Soap-Maker of Correggio - Italian Serial Killer Leonarda Cianciulli

Murder Files Unsealed

Leonarda Cianciulli, known as the "Soap-Maker of Correggio," was an Italian serial killer who murdered three women in the 1930s and 1940s. Motivated by a desire to protect her son from harm during World War II, Cianciulli believed she needed to perform human sacrifices. She lured each victim to her home under false pretenses and killed them with an axe. After dismembering the bodies, she boiled them in a pot with caustic soda to make soap and baked the blood into tea cakes. Cianciulli was eventually caught and sentenced to prison, where she died in 1970. Her case has been the subject of various works of art, including a darkly comic play by Lina Wertmüller.