Leonarda Cianciulli From Italy

Posted by Unknown on Thursday, April 10, 2014

Leonarda Cianciulli From Italy - In 1893, Leonarda Cianciulli was born in Montella, Italy. As a child, she attempted suicide on two separate occasions and was greatly disturbed. Cianciulli had seventeen pregnancies during her marriage, but lost three of the children to miscarriage, and ten more died in their youth.

In 1939, Cianciulli heard that her eldest son, Giuseppe, was to join the Italian army in preparation for World War II. She came to the conclusion that his safety required human sacrifices. Cianciulli then planned the murder of three middle-aged women. After the victims were comfortable, she killed them with an axe and cut their bodies into nine parts. She also gathered the blood into a basin.

In her memorial (titled “An embittered soul’s confessions”) Cianciulli describes what happened next: “I threw the pieces into a pot, added seven kilos of caustic soda, which I had bought to make soap, and stirred the whole mixture until 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 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.”

In regard to her third murder, Cianciulli said: “She ended up in the pot, like the other two, 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 some most acceptable creamy soap. I gave bars to neighbors and acquaintances. The cakes, too, were better, that woman was really sweet.” Leonarda Cianciulli has become known as the “Soap-Maker of Correggio,” because she turned the remains of her victims into soap and food.
Leonarda Cianciulli

After a neighbor became suspicious of Cianciulli, the police were called, and she immediately confessed to the murders, providing detailed accounts of what she had done. Cianciulli was found guilty of her crimes and sentenced to thirty years in prison and three years in a criminal asylum.

Leonarda Cianciulli died of cerebral apoplexy in the women’s criminal asylum in Pozzuoli on October 15, 1970. A number of artifacts from the case, including the pot in which the victims were boiled, are on display at the Criminological Museum in Rome.

{ 0 comments... read them below or add one }

Post a Comment