The story of Leonarda Cianciulli, a serial killer who turned his victims into soap and cupcakes

According to stereotypes, Italian moms and grandmothers, caring and loving, always make sure that their children are well fed and caressed. Well, Leonarda Cianciulli was clearly from a different test. Of course, she adored her children, but when in 1939 she found out that her eldest and most beloved son wanted to be taken into the army, she decided that human sacrifices were necessary to save him.

In the period from 1939 to 1940, this strange woman sent three innocent ladies to the next world. The scheme was always the same: Leonarda lured lonely neighbors to her, drugged them with wine, and then killed them with an axe. The corpses were dismembered and dissolved with caustic soda, after which she cooked soap from the remains. And she used the blood to make cupcakes, which she treated her relatives and neighbors with. Cianciulli received 30 years in prison and three years in a mental hospital for criminals for her murders.

It is unclear at what point in her tragic life, full of superstition and mysticism, this unfortunate woman went mad, but she entered the history of criminal Italy forever.

Known by the nickname the Soap Maker from Correggio, Leonarda Cianciulli was born in 1894. Her childhood was more than unhappy: the girl was born as a result of the rape of her mother, who, according to Leonarda's memoirs, always hated her with all her heart. As a teenager, Leonarda tried to commit suicide twice. Later, she explained all her failures in life by the fact that her mother had put a curse on her.

In 1914, she married a minor official, Raffaele Pansardi, whom her parents disapproved of because they held a higher position in society. Cianciulli claimed that it was after the wedding that her mother cursed her and condemned her to a life of suffering.

Of course, there was no evidence of a curse, but it's hard not to believe it if you look at Cianciulli's life after marriage. A few years after her husband's marriage, Cianciulli was jailed for fraud, and three years later her house was destroyed by an earthquake. After that, the couple left for Correggio, where Cianciulli opened a small shop and earned an excellent reputation as a good, affectionate woman, a caring mother and a nice neighbor.

During the marriage, Leonarda became pregnant 17 times, of which three pregnancies ended in miscarriages, and ten children died at a young age. Before that, a superstitious woman was with a fortune teller who told her that she would get married, but all her children would die one by one. That is why she protected the four survivors in every possible way. Later Cianciulli went to a palmist, who did nothing to overcome the woman's fear of the curse.

Under the pressure of the curse, which, in her opinion, was imposed by her mother, and the predictions of Leonard Cianciulli became very superstitious. Perhaps if her life had not been so filled with superstitions, curses and fortune tellers, she would never have killed.

In 1939, a woman learned that her eldest and most beloved son Giuseppe was to join the Italian army. Determined to protect him at all costs, Cianciulli suddenly decided that it required human sacrifice — and chose three of her neighbors, middle-aged women. Some sources claim that Leonarda herself was engaged in divination, and these ladies came to her for advice; others say that the women came to her just as neighbors. Anyway, she started planning to kill them.

It all started with the fact that the old maid Faustina Setti turned to Cianciulli to help her find a husband. Leonarda said that a suitable candidate was waiting for her in the city of Pola and she needed to go there, having previously informed her family and friends that she was leaving and that everything was just fine with her. For her "services", Leonarda took 30 thousand lire from Setti, almost all the savings the woman had.

On the day of her departure, Setti came to visit Cianciulli to say goodbye, and agreed to drink a glass of wine, not knowing that a drug was mixed there. Leonarda killed a naive woman with an axe and cut her corpse into nine parts, collecting all the blood in a basin. Later in her memoirs, Cianciulli described what happened next:

The second victim, Francesca Soavi, believed Leonarda's statement that she had found her a job at a girls' school in Piacenza. Like Setti, Soavi wrote to her family and friends about her move. And I also drank an unusual wine at Cianciulli's parting. And also turned into soap and cakes. The murder took place on September 5, 1940. On Soavi, the soap killer earned 3 thousand lire.

The third and last victim of Cianciulli was the former opera singer of the La Scala Theater, the owner of the beautiful soprano Virginia Cacioppo. Cianciulli allegedly found her a job as a secretary for a mysterious impresario in Florence.

Although Cianciulli thought she had covered all traces, she missed something. Unlike his first two victims, who had a limited social circle, Cacioppo had a daughter-in-law, and at the same time very curious. She did not believe the letters telling about the sudden departure, and saw Cacioppo enter Cianciulli's house on the evening when she was supposed to leave. She reported her suspicions to the police, and soon Leonarda was arrested.

As a result, the killer received 30 years in prison and spent another three years in a mental hospital for criminals. As it turned out, the palmist was right.

Leonarda Cianciulli died of a cerebral stroke in the women's mental hospital for criminals in Pozzuoli on October 15, 1970. The items in her case, including the pot in which the victims were cooked, are on display at the Criminological Museum in Rome.

Leonard in his youth

Three victims of Leonarda Cianciulli

Later in prison, Leonarda Cianciulli wrote a memoir entitled: "Recognition of an embittered soul"

Leonard during the court session