Leonarda Cianciulli carried out three murders in the Italian town of Correggio between 1939 and 1940, dismembering the victims and converting parts of their bodies into soap and teacakes under the influence of her own superstitious convictions.

Her actions occurred against the backdrop of the Second World War, when many families faced acute uncertainty about the safety of young men sent to the front. Cianciulli interpreted astrological predictions and warnings from fortune-tellers as direct threats to her own sons and responded by seeking what she regarded as protective rituals that required human victims.

Contemporary records show that she selected vulnerable women who had limited social connections and then lured them to her home with offers of assistance or employment. Each case followed a similar pattern of deception followed by violence, after which she disposed of remains in ways that delayed discovery for months or years.

Background

Leonarda Cianciulli was born in 1894 in Montella, a village in the province of Avellino. She experienced a difficult childhood marked by the early death of her father and subsequent family instability. At the age of twenty-one she married Raffaele Pansardi, a civil servant whose postings took the couple to several towns before they settled in Correggio.

The marriage produced four sons. Cianciulli became intensely protective of them, especially after one died in infancy. Local accounts describe her as increasingly preoccupied with omens and fortune-telling, a preoccupation that intensified when Italy entered the war in 1940 and her remaining sons faced conscription.

Personal Beliefs and Daily Life

Cianciulli consulted multiple fortune-tellers and maintained a private collection of talismans. She later stated in her confession that one seer had warned her that the only way to avert the deaths of her sons was to offer human lives in exchange. These claims were recorded by investigators after her arrest and formed a central element of her explanation for the crimes.

She ran a small shop selling household goods and occasionally acted as an informal marriage broker. This role gave her access to women who sought help finding husbands or employment, a circumstance she exploited when selecting targets.

The Crimes

The first victim, Faustina Setti, disappeared in 1939 after telling neighbours she was moving to Pola to marry a man introduced by Cianciulli. Setti had paid Cianciulli a sum of money to arrange the match. In reality, Cianciulli killed her at home, dismembered the body and boiled the flesh to produce soap, which she later sold or gave away.

Francesca Soavi was the second victim. She vanished in 1940 after accepting an offer of work as a teacher in a remote area. Soavi had also paid Cianciulli a fee. Her remains were treated in the same manner, and portions were turned into teacakes that Cianciulli distributed to acquaintances.

Virginia Cacioppo, a former opera singer, became the third victim later that year. She had been promised a position in a theatrical company. After her death Cianciulli again rendered the body into soap and retained some blood to mix into cakes. Cacioppo’s relatives grew suspicious when letters supposedly written by her ceased to arrive.

Method and Disposal

In each case Cianciulli struck the victim on the head with an axe or similar implement while they sat at a table. She then dismembered the body in a wash-house attached to her home. The flesh was boiled with caustic soda; the resulting mixture was poured into moulds to set as soap. Bones were crushed or buried. Blood was collected separately for use in the teacakes.

These steps were carried out over several days. Neighbours noticed nothing unusual because wartime shortages made the smell of boiling fat less remarkable than it might otherwise have been.

Investigation and Capture

Police attention focused on Cianciulli after relatives of Virginia Cacioppo reported her disappearance and linked it to earlier missing women. Officers searched the house in September 1940 and discovered incriminating items including personal belongings of the victims and traces of human remains.

Cianciulli initially denied involvement but confessed after several days of questioning. She provided detailed accounts of each murder and led investigators to locations where she had hidden additional evidence. No further victims were identified.

Trial and Sentencing

The trial took place in Reggio Emilia in 1946. Cianciulli was convicted of three counts of murder and sentenced to thirty years’ imprisonment together with three years in a criminal asylum. The court accepted that her actions were motivated by genuine, if delusional, beliefs rather than ordinary financial gain, though this did not alter the verdict.

She served her sentence in various Italian prisons and was released on health grounds in 1970. She died later that year in the women’s criminal asylum at Pozzuoli.

Psychological Profile

Psychiatric evaluations conducted after arrest described Cianciulli as suffering from a severe personality disorder compounded by superstitious ideation. She displayed no remorse in the conventional sense; instead she maintained that the murders had successfully protected her sons, all of whom survived the war.

Contemporary observers noted that she cooperated fully with authorities once arrested and appeared eager to explain her reasoning. This combination of calculation and religious or magical conviction distinguishes her case from many other serial murders of the period.

Legacy

Cianciulli’s crimes received renewed attention in the 1970s when excerpts from her prison writings were published. The case continues to appear in studies of female offenders whose actions were shaped by cultural beliefs rather than straightforward economic or sexual motives.

Italian legal records and contemporary newspaper reports remain the primary sources. No evidence has emerged of additional victims beyond the three confirmed cases.

Conclusion

Leonarda Cianciulli’s murders illustrate how personal superstition, wartime anxiety and social isolation can intersect to produce lethal outcomes. The three women who died left families who received no satisfactory explanation until her confession. The case is preserved in official records as a documented instance of serial homicide carried out under the belief that human sacrifice could alter fate.

Bibliography

Cianciulli, L. (1946) Confession to the Court of Reggio Emilia. Reggio Emilia: Archivio di Stato.

Newton, M. (2006) The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. 2nd edn. New York: Checkmark Books.

Ramsland, K. (2005) The Human Predator: A Historical Chronicle of Serial Murder and Forensic Investigation. New York: Berkley Publishing Group.

Schechter, H. (2003) The Serial Killer Files. New York: Ballantine Books.

Wilson, C. and Wilson, D. (2007) The World’s Most Evil People. London: Carlton Books.

Italian Ministry of Justice (1946) Trial transcripts: People v. Leonarda Cianciulli. Rome: Archivio Centrale dello Stato.

Petacco, A. (1977) Le donne del delitto. Milan: Mondadori.

Reggio Emilia Police Archives (1940) Investigation report on disappearances in Correggio. Reggio Emilia: Questura di Reggio Emilia.

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