Leonarda Cianciulli committed three murders in the Italian town of Correggio between 1939 and 1940, acting under a fixed conviction that human remains could shield her son from harm.
She selected vulnerable women who sought her help with personal matters and lured them to her home with promises of new lives abroad. Each victim disappeared without immediate suspicion, yet the pattern of their absences eventually drew attention from local authorities. Cianciulli’s actions stand out in the record of Italian crime because she preserved and repurposed the bodies rather than simply disposing of them.
Her case unfolded against the backdrop of the Second World War, when many families feared conscription and separation. The crimes therefore reflect both personal pathology and the heightened anxieties of that period.
Background
Leonarda Cianciulli was born in 1894 in Montella, a village in the province of Avellino. She endured an unhappy childhood marked by her mother’s reported hostility and her own early suicide attempts. In 1917 she married Raffaele Pansardi, a registry office clerk, and the couple moved first to Lauria and later to Lacedonia before settling in Correggio in 1930.
Cianciulli suffered repeated miscarriages and lost several infants. Four children survived to adulthood. She became increasingly absorbed by fortune-telling and protective rituals, consulting palm readers and astrologers about her eldest son, Giuseppe. When Italy entered the war in 1940, Giuseppe faced military service. Cianciulli interpreted a series of omens as proof that only a blood sacrifice could guarantee his safety.
The Crimes
Faustina Setti
In September 1939 Faustina Setti, a 73-year-old spinster, visited Cianciulli seeking assistance in finding a husband. Cianciulli told her that a suitable match awaited in Pola and demanded money and personal effects for the journey. Setti returned on the appointed day. Cianciulli struck her with an axe, dismembered the body, and boiled the remains with caustic soda to produce soap. She collected the blood in a basin and later baked it into teacakes.
Francesca Soavi
Francesca Soavi, aged around sixty, also consulted Cianciulli about emigration. She was told a teaching post had been secured in Piacenza. On 5 September 1940 Soavi arrived at the house. After the same method of attack and dismemberment, Cianciulli again rendered the body into soap and incorporated the blood into cakes she distributed to neighbours and acquaintances.
Virginia Cacioppo
Virginia Cacioppo, a former opera singer in her fifties, sought help in locating employment. Cianciulli arranged a supposed secretarial position in Florence. On 30 September 1940 Cacioppo was killed in the same manner. This time Cianciulli retained some jewellery and sold it, which later helped investigators trace the transaction.
Investigation and Arrest
Cacioppo’s son-in-law grew concerned when letters from Florence ceased. He learned that Cianciulli had handled the arrangements and reported the matter to the carabinieri. Officers searched the house in Via Paolo Stanzani and discovered personal belongings belonging to all three women. Neighbours recalled the strong smell of soap and the unusual cakes. Cianciulli initially denied involvement but confessed after several days of questioning.
She led police to a well where she had hidden the victims’ personal papers and described the process of rendering the bodies without apparent remorse. The confession was detailed and consistent with physical evidence recovered from the property.
Trial and Conviction
Cianciulli stood trial in Reggio Emilia in 1946. The court heard testimony from neighbours, surviving relatives of the victims, and medical experts who examined the soap samples. She was convicted of three counts of murder and sentenced to thirty years’ imprisonment plus three years in a criminal asylum. Her son Giuseppe was not charged.
She served part of the sentence in the women’s prison at Pozzuoli and later in a psychiatric facility. Cianciulli died of natural causes in 1970 at the age of seventy-six.
Psychological Profile
Contemporary psychiatric reports described Cianciulli as suffering from a severe superstitious delusion reinforced by repeated personal losses. She displayed no classic signs of sadism or sexual motivation. Instead, the murders were framed as necessary ritual acts to preserve her son’s life. Prison writings and interviews show she continued to view the killings as protective rather than criminal.
This form of reasoning aligns with documented cases in which individuals commit extreme acts under the influence of fixed false beliefs about magical causation. No evidence suggests she would have killed outside that specific protective framework.
Legacy
The case remains one of the few documented instances in which human remains were converted into soap and foodstuffs for distribution. It receives occasional mention in studies of female offenders and in Italian true-crime literature. Local historians in Correggio have preserved contemporary police records, and the story continues to illustrate how wartime anxieties could intersect with individual mental disturbance.
No copycat offences have been linked to the case. The victims’ families received limited public recognition at the time, yet their names appear in official trial documents and subsequent historical accounts.
Conclusion
Leonarda Cianciulli’s crimes were planned, methodical, and sustained by a coherent if irrational belief system. The investigation relied on ordinary police work and community observation rather than forensic innovation. The outcome reflects both the limits of wartime record-keeping and the eventual restoration of normal judicial process after 1945. The case stands as a clear record of three lives ended to satisfy a private ritual.
Bibliography
Newton, M. (2006) The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. 2nd edn. New York: Checkmark Books.
Ramsland, K. (2006) The Human Predator: A Historical Chronicle of Serial Murder and Forensic Investigation. New York: Berkley.
Schechter, H. (2003) The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World’s Most Terrifying Murderers. New York: Ballantine Books.
Vronsky, P. (2007) Female Serial Killers: How Woman Serial Killers Kill and How They Get Caught. New York: Berkley.
Wilson, C. and Seaman, D. (1992) The Serial Killers: A Study in the Psychology of Violence. London: Virgin Books.
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