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Neighborhood-killer-does-the-unthinkable-MATURE-AUDIENCES-ONLY · Crime and Horror

0:06
Speaker 1: Our stories typically have really big plot twists at the end,
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Speaker 1: and today's.
0:10
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0:11
Speaker 1: However, the plot twist today is so unexpected, so abrupt,
0:16
Speaker 1: so shocking, so horrifying, that I thought it would be
0:19
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0:23
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0:25
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0:28
Speaker 1: remotely close to what the ending actually is. I gotta
0:31
Speaker 1: be honest, I don't think anybody is going to guess
0:34
Speaker 1: this one. But before we get into that story, if
0:36
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1:00
Speaker 3: Let's get into today's story.
1:15
Speaker 1: In the late summer of nineteen thirty, Rafael Ponsarti and
1:19
Speaker 1: his wife Leonardo Chanchuli moved with their four young kids
1:22
Speaker 1: to a little town in northern Italy called Careggio. A
1:26
Speaker 1: terrible earthquake had destroyed the family's previous village and killed
1:31
Speaker 1: nearly all of their neighbors. And so this family was
1:34
Speaker 1: feeling very lucky to be alive. But when they arrived
1:37
Speaker 1: in Kereggio, they really had nothing and were hoping that,
1:41
Speaker 1: you know, the people of this town will just be
1:43
Speaker 1: very welcoming and generous and kind of help them get
1:46
Speaker 1: set up again.
1:47
Speaker 2: And the people of this town did exactly that.
1:51
Speaker 1: Keureggio was this beautiful place inside of a fertile valley
1:54
Speaker 1: where people lived in these cottages surrounded by rice fields
1:57
Speaker 1: and mulberry trees. And the people who lived there were
2:00
Speaker 1: very tight knit and looked after each other and cooked
2:03
Speaker 1: for each other and had parties together.
2:05
Speaker 2: I mean, this was a real community.
2:07
Speaker 1: And so when Raphael and Leonarda arrived, the townspeople immediately
2:12
Speaker 1: found them this cute little cottage by a stream, with
2:15
Speaker 1: a whitewashed front door and a beautiful stone hearth for cooking.
2:19
Speaker 1: And there was an attached storefront on this cottage that
2:22
Speaker 1: they were giving them. And then on top of that,
2:24
Speaker 1: once the family had moved in the family's new neighbors
2:27
Speaker 1: helped get Raphael a job, and they also helped Leonarda
2:32
Speaker 1: set up the attached storefront that was part of their
2:35
Speaker 1: cottage so she could sell her homemade soap bars out
2:38
Speaker 1: of the shop, And so very quickly the family just
2:40
Speaker 1: completely fell in love with Careggio, especially thirty six year
2:45
Speaker 1: old Leonarda. Losing her home and her previous neighbors in
2:48
Speaker 1: that terrible earthquake had been a tragedy on epic scale,
2:53
Speaker 1: but it was far from the first tragedy that Leonarda
2:56
Speaker 1: had been forced to live through. Leonarda had been born
2:59
Speaker 1: in poverty. Her mother had actually come from a very
3:03
Speaker 1: wealthy family, but they had cut Leonarda's mom off when
3:07
Speaker 1: she became pregnant with Leonarda, and so when Leonarda's mom
3:11
Speaker 1: gave birth to her, she blamed Leonarda for their poverty
3:15
Speaker 1: and all of their problems and so beat her relentlessly.
3:19
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, Leonarda's father died when
3:22
Speaker 1: she was very young, and so she was stuck at
3:24
Speaker 1: home being abused constantly by her mother. When Leonarda was
3:28
Speaker 1: twenty one, she met Rafael and fell in love with him,
3:31
Speaker 1: and he was.
3:32
Speaker 2: A very kind and gentle man.
3:34
Speaker 1: He really made a very strong first impression on anyone
3:37
Speaker 1: who met him. But when Leonarda went to her mother
3:41
Speaker 1: and introduced Rafael to her and said, I'm going to
3:43
Speaker 1: marry this man. I love him, her mother flew into
3:46
Speaker 1: a rage and then literally cursed Leonarda. She actually out
3:51
Speaker 1: loud muttered the spell and then told Leonarda that because
3:55
Speaker 1: of the spell, Leonarda would have evil following her forever. Now,
3:59
Speaker 1: of course, of course, Leonarda was very used to her
4:02
Speaker 1: mother's terrible behavior and so she did not actually think
4:06
Speaker 1: she was at risk of this curse affecting.
4:08
Speaker 2: Her life in any way.
4:10
Speaker 1: But not long after actually marrying Raphael, Leonarda began to
4:14
Speaker 1: see evidence that this curse might actually be real. It
4:18
Speaker 1: started with Leonarda having these sudden fits of seizures for
4:22
Speaker 1: no particular reason, and then Leonarda every time she got
4:26
Speaker 1: pregnant she would miss carry and lose the baby, and
4:29
Speaker 1: so feeling really sad and desperate because all she wanted
4:32
Speaker 1: was a family, Leonarda actually went to a fortune teller
4:36
Speaker 1: in hopes that they would tell her that in the
4:38
Speaker 1: future her life got better, not worse, which to Leonarda meant,
4:42
Speaker 1: you know, the curse was not real if my life improves.
4:45
Speaker 1: But after this fortune teller took Leonarda's hands and studied
4:49
Speaker 1: her palms, she looked up at Leonarda and gave her
4:52
Speaker 1: grave news. She said, Leonarda, you're going to have living children,
4:57
Speaker 1: but they're all going to die young, and I see
5:01
Speaker 1: a prison and an.
5:02
Speaker 2: Insane asylum in your future.
5:05
Speaker 1: This experience totally shocked Leonarda and confirmed for her that
5:09
Speaker 1: her mother's curse must be real, and sure enough, over the.
5:13
Speaker 2: Following years, Leonarda and Raphael.
5:16
Speaker 1: Would go on to have fourteen living children, and ten
5:20
Speaker 1: of them would die when they were babies or toddlers,
5:24
Speaker 1: and so by the time Leonarda had arrived in Coregio
5:27
Speaker 1: with her family in nineteen thirty, she was absolutely petrified
5:32
Speaker 1: that her last four precious children would die because of
5:36
Speaker 1: this curse, and so in order to keep her kid safe,
5:39
Speaker 1: she basically never let them out of her sight, and
5:42
Speaker 1: then she also made sure they always adhered to these
5:45
Speaker 1: strange rules and beliefs that Leonarda had come up with
5:48
Speaker 1: about good and evil that were designed to somehow protect
5:52
Speaker 1: the kids from this curse. But the incredible show of
5:55
Speaker 1: generosity and support and kindness that Leonarda and her family
6:00
Speaker 1: had experienced when they arrived in Coreggio had really done
6:03
Speaker 1: something to Leonarda.
6:04
Speaker 2: In fact, it really kind of changed the way she
6:07
Speaker 2: viewed the world.
6:08
Speaker 1: Suddenly she was less concerned with this curse and how
6:11
Speaker 1: to protect her family from it, and instead she was
6:14
Speaker 1: just kind of content.
6:15
Speaker 2: She felt safe, she felt happy. The women in the
6:18
Speaker 2: town loved Leonarda and always came by the house to
6:21
Speaker 2: say hi to her and eat some of the amazing
6:23
Speaker 2: tea cakes that she would make. And also Leonarda had
6:26
Speaker 2: become best friends with this woman named Virginia, who was
6:30
Speaker 2: a former opera singer from Milan, who was very elegant
6:33
Speaker 2: and beautiful, and every time she went to a dinner
6:35
Speaker 2: party she would invite Leonarda. And also Leonarda and her
6:39
Speaker 2: family were becoming financially stable, really for the first time ever.
6:42
Speaker 2: Leonarda's soap shop that she ran out of their cottage
6:46
Speaker 2: was really successful. People came from all around to buy
6:49
Speaker 2: her soaps because nobody could make them like she could.
6:52
Speaker 2: And Rafael's job as a clerk was very steady, and
6:55
Speaker 2: he too was becoming well respected in town, and so
6:59
Speaker 2: because of how well this transition to Coreggio had been.
7:03
Speaker 2: At some point, Leonarda made a promise both to herself
7:06
Speaker 2: and to the universe that instead of focusing all of
7:10
Speaker 2: her time and energy on this curse which had plagued
7:13
Speaker 2: her her whole life, instead she was going to focus
7:16
Speaker 2: on helping the people of Coreggio any way she could,
7:20
Speaker 2: because they had done so much for her. And that
7:22
Speaker 2: is exactly what Leonarda did, but in a kind of
7:25
Speaker 2: ironic way.
7:27
Speaker 1: Because of the fear Leonarda had for her mother's curse,
7:30
Speaker 1: she had gone to that fortune teller many years ago,
7:33
Speaker 1: and even though the news she got when she saw
7:36
Speaker 1: the fortune teller was horrible, Leonarda had left that experience
7:40
Speaker 1: kind of fascinated with the art of fortune telling and
7:43
Speaker 1: magic and sorcery.
7:45
Speaker 2: It just really appealed to her.
7:47
Speaker 1: And so now that Leonarda was running this very successful
7:50
Speaker 1: soap shop out of her house, there were all these
7:52
Speaker 1: people coming from far and wide that would ask to
7:56
Speaker 1: barter for her soaps. Bartering is like trading one item
7:59
Speaker 1: for another versus paying for something outright with money, and
8:03
Speaker 1: so Leonarda began bartering with these travelers whenever they had
8:06
Speaker 1: books about fortune telling, about magic, about sorcery, about how
8:11
Speaker 1: to make potions, about the occult, And after reading through
8:14
Speaker 1: all of these books and learning as much as she could, Leonarda,
8:18
Speaker 1: in addition to selling her soaps, began offering fortune.
8:21
Speaker 2: Telling services to the people of Coreggio.
8:24
Speaker 1: And it would turn out she was really good at
8:27
Speaker 1: predicting the future, to the point where people in town
8:30
Speaker 1: basically began going to her for all kinds of advice.
8:33
Speaker 2: She helped women find love, She told farmers what crops
8:36
Speaker 2: to plant.
8:37
Speaker 1: She created these charm bags for people and told them
8:40
Speaker 1: they would protect them. She also began creating these herb
8:43
Speaker 1: potions for people when they got sick. It actually got
8:45
Speaker 1: to the point where people trusted her so much that
8:48
Speaker 1: when they got sick, they didn't even go to the doctor.
8:51
Speaker 2: They just went to her, and so very quickly.
8:53
Speaker 1: Leonarda felt very proud of the fact that she had
8:56
Speaker 1: lived up to the promise she had made both to
8:58
Speaker 1: herself and to the universe, to always help the people
9:02
Speaker 1: of Coreggio at every turn. But more than that, Leonarda
9:06
Speaker 1: was starting to think that this newfound sense of purpose
9:09
Speaker 1: and happiness she was getting in helping the people of Careggio,
9:13
Speaker 1: through her various services, had finally broken her mother's curse.
9:17
Speaker 1: By nineteen thirty nine, Leonarda and her family had been
9:20
Speaker 1: living in Careggio very happily for almost ten years, and
9:24
Speaker 1: at the time, Leonarda's oldest son, Giuseppe.
9:27
Speaker 2: Was seventeen years old. Giuseppe was tall, he was handsome, he.
9:31
Speaker 1: Had dark hair, he had dark eyes, and all the
9:34
Speaker 1: girls loved him, and Giuseppe and Leonarda had always had
9:37
Speaker 1: a very close relationship. Every day, Giuseppe would come home
9:41
Speaker 1: and he and his mom would sit in the kitchen
9:43
Speaker 1: and they would chat for a while and eat some
9:45
Speaker 1: of her teacakes. But now in nineteen thirty nine, when
9:48
Speaker 1: Giuseppe was seventeen, he started to act a little bit different.
9:52
Speaker 1: He would come home and instead of going into the
9:54
Speaker 1: kitchen to sit with Leonarda, he would just go straight
9:57
Speaker 1: to his room and shut the door. And when Leonardo
10:00
Speaker 1: or Raphael would ask him, you know, hey, is everything okay,
10:03
Speaker 1: Giuseppe would get very defensive and say he was fine
10:05
Speaker 1: and to.
10:06
Speaker 2: Please just leave me alone.
10:07
Speaker 1: But to Leonarda it seemed really obvious that her son
10:11
Speaker 1: was not fine, and she thought, you know, maybe he
10:13
Speaker 1: has some sort of secret he's keeping, and that's what's
10:16
Speaker 1: making him act this way. He's hurting on the inside,
10:19
Speaker 1: but he can't share it with the world. But Leonarda
10:22
Speaker 1: had no idea what this secret might be.
10:24
Speaker 2: And then one day late that.
10:26
Speaker 1: Same year, Leonarda was walking through town when one of
10:29
Speaker 1: her neighbors came up to her and said, Hey, are
10:31
Speaker 1: you aware that your son Giuseppe has signed up for
10:34
Speaker 1: the military and he's leaving for training in just a
10:36
Speaker 1: few months. Leonarda had not heard about this. People were
10:40
Speaker 1: talking a lot about World War Two, which had just
10:43
Speaker 1: started around this time, but Leonarda had never considered that
10:46
Speaker 1: her precious son would go off to fight in that war.
10:50
Speaker 1: But now Leonarda realized that Giuseppe's recent strange behavior suddenly
10:55
Speaker 1: made sense. This was the secret he was keeping. He
10:58
Speaker 1: had joined the military and he hadn't told his family.
11:01
Speaker 1: Leonarda turned around and went straight home. She went right
11:04
Speaker 1: into her bedroom, shut the door, and she just sobbed
11:07
Speaker 1: to her It felt like her mother's curse was back,
11:10
Speaker 1: and now her precious son was going to go off
11:13
Speaker 1: into the war and he was going to die unless
11:15
Speaker 1: she found a way to combat this evil that was
11:18
Speaker 1: now following her.
11:19
Speaker 2: Again. Thank you to Better Help for sponsoring today's video.
11:27
Speaker 1: Growing up, I was always encouraged to speak up if
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Speaker 1: I was feeling down or sad, and so as a kid,
11:33
Speaker 1: talking about my feelings was really easy. But fast forward
11:37
Speaker 1: to twenty seventeen, when I was in my late twenties
11:40
Speaker 1: and suffering for the first time from a severe bout
11:43
Speaker 1: of depression. It was like I knew what I was
11:46
Speaker 1: supposed to do, ask for help, but I just couldn't
11:49
Speaker 1: do it. It was like I was afraid if I
11:51
Speaker 1: told someone what my issues were it would scare them,
11:54
Speaker 1: or worse, it would make them feel bad too. Luckily,
11:57
Speaker 1: my wife and my family encouraged me to go seek
12:01
Speaker 1: out a therapist, and honestly.
12:03
Speaker 2: That totally changed my life.
12:04
Speaker 1: But the point I'm trying to make here is that
12:07
Speaker 1: because of my upbringing, I should have been the first
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12:15
Speaker 2: But that's just not how life works.
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Speaker 1: also linked them in the description below. Okay, back to
13:23
Speaker 1: the story. For the next several days, Leonarda did not
13:31
Speaker 1: open up her soap shop.
13:33
Speaker 2: She didn't come downstairs. She just stayed locked in her
13:35
Speaker 2: bedroom and read through all of her books about magic
13:39
Speaker 2: and sorcery and the occult looking for some sort of
13:42
Speaker 2: solution for how to fight this curse, and finally she
13:46
Speaker 2: figured out what she had to do. She read that
13:48
Speaker 2: if she gave something beautiful to the universe, the universe
13:52
Speaker 2: would reward her, and in Leonarda's mind, that reward would
13:56
Speaker 2: be sparing her son, and so Leonarda decided that the
14:00
Speaker 2: most beautiful thing she could offer the universe would be
14:04
Speaker 2: to help the people of Careggio, which she was already doing,
14:07
Speaker 2: but in her mind, she thought she could really ramp
14:10
Speaker 2: up her efforts.
14:11
Speaker 1: And really try to change people's lives. And she thought
14:14
Speaker 1: if she could do that, the universe was sure to
14:17
Speaker 1: notice and.
14:18
Speaker 2: It would save her son's life.
14:19
Speaker 1: Leonarda decided that the first person she would really go
14:23
Speaker 1: above and beyond help inside of Coreggio was a woman
14:26
Speaker 1: named Faustina. Faustina, who was in her seventies, was desperate
14:31
Speaker 1: to get married, but to many people in town, including Leonarda,
14:35
Speaker 1: she seemed kind of beyond help. She was totally anti social,
14:39
Speaker 1: she was awkward and just kind of given her age,
14:43
Speaker 1: it seemed like marriage was just not in the cards
14:45
Speaker 1: for her. But this is where Leonarda thought she could
14:48
Speaker 1: step in and change everything for Fostina, she would find
14:52
Speaker 1: her a husband. So Leonarda reached out to Fostina and
14:55
Speaker 1: told her about a friend of hers, a man who
14:58
Speaker 1: lived in a city to the north, who was also
15:01
Speaker 1: alone in his old age and who was likely looking
15:03
Speaker 1: for marriage, and she could set them up if Faustina
15:06
Speaker 1: was interested. And so Faustina was immediately interested and wanted
15:10
Speaker 1: to meet this guy. But Leonarda did tell her that
15:13
Speaker 1: this guy, the reason he's not married is is kind
15:15
Speaker 1: of difficult to be around. He's kind of a jerk,
15:17
Speaker 1: but he's got a wonderful heart. He means well, I
15:20
Speaker 1: think he'd be a great fit for you. And so
15:22
Speaker 1: again Faustina's like, great, I want to meet him, I
15:24
Speaker 1: want to marry him.
15:25
Speaker 2: I'm ready.
15:26
Speaker 1: And then finally the day came when Faustina actually went
15:29
Speaker 1: to this other town and met this guy in person,
15:32
Speaker 1: and they fell in love, and Faustina just moved right
15:35
Speaker 1: in with him, and before long she was sending happy
15:37
Speaker 1: postcards back to Coreggio telling everyone about how happy she
15:41
Speaker 1: was and how thankful she was for Leonarda's help in
15:45
Speaker 1: setting them up. And so Leonarda was obviously thrilled, not
15:48
Speaker 1: only for her friend's happiness. But also it really felt
15:52
Speaker 1: like she had checked the box in terms of really
15:54
Speaker 1: going above and beyond to help someone in Careggio.
15:58
Speaker 2: In an effort to get the universe to spare her son.
16:00
Speaker 1: But her son was still a couple months away from
16:03
Speaker 1: leaving for training, and Leonarda, she's very.
16:06
Speaker 2: Superstitious, and she's thinking, Okay.
16:08
Speaker 1: I don't know if that was enough to get the
16:10
Speaker 1: universe to save my son, and so I need to
16:13
Speaker 1: find somebody else I can help. So in September of
16:16
Speaker 1: nineteen forty, Leonarda began her next good deed project with
16:20
Speaker 1: another woman in town. She was a widow in her
16:23
Speaker 1: fifties named Francesca. She had worked as a teacher, but
16:27
Speaker 1: when her husband got sick, she quit her job, and
16:30
Speaker 1: then when her husband ultimately died, she was left with nothing.
16:33
Speaker 1: So Leonarda reached out to Francesca and told her that
16:37
Speaker 1: she Leonarda would be willing to reach out to her
16:40
Speaker 1: own mother's rich family.
16:43
Speaker 2: To see if maybe they had a job they.
16:45
Speaker 1: Could finesse for Francesca. Now, of course, leonardo was not
16:49
Speaker 1: excited about talking to her mother's family, who had disowned
16:53
Speaker 1: her mother and had shown no interest in Leonarda. But
16:56
Speaker 1: Leonarda wanted to do this for Francesca and for the
16:59
Speaker 1: sake of her son and getting the universe to notice
17:01
Speaker 1: what she was doing. And so sure enough, Leonarda would
17:04
Speaker 1: reach out to her mother's family and they were remarkably
17:07
Speaker 1: open to the idea, and they got a job for
17:10
Speaker 1: Francesca in Switzerland, and so eventually Francesca jetted off to Switzerland,
17:16
Speaker 1: and then a couple of days later she was sending
17:18
Speaker 1: postcards back to Correggio saying how happy she was and
17:21
Speaker 1: how thankful she was for Leonarda's help, And so again,
17:25
Speaker 1: Leonarda was so happy about this outcome, both because she
17:29
Speaker 1: cared about Francesca and also because this was yet another
17:32
Speaker 1: kind of check in the box of her good deeds
17:35
Speaker 1: that the universe was going to notice that in turn
17:37
Speaker 1: would save her son. But again, after Francesca didn't need
17:41
Speaker 1: any more help, Leonarda found herself looking at her son,
17:44
Speaker 1: who was getting closer and closer to leaving for training,
17:47
Speaker 1: and she would think to herself, have I done enough
17:50
Speaker 1: to protect him? Have I really stopped this curse from
17:53
Speaker 1: killing him after he leaves, And Leonarda eventually decided.
17:57
Speaker 2: That no she had not done enough.
17:59
Speaker 1: She needed to do so at least one more, really
18:01
Speaker 1: big good deed for someone in this town. And who
18:05
Speaker 1: better to help than her best friend, Virginia. The former
18:08
Speaker 1: opera singer. Leonarda knew from all her talks with Virginia
18:12
Speaker 1: that Virginia really.
18:14
Speaker 2: Missed living in the big city and going to.
18:16
Speaker 1: The opera house, and so Leonarda reached out to Virginia
18:19
Speaker 1: and said, you know what, I can reach out to
18:22
Speaker 1: my mother's rich family and maybe they can find a
18:25
Speaker 1: job for you in a big city if you're interested.
18:28
Speaker 1: And so Virginia was like, wow, yes, I would love that.
18:31
Speaker 1: That's an amazing opportunity. And so Leonarda again would contact
18:35
Speaker 1: her mother's rich family and again they came through finding
18:38
Speaker 1: this job as a social planner for this very rich
18:42
Speaker 1: guy in Florence, Italy who often funded plays and operas,
18:46
Speaker 1: and so this job was perfect for Virginia. When Leonarda
18:50
Speaker 1: told Virginia about this opportunity, Virginia cried tears of joy.
18:55
Speaker 1: After packing up all of her things, Virginia.
18:57
Speaker 2: Made a stop at Leonarda's house to say go by
19:00
Speaker 2: and thank you, and the two women would hug and
19:02
Speaker 2: laugh and cry, they would drink wine together, and then finally,
19:06
Speaker 2: when it was time for Virginia to go, even though Leonarda.
19:09
Speaker 1: Was very sad, she was also quite happy because finally
19:13
Speaker 1: she felt like this good deed was enough to.
19:16
Speaker 2: Get the universe to spare her son.
19:18
Speaker 1: However, Leonarda, being a very superstitious person, did have one
19:23
Speaker 1: more little thing she wanted to do with Giuseppe before
19:27
Speaker 1: he left for the military. And this little thing was
19:30
Speaker 1: her Leonarda bathing her son, her eighteen year old son,
19:34
Speaker 1: with a particular bar of soap, and then she also
19:38
Speaker 1: wanted to feed him a special kind of tea cake
19:40
Speaker 1: that she was going to make. The soap and the
19:42
Speaker 1: tea cake had these special herbs and ingredients and different
19:46
Speaker 1: things she had pulled from her books of magic and
19:48
Speaker 1: the occult, and they would kind of form like a
19:50
Speaker 1: protective barrier both outside and inside of Giuseppe. So on
19:55
Speaker 1: the same night that Virginia headed off to Florence, when
19:58
Speaker 1: Giuseppe came home, so Leonarda approached him and said, I
20:02
Speaker 1: want to give you this bath and I want.
20:03
Speaker 2: To feed you these teacakes.
20:05
Speaker 1: And Giuseppe was not remotely enthused at the idea of
20:09
Speaker 1: having his mom bathe him. He's eighteen, but he knew
20:13
Speaker 1: she was highly superstitious. She seemed pretty emotional about this,
20:17
Speaker 1: and it just seemed like it was extremely important to her,
20:20
Speaker 1: and so he said okay, And so Leonardo washed her
20:23
Speaker 1: son with this special kind of magic soap, and then
20:26
Speaker 1: she also gave him the teacakes.
20:28
Speaker 2: And then afterward, even though Giuseppe was really.
20:31
Speaker 1: Annoyed by what he had just been asked to do,
20:33
Speaker 1: Leonarda was so happy.
20:35
Speaker 2: She was practically floating.
20:36
Speaker 1: She felt like she had done everything she could possibly
20:39
Speaker 1: do and now she could just relax because her son
20:42
Speaker 1: was safe.
20:43
Speaker 2: But soon Leonardo would learn that that was not actually true.
20:48
Speaker 1: A few days after giving her son the magical last
20:51
Speaker 1: bath and magical teacakes, the police showed up at the
20:55
Speaker 1: front door of Leonarda's house, and when she opened the
20:58
Speaker 1: door and saw the police, she asked what was going on,
21:01
Speaker 1: and the police would say to her, Hey, the three
21:03
Speaker 1: women that you supposedly helped that left town recently, they've
21:07
Speaker 1: all been reported missing.
21:08
Speaker 2: By their families. They don't know where they are. And
21:10
Speaker 2: so Leonarda, she was totally shocked by this, and she said, no,
21:14
Speaker 2: that's not possible. I write to them all the time.
21:17
Speaker 1: I get postcards that come in very regularly from all
21:21
Speaker 1: of them. And then Leonarda went and got the postcards
21:24
Speaker 1: and showed the police, like, look, I'm talking to them,
21:26
Speaker 1: how could they possibly be missing? And so the police
21:29
Speaker 1: they would look at these letters and they would agree
21:31
Speaker 1: with Leonarda that it is pretty strange that she'd be
21:34
Speaker 1: getting these very authentic seeming letters from these women if
21:38
Speaker 1: these women were also missing. And so eventually the police
21:41
Speaker 1: would leave and they would tell Leonarda that they would
21:43
Speaker 1: be in touch if they needed anything. And then over
21:46
Speaker 1: the next couple of days, Leonarda was very concerned about
21:49
Speaker 1: these three women, but she received numerous postcards from these
21:54
Speaker 1: women over those several days, and all of these postcards
21:57
Speaker 1: were totally normal seeming, and Soara was fairly confident that
22:01
Speaker 1: whatever was going on with the police had to have
22:03
Speaker 1: been a mix up and she wouldn't be hearing from
22:05
Speaker 1: them again.
22:06
Speaker 2: But a couple of weeks later.
22:07
Speaker 1: The police did come back to Leonarda's house, except this
22:11
Speaker 1: time they didn't knock, They just barged right in. After
22:14
Speaker 1: the police had spoken with leonardo that first time, they
22:17
Speaker 1: did some digging on these letters that she was receiving,
22:20
Speaker 1: and they managed to trace them all back to their
22:23
Speaker 1: start point, and it turned out all of these letters
22:26
Speaker 1: from all three of these women were originating from one place.
22:29
Speaker 1: It was this little town to the north of Coreggio.
22:32
Speaker 1: And when police went to this little town, they discovered
22:36
Speaker 1: that these letters that were starting in this little town
22:39
Speaker 1: were all being mailed by.
22:41
Speaker 2: The same person. And they got a physical description of
22:44
Speaker 2: this person who apparently was pretending to be these three women,
22:48
Speaker 2: and the description was of a tall, handsome young man
22:51
Speaker 2: with dark hair and dark eyes. It was Giuseppe.
22:55
Speaker 1: After the police barged into Leonarda's house, they went straight
22:58
Speaker 1: to Jiuseppe's room.
23:00
Speaker 2: They accused him of murdering those three women.
23:02
Speaker 1: And then they hauled him out of the house and
23:04
Speaker 1: brought him to the station to question him about where
23:07
Speaker 1: he dumped the bodies. When the last police officer left
23:10
Speaker 1: Leonarda's house, Leonardo walked outside and just stood there wondering
23:14
Speaker 1: what she.
23:14
Speaker 2: Was going to do.
23:16
Speaker 1: It was like she had done everything in her power
23:18
Speaker 1: to protect her son from this curse, but somehow, this
23:21
Speaker 1: curse she knew, had done this to her son, and
23:25
Speaker 1: so now she knew there was only one thing she
23:27
Speaker 1: could do without saying anything to her husband. She went inside,
23:31
Speaker 1: she got her things, and she began making her way
23:33
Speaker 1: to the police station. At this point in her life,
23:36
Speaker 1: Leonarda looked much older than her actual age of forty six.
23:40
Speaker 1: She had very gray hair, her face was very wrinkled,
23:43
Speaker 1: and she was stooped over, and she was always carrying
23:45
Speaker 1: these charm bags and magical potions and little stick figures
23:49
Speaker 1: that she claimed protected her family. And so her overall
23:53
Speaker 1: appearance when she wandered into the police station was that
23:56
Speaker 1: of a very frail old woman who was also very strange.
24:00
Speaker 1: And so Leonarda hobbled her way up to the front
24:03
Speaker 1: desk and in a trembling voice, she asked the attendant
24:06
Speaker 1: if she could speak to the detective who.
24:08
Speaker 2: Was working on her son's case.
24:10
Speaker 1: And then a moment later, she was led into an
24:12
Speaker 1: interview room where she was told to wait. And then
24:15
Speaker 1: a little while later, the lead detective walked into the room.
24:18
Speaker 1: He sat down across the table from Leonarda, and he said,
24:21
Speaker 1: what can I do for you? And immediately Leonarda said,
24:25
Speaker 1: my son, Giuseppe, is innocent. And the detective when he
24:29
Speaker 1: heard this, he was not remotely surprised. In fact, this
24:33
Speaker 1: is fully what he expected this conversation was going to be.
24:36
Speaker 1: He knew Leonarda loved her son very much, and of
24:40
Speaker 1: course she was going to say he was innocent. This
24:42
Speaker 1: is what parents typically did in cases like this. But
24:45
Speaker 1: the detective decided he wouldn't try to stop her. He
24:48
Speaker 1: would just let this very distraught mother kind of talk
24:51
Speaker 1: for a bit. He would tell her that he would
24:53
Speaker 1: follow up on whatever she was saying, and then he
24:55
Speaker 1: would drive her back home. But this detective was not
24:59
Speaker 1: expected the things that would come out of Leonarda's mouth
25:02
Speaker 1: over the next couple of hours. In fact, her story
25:05
Speaker 1: about why Giuseppe was innocent was so shocking and so
25:10
Speaker 1: bizarre that the detective outright said, I don't believe you.
25:14
Speaker 2: I don't believe this. This can't be true.
25:16
Speaker 1: And then other officers were called in to listen to
25:19
Speaker 1: her story to see if they believed it, and they
25:21
Speaker 1: too said, this doesn't seem real. But the police would
25:25
Speaker 1: follow up on the details she gave and it.
25:28
Speaker 2: All checked out. It would turn out.
25:30
Speaker 1: Back in late nineteen thirty nine, on the day that Faustina,
25:34
Speaker 1: the first woman that Leonarda pledged to help in order
25:37
Speaker 1: to get the universe to save her son. When Faustina
25:41
Speaker 1: was set to go north and meet her future husband,
25:44
Speaker 1: Faustina stopped by Leonarda's house to say bye. And when
25:48
Speaker 1: she was in Leonarda's house, something very unexpected happened. When
25:53
Speaker 1: Fostina walked into Leonarda's kitchen where Leonarda was Faustina was
25:58
Speaker 1: so excited about meeting her potential future husband that her
26:02
Speaker 1: hands were shaking and she was smiling ear to ear,
26:05
Speaker 1: and so Leonarda said to Faustina, hey, you need to
26:07
Speaker 1: calm down, and so she handed Faustina a glass of wine,
26:11
Speaker 1: and so Faustina took the wine and she had a
26:13
Speaker 1: couple of SIPs.
26:14
Speaker 2: Of wine, and right away Faustina started feeling.
26:16
Speaker 1: Dizzy, and before long she was grabbing the table just
26:19
Speaker 1: to keep from falling over. It would turn out the
26:21
Speaker 1: wine was poisoned by Leonarda, and so Fustina she's kind
26:25
Speaker 1: of looking up at Leonarda, and Leonarda is looking down
26:28
Speaker 1: at her, and she's got an axe in one of
26:30
Speaker 1: her hands, and she says to Fustina, I'm so sorry,
26:34
Speaker 1: and then she winds up and she strikes Fustina in
26:37
Speaker 1: the chest with the axe and lodges it in her chest,
26:41
Speaker 1: and so she lets go of it, expecting Fustina to die.
26:44
Speaker 2: She doesn't.
26:45
Speaker 1: Fastina's just standing there with an axe in her chest,
26:48
Speaker 1: and so Leonarda grabbed the handle of the axe, she
26:51
Speaker 1: pulled it out of her chest, and then began wailing
26:54
Speaker 1: on her head over and over and over again until
26:57
Speaker 1: Fustina did fall to the ground dead. And then Leonarda
27:01
Speaker 1: lit a fire under her big metal pot on the stove,
27:04
Speaker 1: and then she cut Faustina's body into nine pieces. She
27:07
Speaker 1: drained the blood out of the body into a bucket,
27:10
Speaker 1: and then she chucked those nine pieces into the pot
27:13
Speaker 1: on the stove and began to mix them with caustic soda,
27:16
Speaker 1: which is a powerful dissolving agent that's used to make soap.
27:20
Speaker 1: And then she boiled the ingredients, her body parts and
27:23
Speaker 1: this caustic soda for hours. Faustina's body slowly turned into
27:28
Speaker 1: this horrible black mush inside of this pot. And Leonarda
27:32
Speaker 1: was watching this the whole time, and she just had
27:34
Speaker 1: a look of total disappointment as this was happening. And
27:37
Speaker 1: then at some point she just took the pot off
27:39
Speaker 1: the stove, and dumped the ingredients Faustina's body down the
27:43
Speaker 1: septic tank, and then leonardo waited for Faustina's blood that
27:47
Speaker 1: she had dumped out to coagulate, which means it became
27:50
Speaker 1: semi solid, and then she heated it up in the
27:53
Speaker 1: oven and then ground it into flour, and she would
27:56
Speaker 1: use that flower to make tea cakes, which she fed
27:59
Speaker 1: to her friends the next day, as well as her son, Giuseppe.
28:02
Speaker 1: Leonarda also asked her son to mail some letters for
28:06
Speaker 1: her from the little town to the north where.
28:09
Speaker 2: Faustina had supposedly gone. These letters, of course, were written
28:12
Speaker 2: by Leonarda pretending to be Faustina to give the impression
28:16
Speaker 2: that she was still alive and well, and Giuseppe, when
28:20
Speaker 2: he was told to go mail these letters, didn't think
28:22
Speaker 2: anything of it. He was used to doing errands for
28:24
Speaker 2: his mom.
28:25
Speaker 1: Even though Leonarda basically got away with killing Faustina, her
28:29
Speaker 1: plan for Faustina had not really gone the way Leonarda
28:33
Speaker 1: had hoped. When she boiled Faustina's chopped up body parts
28:37
Speaker 1: and this caustic soda, they didn't really mix the way
28:40
Speaker 1: she wanted them to. Leonarda was convinced that the reason
28:43
Speaker 1: for this is because Faustina was too skinny and so
28:46
Speaker 1: there wasn't enough fat on her body for the mix
28:49
Speaker 1: to be perfect.
28:50
Speaker 2: So Leonarda had come up with another.
28:52
Speaker 1: Elaborate story, this time for another woman, Francesca, about that
28:56
Speaker 1: job in Switzerland she got through her mother's rich family.
29:00
Speaker 1: Of course, none of that was true, and when Francesca
29:03
Speaker 1: came by Leonarda's house to say goodbye to her, she
29:06
Speaker 1: was offered a glass of poisoned wine, and after she
29:09
Speaker 1: sipped from it, she became dizzy.
29:11
Speaker 2: And then Leonardo showed up with an axe and hacked
29:14
Speaker 2: Francesca to death.
29:15
Speaker 1: But again, when the body parts and the caustic soda
29:18
Speaker 1: were in the pot on the stove boiling together, they
29:21
Speaker 1: were still not coming together the way Leonarda wanted, and
29:24
Speaker 1: so again Leonarda, with a look of disgust, just jumped
29:27
Speaker 1: the pot down the septic tank and wound up making
29:30
Speaker 1: tea cakes from Francesca's blood. Then the next day she
29:33
Speaker 1: fed those tea cakes to her friends as well as Giuseppe,
29:37
Speaker 1: and she also asked Giuseppe to send a few more
29:39
Speaker 1: letters from up north. These letters were of course from Francesca,
29:43
Speaker 1: still feeling Totally unsatisfied with how the last two killings
29:47
Speaker 1: had gone, Leonarda moved on to her third target, her
29:50
Speaker 1: best friend, Virginia. And this time, when Virginia came by
29:54
Speaker 1: Leonarda's house to say goodbye, everything went to plant. Leonarda
29:59
Speaker 1: was able to poison Virginia. She killed her with the axe,
30:02
Speaker 1: she chopped her up, she put her in the pot,
30:04
Speaker 1: and this time the nine chunks of her body mixed
30:08
Speaker 1: beautifully with the caustic soda, and so, after adding a
30:11
Speaker 1: few fine perfumes into the pot, Leonarda was finally able
30:15
Speaker 1: to create the thing that she had not been able
30:18
Speaker 1: to create with the other two women's bodies, and that
30:21
Speaker 1: was a beautiful, rich, creamy bar of soap. She also
30:25
Speaker 1: again made tea cakes from Virginia's blood. That night, when
30:29
Speaker 1: Gisseppe came home, Leonarda demanded that she be allowed to
30:33
Speaker 1: bathe him with her magic soap, i e. The soap
30:36
Speaker 1: made from Virginia's body, and so she did that. She
30:39
Speaker 1: scrubbed him with Virginia's body soap, and then while she
30:43
Speaker 1: was doing that, she fed him the tea cakes that
30:45
Speaker 1: were made.
30:46
Speaker 2: From Virginia's blood.
30:48
Speaker 1: It would turn out Leonarda did, in fact believe that
30:52
Speaker 1: in order to save her son from this curse, she
30:54
Speaker 1: would need to give something beautiful to the universe, and
30:58
Speaker 1: at first she really had believe that the way to
31:01
Speaker 1: do that was by helping the people of Coreggio above
31:04
Speaker 1: and beyond anything she had ever done before. But at
31:08
Speaker 1: some point during her interactions with Faustina the first Woman,
31:12
Speaker 1: Leonarda had decided that, you.
31:14
Speaker 2: Know what, that wasn't enough.
31:15
Speaker 1: She really needed to make sure that her son was
31:18
Speaker 1: going to be safe, and so the only way really
31:21
Speaker 1: that Leonarda could guarantee her son would be safe would
31:25
Speaker 1: be if she actually took a life and gave that
31:28
Speaker 1: back to the universe.
31:30
Speaker 2: That would save her son.
31:31
Speaker 1: The reason Leonarda wound up taking three lives and not
31:35
Speaker 1: just one life is because she also decided that as
31:38
Speaker 1: an extra protective measure, she wanted to make sure that
31:42
Speaker 1: she actually bathed her son literally in the body parts
31:47
Speaker 1: and kind of essence of the life she had taken,
31:50
Speaker 1: and so that's where the idea of the soap came in. However,
31:53
Speaker 1: the first two women, their body parts didn't mix right,
31:57
Speaker 1: and so she couldn't turn them into soap. But then
31:59
Speaker 1: Virginia came along and her body did mix with the
32:02
Speaker 1: caustic soda, and so Leonarda was able to make her soap.
32:05
Speaker 1: She was able to bathe her son with Virginia's body
32:08
Speaker 1: and feed him Virginia's blood, and so in Leonarda's mind,
32:12
Speaker 1: she had done everything she could to protect her son.
32:15
Speaker 1: At that point, Leonarda would ultimately be sentenced to thirty
32:19
Speaker 1: years in prison, as well as three years in an
32:22
Speaker 1: insane asylum, just as the fortune teller had predicted. Leonarda
32:27
Speaker 1: died in nineteen seventy when she was seventy six years old.
32:30
Speaker 1: As for her family, they fled Coreggio, and three of
32:34
Speaker 1: her children changed their names and vanished. And her prized son, Giuseppe,
32:39
Speaker 1: who she had killed to protect, had gone on to
32:42
Speaker 1: join the military, and he would go to war, and
32:45
Speaker 1: he either was killed in combat or simply changed his
32:48
Speaker 1: name and vanished as well.
32:54
Speaker 2: So that's going to do it. If you got something
32:56
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Speaker 1: to do it see you. I always tell my oldest
34:44
Speaker 1: daughter to do things that scare her because oftentimes those
34:48
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34:51
Speaker 1: And so today I'm going to live up to what
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34:56
Speaker 1: announcing my first ever live storyteller show.
35:00
Speaker 2: Doing a live event has always been.
35:02
Speaker 1: So interesting to me, but it's actually just kind of
35:05
Speaker 1: terrified me, and so I gotta do it. It's going
35:08
Speaker 1: to be a digital live experience on February sixteenth, so
35:12
Speaker 1: roughly two weeks from now, and because it's so close
35:15
Speaker 1: to Valentine's Day, we decided to call this show the
35:18
Speaker 1: Ballentine's Day Show. And this one hour long show will
35:21
Speaker 1: just be me at my desk with no script, telling
35:25
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35:30
Speaker 1: If this first show goes really well and people enjoy
35:33
Speaker 1: it and they want more of it than I think,
35:35
Speaker 1: there's a real chance we transition to a full scaled
35:38
Speaker 1: tour where maybe I could be telling live stories in
35:42
Speaker 1: campgrounds or in locations where some of these stories have
35:45
Speaker 1: taken place. We don't know yet, but it all starts
35:48
Speaker 1: with this first show. So to show your support and
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36:01
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36:03
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36:08
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36:17
Speaker 1: Happy Valentine's Day.