were she felt it every time she had
to walk around in the market or anywhere else in the village and see him. Ugh. Cuz she didn't say anything at
first, cuz she was feeling so much shame and so scared and confused. So, her feelings of shame only became heightened
when she realized that she was pregnant as a result of the rape. Oh, god. While she managed to keep
everything for a time being quiet, after three or four months of pregnancy, it was pretty obvious, and her parents
confronted her. Oh. Uh they didn't respond how loving parents should respond. Instead, they immediately quote
threatened to go house to house visiting all of her suitors until they found the
one who defiled her. Oh, god. So, she was terrified because um who wants to do that?
pure humiliation. just having that shame that she's feeling spread around the entire town.
So, she came forward and said, "Oh, I know who did this, and this is how it happened." So, in response, her parents
had Mariano brought to the house, and they confronted him. And as far as Amelia's parents were
concerned, there was one option here. Marriage. He was going to marry their daughter. Dude, that is
I it's so [ __ ] [ __ ] doesn't even the word for it. can't even wrap around this, and what's
worse is Mariano was pleased. Of course. Yeah, that's what he wanted. he can do that forever, like legally,
weirdly. he did. He took what he wanted. That's what he's thinking. Wow, I I was out of
the running, and here I took it into my own hands, and look, I'm getting rewarded for it. Oh, that's so heinous.
[ __ ] up way to do Like I the layers of [ __ ] up here. Wow. And her parents immediately made arrangements for a
priest to be brought to the house. They were married in a secret ceremony. Oh. And at this point,
Amelia and Mariano had never spoken a word to each other. Of course not. Until she he raped her in the dark.
Wow. And now they're being forced to get married, and she's having his child. And she's going to move into his home,
I'm assuming. Yep, because after that wedding, she was sent to live in what he basically had a shack in like the worst
part of the village. And her parents just sent her there and were wanted nothing to do with her after
this. Oh my god. And according to Green, who I mentioned, who wrote that book that we will link in
the show notes, Right. the home was completely unfurnished, and quote, "The bathroom
was outside and shared with the others on the row of houses." So, she this is completely different
turn turn your lifestyle on its head. Talk about So, she's this confident, happy, loving,
like well-known in the community. well-loved, well-liked, wealthy, you know, of privilege, and is
walking around being courted by these men of similar status, and then she goes through the most traumatizing thing you
can imagine, and her parents forced her to be just indebted into this. Wow. And have it all taken away. Because if
she did nothing to have this happen. course not. she's being punished and he's being
rewarded. It's so wild. I have this picture of him him in my mind as this like vile character. Have
you ever seen Ever After? Yes. You know, when she gets sent to live with that [ __ ] nasty guy?
is probably what she's going to cut him open. That's what I'm picturing him as. And what's worse is he had no
job and he had no prospects of work. And instead he just ordered Amelia around at
work, physically abused her, verbally abused her, whenever she'd and also continued forcing himself on her.
This is such a nightmare. This is beyond nightmare. It's tragic in every way it could be
tragic. Now, remember she's pregnant. Right. Leonarda Cianciulli was born April 18th, 1894 and she was born after
a long, very painful, very traumatic birth. Okay. That took a very large toll on Amelia.
Oh, no. Uh she lost consciousness on more than one occasion during the birth. Like it was bad.
Now, from the moment that Leonarda was born, she was very unwanted. Aw. Uh Amelia was still dealing with she's a
young girl and she's dealing with the aftermath of the trauma of sexual assault and still is being raped and
beaten by this man. And dealing with culture shock. with him. And so she could not she could
not connect and she didn't want to connect. She just ignored, basically neglected her, didn't
want anything to do with her. Oh, that's so sad. The whole thing is awful. And it only got worse as Leonarda got
older because again, her mother would ignore her completely, Amelia. Uh but it was honestly preferable to the times
that she paid attention to her because later Leonarda would say that she was frequently physically and verbally
abused by her mother. So she just took out all of her anger on Leonarda. on her child, which is horrific.
Yeah. Um and her and Amelia would criticize her all the time. Anything Leonarda did was criticized and that
took a big toll on her later. Oh, yeah. Because she would criticize and brutalize her for the smallest mistake.
She was probably taking out all of her anger just on that that one child. her anger at Mariano.
guy. Her anger at everything around her. She was taking it out on this poor innocent
child that she did not ask to be here. She's probably not even seeing like this child as her child. She's seeing it as
his child. of what happened to her. Exactly. And it's like there's so many layers of psychological trauma here.
Yeah. And the physical and emotional abuse that she suffered at the hands of her mother led to years of I mean
loneliness, isolation, she had horrible self-esteem. And by the time she reached
13 and this is trigger warning for suicide and suicidal thoughts. Um she attempted to kill herself at home. Wow.
Um and she was found and stopped, but instead of looking at this and expressing sympathy or trying to, you
know, empathize with her or anything, Amelia told her daughter that she was disappointed that she didn't succeed.
Oh my god. Which is literally unthinkable. That is that's inexcusable. Un- thinkable.
Unthinkable. I can't I reading that my brain like wouldn't even take in the words. Wow. And a few years later she
actually attempted again. And this time she attempted by swallowing glass. Oh god, Jesus.
um was stopped again. It didn't it was not um it did not happen. But uh so she was suffering very much so
with her mother and her father, Mariano, was basically nowhere to be found. He just I like not that he would have been
helpful, but um he basically spent most of his time drinking with friends and would turn
return home in the middle of the night if at all. Anytime he was he just was nowhere. And one evening
they actually Amelia and Leonarda had to go out looking for him because they couldn't find him and they found him
passed out in one of his usual drinking spots, but he was totally unconscious and they could not wake him up. So they
didn't call the doctor, they just carried his body back to the house and put it in an empty room and he died
there. Oh. So Okay. Not long after that happened, Amelia married again. This time she did
marry a more respectable and kinder man. Oh, wow. Uh and she hoped that this whole thing was going to change how her
parents would think of her. That she would be welcomed back into her family. It's going to change how she mothers at
all? No. And she was hoping that that would happen, but her parents were still very uninterested
with having anything to do with her even though this guy was a step up from Mariano. That's so [ __ ] up. Um so, you
know, she couldn't get back in her parents good gracious graces, couldn't get that social standing that Amelia was
used to having and wanted back. She got a new plan that was going to get herself
out of poverty. She said, you know, she figured she wasn't going to use her own skills, she wasn't going to use her own
anything to climb that social ladder. She was going to scheme to find a wealthy suitor for Leonarda Okay.
that that that her daughter, who she treated like absolute dog [ __ ] her entire life, would pull her out of the
situation. I'm sure that's going to work out. It's like you get what you give, my
friend. Uh-huh. And the problem was though that Amelia did not tell Leonarda this. She
was scheming in the background. Scheming on the low. And Leonarda had already begun meeting
and dating men. Right. was like taking things cuz she wanted to get the [ __ ] out of there.
Mhm. And so she eventually met this man named Raffaeli Pensardi. Leonarda met this man and eventually like fell in
love with him. They had like an actual relationship. Okay. And he was a little older than
her, nothing crazy and he had what at the time would be considered a low status job. He was a registry clerk.
Okay. And he was truly the first person in Leonarda's life to treat her well and
with respect. Okay, I'm so happy you said that cuz as soon as you said she met someone I was
like I'm so nervous right now. And he proposed marriage, she happily said yes and this meant that she was
going to get the [ __ ] out of there, be free of her mother. But remember, she wrecked
Amelia's plan. Uh-oh. Um so she was pissed and when she heard of the engagement, Amelia quote told her
daughter that she had placed a curse on her and Pensardi for ruining her life for a second time.
What? Leonarda had been abused her entire life and had been criticized. She had had her
self-esteem slammed down at every turn. Mhm. So hearing this from her mother imprinted inside her and she left with
the thinking I've been cursed and I'm going to live a life of tragedy because I did this.
Jesus. So it turned out that when she left her mother's house to marry Raffaeli, Leonarda would never see her
mom again, which is for the best. Uh but it didn't turn out well for anybody. Right.
Um you know, Amelia had done so much psychological damage. Even though she never contacted
her again and never saw her again to let her inflict more. It was in her. That influence was going
to be felt for the rest of her life. She had she had changed her fundamentally. And although Raffaeli was by all
accounts that we could find a very kind man who treated Leonarda very well, was patient, was loving. They had a very
loving relationship. Yeah. A lifetime of abuse had left her waiting for the abuse to start.
And so she was constantly paranoid about disappointing or irritating everybody. So she was just
always on edge and always worried all the time. had so much anxiety. never came with Raffaeli. He never
abused her, but she was always waiting for it. And it only grew as she got further into
married life. She was just not able to accept this gentler environment and a partner that didn't criticize her. So
she turned the criticize criticism into herself and became her own worst critic.
Oh, no. Every mistake she made or any even perceived mistake that she would make, she would lob crippling criticism
at herself. And that can be frustrating for your partner, too, when they're trying to be
like I love you. You're great. You're fine. Like stop talking like that about yourself.
Exactly. And she would fall into emotional turmoil. She cried a lot. She had a lot of intense bouts of, you know,
emotions, fear, anxiety. She was dealing with probably PTSD or some form of that.
Absolutely. And she didn't understand it. Her her husband at the time couldn't understand
it. Like they, you know, this is again, this is like the 1800s. It's not like you know, well, at this time it's like,
you know, we're getting into the 1900s here. Um but he did do his best to be supportive and sympathetic. He did not
turn on her. Like he, you know, he was there. And all of this was also exacerbated by
the fact that she was now having seizures that she started having after she moved
in with Raffaeli and it they it's believed that she had this untreated illness as a child.
Oh, wow. That this was a lingering consequence of. Oh, that's awful. abused. This could have been a result of
that. Definitely. So again, she was raised a devout Catholic and she was in a very Catholic country
at the time. But she also had some interest in some like superstitious beliefs and other beliefs.
And by early adulthood she had a big interest in supernatural stuff and you know, magic and the occult.
I wonder if the thought that she was cursed had anything to do with that interest.
Yep. And she was, you know, through that lens, the various negative parts of her
life like the, you know, the negative emotions, all the crying, the anxiety, the seizures, the paranoia.
It all kind of made sense to her because she was like it's the result of the curse that my mother had placed on me
because I married Raffaele. And as far as she could tell, the curse was affecting her husband as well because
given her low social status, Raffaele's marriage to Leonardo was looked upon pretty poorly by his co-workers and
superiors. So her low low status made him a target. couple steps above her. And whenever
there was an opportunity to like get a promotion at work, he was always passed over because they had married
her. They used that against her. That's so [ __ ] up. Regardless of how long he had worked at
a place. like the marriage has nothing to do with the job. So desperate for any kind of guidance or
any anything here, Leonarda turned to the Romani community hoping that the things she had heard about them being
able to you know, help you with these kind of things like take the negative portions of your life and like help you
turn them around like tell you the tell you your future, help you manifest, all that good stuff. She was hoping it was
all true. And she was like I just need some guidance here. So one fall afternoon, she went to a local fair and
she seeked out a fortune teller who could help her. She so she had been feeling you know,
dealing with the seizures, dealing she had headaches, she had crippling depression, anxiety, all this awful [ __ ]
happening her terror for months and months. And she was honestly at this point convinced that she was dying. Wow.
was on the verge of death. And she just wanted someone to tell her no, you're not.
Right. And so she located this woman and the woman literally was walking her into
the tent and Leonarda said, "Am I going to die? Is that what the curse is going to do?" That's the first thing she said.
And so the lady looked at Leonarda's palm and told her, "No, you're not going to die, at least not anytime soon."
Okay. And she said if that was any relief, it was definitely short-lived because you said,
"You're going to live a long life, but it will be a life full of sadness. You are going to outlive every one of your
children." Oh god. Now this was in early 20th century Italy. It was pretty understood that she was
going to want and eventually have many children. That was part of the whole deal here.
And this seemed like a very cruel premonition. Yeah. But it didn't stop her from wanting to start a family. It
was just a very scary thing and it was also something that just compounded on top of her already fear, anxiety,
paranoia, paranoia, depression. Now she's cuz she's already kind of obsessing over this idea of this curse
that her mother has placed on her and now she's hearing this and she's going, "Oh [ __ ] this is the curse." This
woman's nervous system, I can't even imagine. even fathom. And so after 3 years of trying, Leonarda
became pregnant in 1920. Okay. Unfortunately, it was an immediate source of anxiety
because of that lingering thought. anyway. Yeah. And eventually the seizures returned
because her anxiety got so bad and she had some falls, some accidental injuries because of the seizures. And 3 months
into the pregnancy, she had a seizure that caused a fall and she had severe abdominal pain and bleeding. Oh no.
And they went to the doctor and the doctor said, "I'm sorry, but you've miscarried." Oh god. So this was
devastating, obviously. Yeah. She really wanted to become a mother because one of her things was she
wanted to be the exact opposite of her mother. Mhm. And to be able to get that opportunity is like through.
And it also was reinforcing her belief that her mom's curse was real and she was going to have a life of tragedy and
misery. Raffaele wanted to be supportive, so he was like, "You know what? Nothing's keeping us here in Montello
where we are. Let's relocate. Let's put Let's put all this [ __ ] behind us. Let's start somewhere new." So they
packed up the things they had and they moved they left Montello and they kind of bounced around to a couple of towns
looking for work and somewhere to settle and they finally went back to Raffaele's
hometown of Loria Potenza in 1921. Okay. And they had some temporary jobs along the way, so they had some money saved
and they were able to save enough to buy a small house in Loria and they both found work and they settled down and it
seemed like it was a new start for them. Now That was more than 100 miles away from
Montello, so they were thinking, "You know what? We left that in the [ __ ] dust. Like bye."
But just after a few months into starting their new life, her anxiety was starting to you know, slip away. It was
getting better. It felt like it was like, "Okay, the seizures were lessening because she wasn't as anxious."
And soon after, she was like, "You know what? Maybe he's right. Like maybe this curse is [ __ ]
Maybe we just needed a fresh start. We had to get the hell away from my mom." Mhm. You know, like maybe I don't need
to worry about fate so much. Maybe I need to like just create my own [ __ ] I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.
A year later in 1922, Leonarda became pregnant and she gave birth to a boy. And they named this boy Giuseppe and
from the moment he came into this world, she was determined to be an infinitely better mother than Amelia was to her.
She devoted every waking moment to this child, his health, his happiness. But she kept hearing that curse in the
back of her mind and along with the premonition told to her by that fortune teller.
And so she now had a whole host of new anxieties to start rolling around in her brain here because I mean any new
parent, the new anxieties that come with that are indescribable and a plenty. So
for someone who is already suffering from a monumental amount of trauma and anxieties and depression and paranoia
tour and fear, this is just unthinkable. for disaster. And it caused her to be hyper-vigilant and overprotective of
Giuseppe. And although the pregnancy wasn't a bad pregnancy, which is good, it did require
her to leave her job at the time. And so they were getting by on only Raffaele's
paycheck and she didn't even though she didn't want to be away from her son, she
wanted to find a job because there was a second fear she had of like she wanted his health and safety. And she was also
so scared that they would lose all their money and that he would be in the you know, it was always back to him. Like I
can't let something happen to him. Oh god. I feel I'm I'm like feeling for her so much right now.
It's a whole story. It's very sad. But the problem was that Leonarda didn't have a lot of marketable skills at the
time and also she was a woman at the time. Mhm. So she was at a pretty big disadvantage and so she was she just
took whatever job she could and she eventually found one as an after-hours cleaner at a local tavern.
Now when she was at work, she was just plagued with fear and worry about what might happen to Giuseppe while she was
away from him. And when she was home, she spent all her time just obsessing, micromanaging her
son in order to protect him. And initially, he was just like, "Oh, you know, like she's she's just you
know, she's just mom. Like it's fine." Yeah. But then he got older and he started
socializing and he started seeing other parents and he was Like not every mom is like this. Like
this is smothering and like a lot. And then she started kind of isolating him from other children
because she was discouraging him from socializing because she you know, she was so obsessed. So there's a lot of
psychological issues happening here. Very much so. Obviously, that's going on that I'm not
going to sit here and diagnose cuz I'm not a doctor, but like clearly there's other things going on here that it
that abuse has played into, that all kinds of manner of things have played into.
Definitely. And it's now it's like even though she's going a totally different route than her mother was, not a great
route. It's also not a positive thing. It's like we're going the pendulum's swinging too far the other way.
But despite the fears and stress that motherhood brought and the physical demands of her work now, Leonarda and
Raffaele were wanted more children. Mhm. And unfortunately, their attempts to have more children were kind of
thwarted for a while because she had a they had a lot of miscarriages over the next few years.
awful. And they had multiple in a row and finally after some heartbreaks, she gave birth to two girls in a very short
period of time back-to-back. And then after that, a son came again. Okay. she's got two sons, two daughters. Um
And each time she was like, "You know what? Like I'm that curse mercer. Like this is going to be fine." But within a
few years of them being born, the children began getting sick. And first her son, the youngest son, the
one that was born more recently, not Giuseppe, was getting rashes. And they would get very severe and then
one of the girls got a terrible cough and this one daughter, her lungs were filling with fluid and she was coughing
anytime she was laid down. So Leonarda would sit upright every single night holding her up so that she
could sleep. Oh my god. That's also not helping with her mental health. No. Because now she's not getting sleep.
She's she's so fearful that all this is going to happen. And she did everything she could and I'm sure what Raffaele did
too, but she ended up passing away, the little girl. Just a few months later, they woke one morning to find their
youngest son had died in his sleep. Oh my what like just could have been SIDS? Wow.
knows? Like that that point I don't know. right. Again, given they were so young,
like babies cuz they were all born in very quick succession, which is just something that happened. There in the
era in which they died, there wasn't an autopsy or anything you know, to say what happened to these children cuz this
was unfortunately a little common. Now, this is tragic. She's lost two children.
And this is a very short period of time. Her fear of the curse and the premonition. And she was just
inconsolable. Of course. And according to Ryan Green, the author I mentioned earlier, she abandoned her
part-time jobs entirely and devoted every waking moment to paranoid observation of her surviving children.
Oh god. Which I can't even fathom this. I really can't. And things only got a few later, that second daughter
contracted the same coughing illness Oh no. and died of the same illness. So now she just has Giuseppe again.
Oh my god. Now, three of your children die. The death of any child is incomprehensible.
And such a deeply traumatic experience that How do you go on? anybody would just fall into the the
void. But when you add like a curse and several deaths of children and the idea of a
curse and all that. And there's no way there's no autopsy to tell you that like this isn't a curse,
this is like a congenital thing. This is some kind of hereditary thing. This is a
this is a SIDS kind of thing where you couldn't have avoided it. It's just you know, like all this stuff.
But whatever the real explanation was, as far as Leonardo was concerned, this is just proof of the curse and
she was sure that this was just going to continue happening and that it was going
to come for Giuseppe eventually. So, the incredible loss caused a bout of depression unlike anything that she had
ever experienced before. And I mean the anxiety ramped up, the seizures were now ramping up. She was in
very poor health at this point. And you know, Raffaele was also struggling with the same grief like as the father.
But he was also trying to help her and trying to keep her from succumbing essentially.
really loved her. He really stuck around and he really he really loved her. He wanted her to be
better. Um and so he was he tried to like console her and then he was like, you know what? Like this was a bad time in
our lives, but again, we're of that era too, where he was like, let's have more children. Oh god.
And he was like, that's what makes you happiest is being a mom. So let's, you know, let's just fill our house with
children again. So like that is really what compounds her anxiety, too. Yeah, it's like this I I can I know the
intention Poorly and nicely. but oh god. Like watching from out here, you're just like, oh no. This is so sad.
Also probably thinking about all of this falling onto Giuseppe. Yeah, and he's and he and he's trying to
fill a void in his own heart, you know, like it's all very sad and like very incomprehensible truly. That's why I'm
like I can't even like put my own opinion in here cuz I I can't even go there. No. Um and she was reluctant at this
point cuz she was reluctant to tempt fate. But eventually they did try to get pregnant again and in a few years after
that, she did successfully deliver five healthy baby boys. What? Yeah. So she had four kids before that and
then had three of them pass away and then she had five more baby boys. Nine [ __ ] kids. All of them died.
What? Yes. How? And there was no from what all the sources, there was no sign of abuse. There was no sign of and her
children that like like to you know, there's no nothing that said that they were abused
or killed or poisoned, but there's also no autopsy around to Yeah. But there was
no like Raffaele didn't claim that there was any kind of shenanigans going on and
they all died very young. Wow. I don't know what to think of it. I think it's a a
horrifying and staggering number of children to to lose. Yeah. And she obviously becomes a
murderer. Yes. So it does make you question it slightly. Absolutely. But we don't know. No idea. Interesting.
is that all the sources are saying that it's it's without explanation. I wonder if there's any possibility of
Munchausen's by proxy? Yeah, I don't know. it's just [ __ ] tragedy on tragedy on
tragedy. regardless and later when she spoke about this, she was quoted as saying,
almost every night I dreamed of small white coffins swallowed one after the other by black earth.
Oh my god. Yeah. So the grief drove her deeper and deeper into depression and despair, you know,
and she she's just becoming more paranoid, more more anxious, more upset. And it was so bad that like Giuseppe, you
know, he couldn't let his guard down for even a minute with her. Like she was on him
24/7. Giuseppe was the focal point of everything. I bet. And luckily at this point, thanks to the connections that
Raffaele had made in the community through his job cuz he was a really hard worker and Yeah. like we said, a kind
guy. Right. Um they found more work for her as an after-hour cleaner at a local bank. Okay.
So it was a you know, a better environment according you like she liked it better. And now she could focus on
hopefully focus on something else. Yeah. job suited her for a time. And she didn't mind, you know, it was
repetitive. It was kind of isolated, the hours and all that, but she didn't really mind it.
Okay. The only complaint she really had was that after she had to pay out of her
pocket for cleaning supplies. Oh, that's shitty. that, she was left with very little. So
it was like she was away from her son and not really bringing home enough to really make it worth worth it.
Right. So in an effort to to change this, she started making her own soap and her own cleaning supplies.
Ruh-roh. And at this point, she's just making her own soap and her own cleaning supplies. But even that wasn't really a
much of an improvement in what she was taking home. And she was still obsessing over what was happening to her
son when she wasn't there. Now one evening after everyone had left the bank for the evening, she went into
the manager's office and she created a fake account for herself in one of the bank ledgers and transferred
um a not so subtle amount of money into her account. was it? know the exact amount, but it wasn't
subtle. Not like 20 bucks. And she ended up slipping out of the office. She was like, no one's going to
know that. But this is 1930. This is 1930, but like even in 1930, banks keep meticulous books. They know
when there's a discrepancy. And so when she came back to work the next afternoon, she was met by the
police. Oh. Who arrested her on a fraud charge. Oh [ __ ] Now, the the arrest and the criminal charge
were definitely a source of embarrassment and anxiety all by themselves. then she quickly realized that by doing
this to try to help her family, she could affect her family greatly with this. More important most
importantly her son. And unlike her usual, you know, fears and anxiety and paranoia, this wasn't
really an unreasonable one to be worried about. legit. Because although Raffaele, like we said,
he was well-respected, well-liked, um the shame and suspicion of this could have fallen back on him at his job where
they could say he had something to do with this or do about it. And she realized this and she was like,
oh [ __ ] So in order to place as much distance between that happening and her, she went out of her way to make sure
everyone knew that she did it by herself. That he had nothing to do with it. Raffaele did not know about it. She
said, I only did it because I was quote seized by madness. Okay. But she made sure like he did not know about it. Do
not punish him for it. clearing her husband's name. Yeah. Or trying to at the very least.
They did love each other. It sounds like it. one thing that I truly believe. Yeah. Now she went before a judge in 19
it was 1927. So when I said 1930 before, I meant like almost 1930. Not exactly. Um and she was found guilty of fraud and
sentenced to 18 months in an institution that had once served as a nunnery and was still operated by the church.
Now according to Genevieve Ortiz, who is the author of The Deadly Soap Maker of Correggio, the true story of Leonarda
Cianciulli, uh what would have been considered a very grueling sentence and mistreatment
at the hands of nuns because it was not a nice place. Mhm. Uh any other woman who was in that institution was just in
a hell of their own making at that point. Um it was child's play to Leonarda. She
was like, she had gone through so much. She was like, you kidding me? I grew up with Amelia. Like what this is nothing.
Like she didn't she was she dealt with physical and psychological abuse of her own mom. So
she was like, yeah, this doesn't even phase me. So unaffected. Unaffected. That's so [ __ ] up.
She got through every day easy as pie. Didn't bother her. And she said what got her through was thinking about Giuseppe
waiting for her on the other side. Yeah, she probably just had a level of disassociation that none of us can
imagine. Now Leonarda went through her sentence no incident and was released a little
over a year later. And when she got home though, it was not great because Raffaele had
lost his job because of the crime. Oh no. like regardless of her trying to distance it, they were like, no, we
don't buy it. Oh no. Um so his reputation was tarnished in the community. too. Yeah, and his family. It was tarnished
throughout the whole thing. Oh no. And after years of being super supportive and super patient and super
understanding, he got a little resentful at that point. And he figured and to him, he was like,
where has my patience gotten me? I mean, yeah. Yeah, this is what happened. And according to Ortiz, for the first time
in their marriage, he'd become openly critical of a mistake. Oh. And it's a hard one, man. And given the shame that
she had and you know, the turmoil that she had brought to her family now and the ways that her crime had affected,
you know, everything. Uh Raffaeli borrowed a small amount of money and was like, we got to get out of
here. Like we can't stay here. No way. So they relocated to Lacedonia, Avellino and
they hoped to start over again. Now for the second time, they had uprooted themselves, they were going to
start a new life, but now they have a small they have a child Great. So they can't sleep in strangers' hay
barns and like, you know, in exchange for a day's labor and all that, which is what they did the last time they
relocated and it was this like adventure together as a couple. Now they have a child. Who's got to eat. When they
finally reach Lacedonia, Raffaeli found a clerical job and they were able pretty
quickly to afford a very small house in a very rural village. It took a few months, but they settled in and once the
move was behind them, things calmed down. So Okay. Leonarda and Raffaeli were able to
reconnect, everything calmed down, the tension kind of chilled out and she again found herself pregnant.
Mhm. Which just brought back the same anxieties and fears that the baby was going to die like all the other ones. So
and she and fortunately, she was spared that tragedy right away because she did end up having a healthy baby. Um and she
ended up having another healthy baby right after that. Okay. Uh so she was 12 pregnancies
say I've lost count at this point. 11 or 12. So now she has a Giuseppe and two other
babies. They were very quick together. Um yeah, and it's so, you know, at this point the children seem to be doing okay
and her and Raffaeli's relationship was on the mend seeming to put the mistakes in the past
and we're going to just pretend that didn't happen. Uh but she was just unable to shake this fear and unable to
shake this paranoia and the feelings of you know, suspiciousness that something's going to the other shoe is
going to drop. Mhm. And whenever she had the chance to visit another traveling fortune teller,
she would do it. Uh-huh. Which only fed her anxieties and one afternoon about 2 years after they came
to Lacedonia, she visited another one and this woman took her hands in hers and looked at them and then looked her
in the face and said, "In your right hand I see a prison, in your left a criminal asylum."
Oh, wow. Which also makes me think like, damn, these were like the real deal. I was
going to say. And Leonarda just left this woman and went home. And this is she went right
back to obsessing over a possible future tragedy cuz that doesn't sound great. That's like, girly, that is in your
control. Yeah. And on 1930, after about 3 years after arriving in Lacedonia, there was a violent and destructive
earthquake that struck the region. It killed more than a thousand people and caused
so much damage including Leonarda and Raffaeli's house. It was completely destroyed. Oh, no. So they were
devastated, but they were able to collect what they had in the rubble and had to relocate again and this time
they still had their whole family, you know. they ended up going to the city of Correggio.
Mhm. And the residents of Correggio Correggio they knew of this devastating earthquake
and they welcomed all the people that were displaced from Lacedonia and these people in Correggio did everything they
could to make sure these people felt welcome and like gave them opportunity like they were super warm, super
hospitable to these people. And so they were so nice that they helped Raffaeli find a good job right
away. Wow. And you know, Community. Yeah, and it's like for the first time since the whole like jail
thing happened and since they went to Lacedonia, things weren't as [ __ ] terrible as
they have been. Like, you know, like it seemed like, okay, they were stable at this point cuz they had an income now.
Raffaeli got a pretty good job. The children were healthy, they were making friends, they were doing well in school.
Everything seemed like it was on the up and up, but Leonarda was still unsettled. She was just waiting.
And the earthquake had affected her so deeply, it shook her in a way that the other tragic events hadn't yet.
It was like after this event, she internalized all the collective horrible events that had happened and she was
like, this was all my fault. It was my fault for marrying Raffaeli in the first place. It's like, no.
And that curse. Like this is the this is it. She cannot look at this all and go,
it's in the past. I just got to move forward. I got to look at my happiness that I have and move forward. She just
can't seem to do it. No. And as a result, she kind of went the other way and just gave up the hyper
vigil vigilance because she was like, you know what? I can't protect them from this curse. So
I just have to live. Which so it was almost like a positive thing where she got hyper hyper hyper
obsessed and she couldn't settle herself down about it and then it got so bad and
so unsettled even though everything was so stable that she just went, [ __ ] it.
And then it was like she was able to just Okay. For a moment, it was difficult, but she was like, I'm going
to let go and I'm going to try to just live and I'm going to try to like be in this moment.
and she started to feel a little bit stable. She was starting to gain a little bit something she probably never
felt before, so I'm sure it was a scary feeling. And she was kind of trying to like integrate back into like being a
human and being So she started, you know, she made friends in the community. She participated in community events and
she and Raffaeli eventually became a very well-liked and very well-respected couple in the community. Wow.
They were working and eventually friends and neighbors like helped her buy this little open this little storefront
in the village. For soap. And it was attached to the family home. And so she did, she sold handmade soaps,
other handicrafts because that's what she was good at. Mhm. And her she was popular in town.
Like everybody was like, Leonarda and Raffaeli. Like everything was like, what the [ __ ] is this? This is like the most
on its head from what it was. It's like it's such a like success you would think it's a success tale. But
this is just like, holy [ __ ] you came out of the brinks of just despair, like the
depths of despair and just awfulness and look at you. You're you're feeling it. I'm so
worried. And by 1940, unfortunately, Italy had found itself drawn into the Second World War. Mhm.
You know, and the war effort was ramping up and they needed soldiers and the Italian military employed a campaign of
nationalism to convince young men to join the fight. Somebody who was very enticed by this
was Giuseppe. Giuseppe. Yeah. Uh he saw the war as an opportunity to, you know, fight for, you
know, his national pride, but also get away from his overbearing mother. Mhm. And so Leonarda didn't find out
from Giuseppe that he joined the army. She found out from neighbors at the market. That's not good. And she had
gone through her entire existence just trying to protect these children from this perceived curse, so this was pretty
devastating for her. Right. Because at this point the war hadn't reached its like peak combat
violence, but the risk was undeniable here. Like there was a very high certainty that something bad would
happen to him. Yeah. And after all the years that she had obsessed over protecting him and
watching him, she was like, I can't let this go. I'm not letting this happen. Oh, So she was literally unwilling to
let this happen, but he was an adult now and able to do it. So she decided to turn back to her
interest in, you know, books on the occult and superstitions and like old texts and she was like, I'm going to
find a way to save his life, to like keep him from something bad happening. Okay. I wish she looked up a way to like
lift a curse. Yeah. You know? like, you know, at that point self-help wasn't really like a thing, you know, like
that's what the unfortunate time period of the song self-help. Lift the curse. Yeah, you know? Now, in the years since
they'd moved to Correggio, Leonarda had relaxed like I said and settled into this kind of like less anxious
existence, but this Mhm. just turned it all on its head. Of course. I was I was waiting.
Yeah. And Leonarda had continued sporadically visiting fortune tellers and had become come a little bit of a
student of the occult at that point. Just like, you know, it it wasn't bothering her at that point. And she was
learning about magic and learning about fortune telling and like, you know, like
the cunning women that we talked about like, you know, in previous episodes of like the 1600s. Fun [ __ ]
And she ended up getting this huge collection of books that she was collecting about the different subjects.
All healthy. Yeah. Until then. Uh-huh. Um but she was So she went looking in this collection
trying to find something that could help her son and keep him safe. Sure. And she found what she thought was
the solution in a book called The Law of Equivalent Exchange. Mhm. Okay, I see where we're going.
Yeah. So according to the book, she could ensure Giuseppe's safety, but in order to do so, she would have to offer
another life as exchange. An equal exchange. According to Genevieve Ortiz, who I
mentioned before, the thought of human sacrifice deeply disturbed Leonarda. That's good.
But she felt she had no other choice. That's not good. No. Uh if she wanted to protect him, she was
going to have to exchange someone else's life. Oh, wow. As we can see, there is something There's a deep happening here.
There's a mental illness that lies within even begin to describe. And I think I think I don't think
there's just one, I think there's several and a lot of trauma, a lot of everything. Um so Leonarda started
collecting all the things she was going to need to create an effective poison to do this. And she began to think about
who her victim would be, who her sacrifice would be. If you say Raffaeli, I'm out. No. Okay.
Okay, good. Um, but she settled on a woman named Faustina Setti, who was a 76-year-old spinster.
Oh my god. And as far as Leonarda knew, she didn't really have a lot of family and not a
lot of ties in the community. And she's still 76-year-old woman. Now, in the years since since she opened
that shop in Correggio, um, Faustina had been one of the many women who would come by regularly. Even supported her
business, and you're going to sacrifice her. Yeah. And she would come by to like just
chat with her, share her like, you know, her woes kind of thing. And she would lament a lot about how lonely she was.
That's horrible. And her social position as a spinster meant that the community kind of looked
down on her as sort of like somebody deserving pity a little bit, and that's really it. It's like, okay, you've been
there before, too, Leonarda. Exactly. And Leonarda was able to convince herself It was okay.
actually be doing Faustina a favor by ending her life. I'm I'm just ending her misery.
Um, and she figured that it was going to ensure that Faustina's life became meaningful because she was sacrificing
her to save Giuseppe. So, she was convincing herself that this was fine. So, once she figured that out, she
invited Faustina to the shop, and she said, "I found a man who is interested in meeting you."
And he And so, she I mean, Faustina was desperate to be married, to get out of this this spinsterhood.
Even at 76? And so, Leonarda told her that she'd been exchanging letters with a man in
Pula, and once he'd seen a photo of Faustina, he was in love, thought she was beautiful. This is so cruel.
totally, cruelly exploited this woman's loneliness. And unfortunately, it worked. Of course.
And Faustina was so happy, she immediately made arrangements to travel to Pula to meet this man. And knowing
that she had at least like a couple family members in the area and scattered around the country, Leonarda said, "Oh,
you should write a series of letters to your family members so people don't become concerned about your absence, and
they won't interfere with your new relationship. So, just let them know that you're going to be gone." This is
cold-blooded. See. We start It's like a switch flicks. Seriously, like it This was already in
her somewhere. it was. Somewhere. Because it we get to a point where you go, "Huh?"
What was that about? Like, nothing makes sense here even with your your trying to
validate it in your own mind. Yeah. And Faustina did it all. She wrote the letters. And Leonarda promised to
mail the letters a few days after she'd left. So, on the morning that she was supposed to leave, she went to
Leonarda's shop, and she was so excited, so nervous. This is so mean. And Leonarda invited her to sit down and
have a drink of wine to calm calm her nerves. Uh, it obviously never would have occurred to her that this was a bad
thing to do because Leonarda was her friend. Yeah. So, she did. She sat down, but the
wine was drugged. So, she became very drowsy, very ill, very out of it, and she was starting to panic and becoming a
little immobile from the effects. And Leonarda went into another room and came back in
holding an axe. Oh. Later, Leonarda would tell authorities that she what her intention was to
swing the axe and cause a single blow to the back of her head to kill her quickly.
Uh-huh. But she misjudged. And the axe came down hard into Faustina's shoulder and shattered her
clavicle. Oh my god. The woman was paralyzed in agony, like just screaming. Leonarda had to literally like rip the
axe out and then brought it down again and again and again. And she said all she thought about was Giuseppe's safety
as she did it. No. So, what ended up what it ended up being was a [ __ ] massacre and a nightmare.
In her shop, right? The It was Yep, and it was covered in Faustina's blood. There was tissue,
all manner of biological matter all over the room, covering Leonarda. Wow. Later, in her published memoir
titled An Embittered Soul's Confession, she said this. This is me just backing into the trees like Homer Simpson right
now. Her [ __ ] These are her words. "I threw the pieces into a pot, added 7 kilos of caustic soda, which I had
bought to make soap, and stirred the whole mixture into the pieces dissolved in a thick, dark mush that I poured into
several buckets and emptied in a nearby septic tank. As for the blood in the basin, I waited until it had coagulated,
dried it in the oven, ground it, and mixed it with flour, sugar, chocolate, milk, and eggs, as well as a little bit
of margarine. Kneading all the ingredients together, I made lots of crunchy tea cakes and served them to the
ladies who came to visit. Though Giuseppe and I also ate them." I Yeah, that's how I acted when I first
read that. My mouth hung agape, and I just had nothing to say. She literally used her blood to make
crunchy tea cakes and served them to unsuspecting patrons of her shop, and also ate them herself, and served them
to her child who she is protecting? Question mark. What the [ __ ] Did she say that like the the book said he had
to eat it? So, there's nothing This is just her own little sprinkle of magic on top of it.
That's an upsetting way to describe that. I don't have words right now. What the [ __ ] [ __ ] you absolute
monster. Yep. See how it flips? The whole time you're sitting there going, "My god, this poor woman. The tragedy
she has endured." And this is when you look back and you go, "She went mad, huh?" She went [ __ ] mad.
of death happened around you. That's the thing. And I don't know There's nothing that
says she did anything to her children. And I will remain there, but I'm just saying there's no
We don't have It's questionable at the very least. look at this, you go, "Well, fuck."
Yeah. But again, there's nothing that says that she did anything to her children,
but my goodness, this is her first kill. Wow. Now, according to the law of equivalent
exchange, the sacrifice should have ensured, you know, an easy exchange. But as far as Leonarda could tell, this
wasn't an easy exchange. She was like, "You know what? This was not easy. I It ended up being very messy and very
horrific." And she said cake about it. Yeah, you know. And then she said the flesh and the fat that she was actually
cuz, you know, she made the blood into tea cakes. She was thinking, "You know what? I can have this equivalent
exchange and save Giuseppe. I can also make tea cakes out of the blood, and I can also use the fat fat and the flesh
to make some soap. And I can get some, you know, a lot of good stuff out of this."
But she said, "You know, cuz it was such a messy murder, it was all kind of rendered useless. She
couldn't use the fat and the flesh. It didn't work." Okay. "I don't know. I don't think it went
that well. So, you know, there was a lot of mistakes, a lot of mishaps here. And
so, she believed I don't think I did it correctly. I don't think it's going to work. I don't
think the magic is going to work. And you know what? Giuseppe's safety is on the line here, and I don't think it
worked. Giuseppe's safety is a scapegoat at this point. think that. I think that's a bunch of [ __ ]
she said, "Got to do it again." No. One murder is one murder. Too many. Like, that is not okay. And after several
weeks passed without anyone really suspecting any foul play in Faustina's absence, you know, they didn't think she
was murdered cuz she just went to see her man. Yeah, Leonarda began making plans for
the second sacrifice and found her next victim uh, would be Francesca Soavi. Now, unlike Faustina, Francesca was a
former school teacher, an active member of the community. And she didn't have any children of her own, um, but she was
actually a widow, a recent widow. And Francesca was going to be missed and noticed.
Yeah. She's young. So, very different like, unfortunately, from Faustina. Like, she really tried to
pick somebody that didn't have a lot of ties in the Yeah. Um, and but but uh, Francesca was in desperate need
of work at this moment since her husband had passed away. Yeah. And so, she turned to Leonarda
for advice. No, thank you. Now, on a visit to the shop, Francesca explained the whole
thing like, "Oh, jeez, like I need to find work. Like, this is awful." And Leonarda said, "Wow, lucky lucky
solution here." Because she said, "I happen to know a very good and well-paying job at a girls' school in
the northern city of Piacenza, I believe it is. I'm sorry, Italian listeners. Uh,
but, you know, you got to get there quickly to apply. It's not going to be vacant for long. We got to get you
there." So, you know, she was desperate. She was excited for an opportunity to get out of
her space and her grief at this point. And so, she didn't ask a lot of questions. She was just like, "Sure.
Awesome. Leonarda's a good lady. I like her and Raffaeli. Why would I worry about this?"
They're so well-respected. So, one September morning, she arrived at Leonarda's shop early before she
planned to leave to go apply for this job. And Leonarda was like, "Sit down, write a couple of postcards to loved
ones telling you why you're you know, telling them why you're leaving. You don't want to worry them. But you got to
get there like cuz you got to get there so quick that we don't you don't have time to tell everybody.
And she said, "Don't tell anyone where you're headed because people might try to stop you from taking this job cuz
they won't want you to move away from them. So, so don't tell them where you're going.
Just tell them that you're going to take a job so they don't stop you." Oh, man. She is Yeah.
[ __ ] wild, dude. That's the thing. There's so much [ __ ] cold callousness here and
cunning Yeah. involved in this and like manipulation. And just oh, just Yeah. Yeah. And so she said, "You know
what? Sit down. Have have a glass of wine before you leave." And she poured her a glass of poisoned
wine and quickly it disoriented her. She disappeared into the back room and returned with an axe in her hand.
She's going to do the axe again? Well, this time she knew what to expect and she said she swung with confidence this
time. Oh, good. Francesca on the back of the head. Oh. The axe buried directly into her skull.
Oh, god. was hard and did the job in one swing. Oof. Now, certain that she had killed
her, Leonardo went through her belongings taking anything that was of value. What? So, wait. I thought I thought this
was a sacrifice to protect your son. Why are you stealing her [ __ ] That's not an even exchange.
got rid of the rest. She kept the stuff that was valuable. What? Yeah. So, it's like, "Honey, people are
going to find out." Yeah. And then she dismembered her body. Uh-huh. This time she was careful in the
execution of this because she wanted to use that flesh and fat to create some soap.
The blood was dried and eventually went into more popular tea cakes. Mhm. The remaining flesh and other
useless parts or what she deemed useless were tossed in that tossed into a vat of
caustic soda and then thrown into the sludge pit behind the house later that evening. Mhm. Later, after she had been
arrested, Leonardo said she only killed this woman because of her, you know, deluded belief that doing so would
protect her son during the war. And obviously that is deeply irrational. Um this would have been a plausible
explanation if you look at it like like a like she is deeply disturbed Yeah. and sick and needs to
be go taken away. Taken care of. That you'd be like, "Okay, like maybe she thinks that." You
know, like you can person that's the thing. Because like and it would still be horrific just saying that.
and you could almost look at it as she's saying that first one didn't feel right.
I suppose the law of equal exchange says that it needs to be easy. And it wasn't
easy. So, I was worried that I [ __ ] it up and that it wasn't going to work. So,
you could almost understand why a sick person would delude themselves into believing
that they need to do it correctly. You could almost believe that if you're looking at it like this is a sick
person. You know what I mean? Like not any rational person thinking this. Like looking at the sickness.
You could almost think that. But given that the murder, you know, this this murder, the second murder of
Francesca Suavi, it should have satisfied the law of equivalent exchange that would ensure
Giuseppe's safety, correct? Like we you did it. According to the deluded and irrational and deeply
disturbed and sick thinking Yeah. of Leonarda, Yep. this you did it in one swing.
It was {quote} {unquote} easy Mhm. relative to the first one. Yep. Faustina, Yep. this should be it. Correct? One
would think. Well, and one would think that also you wouldn't steal her things and make her into tea cakes and soap,
but Thank you. one thinks a lot, I guess. This was also not the last murder that
she committed. Yeah, I know. Uh Yeah. And I didn't even know that to be fact, but I just know.
You just know now. Her third victim was completely senseless. They all are, but even by her
own rationale, it would make this victim completely senseless. Mhm. And this one also comes off as very
personal and petty. Uh somebody pissed her off, huh? Yeah. So, in Correggio, there were not a lot of like famous
people walking around. It was a pretty small village. But there was one notable resident. Her name was Virginia
Cacioppo. Okay. She was actually a former opera star. Oh, [ __ ] And Cacioppo had retired from the stage
because it was after her husband had died several years earlier. Oh, so much death.
she was a wealthy patron of the arts. She was a beloved resident in Correggio. And according to Ortiz, {quote} Leonarda
resented and admired Virginia in equal amounts. Mhm. She was jealous. She wanted to be
her. Now, remember, Virginia is very well respected. So is Leonarda at this point.
Remember, she's a high, you know, thought of very respectable in this community. So, they became close friends
Oh, no. years earlier. And when Virginia decided, you know, "I miss the excitement of like urban life." And she
wanted to move to a larger city. She was like, "I got to get out of here. I want
to leave." Leonarda took this as a personal betrayal of their friendship. That she was leaving her. But she was
just abandoning her back here. That's wild. And she said and she thought, "You know what?
If according to Ortiz, she said, "If she wanted someone good enough to kill for Giuseppe, Virginia was as good as it got
in a place like Correggio." A charity killed someone twice for Giuseppe, so I think we can let go of
that theory. Yep. Now, she used a pretty similar tactic as she had in the first two
victims. She told uh Virginia that there was an available secretarial job in Florence. And you
know, that was really good for her skill set. It was a pretty It was a cute job,
you know? Like it was in a It was going to be in the city. And when Virginia arrived at the store
on the morning of September 30th, 1940, things got off to like not an easy start
for her plan. Because Virginia repeatedly refused Leonarda's offer for wine. She was like, "No, thank you."
She kept insisting, kept insisting. And after a while, she was like, "Fine, I'll
have a little drink with you." Uh-oh. Uh but it took a long time and some real zhuzhing.
And she took her time drinking that wine. She ended up finishing the entire glass as she sat and talked with her.
And that's when the poison began to work. Oh, no. Virginia became immobile and Leonarda laid her on the floor of the
shop and carefully, as she is conscious but immobile, removed all her expensive jewelry and
anything of value on her and stuffed them all in her own pockets. Oh my god. So,
That's [ __ ] up. it's to save Giuseppe anymore, everybody. That's not an even exchange.
to save Giuseppe. I mean, none of it would have been an even exchange, but this is definitely
not. And then she left the room as Leonarda's laying there immobile. Or no, um or excuse me, then as
Virginia's laying there immobile, and she returns with an axe and she raised it above her head as and
Virginia's laying on the floor and she brings it down on Virginia's chest Oh. and shattered several of her ribs in one
blow. And Virginia was said to let out one small gasp and then died on the floor.
Wow. Leonarda quickly dismembered the body as she had done previously. Uh saved any usable parts for soap and tea
cakes again. Oh my god. And recalling this whole thing, Leonarda wrote in her memoir, "She ended up in
the pot like the other two. Oh. Her flesh was fat and white. When it had melted, I added a bottle of cologne
and after a long time on the boil, I was able to make the most acceptable creamy
soap. I hate it. I gave bars to neighbors and acquaintances. The cakes, too, were
better. That woman was really sweet." That is so disturbing. So disturbing. That's monstrous.
That's monstrous. That's not I'm doing this for the sole purpose of my child's safety. This is
like, "I like doing this." And later to write in your memoir and try to make it like a
"That woman was really sweet." Like cakes were better." And and trying to say like she was so
sweet. Like that has a double meaning and you know what you did there. Oh, yeah. That's
[ __ ] atrocious. And now, apparently, remember Giuseppe is a grown boy here. At war. No, he
A few days later after she'd finished making the soap from Virginia's remains, Leonarda took a bar home and insisted
that Giuseppe wash himself with it. He was a teenager at the time and he was like, "No. Like that's weird that you're
just giving me this random bar of soap to wash with." So, he she dragged him into the tub,
pulled off his clothes for him and washed him entirely from head to toe with it.
And then she brought him to the kitchen and made him eat some tea cakes. This is
that were made with Virginia's blood. No, that's That's another crime. So, in the first two cases, she had
successfully avoided suspicion. You know, neither one of the women had huge family
ties. I guess like, you know, Francesca had more than Faustina, but But still not very many. Virginia, it
was like she went up in each time with how many people were going to wonder where they were. Well, and with
Francesca, she had her write letters, but she didn't have Mhm. uh Virginia write any letters.
Now, just a few weeks after the murder, Leonarda was beginning to feel as, "You know, I think I did satisfy the law of
equivalent exchange. Like I think I'm good." I think you're only balanced. sister-in-law,
Albertina Fanti, came knocking on the door looking for Virginia. And basically, Virginia had told her,
Albertina, about the potential job in Florence and had told her, "I heard about it from Leonarda."
Right. So, she decided to go straight to the source. And she's like, "Listen, your tea cakes
are [ __ ] weird lately." Leonarda had not accounted for this possibility happening. So, she just
stared at her. And then this woman is peppering her with direct questions being like, "What
the [ __ ] happened here?" So, she just apologized and closed the door. Girly, I mean I'm glad that it went that
way cuz like that's sus, but So, Albertina was like, "That's weird. That's weird." So, she went about town
asking about her sister and this whole thing. And at one point she learned that two other women from town who had
disappeared after going to Leonarda's shop. Uh-huh. And eventually she took her suspicions to the local police who
started to investigate all the disappearances. Hello, I'd like to report a crime,
{question mark} Now, Leonarda had been careful to cover her tracks. She did a very thorough job of cleaning up after
herself. There was really not a lot in the way of evidence for the investigators to work with.
And it's the 40s. Yeah, at this point it's the yeah, 40s I think. really have like DNA or anything like
that. I don't have anything like that. But, what they did have were the postcards.
So, the postcards and letters that she had these women write, they were they were all mailed by Giuseppe.
She had had her son mail these and just like just being like, "Can you run this errand for Yeah, of course he didn't
know. And in this case so so Giuseppe had had mailed these letters. They knew this now. Yeah. So,
now just like when she was arrested for the fraud case, it hit her. Oh, [ __ ] Giuseppe's going to go down. I'm going
to get him in trouble for this. So, um her son was arrested Right, of course. to it now. And she went straight to the
police and confessed to everything. What? She went to the simple police. coming. That's what I'm saying. This is
a twisty turny. You cannot understand any of it. No, but she she was even suspected of killing her son.
She he was only arrested because his name he was the one who mailed those things. They were like, "He did it. He
obviously killed these women." She went confessed to all three murders, insisted
he had nothing to do with anything. He didn't know about anything. I told him just to mail these letters. She said, I
that she committed all three letters with the intention of protecting or all three murders, excuse me, with the
intention of protecting him. Uh-huh. And at first the investigators were like, "Yeah, right. I don't believe that at
all." And they were also like, "You're a respectable woman in town. I don't believe this. Like you're trying to
drive her crazy. three people. Like that doesn't make sense. But, then she showed them the soap and
tea cakes made from Virginia's remains and also showed them all the valuables that she'd stolen from all three women
and took them to the sludge pit behind the house where she disposed of liquefied body parts. I have to go. And
what she said to them in her written confession that she did, No. she wrote, "I used to mix human
blood with chocolate and add an exquisite flavor made of tangerine, aniseed, vanilla, and cinnamon.
Sometimes I added a sprinkling of powder from human bones." What the [ __ ] So, the investigators were [ __ ]
horrified, but were also like, "Uh pretty open and shut case, I guess." Under arrest.
showed us literally every bit of evidence that we never would have found and confessed all of it.
So, she was immediately arrested and taken to jail. You don't say. But, because the war was
raging across Europe at the time, all local prosecutions were temporarily on pause. So, she was held in a jail cell
until they were going to prosecute her. It was 6 years before she stood in front
of a judge. Holy [ __ ] That is me and Drew's entire relationship. Damn. Holy [ __ ]
Yeah, she was convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison. And during that time her family,
including Giuseppe, completely disowned her. Yeah, I don't say. all turned their back on her and they
referred to her as basically a monster and they referred to her as the soap maker of Correggio.
I don't like that, personally. And throughout her entire incarceration, she expressed no remorse, no regret. She
did what she had to do to protect her son and she wasn't going to apologize for it. What?
And she said it was completely worth it to ensure that he was safe. No, she doubled down?
That's the thing. So, she's sitting there saying that. She came forward and confessed when he
when he was going to be put on on trial for it. But, they don't align. Nothing aligns
here with what she is saying cuz because she's just so mentally ill. What there should have just been one
sacrifice if if that's what she was going with, you know what I mean? Like you would think that would satisfy her
deluded and very sick belief. Reasoning, yeah. But, it didn't. No. And then you would think, "Okay, in her
delusion and her sickness right, {quote} {unquote}. She didn't do it right, so she did she she did this
awful second thing. Yeah. But, then that third one was completely senseless. It did not align with any of
this. Very petty, very She's stealing from these women as she goes, which is not part of the whole thing.
She's very clearly somebody who gets some kind of pleasure from murdering people.
So, I think it's just And then part of her was obsessive about her child Yep. due to all the trauma and all the the
curse nonsense and all that. I do believe maybe it started off like that. she was a very very very very disturbed
very sick and disturbed and unhelpable human being, to be quite honest. Yeah. And I think there was also a part of her
that came from this tragedy and this trauma and it was in her somewhere. This this monstrous
way of being was in there somewhere. Yeah. I think it's a little bit of like a where did that come from? That was
that was lying dormant in there somewhere cuz you can't just bring an axe on three different people and chop
them up and make them into tea cakes and soap without having a little bit of something
off in there that was always there to begin with. That's a couple screws loose, my dude.
Now, Leonarda died in prison on October 15th, 1970. Wow. Never answered any more questions that
any authorities, reporters, anyone asked her. Wouldn't answer anything. She did what she did. She told you why she did
it. I have nothing else to say. of that whole story. you all the information. I gave you all
the evidence. I don't regret it. This is why I did it. like 90 when she died? Yeah, she lived
long. Holy [ __ ] Hey, that that fortune teller told her, "You're going to live a long life, but
it's going to be sad." Do you know if she outlived Giuseppe or could you not find that
don't know, actually. That's a very good question. Interesting. I I'm sure Giuseppe kind of faded into the
background after that. to, you know, I'm not going to go search him. No, no, no. But, when it comes to the
true murder uh the true motive for the three murders of these poor women in Correggio,
of like Faustina, Francesca, and Virginia. I just wanted to say their names. Yeah.
Uh we're not going to know whether what the motive really was. There was no I don't think there really
was. I think the motive started off with protecting Giuseppe and then I think she
just lost her mind. Yeah. Yeah, cuz it's like even the stealing of the valuables, she was running her own
shop at that point, you know, Raffaeli had a good job. They were stable. They weren't struggling. They were
She was well respected. She was People came to her. They came to her shop. It wasn't like she was
So, she didn't need to do like there wasn't even the robbery and like financial distress and all that. Like
that had to do with derived some pleasure from it and probably like looked back on those items
and and the fact that she was feeding the tea cakes to people, like that was for
laughs. That was for kicks. people tea cakes made with human remains and sell them bars of soap made from the fat
and flesh of three murder victims No. for any other reason than besides you wanted to do that and you thought you
you pulled the wool over people's eyes. Exactly. You were like, "Oh my god, look. They think I'm innocent." They're
sitting there washing with this and they have no idea. And then the whole like washing Giuseppe with the soap.
Yeah, it's a [ __ ] bonkers. eat the tea and even she ate the [ __ ] tea cakes. It's bonkers. It's on another
level. ever understand this. I don't think we'll ever understand this. think we should. I don't want to, but
it's a tale that just blew my [ __ ] mind apart. Yeah, my oh [ __ ] my. And that is the
story of Leonarda Cianciulli, the soap maker of Correggio. Yeah, after this we're watching Buffy and I have never
needed a palate cleanser more in my [ __ ] life. Yeah. So, Holy [ __ ] Yep. You just really sent me
with that one. That's that was what I intended to do, so I'm glad. Wow. Mhm. Well, we hope that you keep listening
after that. And we hope you keep it weird. But, not so weird that you decide to protect your
kid by murdering others and chopping them into bits and then making soap out of them because that is not weird. That
is [ __ ] insanity. Woof. What the [ __ ] Woo.

Having lost several children to childhood illnesses, Leonarda Cianciulli was very protective of her surviving children and was willing to do anything to protect them. So, when the deeply superstitious Leonarda was warned by a fortune teller that all her children would die at a young age, the forty-six-year-old shopkeeper determined that the best way to keep her son alive was to offer human sacrifices in exchange for Giuseppe’s safety. Ove the course of a year, Leonarda murdered three local women and disposed of their bodies with caustic chemicals, using any remaining biological evidence in the creation of soaps, candles, cookies, and cakes, which she shared with others in her community.

Thank you to the lovely David White, of Bring Me the Axe podcast, for research assistance :)

References

Baltimore Sun. 1946. "Rendered her friends to wax, she says." Baltimore Sun, April 28: 3.

Eddy, Cheryl. 2015. The Superstitious Murderer Who Turned Her Victims Into Cake And Soap. June 23. https://gizmodo.com/the-superstitious-murderer-who-turned-her-victims-into-1713486930.

Green, Ryan. 2019. The Curse: A Shocking True Story of Superstition, Human Sacrifice and Cannibalism. Unknown: Independent.

Museo Criminologico. 2006. The Correggio soap-maker. September 12. http://www.museocriminologico.it/correggio_uk.htm.

Ortiz, Genoveva. 2022. The Deadly Soap-Maker of Correggio: The True Story of Leonarda Cianciulli. unknown: True Crime Seven.

Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

Brief Summary

Leonarda Cianciulli, the Soap Maker of Correggio, murdered three women to protect her son, using their remains in soap and cakes.

Key points

Amelia's Tragic Upbringing. Amelia De Nolfi's privileged childhood takes a dark turn when she is assaulted.
Forced Marriage. Amelia is forced to marry her rapist, Mariano, after becoming pregnant from the assault.
Leonarda's Struggles. Leonarda grows up in an abusive environment, leading to her own mental health struggles.
A Fortune Teller's Warning. Leonarda seeks guidance from a fortune teller who predicts a life of sadness.
Tragic Loss. Leonarda suffers the devastating loss of multiple children, deepening her despair.
A Desperate Act. In a bid to support her family, Leonarda commits fraud and faces arrest.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This was her fault. She did it.

Amelia's belief about her pregnancy after the assault.

6:55WatchOct 24, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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