Create evidence of voluntary departure.
Bring the victim into the house.
Then remove her.
Francesca Soavi disappeared on September 5, 1940.
Again, authorities later concluded that she had been killed inside Cianciulli's home and that the body had been destroyed.
Again, the cover story continued afterward.
Letters and messages helped create the impression that Soavi was simply elsewhere.
And again, Leonarda benefited materially.
Possessions could be sold.
Money could be taken.
The victim had been converted into two things.
A disappearance.
And property.
Italy Enters the War
Between the first and second murders, Italy formally entered the Second World War.
For Cianciulli, the war created useful noise.
People moved.
Men entered military service.
Communication became less reliable.
Families worried about entirely different dangers.
Someone relocating for work did not automatically look suspicious.
A woman falling out of contact for a while could be explained.
Travel itself was becoming abnormal.
The state had greater concerns than the private movements of every middle-aged woman in a provincial town.
Like Landru during the First World War and Petiot during the occupation of France, Cianciulli operated in a period when ordinary social patterns were already being disrupted.
The war did not cause the murders.
But it made disappearance easier to explain.
The Third Woman Was Different
The third victim would destroy the pattern.
Her name was Virginia Cacioppo.
She was fifty-nine.
And she was not simply another anonymous lonely woman.
Virginia had once been a professional soprano.
She had a past.
A career.
People who knew her.
According to historical records, Leonarda promised her work connected to the theatrical world, often described as a secretarial position in Florence.
For Virginia, the offer had a special emotional pull.
It suggested not merely money.
It suggested a return to relevance.
A connection to the world she had once known.
Cianciulli used the same technique again.
A promising future.
A reason to relocate.
Secrecy.
Preparations.
The victim makes the disappearance look voluntary before the crime even occurs.
On November 30, 1940, Virginia Cacioppo entered Leonarda Cianciulli's orbit for the final time.
Then she vanished.
This time, however, the silence did not settle comfortably.
Someone cared enough to keep asking questions.
Albertina Fanti
Virginia's sister-in-law, Albertina Fanti, did not accept the explanation.
That detail changed everything.
Serial murder investigations often break not because the offender suddenly makes a spectacular mistake, but because one person refuses to believe a convenient story.
Fanti knew Virginia.
She knew her habits.
She knew enough about the supposed new life to find inconsistencies.
And she knew Leonarda had been involved.
As time passed and Virginia remained absent, suspicion hardened.
Where exactly had she gone?
Who had arranged the job?
Why was contact so limited?
What happened to her money?
Why did items belonging to Virginia seem to be moving through other people's hands?
Fanti eventually went to authorities.
The disappearance was no longer simply gossip.
It was a police matter.
And once investigators began looking seriously at Virginia Cacioppo, they encountered something Leonarda could not easily explain away.
Property.
Follow the Money
A missing person can be difficult to trace.
Money is often more obedient.
Documents move.
Securities leave records.
Possessions change hands.
The investigation began tracing financial instruments and valuables connected to Virginia.
One important trail involved securities that had belonged to her.
Historical accounts describe investigators following those items through other people until they reached someone connected directly to Cianciulli.
That was the break.
The supposed traveler had disappeared.
Her wealth had not.
It remained in Correggio.
And it led back toward Leonarda.
This turned the case from an unexplained disappearance into a possible financial crime.
Then investigators looked backward.
Virginia was not the only woman who had vanished after dealing with Leonarda.
There had been Francesca Soavi.
Before her, Faustina Setti.
Three women.
Three promises.
Three departures.
One woman in the middle.
Now the case had a pattern.
Commissario Serrao
The investigation was assigned to Commissioner Serrao.
His problem was difficult.
There were three missing women.
But no visible bodies.
No conventional murder scenes.
And Cianciulli could point toward evidence suggesting the women had left voluntarily.
That evidence existed because the victims themselves had created it.
They had written letters.
Made preparations.
Sold things.
Told people about jobs or marriage.
The cover was unusually strong because it contained genuine actions by the women.
Serrao had to prove those actions were not evidence of independent plans.
They were evidence of manipulation.
The question became:
Who benefited from every departure?
Again and again, the answer returned to Leonarda.
A Search of the House
Police searched Cianciulli's home on Corso Cavour.
The early search did not produce the kind of spectacular discovery later popular retellings sometimes imply.
No intact bodies were waiting.
No room immediately screamed triple murder.
That was part of the difficulty.
Leonarda had chosen a disposal method precisely because it destroyed obvious evidence.
But investigators continued working.
The house contained objects consistent with the prosecution's reconstruction.
Tools.
The large cooking vessel later associated with the destruction of the bodies.
Other implements.
And eventually evidence that helped support the conclusion that human remains had been present.
The University of Milano-Bicocca's crime archive preserves contemporary case material showing that the pot, cutting implements, kitchen and room associated with the crimes became central exhibits in the later prosecution.
Still, the most powerful evidence was not a single object.
It was Leonarda herself.
Because when police began questioning her seriously, her story started changing.
First Denial
Initially, Leonarda resisted.
The women had left.
She had helped them.
She knew nothing about their later whereabouts.
Suspicion was insulting.
She threatened people who accused her.
But investigators had financial evidence.
Witnesses.
Three parallel disappearances.
And a common relationship.
Pressure increased.
Then another factor entered the case.
Giuseppe.
Her son.
Giuseppe Pansardi
Leonarda's son Giuseppe became entangled in the investigation because he had helped with certain errands connected to the supposedly departed women.
Letters had been mailed.
Messages sent.
Tasks performed.
Were these ordinary favors for his mother?
Or had he knowingly assisted the crimes?
That question became enormously important.
Leonarda was fiercely protective of him.
When investigators suggested Giuseppe might face serious consequences, her resistance changed.
The confession began emerging.
Not all at once.
Piece by piece.
At first, she reportedly admitted one killing.
Then more.
Eventually all three.
The confession did something extraordinary.
It transformed the case from three disappearances into a narrative so bizarre that even investigators had reason to question whether every detail was true.