The Soapmaker of Correggio

Once in a while, life seems to hold a dark cloud over us. It could be a streak of bad luck or maybe even mental health struggles. Unfortunately, for many people before the twenty first century, they were often undiagnosed or forced to take extreme measures to try and find solutions to these problems. Now, try and imagine putting yourself in this situation. It's early nineteen hundreds, and you have what you believe is a curse condemning your life and

My name's Ben and I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked and Grim, Aue crime podcast.

The following podcast material in more mature audience.

Listener, do you ever notice how when I'm doing our intro, I'm always using hand gestures? Actually, yes, like pretty much every time. I don't know why.

I don't know if anyone realizes how many gestures actually occur behind a microphone.

A lot, actually a lot, well, I mean it helps episize sometimes, Yeah, but lots lots of times we're not even noticing it of each other. Well, no, Butter, we're are we You're more of a hand talker than me.

You think I'm a hand talker A little I think a little hand talker, a little handooker. Wow, Okay, I don't know if that's that's a good thing or what. But I'm a little hand talker, I guess.

But when I try to annunciate things or really describe something, I feel like I'm using my hands.

That's true. You get you get that motion going. Yeah, if you listen closely, you can almost hear, like in our voice, that motion as we get our hands. I don't know if you guys could hear it or not.

I could hear. But I was also witnessing it.

That's true. That's true. You were You want to know else I was witnessing not too long ago.

What's that awesome?

People signing up for a Patreon the Oh yeah?

Yeah.

So we had Bonnie Kega Rice who shout out told me how to pronounce their name correctly.

I don't think you nailed it.

I think so awesome because Kega Rice, she was like it's literally just keg of rice, kega rice.

Yeah, that's a good way of describing it.

Yeah, so thank you. Bonnie.

Probably wouldn't pronounce it that way, would you have.

I don't know, and I'm looking in hindsight. It's hard to say. Yeah, I might have said couga race. I don't know, Okay, but yeah, it's Bonnie Keger, Sophia Troke mung Bean, which I don't think that's a real name, but if it is, love it. And Paige Mortgridge awesome, So thank you so much for signing up on Patreon. You guys are getting that exclusive behind the scenes content and of course the extra episode.

At the end of the month, which we're approaching quickly, aren't we.

We are, so we got to figure that out. Maybe we should be asking our patrons again what they what they want to hear?

It's already February twentieth, That is wild. Well, I mean it will be twenty first when you're listening to this.

And time flies so fucking fast it's stupid.

Yeah.

And speaking of time flying fast, we mentioned before a new podcast potentially coming out by Wicked and Grim.

Yeah, this is People are excited about this because we haven't mentioned a lot about it.

We haven't. We're really hoping to have this up and running in about two months time. So just so you guys know, Jacko might have his own show in about two months.

Wow. So look at Jacko just doing this shit.

I know, I'm pretty sure he's more popular than we are. I know he's pretty dope though.

He Actually he's pretty cool, dude, he is.

I think we should figure out his backstory even too. Oh, I think that'd be cool. Yeah, that would be super cool to know. Actually, yeah, maybe we should ask him about it, see if he can give us some of the deats.

We'll do a Q and a session with him, we'll interview him.

We should Oh wow, that would be fun. Maybe that'll be a good Halloween thing or something.

Maybe Yeah, no kidding, Actually, well, you ready for this episode? I'm ready? Your intro is bomb?

Was it?

Yeah? Well, because you kind of you mentioned a little bit about this case, but then your intro was like, oh okay, okay, that makes it sound a little different than what I had in my mind.

Yeah, because this one's it's almost got two stories to it. It's the curse we spoke of and the life leading along said curse and the result and what she does because of said curse. Okay, so it's kind of those two. And shout out to live over at proud pause for recommending this. Who's there are dog groomers? Yeah, so I was up there the other day and she told me about this one, and I was like, that sounds dope, So let's do it.

They grew maur doggles and the knew a freaking amazing job.

They do, So let's get into it.

You ready, Yeah, I just took a sip of water. I'm ready. Roll.

Okay, let's go stay hydrated. People, Nichole's doing it. I'm sure not. I know that. Okay. We started off with Leonarda Chinchuli. She was born on April eighteenth, in eighteen ninety four in the small Italian town of Montela Aka. It was known as the Kingdom of Italy. Okay, but from the very start there was little in her life

Holy shit.

So yeah, we're starting off on a not very eloquent foot here. No, I can't imagine making those sort of shoes.

That's horrible.

Yeah.

I didn't even think anything like that could ever happen.

Now, well, it was mostly an attempt to clear her name and take that smudge away sort of thing of being pregnant at a wedlock sort of thing, you know. But even with these attempts to repair her name and status, she became out of wed became pregnant out of wedlock anyways, in her family cut her off.

Wow.

So yeah, So Leonarda's mother went from living in luxury to living in squalor and her and in her mind, there was only one person to blame her new baby she had just conceived from her assailant, Leonarda.

Okay, that actually shocked me even more. I was thinking you were going to say the attacker was completely to blame.

No, she just did not like her child out of spite. I mean, not that you should treat anyone in negative manner just because of these actions of someone else. I mean, it's it's a baby. It's an infant, right, Yeah, the baby did nothing. But I can understand that skewed perspective on this child when it's like your father assaulted.

Me, I can understand it. But also like, the baby had literally nothing exactly do with any of this.

The baby is the result, but it's not their fault. So wow, I get it, but it's not an excuse all at the same time. Right, So, anyways, Leonardo's mother made sure that Leonarda knew everything that happened and that it was all her fault.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, she said it was her fault that they had no money to buy food or clothes, and her fault they lived in poverty, and Leonarda believed her as she grew up.

Holy, this is really fucked Okay.

Now, understandably, the two had a very terrible relationship built out of spite, and before Leonarda even became an adult, she had tried to commit suicide on two separate occasions, showing just how deeply her mother's words were cutting her.

Well, yeah, this is just I can't even Oh, it's so brutal, this is so brutal and so sad.

Yeah, a parent's job is to be there for your child, and yet you're sitting here saying these things, driving your child to this that is fucked up.

I feel incredibly bad for her, I do I mean to be fair? Can we do an episode without being too be fair?

I do feel bad for Leonarda's mother as well because of what she went through. So I mean she is a victim in these circumstances as well.

Yes, but now she's creating someone else to be a victim that is exactly necessarily meaning to be.

She's perpetuating the cycle. Yes, so I feel bad for her as well. However, again it's not an excuse. So anyways, she took everything herm mother said very seriously. That's why when Leonarda came home with what she thought would be good news one day, her mother's words would change the course of Leonardo's life even more dramatically forever. In nineteen seventeen, Leonarda married a man by the name of Raphael Pensarti. He was a local registry office clerk with a steady job.

She was right, I wouldn't be expecting that her mom would be happy about this exactly.

Why wouldn't she be? Yeah, but the happiness and excitement, for whatever reason, did not come. She was furious. Furious, yes, and we do know all the reason. Okay, Leonarda had known at that time, or sorry, had not known at that time, But her mother had actually been planning for Leonarda to marry someone else, someone much more wealthy, someone who could provide for their entire family as a whole.

And she was not aware of this, I'm assuming correct.

So when she came home and announced her marriage to Raphael, she basically ruined her mother's plans, and her mother took this as like a final betrayal.

Because her mom was basically just trying to get back to the lifestyle she had at one point of luxury, right pretty much, and this was her.

Plan exactly, okay, and it just this all went out the window now because of this.

Wow.

Yeah, And of course divorce was out of the question, so there was little that her mother could do to undo Leonardo's marriage.

Oh, like, she had come home and basically already said she was married.

Oh yeah, she was married. Oh it's not that she's marrying. She came home, was like, Mom, I'm married.

Okay, I misheard this. Okay, yeah.

So the only thing that her mother could do to make sure that her daughter spent the rest of her days suffering.

Goodness, she already has been suffering, yeah she was.

But the only thing she could do to ensure beyond her leaving this home and not having a happy life in her marriage was curse her. Hmmm yeah, okay.

Then okay, this mom is making me just pissed right now.

She's not a very good mother.

She's not.

I mean, she's all like, fuck you, I hate you, You're shitty child. You ruin my life. Also, by the way, you cursed.

Yeah, we excuse me. Like what else could she do?

Not much? She's pretty much reached that limit, I think, and I mean today most people would have just brushed off the idea of a curse honestly, Oh, especially coming from a spiteful and toxic relative just out of literal spite, right, But Leonarda had literally spent her entire childhood believing every word that her mother said. Okay, and so when she's all like, yeah, well you're gonna go and be happy, I guess what, No, you fucking cursed, Leonarda was like shit, I'm cursed.

Oh and then so then, honestly, for a curse, I feel like to be successful, the recipient has to believe in it and it liked for to that it's going to happen or that it's two. Right.

I I don't know anything about like magic or curses or wicca or whatever category this falls under the cult stuff, but I would assume that's probably gonna help for sure.

Well, I mean, even if say said curse didn't, wasn't a thing, just her believing that it is placebo effect, right exactly? Yeah, I can kind of fuck with her.

Oh definitely. So definitely. So she did try to move on with her life even with this curse hanging over her head, trying to build something together with her new husband, Raphael. But it didn't take long for her mother's curse to

Oh my gosh, that would make you not even want of a kid at all.

Then agreed, Yeah, Now, I mean contraception in this time is not most widely used thing, if at all. I'm not too sure when it was created. This is the early nineteen hundreds, but still so. After that, though, she did also visit someone else. She went to a Romani fortune teller and they read palms and they told her, after identifying the lines in her hands, I quote in your right hand prison and your left a criminal asylum.

Okay, so she's basically just like doomed here pretty much.

Both were very heavy predictions.

Very shitty predictions.

Yeah, and one of them, specifically targeting are the future of her children, hit very hard because I mean she was pregnant, right yeah, later, Yeah, so yeah, she's all like, shit, I had these bad predictions, one of them specifically talking about the potential health of my child, and I'm now sitting here pregnant. Fuck.

Not to mention this added stress that she's probably carrying around with her.

Oh exactly right. Yeah, she's got a lot of stress on her shoulders.

Yeah.

So this whole joy over being pregnant was now turned into essentially a sense of dread, and that dread became much worse when she lost a baby. Lost the baby, oh yeah, And I mean a miscarriage is devastating at best, and for Leonarda, I'm sure it hit even harder because this, in her mind was proof that her mind There's curse was in fact real, and that the fortune teller's prophecy was coming true.

Wow.

So Leonardo drifted for a while, probably suffering from what we now would diagnose as depression today. But there wasn't much understanding of mental health issues or anything like that back in the early nineteen twenties.

I mean, I still feel like we're trying to understand it and then it should be more widely said.

Oh, for sure, one hundred percent. But yeah, she just because it wasn't accepted or understood, she just sank deeper and deeper. Oh boy, and then eventually she found herself behind bars.

What did she do?

Well? She was arrested in nineteen twenty one, after Raphael had moved them to his hometown of Lauria Potenza. Now Leonarda had been found guilty of fraud, though there's no real description of her exact crimes to be found regarding this fraud, but there was prison sentence occurring here, which meant another prediction had come true. So she did get out six years later, and with her husband Raphael still at her side, they moved to another town, Lacedonia, Avellino.

Yeah, that basically it's all just coming to to be.

Yeah, I mean, mind you, these these are years later, these sort of things, And I don't know if I have the tension spand to remember I've been cursed for that fucking long.

Oh. I feel like though shit just kept happening though.

You would remember potentially potentially just blaming this curse constantly. Yeah, but yeah, I can't fathom the idea of actually being cursed. That would be wild.

Yeah, I mean I can kind of fathom the idea of being cursed, But I think what is less fathomable to me is believing that you've been cursed.

That's true, And I do think one thing that really pushed Leonarda here to believe that she was in fact curse was the whole idea of her children not being healthy, because during the course of her marriage she had seventeen pregnancies. Three of those ended in miscarriage. Another ten of the children died when they were very young, and that left Leonarda and Raphael with only four surviving children out of.

Seventeen are you serious?

Dead serious? So I think, Oh, with numbers like that, I'm pretty sure anyone would believe your fucking curse.

Yeah, no shit, because and I.

Can't imagine the weight that would hold in anyone's heart.

And it's like to think that is her fucking mother did this to her. Yeah, wow, that is too much to take in.

Well, try and take it in.

I can't believe that she'd seventeen pregnancies.

Yeah that's wild.

Whoa, and so sorry four or five.

Of them four survived four whoa?

Yeah, that's devastating.

And then to top it all off, in the midst of going through all that loss and pain, tragedy would strike. In nineteen thirty, she lose her husband when an earthquake tore through Lcedonia where they were living and destroyed their family's home. Okay, now, to be fair, the entire town was actually destroyed, and Raphael knew that he'd have to get something dramatic to happen here because he had a family to take care of it look after. Right, so he did decide to move them to a place called Coreego,

Okay, well, it's amazing that they haven't even given up hope, because I feel like after that much bad things that have happened to them, it would be hard to carry on with your day, like having any what's the word like hope? Yes, there you go, any hope whatsoever?

Yeah, that's true. I mean it's a very heavy situation that they've gone through for basically the last twenty year twenty plus years. Yeah, so you have how many children you've lost? You now being behind bars, your home has been absolutely destroyed. I think the only thing that they're looking for at this time is that they have each other still, and they do have their four.

Surviving children, right that they need to protect and love and feed exactly.

Yeah, And I'm sure, which we are even going to touch on this here in a bit, Leonardo would protect her kids at all costs.

So well, I mean, she learned from the worst, so of course I feel like she'd be a little bit of a better mom than that.

I like how you said learn from the worst. That was awesome, do you Yeah, Yeah, that was a good way of putting it.

Well, yeah, her mom's horrid. Yeah, I'm disgusted by her mother.

Yeah, fair enough. High five to that bitch because she a bitch. There we go. Not a high five to her, but high five on us.

High five for her being a bit, just being a bit.

Yes, high five on us agreeing that we hate her because she is a bitch. How's that?

Gosh, there we go.

I was way too complicated anyway, So they moved and things were starting to look up finally. Now, the people in Coriego, like many other towns and villages all over Italy, all heard about the absolutely terrible earthquake that struck their town. So when Raphael and Leonarda showed up with their young children in tow, the people were absolutely happy to help in any way that they could.

Oh my gosh, love that.

They actually set the family up in a house in town, one that even had a storefront, so that Leonarda could make and sell some things, you know, and get things going again.

Wow. Okay, that's really cool.

Yeah, and not to mention, while she is working in this storefront at home, she's there to look after the kids at the same time.

That's perfect.

It's a perfect situation. And from there, Raphael was hooked up with a new job, and it looked like the family would take a step back and breathe again because they finally had this break in their life.

Amazing.

So, Rafael was working as a clerk and Leonarda began making and selling soap in their storefront. This all worked for them on so many more ways than we could ever imagine. Leonardo had now you know, ways of getting to know the townspeople, for example, and the townspeople got to know the family in return. So it was just fitting into the community all the things we'd already talked about,

So you're like, I love that.

Fuck yes, who doesn't want to be the village witch. I'm a thirty five year old dude, and I want to be the village witch. Come on.

And the sad thing is is you would be so good at.

Oh fuck yeah, I would.

Hell yeah, you would be way better than me.

Like, bitch, you got ghosts, Let's give you a potion and banish these.

He's so passionate about it.

Hell yeah, I love that. Could you imagine that being your job, the village fucking witch?

Yeah?

Like, ah, you got a curse here, let's drink sit under this full moon tonight and will howl. You'll be cured by the morning.

You would have fricking t shirts made for yourself to wear village Witch. I should make you on.

You'd say village bitch, but the bee would be crossed out with W over top.

Oh that escalated?

That really did? We digressed? Sorry? With her learning these new skills, with her becoming the village witch, though it's not described as her as a village witch. That's just our own description. By the way, people did start coming to her for fortunes. Uh they were when they were sick, you know, they would reach out to her and they thought maybe if they were cursed too, like Leonardo's reputation of her potentially being cursed and.

What honestly gave them someone to talk to too. Oh yeah right, like I bet you. Along with her being like kind of the village witch, she was also kind of like the village counselor.

Definitely definitely, And as she was able to counsel and like actually help people, her reputation grew of being able to have these abilities or special powers of helping people. So she's helping people one way or another, and she became quite well respected in coreego. But that didn't mean that all the experiences she was getting in the occult was making her feel any more sure of her own curse being left behind though, as she was helping other people, it wasn't changing her situation at all.

Okay, which is what she ultimately want was after.

Ultimately, yes, now, Leonarda still hadn't quite worked out worked her way sorry out from under this curse, and it made her even more protective of her current force surviving children. Her eldest living son's name was Giuseppe. Fucking love that name. Just want to point that out.

Also, like, how are you doing so well with these names here?

Like, well done, I'm just pretending.

Okay, well it sounds like you know what the shit you're thank you.

I'm just just doing my best.

Yeah, if you're doing good, thank you well.

She and Giuseppe had a very special relationship. They'd spent a lot of time together. Even as Giuseppe grew older and became a teenager. One of the first things that he'd do when he came back from school would sit down with his mother in the kitchen. They'd have a cup of tea and some teacakes.

Together, and my gosh, are you kidding me?

This is what happened.

That's fucking beautiful.

Yes, I love it now. A lot of times, Giuseppe was described as her favorite child. Oh, I don't know if she like maybe, I don't know if she played favorites that way. I just think they just had a really strong relationship. Like, I don't think any of her other kids were quite old enough to sit down and have tea with their mother and cake and like discuss their.

Day, you know, like a little angel.

Yeah. So I don't think it was necessarily her favorite child more or less, she just had a strong particular bond with.

This child and the age that he was exactly.

He was the oldest, right, so we had that ability to make that bond so far, and this whole tea and tea cake thing turned into it to a tradition and tradition that many of the other villagers actually learned to know about as well. Sometimes other villagers and some of the other women would actually come around and have tea and teacake with Leonarda and Giuseppe. Also because Leonarda was becoming pretty famous around the town as well because of her her locally made teacakes which she would sell.

In her To be honest.

I mean, that can go several different ways. It could be like a loaf, could be a biscuit.

I don't know, okay, so something that you enjoy with.

Tea, Yeah, could be could be like a cracker biscuit, could be banana bread sort of thing. I don't fuck it. There's a million different options of what it could be. She had these teacakes, apparently they were fucking delish, that's all.

I really know, what well you did your head just through the roads. You're like they're gonna lash. I did like the okay sign, like almost like you would like to be enjoying one at this very moment.

Who wouldn't want to be having some fucking tea and tea cakes right now?

I know? Actually yeah, I want?

Can we make tea and teacakes after this?

I'm going to google a teacake recipe?

Do it? So? Anyways, we digress again. Despite the curse, though, everything seemed to be going well currently, but only a few months before Giuseppe's eighteenth birthday, Leonarda would find herself terrified of her ill omens once again. See Giuseppe came home one evening and instead of doing the usual routine of tea cakes and tea with his mother, he sat down and he told her that he'd enrolled in the Italian Army.

Okay, I thought that he was going to be like have died already kind of thing or not saying that you go in the army, you're going to die, But like he's putting himself in a dangerous situation. That's kind of what made her worried.

Yes, exactly. She Well, she knew that a this curse was going to take her son too if he was going to go on the army, that was her perspective, right, and he was enrolling right at the beginning of World War II. Okay, Yeah, so she became basically desperate to save him because going off to war at this time coming back is not you not really got the odds in your favor.

Yeah, well, especially yeah, with this extra curse that is over his head.

Exactly. Yeah, So she knew that she needed to save him somehow, and she only had a few months till he was officially old enough to join the army, so she was going to try and use her time wisely while she had it. She came up with a plan, and her plan was to give back to the people of Coreego, thinking that if she managed to put enough good energy out there into the world, into her town, that it would protect her son when he went off to war. And Leonarda knew exactly where to start.

Now.

Remember, the people of Coreaga came to Leonarda for all kinds of reasons, right when they were sick. They sometimes went to her before they even went to the doctor, for example. They came to her for advice, and they came to her when they had problems that looked like only a little bit of extra magic would be able to solve. And one day Leonarda had one of those people sitting in her kitchen. Now, her name was Faustina Setti.

I just say that it's nothing bad that she's looking for a husband at that age, But just at that age, I feel like if I hadn't found anyone and.

Be like you'd turn into the village witch.

I'd just be fine with it, I feel. But to still be looking at that age, that's impressive.

Yeah, she she wanted to be married. It was kind of her lifelong goal to make sure she married before she died. Okay, so this looked like the perfect situation for Leonardo to try and solve. Yeah, you know, maybe makes a little love potion number nine and bam, she's good to go. You didn't get that, never mind? Never mind that was a reference to a song love Potion number nine.

No, I did get that, well, why didn't you? Sorry, that was hilarious.

Come on now, and that was good.

That was good. Good job, Thank.

You, thank you, thank you for the pity laugh.

No, I'm just so enthralled with the story.

Okay, okay, gotcha. Well, anyways, she managed to pull this off, and she was thinking, pulling this off will put the best energy out there. Giuseppe should be safe. You know, good energy would out overdo the bad, good karma sort of thing, right, Okay.

I was worried that she was going to offer her son to her. No, okay, that's not what happened.

Okay, No, fixing this lifelong dream was basically the way that she would protect him while he's at war. Right, So Leonarda agreed, and she had someone another client in a different village who was around the same age as Fastina, and just so happened to be looking for a wife as well. So Fastina began writing letters to her new future husband, and he even wrote some letters back to her. Little did Fastina know, though, that it was actually Leonarda who wrote the responding letters.

Oh, she was just faking this. That is not good karma at all. This this person didn't exist then, correct?

Correct?

Oh, okay, I can't see how she thinks this is good.

Oh she knows this isn't good. Let's put it that way. Things were going exactly as planned for Leonarda. She knew this wasn't good. Let's just say that. All she would need now was Fristina to write some postcards explaining to her friends and family where she was going, and she would pay Leonarda for her services. Now Fastina took out her entire life savings, which was about thirty thousand lire, which equals out to about three hundred and thirty two

What the fuck. Well, I got what's going on here? Keep going well.

Leonarda told everyone that she was looking to do good things to help protect her son when he went out to the war. Yeah, but her actual plans have been completely different. By then, she had learned that the universe didn't give, it took, and it was about to take her son's life. The only thing Leonarda could do to stop that from happening was to give the universe another life instead of taking her son's. Giuseppes.

Wow, Okay, yeah, I was I wasn't gonna go WHOA. I can't believe this. I'm like, lost your flabbergast, I literally because I didn't expect this. And now I'm like, fuck do I even say? Because I really liked her? Now what the fuck is she doing?

See what I said? See what I said? When there's like essentially two stories to.

This, Yeah, okay, wow.

So she had clearly obviously spiked the wine, and after Fustina had fell to the floor and began losing the ability to move and most importantly, defend herself, Leonarda took one of her axes, swung it high in the air above her head, and struck down towards her on the ground. Oh my gosh, she killed her while she laid on the kitchen floor. That's a pretty brutal way to die too. Oh yeah, And there she laid, lifeless in pools of her own blood, and her lifelong goal of being married

Are you shitting me right now?

Nope?

What the fuck just happened to this story? I was like kind of enjoying this kind of like wondering exactly where the fuck it was gonna go. And then this is just like what.

Yeah, this is like fucking missus love it's meat pies and shit.

Yeah. Wow.

Well, in her own words, she said, I mixed it with flour, sugar, chocolate, milk, and eggs, as well as a bit of margarine, needing all the ingredients together. I made lots of crunchy teacakes and served them to the ladies who came to visit. Though Giuseppe and I also ate.

Them, she even herself ate that.

She even ate them.

Wow.

And when she was done with Faustina's body, she took the remains, the leftovers, if you will, and poured it into septic tanks, and no one was the wiser.

Wow. And here everyone just thinks this lady is off with her husband, her new husband. Yeah, hm, not wild.

It is theorized that maybe Leonarda was thinking that by serving Giuseppe and herself the cake, she was protecting them and most importantly him, from the war. Who knows what, but her motivations must have seemed a bit shaky, even to herself, because it didn't take long for Leonarda to start thinking that she maybe hadn't done enough, and she couldn't let the opportunity to make sure Giuseppe was safe slip through her fingers. When another opportunity presented.

Itself, another opportunity to kill I'm assuming here well.

A woman named Francesca Sovie came to Leonarda, not to ask for a cure or from a curse, or help her with a lifelong dream, but for something a little more practical. Francesca was looking for a job, and Leonarda said that she knew of one. The only problem was it wasn't a different village, so Francesca would have to leave everything behind if she wanted to take it. The job was a good one. Francesca was going to be a teacher in a girls' school, and she decided to

Wow, this is so bizarre. Yeah, like bizarre. Does her family realize what the I mean? I assume they don't realize what she's up to here.

I don't think so. I'm pretty sure they would have said something otherwise. So, And there isn't much said about her family outside of this either, so it's hard to know for sure now. The second murder, though, kept Leonarda happy for a while, but with Giuseppe's birthday creeping closer

Conveniently enough, of course, she knew of this, yes, right.

The only problem was he lived and worked in Florence, so if Virginia wanted to take the job, she'd have to leave everything behind and move there.

Oh my gosh, okay, And I'm all I can think about right now is like, so she it's going to go down again exact probably em A that she's done with these other two people, and for Virginia to be so laying on the ground paralyzed. Hm and just like what is going through her head? Like these other two people, they did not start a new life like she killed them. That would be the only Like you just be in shock and.

Like what and this is your friend? Yeah above you.

Yep, that's brutal.

Yeah, well we're not quite there yet. But at this moment in time, Virginia was delighted. She got everything organized to move to Florence to start a new job. On her last night in Coreego, she went to visit her old friend who set up all this for her, and the two shared hit bottle of wine together.

Mm hmmm.

Virginia toasted Leonarda and took a sip of the glass of wine, and that was that. Leonarda murdered her good friend Virginia with an axe before making flour out of her blood and boiling her body away like the others. But while what was left of Virginia's body was on the stove, Leonarda noticed something special about Virginia's remains. If we shall and what was this? To quote her, she says,

Wow, yeah, that's interesting.

So she rendered her fat down, made fat or made soap out of it, and then apparently her tea cakes were sweeter than the other, the.

Best of any Yes, I mean, I mean, oh, I don't know. I guess it's slightly a compost, but also like really weird. This is so brotal.

I don't know if i'd say that's.

I mean, if you're going to end up being a what is it a tea cup.

A tea cake, a tea cake, a tea.

Cup, like you'd want your you to be the best tea cake. I guess I'm just saying, at least she's the best tea cake. I guess I don't know that that's.

One hell of a silver lining.

Yeah, I'm just trying to put a positive spin on there.

At least I made a damn good tea cake, all right. My soap was creamy too.

Oh, that's just brutal. These poor people, Yeah, because the deaths are just horrid. How she's doing it.

And she also of course made sure that Giuseppe used the soap made out of Virginia's body, of course, and with that she believed that she had officially protected her son from dying in the war. She's like, okay, this has to do it.

That's so interesting, okay.

Especially with the soap, you know, probably creating like a freaking shell or armor on him or something, who knows, right, So.

In her brain she has convinced herself that she's done what she needs to do exactly.

Now. There is another twist in Leonarda's story, another prophecy that was destined to come true. So unlike the other two, Virginia had family living in Coreego, and they noticed when she suddenly disappeared. She had also spoken about the job Leonarda had found her, while the previous two had actually remained silent about what was going on at Leonarda's request. Even though Virginia was requested to stay silent about it until things came into fruition as well, she wasn't quite

Areas, which honestly makes sense.

It does, it really does, because it's not like that body is getting washed away into the river somewhere.

No, So she's like very very near.

Yeah, yeah, so it does make sense that that occurred. So now the police, they weren't buying much of her story, and they began poking around the house and Leonarda's other stories regarding the other women were kind of starting to fall apart as well, and it didn't take them long to make these connections. Leonardo was found to actually be selling articles of clothing and shoes that had belonged to some of these women. What yeah, And as soon as that connection was made, she was arrested.

Okay, that doesn't seem like the brightest.

Well, I mean it doesn't, but in her like who what she was thinking is, who's going to know, like these shoes belong to the specific women, show herself to some other random person. But then when that random person begins being like, oh yeah those are so and so, yeah sure, like you know, I.

Feel like it would be that would be that was a mistake.

Yeah, definitely. So Leonarda was found to be selling these articles of clothing, she was arrested, and it actually didn't take long for the police to began thinking outside the box a little bit. They were thinking that there's no way she did this alone, and they began to suspect that her son Giuseppe was also involved. Oh now this terrified Leonarda, and she didn't want anything to happen to her precious son, her favorite child, and she admitted everything.

Just like that. Eh yep, I mean, okay, not that the police intended for that to be. But that is actually an amazing interrogation method, is it not? Oh yeah, for sure, I mean that's not what they actually thought he was involved, like as far as it's.

Hell, they actually thought he could have potentially been involved.

But that is, like, that's a good interrogation method if if one's ever needed.

Hell yeah, like, oh we believe so and so was involved in this too. Do you have anything to say about that? Motherfucker? Oh my god, no, it was just me like that.

Well, I feel like nine out of ten parents would probably protect their or probably even higher would protect their kid and take all the blame, especially if they had nothing to do with it. Even if they did, they'd probably just still take all the blame.

Yeah, But we police don't want to just get someone to falsely admit something. They want to figure the shit actually happened, though, right touche. They don't want to force someone to just take the blame.

Yeah, but this were well, this was a good scenario here got her to blab away.

Definitely, and so she was arrested. Like I already mentioned, Giseppe got to walk free, and she admitted everything. She admitted everything from luring the women in with false pretenses to spiking their wine to chopping them up with a fucking lat using their remains to produce, to procure foods and soaps and that's sold in their shop and feeds the community, herself and her son. She admitted it.

All that poor community. After realizing what they were like eating.

Could you imagine?

Yeah, that's nasty, I know, And just thinking about it, it's like, oh, the biggest thing that gets me is I'm thinking about baking blood to get like blood chips, and then grinding it down into flour and then using it to bake.

Oh my gosh, it's actually amazing that no one well no, I guess you're cooking. And I was like, people could get sick, but you are cooking.

What if she's just like it. What if she's just like because because it's like all died red or something, She's like, yeah, it's just red velvet.

That's my special red velvet.

Yeah, secret ingredients.

There you go. Yeah, and everyone's just like, oh my gosh, it's the best thing I ever tasted.

No thanks. Regardless of she was clearly tried for these three murders. She was tried in nineteen forty six, where she appeared casually and uncaringly in court. She even actually was reportedly correcting the judge over certain details on how the crime was committed and played out.

Wow, that seems wild. Why what's the point of that.

I don't know. I don't really get it.

Huh.

I think that to this point it might be boasting about it and prideful.

Yes she accomplished.

Yeah, so her fate was sealed. Leonarda's sentence was sentenced sorry to thirty years in prison, followed by three years in an Assam asylum, which she would die of a stroke in nineteen seventy while serving what remained of her sentence in the asylum. So, whether or not the curse was true, all the fortunes told on her came true, every single fortune, the multiple deaths of her children at young ages, the prison sentence, and even the time in an asylum.

Wow, yes, like that makes it believable.

It does. I mean, maybe the curse is true, or maybe it's coincidence, or maybe maybe the idea of this curse drove her to the brink of insanity itself and caused her to live that very life that she so desperately tried to avoid.

I just feel like that's quite a coincidence.

It's especially when you get down to those children.

To that amount of children, you know, I mean, because a lot of them she did end up birthing right.

Yes, I think it was ten children that she Wow, four miscarriages. I know four survived. I can't remember the exact numbers, but yeah, there was quite a few that died at young ages.

Yeah. So I just feel like, how could that. I don't know, like someone couldn't have that bad of luck. I don't know if that's the right wording.

And placebo effect only goes so far, right, but I think like she had some pretty severe mental things going on, even if it was just down to being concerned and stressed over this potential curse. And I mean, I'm no doctor, I'm no physician, I'm no practitioner and nothing in the medical field, but some stress like that has to take a toll on a woman's body when she is carrying a child.

Stress is evil.

And I don't know if stress is akin to potentially pushing miscarriages, but that very well sounds applicable to me. If she is that concerned over a cur this curse, maybe it pushed into her pregnancies.

Yeah, I mean they say like stress is the new smoking, right, it can do very bad things to your body.

Yeah, it can very bad.

It's intense, so I mean, I mean not that this was back in the day, but still it was still in the same effect today. But yeah, I could cause some serious issues for.

Her hundred percent. So yeah, that's the case. It's a wild one.

Yeah that to me, this case doesn't even like is are you sure this is a true crime? Are you sure?

Like I said, it's like two fucking stories.

I know, I actually have a hard time believing that this is even legit, that this has legitimately happened.

It was an interesting one to research, going back and actually reading these. I had to double take a lot of times, Like rereading these, I mean, okay, wait, what the fuck? Because it's it threw me for quite the curveball quite a few times.

It seems like this should be a sitcom or something or sit call something, but not a legit true crime story. Yeah, it's one of the most bizarre ones. I would admit.

I don't know if i'd say a sitcom though, because sitcoms are generally comedy. That's why it's okay.

Movie TV series, TV series. There is a drama, a drama.

Yes, there we go.

Okay, yeah, because this was not funny. I'm I'm not putting light to any of this.

No, No, I know what you mean. I just saying sitcom. I don't think that quite quite fits.

Yeah, but I know what you're saying, but just something made up?

Yes, yeah, Well, do you have anything we got to talk about at the end of this? We got to wrap anything up. Do we have to point anyone in any direction?

Oh?

We do.

We do one thing we should If you're listening to this is what is Well, we're recording this on the twentieth, but tomorrow is the twenty first, when this is released. Yeah, check our Instagram, so it might be happening on there.

Yeah. Should should uh should check.

It out at some point during that day. I don't know what time, but at some point, at.

Some point just keep an eye open because something happening over there. I don't know if you understood what I just said. Something might be happening over there. Yeah, And all the links for our social medias are down the description of this podcast. You can get website, you can get Instagram, Facebook, you can get merch, you name it. YouTube, it's all down there.

We got it all.

Check it out. Also, if you're feeling just that little extra generous, you can go ahead and give us a rating. Ratings help us a lot. We got a couple recently that were really nice and we appreciate reading them. So thank you to you guys out there who have given us those ratings. They mean the world.

Yeah, they really do help. It's amazing.

Yeah. But if you don't want to do it, that's cool too. You're here and we appreciate that just the same. So thank you.

Well done on this. I feel like that'd been such an in trusting one to research. It was.

It was very interesting, to say the least.

Interesting.

I think I might be like thinking about curses for the next few weeks, and I don't know, thinking how they apply in my life. Maybe I've been cursed or hole. I think I have been cursed with beauty. Oh look at this beard. It's magnificent, majestic. This is clearly a curse.

Yeah, just like your man bun's about to come in.

Exactly long story, long story, But I'm growing a man bun.

Ben is growing a man bun.

And the reason why I'm bringing has nothing to do with me. I said one day I should grow a man bun, and Nicole said, you would never, and here we are. So now I'm growing a man bun, specifically in spite and to prove it wrong that I would.

But apparently at any point I can tell him to get a haircut and it's gone.

But if she does that.

Then I lose. I win. This is so absurd. It's so absurd. This is just married life in the Gibson House.

Yeah, with a man bun and a cursed beard of beauty first of beauty.

Maybe you guys will one day be able to see what Ben looks like with a man bun.

Yeah, we should have maybe put up a pole if if it'll actually happen.

I know, I don't know. It's your hair is getting pretty long. We might have to do like progress reports and ship.

Yeah, we might, although I did specify that I'm allowed to get a trim to shape it up because I got a weird shaped my hair right now.

I don't know if I necessarily agreed to that, but yeah, yeah, yeah, there we go. Wow.

Well, yeah, thanks for staying around, especially if you're here right now. We appreciate you guys.

Yeah, I'm just gonna say, you guys know about Ben's man bun.

You're a true fan, no kidding, All right, Well, thanks sticking around, Thanks for listening. We appreciate you all, and as of course, until next time, stay wicked

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