Serial Killer: Leonarda Cianciulli

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All over the world there are famous people known for the way they kill people. These people can be known as a mass murder or a serial killer. A mass murderer is when someone kills too many people. A serial killer is someone who murders more than three people one at a time in a short period of time. One of the famous serial killers that got my attention was Leonarda Cianciulli. Leonarda Cianciulli was known by two different names. She was known as The Italian Serial Killer and also as The Soap Maker of Correggio. She was born in November fourteen, 1893 in Montella. Leonarda was a small girl and had a really rough childhood. At a young age Leonarda tried committing suicide twice by hanging herself. Also her childhood was rough because her mother, Emilia Marano, hated her. Emilia was raped by Mariano Cianciulli and her parents forced her to marry him. From the rape, Leonarda was born and that is why her mother did not have a good relationship with her daughter. Once Leonarda was older she remarried with a registry office clerk named Raffaele Pansardi on 1914. She married Raffaele even though her parents did not approve of it because they wanted her to marry someone else. From this, Leonarda believed her mother cursed her. Leonarda had seventeen pregnancies during her marriage with Raffaele, and also had three miscarriages. When her children were born ten of them died and only four out of all them survived. Leonarda and her husband moved to Lariano but had a tragic accident happen to them. In 1930, an earthquake hit and destroyed their home and all of their belongings and they had nothing left. So the couple moved to another town known as Corregio. Once there, Leonarda opened a small business as a local fortune teller and as a ma... ... middle of paper ... ...one person to accomplish and had their doubts about her son. Leonarda argued that she had done all three murders by herself and her son had nothing to do with it. Also when searching the house, police found the book Leonarda kept where she recorded down all the murders. Once in trial, Leonarda Cianciulli was found guilty of all three murders. She was sentenced to thirty years in prison and three years in a criminal asylum. When she completed all thirty years in prison she was sent straight to the criminal asylum. Once Leonarda was in the criminal asylum she suffered a brain stroke and died on October 15, 1970. Later on it was found that her oldest son Giuseppe was in fact involved in helping her with all three murders. The objects including the axe she used, and the pots the victims were boiled in are actually on display at the Criminological Museum in Rome.

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