Soap Maker Leonarda Cianciulli
By James Donahue
Italians remember Leonarda Cianciulli as the “Soap-Maker of Correggio” for a horrifying reason. While living what appeared to be a normal social life in the community of Correggio, she murdered three women who came to visit, and cooked their remains to make soap and their blood to make teacakes.
She served the teacakes to her friends and neighbors.
Leonarda was born in Montella in 1894. It was said she made two suicide attempts while a young girl. When she ran off to marry Raffaele Pansardi against her mother’s wishes, her mother cursed the young couple.
The curse may have worked. While living in Lariano, their home was destroyed by an earthquake. Leonarda also experienced seventeen pregnancies. She lost three children to miscarriage and 10 more children died in their youth. Four other children survived and she became ultra-protective of them.
In 1939, as war clouds were building over Europe, Cianciulli, who by then was an occultist and a practicing fortune teller, concluded that human sacrifices were needed to keep her children safe. She was especially concerned about her eldest son, Giuseppe, who was joining the Italian army in preparation for war. Thus she planned the sacrificial killings of three women.
Her first victim was Faustina Setti, a 73-year-old spinster who came to Cianciulli for help in finding a husband. Cianciulli gave Setti a glass of drugged wine then killed her with an ax. She cut the body into nine parts, collecting the blood in a basin. In her memoir she described what she did with Setti’s remains:
“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 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. Giuseppe and I also ate them.”
It was said that Cianciulli also received Sett’s life savings, 30,000 lire, as payment for her “services.”
The second killing occurred the following year. This victim was Francesca Soavi, who paid Cianciulli 3,000 lire to help her find a job at a school for girls in Piacenza. She stopped for a final visit before leaving town and was never seen again. Cianciulli killed her with the ax and processed the remains the same way she had Faustina Setti. More special tea cakes were served.
The final victim, 53-year-old Virginia Cacioppo, was a former opera singer living in poverty in Correggio. She paid Cianciulli for assistance in getting a job in Florence. But she too ended up as a pile of bar soap, which was given to friends and neighbors. Cianciulli commented that the soap was much sweeter than the soap made from the other victims.
The Cacioppo killing was Cianciulli’s downfall. It seems that this woman’s sister-in-law worried about her strange disappearance, knew she had been visiting Cianciulli, and contacted the police.
When questioned about the case, Cianciulli confessed to the murders. She was sentenced to 30 years in prison and three of those years in an asylum. She died of cerebral apoplexy in the women’s asylum at Puzzuoli in 1970.
By James Donahue
Italians remember Leonarda Cianciulli as the “Soap-Maker of Correggio” for a horrifying reason. While living what appeared to be a normal social life in the community of Correggio, she murdered three women who came to visit, and cooked their remains to make soap and their blood to make teacakes.
She served the teacakes to her friends and neighbors.
Leonarda was born in Montella in 1894. It was said she made two suicide attempts while a young girl. When she ran off to marry Raffaele Pansardi against her mother’s wishes, her mother cursed the young couple.
The curse may have worked. While living in Lariano, their home was destroyed by an earthquake. Leonarda also experienced seventeen pregnancies. She lost three children to miscarriage and 10 more children died in their youth. Four other children survived and she became ultra-protective of them.
In 1939, as war clouds were building over Europe, Cianciulli, who by then was an occultist and a practicing fortune teller, concluded that human sacrifices were needed to keep her children safe. She was especially concerned about her eldest son, Giuseppe, who was joining the Italian army in preparation for war. Thus she planned the sacrificial killings of three women.
Her first victim was Faustina Setti, a 73-year-old spinster who came to Cianciulli for help in finding a husband. Cianciulli gave Setti a glass of drugged wine then killed her with an ax. She cut the body into nine parts, collecting the blood in a basin. In her memoir she described what she did with Setti’s remains:
“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 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. Giuseppe and I also ate them.”
It was said that Cianciulli also received Sett’s life savings, 30,000 lire, as payment for her “services.”
The second killing occurred the following year. This victim was Francesca Soavi, who paid Cianciulli 3,000 lire to help her find a job at a school for girls in Piacenza. She stopped for a final visit before leaving town and was never seen again. Cianciulli killed her with the ax and processed the remains the same way she had Faustina Setti. More special tea cakes were served.
The final victim, 53-year-old Virginia Cacioppo, was a former opera singer living in poverty in Correggio. She paid Cianciulli for assistance in getting a job in Florence. But she too ended up as a pile of bar soap, which was given to friends and neighbors. Cianciulli commented that the soap was much sweeter than the soap made from the other victims.
The Cacioppo killing was Cianciulli’s downfall. It seems that this woman’s sister-in-law worried about her strange disappearance, knew she had been visiting Cianciulli, and contacted the police.
When questioned about the case, Cianciulli confessed to the murders. She was sentenced to 30 years in prison and three of those years in an asylum. She died of cerebral apoplexy in the women’s asylum at Puzzuoli in 1970.