The Bait
Leonarda moved to the town of Correggio after the Vulture earthquake in 1930. While living in Correggio, she became a local fortuneteller and matchmaker. The locals knew her as a good neighbor and a nice person. Leonarda knew that her costumers were the easiest targets. So she started with her neighbor/costumer who wanted to find a husband.
Faustina Setti
Setti was the first of Leonarda's victims. Setti desperately wanted to find a husband, so Leonarda told her that there was a perfect man in Pola. Setti was advised not to tell anyone of her travels and wrote letters to her family and friends saying that she was finding the man of her dreams. On the night before Setti was going to leave, the two of them had some goodbye wine. Leonarda drugged Setti's wine and killed her by axe. She then cut Setti's body into nine pieces. Leonarda collected the blood and dried it in an oven. All of the pieces of Setti's body was put into a pot and mixed with caustic soda. After the body dissolved to a mush, Leonarda pored the mush in a septic tank. The dried blood was eventually ground up and mixed together to make crunchy tea cakes that were served to her costumers and family.
Francesca Soavi
With Leonarda's second son joining in the war, it was time to kill again. Soavi was told that Leonarda found a great job for her at a girls school in Piacenza. Just like her first victim, they had a goodbye wine. Also Soavi wrote letters to her family and friends saying every thing was good. With the help of some drugged wine, Leonarda chopped up Soavi and did exactly the same thing as before: chuck the body pieces in to a pot, add some caustic soda, dump the mush, bake the blood, and more make more tea cakes.
Virginia Cacioppo
The last death was in the same month as Soavi's murder. Like before, leonarda claimed to of found a job for Cacioppo. The former soprano singer was going to go work for a theater producer at a far away city. unlike the last two victims, Cacioppo never wrote to her family. From a statement said in court, this is after giving Cacioppo the drugged goodbye wine and hacking the body into pieces. "She ended up in the pot, like the other two...her flesh was fat and white, when it had melted I added a bottle of cologne, and after a long time on the boil I was able to make some most acceptable creamy soap. I gave bars to neighbours and acquaintances. The cakes, too, were better: that woman was really sweet." From this testimony you can see that Leonarda was very calm and collected about how she delt with the body after murdering Cacioppo.