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Hello everybody and welcome back to my youtube channel, or welcome to my youtube channel.
I'm call me chris, you can call me chris, and i just wanted to say happy holidays oh, merry christmas.
Whatever floats your boat, i'm very happy you're here.
You bring me an immense, immense amount of joy, and i also love the shirt that you're wearing, or should i say sweater?
I know you're Without further ado.
Today we are talking about crime conspiracy, serial killers, cults and murder.
Today we are talking about serial killers, murder and a little bit of conspiracy as well.
A little crime, a little bit of everything today, honestly.
And it's going to be about something I haven't yet talked about, I don't think, and that is female serial killers.
And we're going to be talking about three today, because the phenomenon, phenomenon...
Phenomenon.
Holy shit.
Because the phenomenon of serial killers has long been a subject of intrigue.
Often blanketed in myths that lean heavily towards male... perpetrators.
However, women serial killers challenge these narratives, revealing a complex blend of motives, methods and societal influences that often go overlooked.
And this video delves into the psychological, sociological and historical dimensions of female serial killers.
So, without further ado, let's unbuckle our seatbelts, go Mach 5 down the highway, slam on the brakes and bust through this windshield because we're women drivers into this, female serial killers together.
Without further ado, let's get into our first serial killer, Jane Toppin, aka Jolly Jane.
So the story of Jane Toppin, born Anora Kelly on March 31st, 1854, begins in tragedy.
Born to impoverished immigrants in Boston, Anora's life unraveled very early.
Her mother, Bridget Kelly, succumbed to tuberculosis, leaving her and her siblings in the care of her unstable father.
Her father, Peter Kelly, known as Kelly the Crack, which is quite the nickname.
I feel like you gotta do a lot to get that nickname.
But he was a tailor by trade and a chronic alcoholic.
And Peter's behavior veered into legend after claims that he had attempted to sew his own eyelids shut.
And whether this incident occurred or not, it symbolizes the absolute chaos of the Kelly household.
So if we're talking nature versus nurture for Jane, it's not looking good for the nurture side of things.
Or the nature, really, both parents. weren't all sound of mind, so.
But in 1863, six-year-old Anora and her sister Delia Josephine were surrendered to the Boston Female Asylum, an institution for destitute girls.
And the asylum's records describe the Kelly girls as having been rescued from a truly miserable home.
And while Delia later drifted into a life of alcoholism and lady of the nightism if you know what I mean Anora's trajectory would take a far far, far darker turn.
In 1864, Honora would be indentured to Anne C. Toppin, a stern widow from Lowell, Massachusetts.
And though never formally adopted, she took the Toppin surname and became known as Jane Toppin.
And life with Mrs. Toppin was far from nurturing.
Jane was berated for her Irish heritage and forced to suppress her accent and subjected to harsh discipline because of it.
And her foster sister, Elizabeth Toppin, became a symbol of everything Jane lacked.
Privilege, beauty, and status.
And this envy would later fester into murderous intent.
And by her late teens, Jane had cultivated two distinct personas.
To the outside world.
She was very charming and vivacious, earning the nickname Jolly Jane for her very cheerful demeanor.
But beneath the surface, she was manipulative and very deceitful.
And at 18 years old, Jane received 50 upon completing her indenture but chose to remain in the Toppen household working as a servant for another decade.
And her simmering resentment towards Elizabeth, her stepsister, basically deepened as Jane's life stagnated.
But in 1885, Jane finally broke away to enroll in nursing school at Cambridge Hospital.
And her natural charisma that she had through school and everything endeared her to patients and doctors alike.
Yet her fellow nurses were less enchanted.
Jane's manipulative tendencies would start to emerge in the form of gossip, lies and petty theft, actions that alienated her colleagues.
And it was during this time that Jane's fascination with life and death began to surface.
So basically what I'm getting from Jane is that she is kind of just a narcissistic, doesn't really care about anybody else, doesn't really have empathy.
I think we're leaning towards like just a narcissist and probably some sort of sociopath as well, because we're going to see very quickly here that she does not give a frigging rat's ass about people's lives.
Because, at Cambridge Hospital, Jane began experimenting on her patients, many of whom were elderly or terminally ill.
Using her access to morphine and atropine, she manipulated their dosages to observe their effects on the nervous system.
So she was basically just experimenting on these people that were going to die soon, which isn't justified at all, but she just that was the only way she could like hide what she was doing, because they were gonna die soon anyway.
So nobody really cared, especially given the time.
And these mixes of medication basically led to induced sleep from the morphine, which is also called placid sleep, while atropine caused agitation and hallucinations.
So these people would literally be just hallucinating and thinking they're going crazy while also sleeping, but nobody would really be able to tell, except for And Jane took a very macabre pleasure in alternating between these states, toying with her victim's consciousness.
So they would literally wake up, think they're in a whole different realm, fall back asleep, wake back up.
So she was torturing them, but only she knew.
So she took a very strange, almost sensual pleasure from this.
And her first known victim at Cambridge was Amelia Finney, and she was a surgical patient.
Jane would give Amelia a bitter tasting medicine that induced unconsciousness.
And as Amelia drifted in and out of awareness, she later recalled Jane climbing into bed with her and kissing her face.
So she not only poisoned her patients, she also essayed them while they were unconscious.
Amelia would survive but dismissed the incident as a bizarre dream until Jane's crime came to light later in the years.
I can't even believe that.
Just thinking that you dreamt that and then seeing her like in the paper, like years and years later, to me like.
But Jane's experiments at this time did not go unnoticed and colleagues began to suspect her of reckless administration of opiates.
And she would be dismissed from Cambridge Hospital and dismissed from Massachusetts General Hospital by 1890.
But undeterred, she transitioned to private nursing, where her charm amassed her growing lethality.
And Jane Toppin's career as a private nurse gave basically gave her unparalleled access to vulnerable victims, many of whom were elderly or terminally ill or convulsing.
She would basically just capitalize off her patient's trust and the lack of medical oversight at the time, using her position to administer fatal doses of morphine and atropine, often masked in everyday substances like hanyadi, mineral water or food.
And her choice of poisons reflected both availability and her grim fascination with controlling life and death.
Morphine derived from opium is a very powerful sedative that suppresses the central nervous system.
And atropine, on the other hand, is an alkaloid derived from plants, like deadly nightshades and has stimulant effects on the nervous system.
And the combination of the two just created a very potent and unpredictable interplay of symptoms that Jane found both intriguing and lethal.
So like the patients were literally like, oh.
So let's talk about some of her victims.
First of all, the Dunhams.
Yes, that's plural.
Specifically Israel Dunham and Lovely Dunham.
And these would be Jane's first confirmed murders.
And they were actually her first for her landlords.
She went just right to the closest people to her at the time.
And nobody batted an eye.
And it would be Israel and Lovely who were a couple.
So in 1895, she poisoned Israel, claiming his frailty made him a nuisance.
And two years later, she killed Lovely, Israel's wife, citing similar frustrations.
And after their deaths Jane, this bitch, would move into their home, taking what she deemed was owed to her.
And Israel and Lovely would both die of morphine overdoses specifically, where they both basically died peacefully in their sleep and it suppressed their breathing until their bodies could no longer sustain life.
But Jane's motives were macabre and socially, you know, motivated.
But she clearly wanted to gain other things from her victims, aka a whole family freaking house, which is insane.
And this brings us to her next victim, which was Elizabeth Brigham.
This was perhaps one of her most personal murders because this was her foster sister.
And Jane would invite Elizabeth to join her on a Cape Cod vacation where she slowly poisoned her with strychnine or strychnine.
And Jane would later confess that Elizabeth was the one of the first person she killed purely out of hatred, because the jealousy and the bitterness that had festered for decades just culminated in Elizabeth's agonizing death.
And strychnine.
I'm probably saying that wrong.
I'm sorry, but it's basically a potent neurotoxin which causes severe and agonizing muscle spasms and convulsions.
And victims often die from asphyxiation due to the inability of the diaphragm to contract.
So she was just slowly dosing her.
So this death specifically was very, very drawn out.
And the next set of murders would be the Davis family.
So in 1901, Jane would take on her most audacious endeavor the systemic destruction of the Davis family of Catamount Massachusetts.
And she was originally hired to care for the elderly, which was Alden Davis, after the death of his wife, Maddie Davis, whom Jane had already murdered.
And Jane had moved into their home at this point, so clearly she has a motive.
She's moving in on this family.
And over the next six weeks she would kill Maddie Davis, who was 62, by poisoning them with morphine and atropine in July.
And then she would poison Genevieve Gordon, who was 33.
And Jane would claim that Genevieve died by a slower slide, overcome with grief over her mother's death, who she just killed previously.
And then she would kill Alden Davis, who was 64, and he would succumb to Jane's concoctions on August 8th.
And last, she would kill Minnie Gibbs, who was only 40, poisoned shortly after her father's death.
And Jane later admitted to manipulating the family's trust so they would never suspect her.
And she would even attend the funerals.
While feigning grief, while reveling also in her complete control.
But Jane's greatest achievement of killing an entire family made other people very suspicious, thankfully.
And this suspicious pattern of deaths within the Davis family led to Captain Gibbs Minnie's father-in-law, to request toxology tests.
And traces of morphine and atropine were found, prompting an investigation, finally.
And Jane would be placed under surveillance and arrested on October 29th, 1901.
And in custody.
Jane would confess to 31 crimes murders though authorities suspected the true number exceeded in the hundreds.
And her motivations ranged from practical to removing nuisances or securing jobs, to being deeply personal, such as her hatred towards Elizabeth.
So basically, just whenever she was inconvenienced, if you accidentally tripped her or bumped into her off on the side of the road, she'd just be like hey, can I come over?
I'm just going to make you a little drink, a little drink of Hunyadi water or whatever the hell it is.
And Jane would also admit to derive sejual pleasure from watching her victims die.
A revelation that horrified even seasoned investigators.
And something that is also very uncommon in female serial killers specifically.
There's only... like a few accounts of this actually being the case.
So Jane's trial would begin in June 1902.
And, despite her protests of sanity, she argued that she knew her actions were wrong and thus was not insane.
And a jury declared her not guilty by reason, of insanity.
So she basically just got off.
Even though she said like, I'm not insane.
I knew exactly what I was doing and I liked what I was doing and they still ruled her insane.
And she would be committed to Taunton Insane Hospital for life.
And for the next 36 years Jane would live in the asylum, where her mental state deteriorated completely.
She became very paranoid, refusing food for fear of being poisoned.
Oh, sucks to be a little paranoid about that, doesn't it?
Yet she remained very unapologetic and occasionally boasting of her crimes to visitors.
And on August 17th 1938, Jane Toppin died of old age at 84, taking the full extent of her crimes to the grave.
And Jane Toppin's story was one of the most chilling examples of betrayal in caregiving.
Trusted by her victims, she exploited their vulnerability to satisfy her own twisted desires.
A figure of Victorian American dark underbelly.
Jolly Jane stands as a stark reminder of how appearances can deceive and how power can, in the wrong hands, can destroy.
But yeah, Jane, Jane is, it's scary.
It's very scary with the whole caregiving thing.
It's also very, or more common with female serial killers to be in that caregiving role.
As we will see, as I, I will continue to do more female serial killers as well, but it is, it's very scary.
Like, I'm already scared of hospitals, man.
Now I gotta worry about getting f***ing tug award by morphine and atropine?
F***!
Anyway, let's talk about the next serial killer, which is Belle Gunness, aka the Butcher of Laporte.
Belle Gunness was born Brynhild Palsdatter Storseth on November 11th in 1859 in Selbu, Norway.
Hence the really long...
Interesting name.
And she would be the youngest child of eight in a poor tenant farming family.
And her parents, Paul and Barrett Storseth, worked tirelessly to sustain their large family.
Hey, here's an option.
Don't have that many kids.
I guess contraception wasn't really a...
Wasn't really much of an option either.
I'm trailing off, sorry.
Brynhild's childhood, though arduous, showed little sign of the horrors that she would inflict on unsuspecting victims later in her life.
And at 17, a traumatic event may have marked the beginning of her transformation.
Brynhild, then pregnant, was assaulted by her father of her unborn child.
And the resulting miscarriage was devastating.
And a month later the man died under mysterious circumstances, marking what many believe to be her first act of murder.
But again, this is all alleged.
It is not concrete.
We don't have that in like criminal reports, but there are a lot of claims of this specific thing.
So I feel like it's worth stating.
And in 1881, Brynhild emigrated to Chicago, where she joined her sister, Nellie Larson.
And upon arrival she anglicized her name to Belle Peterson and began working as a domestic servant, before taking a job at a butcher shop.
Yeah, you're seeing where this is going?
It's not good.
It's not good.
And standing six feet tall and 200 pounds and incredibly strong.
It set her apart from the crowd, to say the least.
And she was industrious.
But those close to her noted a very cold calculating edge to her personality.
And in 1884, Belle would marry Mads Sorensen, a Norwegian immigrant.
And the couple opened a candy store.
Oh, fun.
And the business struggled, and a year later, it mysteriously burned down.
Oh, I smell insurance glass.
And the insurance payout allowed them to purchase a home which also burned down under suspicious circumstances.
Insurance claim.
You could see at this time, insurance claims weren't really looked into that much.
So like, oh, it burned down.
Here's all the money.
Here's all the money back.
That's weird.
That's weird.
All the houses have burned down in this town.
It's very strange.
And around this time, the couple began to foster children.
And two of these children were named Caroline and Axel.
And they would both die within two years of one another, reportedly from acute colitis.
And symptoms of colitis were severe abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea, mirroring those of wait for it, poisoning.
Taking a little note from Jane's book.
And both children were, wait for it, smell it, insured.
Yep.
And Bell collected a sizable payout for each of their deaths.
It's just so gross.
Like it, it makes me so mad.
But on July 30th, 1900, Mad Sorenson would die under unusual circumstances as well.
And Bell claimed he had complained of a headache and she gave him quinine for relief.
Quinine?
I'm not sure to pronounce that either.
And by day's end, he was dead.
And his death coincided with the one day overlap of two life insurance policy netting Bell $8,000, equivalent to $250,000 today.
And nobody's saying anything.
Everyone's dying around Bell and everybody's just like, hmm. shame.
And though the family doctor did suspect poisoning, no autopsy was conducted.
And with her newfound wealth, Belle relocated to a farm in La Porte Indiana, where her killing spree would escalate dramatically.
So in 1902, Belle married Peter Gunness, a widower with two young daughters.
And just a week after the wedding, Peter's infant daughter died while in Belle's care.
And the following December, Peter himself succumbed to what Belle described as a freak accident.
And the freak accident was that a sausage grinder fell from a high shelf onto his head.
As it does, as you do.
I mean, there are freak accidents here and there.
But despite the suspicious nature of the death, Belle was not charged and she collected 3000 in life insurance.
But neighbors began to whisper at this time and a local coroner suggested foul play describing Peter's death as beyond unlikely.
Thank you, coroner.
But Belle remained untouchable.
And shortly afterward her foster daughter, Jenny Olson, who had confided to classmates about Belle's crimes, vanished completely.
She just vanished.
She just vanished out of the air.
And Belle claimed that Jenny had gone to a finishing school in California, but her body would later be found buried on the property and by 1905, bell had perfected her deadly scheme.
She placed matrimonial advertisements in chicago newspapers seeking men of means who were interested in sharing her life and farm life, and her ads would describe her as a hard-working widow seeking a kind and wealthy partner who's like okay with dying the day after our wedding and after signing the life insurance policy.
And men responded eagerly, traveling to Laporte with large sums of cash, often their whole life savings.
And Belle's weapon of choice was strychnine, a potent neurotoxin which actually Jane used once before as well.
And its effects on the body were brutal and highly visible.
Strychnine would block the glycine receptors in the spinal cord, leading to extreme muscle contractions and spasms.
So the victims would experience violent convulsions, lockjaw and respiratory distress, often dying from asphyxiation.
Like I said,
And why she used it was because strychnine was just a readily available pesticide at the time, and its symptoms could mimic natural conditions like tinnitus or seizures.
And Belle would also use to mix it up a little arsenic, which is also a common poison.
So let's get into her matrimonial ad responder...
Deaths, I guess.
And the first one is Henry Gerholt.
And Henry was a farmhand from Wisconsin.
And he had answered one of Belle's matrimonial advertisements.
And he was described as a quiet and unassuming man.
And Henry saw the promise of a prosperous farm and hardworking wife as a fulfillment of his dreams.
And after a series of letters, Belle persuaded him to travel to La Porte with all his life savings, which she framed as an investment in their future together.
And upon arrival, Henry was greeted with warmth and hospitality.
So Belle would offer him a very hearty, delicious meal, during which she likely slipped strychnine into his food or drink.
She just wasted no time.
And accounts suggested that Belle usually liked to poison her victims first, rendering them incapacitated and very vulnerable.
And once Henry would succumb to the effects of the poison, she would drag his unconscious and lifeless body into her basement.
And there she would dismember him with great precision because she was a master at butchering alongside one of her previous husbands, Peter Gunness.
And Henry's remains would be later discovered in a shallow grave near Belle's hog pen, one of her favorite sites of disposal.
And the grave would contain fragments of his dismembered body, evidence of Belle's cold and calculated approach to eliminating any trace of her victims.
And the next hopeless romantic death would be John Moe.
John Moe, a farmer from Minnesota, was another unfortunate soul who fell prey to Belle Gunness's deadly scheme.
Drawn in by her letters, which painted her as a loving widow seeking companionship, John withdrew a significant portion of his savings before setting off to La Porte.
And I should say that Her letters were so convincing.
She was extremely manipulative.
I don't want to seem like these men are all just really dumb.
She was just very good at what she did, and it's extremely unfortunate.
And Belle would welcome John very warming and charming with him, with her hospitality and promises of life together on the farm.
She just painted this perfect picture of them living their perfect life together.
However, her demeanor would change once John handed over his money, as she does.
And Belle again would prepare a meal and lace it with poison immediately.
And as John would grow drowsy and incapacitated, she would deliver a fatal poison blow, likely with a blunt instrument, ensuring there was no chance of survival.
And a carpenter who actually worked on Bell's home later testified that John's trunk remained untouched in the parlor alongside several other unclaimed belongings from her victims.
So she literally just had them walk in and then she killed them like almost immediately.
And John's body, like the ones before him, was taken into the basement, taken apart and also buried in shallow graves scattered across her property.
And the next victim would be Andrew Helgelin.
And Andrew would be a Norwegian farmer from South Dakota.
And he holds the distinction of being Belle's last known victim.
And Belle and Andrew exchanged a series of letters over several months, during which Belle skillfully manipulated his emotions, convincing him that they were destined to be together.
And in one letter she urged him to come prepared to stay forever.
A chilling foreshadowing of his fate.
And in January 1908 Andrew liquidated his assets, bringing over 3000 a small fortune at the time to Laporte.
And his stay, like the others at Bell's farm, would be very brief.
And after ensuring Andrew had cashed his checks and handed over the money, Bell likely used her signature combination of poison and blunt instrument to end his life.
And Andrew's body would be later found wrapped in a burlap and buried on Bell's property.
And unlike the other victims, his disappearance prompted suspicion.
His brother Isle, uncovered the letters between Bell and Andrew and traveled to La Porte and determined to find out what the hell happened to his brother.
And Al's persistent would ultimately expose Bell's horrifying deeds.
But I think we should go back in time one year, in 1907, because it's relevant, because Ray Lamphere, a former farmhand of Bell's in La Porte Indiana, on her property, played a pivotal role in the previous crimes and the crimes to come.
So, again hired by Gunness in 1907, Lanphier was quickly drawn into her orbit, becoming her lover, despite being far from a suitable suitor in her eyes, because the guy was poor, he had no money, all he had was love.
But that wasn't enough for Gunness.
And she would soon move him into her place, living on the second floor, kind of where the farmhands stay and his devotion would just turn into jealousy as he watched other men, wealthy potential suitors, lured by Gunnan's matrimonial ads, arrive at the farm, only to mysteriously vanish.
And Lamphere's descent into anger and instability worsened as he was replaced as a farmhand by Joe Maxon and forcibly evicted from his quarters.
And over the next three months, Lamphere became an endless source of grief for Belle Gunness, or so she says.
She wrote multiple letters to the local sheriff, Albert Smutser, complaining that Lamphere was playing the part of a creepy ex-lover and was prowling on her property and peeking through her windows.
And in March, Belle would try to get Lamphere declared insane, which... failed.
And she then had him arrested and fined for trespassing.
And days after that, he was arrested again and acquitted.
Though by this time nearly every La Porte City official was aware that Lamphere seemingly had it out for this poor widow.
And Gunness continued to voice her suspicions of Lamphere.
Even on April 27th She visited her attorney, Melvin E Lilliter, and asked to have her will drawn up.
Hmm, suspicious?
And she seemed extremely anxious.
Very good actress, in my opinion.
And she would tell the lawyer what she had been telling everyone in town.
Ray Lanphier was causing her more and more trouble.
And she was afraid he was going to do something dangerous.
Quote unquote.
I want to prepare for an eventuality.
She reportedly told her lawyer quote unquote.
I'm afraid that fool and fear is going to kill me and burn my house.
And the lawyer signed the will and after the meeting, belle guinness went shopping and came home with cakes, a toy train and two gallons of kerosene.
Kerosene is very flammable, people.
Very flammable.
And, according to Schechter, she treated her family that evening to a very large meal of meat and potatoes and spent the night sitting on the floor playing with her children and their new toy train.
Which brings us To the next morning.
On April 28th 1908, Bell's farmhouse erupted in flames under suspicious circumstances.
Hmm.
Who just bought kerosene the day before and said that somebody else was going to light her house on fire.
Weird.
And built up this persona that Lamphere is an evil asshole that was going to kill her neighbors rushed to the scene but found the building consumed by fire, and joe maxton, her new farmhand, had been in the house and tried to save them, but the house was already engulfed with flames.
So he was left on leaving the house and just hoping that they had also gotten out of the house, but it seemed they hadn't, because among the charred remains authorities discovered the bodies of bell's three children myrtle, lucy and philip, and a headless woman presumed to be Belle herself.
Hmm.
However, discrepancies in the woman's corpse raised immediate questions.
The body was significantly shorter and weighed far less than Belle's known six foot structure and 200 pounds.
And the missing head made positive identification absolutely impossible, fueling the speculation that Belle had staged her death to escape capture, which makes the most sense to me.
The head, why is the head gone?
Ooh, decapitate, like it just doesn't make, like it's just the perfect coverup.
And then her building this lamp fear, maybe you've done it, and then it's just all, it's all stupid.
Anyway, I'll continue.
And, as investigators, combed through the ruins, Belle's former farmhand given that she's Joe Maxton came forward with a chilling testimony.
He revealed that Bell had asked him to spread kerosene around the house shortly before the fire and hinted at plans to take care of everything.
And him not knowing what this means did what he was asked because that's what he did.
And this confession, combined with the discovery of the buried bodies on the property, painted a very damning picture.
And, in total, authorities would uncover the remains of 11 bodies, all decapitated, dismembered and buried in shallow graves that she also had Joe Maxon dig out, him not knowing what he was digging for.
The most haunting discovery was the burlap-wrapped body of Andrew Helgelin, whose disappearance had triggered the investigation, with his brother basically starting this whole thing based off the letters he saw that he wrote back and forth with Belle.
And after the fire, number one suspect was Lamphere, because Belle had been like basically painting this whole picture that he was just an evil guy that was out to kill her.
When, let's be real, he's obviously a cover-up, but it is a different time.
I'll give him that.
But the jury still believed there was convincing evidence that Lanphier had started the fire.
And his only saving grace came when a chemist found traces of strychnine in the bodies of the burnt children, evidence that Gunness' kids had not died from arson but from the same poison preferred by their mother, though the testifying doctor refused to declare stryctine was the cause of death.
Unfortunately,
But it's just, it's all just so obvious, man.
It's just so obvious that she killed her kids, burnt the house down and also just killed a random woman and decapitated her.
That kind of looked like her and just.
But that evidence helped acquit Lampere of any charges of murder, but it failed to protect him from the charges of arson, a crime that carried up to a 21-year sentence.
And after just one year in prison, Lampere died of tuberculosis.
But before his death he confessed to his pastor, saying he had witnessed the murder of Andrew Helgelin himself and had demanded hush money from Gunness.
And she fired him instead.
So like there's the motive for Gunness to just do everything that she obviously did.
And when Lamphere returned to the house to take back his personal belongings, that's when Gunness charged him with those trespassing charges and began defaming him in public.
So she was just trying to cover her own ass.
And today, many believe that Gunness was probably responsible for the fire.
With her old farmhand turned against her and Al Helgelin breathing down her neck, Gunness knew her ruse was up.
So she destroyed everything with a fire.
Everything makes sense.
But that's just one of the many theories.
But Belle's ability to systemically murder and dispose of her victims was such efficiency just horrified the nation.
And the case became a media sensation, with thousands flocking to La Porte to witness the gruesome excavation of the murder farm.
But the mystery of her death continues to fascinate everyone.
Some believe Belle perished in the fire.
Who?
Who?
While others contend she escaped living under a new identity.
Me.
Me and you, because I know you're smart.
Sightings of her were actually reported for decades after this, but none were substantiated.
And a 2008 DNA testing on the headless corpse failed to confirm its identity due to sample degradation, leaving her ultimate fate unresolved.
But her tale remains a stark warning of how appearances can deceive and a reminder of the darkness that can lurk behind even the most idyllic facades.
What a bitch.
But that brings us to our final serial killer, which is Leonardo Cianciulli.
Sorry if I'm saying that wrong.
I looked it up and that's how they said it, so. also known as the soap maker of Correggio.
Sounds nice, doesn't it?
It's not.
This one's really, really bad.
So Leonarda Canciulli was born on April 14th 1984 in Montella Avellino Italy, into an environment of hardship and despair.
Her birth was marred by animosity.
Her mother was allegedly forced into an unwanted marriage after being graped and arbor resentment toward Leonarda, blaming her for her misfortunes.
And this toxic dynamic just haunted Leonardo throughout her youth.
And from an early age, Leonardo exhibited signs of psychological distress.
She allegedly attempted slower slide twice as a young girl, leaving her with a grim outlook on life.
And when she married Raphael Pensardi in 1914, against her mother's wishes, Leonarda claimed her mother cursed their union, a notion she carried with her for the rest of her life.
And the couple really struggled to find stability.
After a brief imprisonment for fraud in 1927, Leonarda and Raphael moved frequently, seeking refuge from misfortune.
And the 1930 Urpinia earthquake, which destroyed their home in Lacedonia, was the final push that led them to settle in Correggio, Reggio Emilia.
And there, Leonarda opened a modest shop, becoming known as a kind and very friendly neighbor.
However, beneath the facade of a doting mother and local confidant, darker fears consumed her.
Leonardo would endure 17 pregnancies, but the majority ended in tragedy.
Three were miscarriages and 10 of her children died young.
Only four would survive until adulthood.
And her obsessive protectiveness towards her children was just fueled by fortune tellers grim prophecies that she would marry and bear children, but that all her offspring would die.
So she basically put all of her thought and hope into these fortune tellers, which was very common at the time, especially in Italy.
And another Romani palm reader at the time had told her in your right hand I see prison, in your left a criminal asylum.
And these predictions, combined with her losses, led Leonardo to believe that supernatural forces governed her fate.
And by 1939, with World War II looming, Leonardo's eldest son Giuseppe, announced his intention to join the Italian royal army.
And he was her favorite child.
And she became consumed by the idea that his safety required an extraordinary act of sacrifice.
You see where I'm going with this?
It's not good.
And her love, already twisted by grief and superstition, just drove her to a horrifying conclusion, and that was to protect Giuseppe.
She must offer human lives.
What?
So Leonardo's victims would be three middle-aged women from her community in Correggio, and each sought her assistance to escape the monotony of their lives.
And Leonardo used her reputation as a helpful neighbor to lure them into her trap.
So Faustini Setti, a lonely 73-year-old spinster, often confided in Leonarda about her desire for companionship.
And in 1939, Leonarda convinced Faustini that she had found her a suitor, a wealthy man living in Pola, which is modern-day Croatia.
And she instructed Faustina to keep the arrangement secret and even helped her write farewell letters and postcards to her family.
And they were to be mailed upon her arrival in Pola.
She was just covering all of her bases where she could.
And Faustina also sold all of her belongings and withdrew her savings, which was about 30000 lire, trusting Leonardo to arrange her marriage to her suitor in Pola.
And on the day of her supposed departure, Faustina would visit Leonardo to thank her.
And Leonardo would offer her a glass of wine laced with a sedative, and waited until Faustina fell unconscious.
And then with cold precision, she would strike Faustina with an ax, killing her instantly.
And Leonardo dragged the lifeless body into a closet where she dismembered it into nine parts.
She would meticulously collect the blood into a basin to use for her. macabre recipes.
And the disposal process reflected an unsettling blend of practicality and ritual.
Using caustic soda, a corrosive chemical, she would boil the body parts into a very viscous mush.
I'm sorry.
And this mixture would be poured into buckets and discarded into a septic tank.
And Leonarda dried the blood in an oven and incorporated it into to tea cakes.
And in her memoir later called An Embittered Soul's Confession, Leonardo described the gruesome disposal process as such.
I threw the pieces into a pot, added seven kilos of caustic soda and stirred the mixture until the pieces dissolved into a thick, dark mush.
I poured this into several buckets and emptied them into a nearby septic tank.
The blood after coagulating I dried in the oven, ground into powder and mixed with flour sugar chocolate, milk and margarine to make crunchy tea cakes.
And these cakes were served to her unsuspecting neighbors and even consumed by her son, Giuseppe.
This is so gross.
And that brings us to her next victim, which was Francesca Soavi.
A 55-year-old widow sought Leonardo's help to find stable employment.
And Leonardo exploited Francesca's aspirations, claiming to have secured her a teaching position at a prestigious school in Piacenza.
How does...
Why does everybody think that this old lady or middle-aged, whatever this lady has all the ins at all these different places?
It doesn't make any sense.
Anyway, Francesca followed Leonardo's instructions, writing postcards detailing her plans, which were to be mailed from France.
Piacenza.
So again, she's just covering all of her tracks, making sure that there's a paper trail that she was actually going to leave and making sure that she doesn't actually look like she's involved.
And on September 5th, 1940, Francesca visited Leonardo to finalize her preparations.
And Leonardo, adhering to her ritual, offered drugged wine before killing her, And Francesca's dismemberment and disposal would follow the same method as Faustina's.
And Leonardo would take 3000 lire from Francesca, justifying the murder as necessary sacrifice for Giuseppe's safety.
And Francesca's disappearance, like Faustina's, went unnoticed at first, allowing Leonardo to continue her spree unchecked.
And Leonardo's final victim would be Virginia Cacioppo.
Sorry if I'm saying these names wrong.
I think I'm saying them right, but I might be saying them wrong, so I apologize.
And Virginia was a 53-year-old widow and a former soprano who had once performed at La Scala.
And reduced to living in poverty.
Virginia trusted Leonardo when she promised her a lucrative job as a secretary to a prominent impresario in Florence.
Again, How does she have all these ends?
She's literally just a housewife.
What is happening?
And Virginia's elegance and stature made her a very distinctive victim.
And on September 30th, 1940, she arrived at Leonardo's home, hopeful for a fresh start.
And Leonardo would repeat her gruesome routine offering drugged wine and then killing Virginia with an axe.
However, Virginia's body held special significance for Leonarda.
Leonarda would boil her remains using melted fat to create soap.
Her flesh was fat and white.
When it had melted, I added a bottle of cologne.
After a long time on the boil, I made some most acceptable creamy soap.
I gave bars to neighbors and acquaintances.
The cakes, too. were better.
That woman was really sweet.
She made soap and tea cakes out of her.
She made soap and tea cakes out of her.
And she gave it to her neighbors.
Can you imagine being one of those neighbors and finding out after?
Virginia's murder would yield 50000 liar jewelry and public bonds, cementing Leonardo's belief that her actions were justified once again.
But Virginia's sudden disappearance in September 1940 led her sister-in-law to become very suspicious and witnesses had seen Virginia entering Leonardo's home but never leaving, prompting the sister-in-law to report the matter to the police.
Thankfully, and authorities would launch an investigation and search Leonardo's home.
And during the search, the discovery of bloodstains, human remains and the tools for dismembering her victims were found.
And these gruesome findings confirmed Leonardo's connection to the disappearances of Virginia, Francesca and Faustina.
And Leonardo confessed in chilling detail, providing investigators with precise descriptions of her methods.
This bitch did not hold back.
And she showed no remorse and even correcting the authorities on minor details and justifying her actions as sacrifices to protect her son, Giuseppe.
She was truly like, in her mind, thinking that this was going to keep Giuseppe alive.
So, I mean, it's insanity at that point.
And Leonardo's trial in 1946 captivated Italy completely.
On the stand.
She remained defiant, even boastful about her actions, and at the point she interrupted proceedings to clarify Wait, wait.
I gave the copper ladle which I used to skim the fat off the kettles to my country during the war.
Italy needed metal.
Thanks.
What?
The court would find her guilty of three counts of murder thankfully, and she was sentenced to 30 years in prison and three years in a criminal asylum, fulfilling the prophecy foretold by the Romani palm reader decades earlier, which is pretty interesting.
But Leonardo's actions just reflected deep-seated psychological issues, likely influenced by trauma and superstition.
And her obsessive belief in protecting Giuseppe suggests delusional thinking tied to maternal fixation.
And her meticulous methods and lack of remorse indicates traits of psychopathy, including lack of empathy and manipulative tendencies.
And Leonardo would die on October 15th 1970 at the age of 76 of cerebral hemorrhage in a woman's asylum in Puzzuli.
And that is it for my three female serial killers of the day.
Horrifying.
It's interesting how all of these women used poisoning, poisoning to a certain degree.
They always say poisoning is a woman's tool for murder.
And it kind of makes sense.
I mean, physically, we are much weaker than men for the most part.
There's some strong females out there, hopefully not killing anybody.
But the psychology of it is just very interesting, and the motives are very interesting as well.
But yeah, if you guys want me to cover any other...
Crime, conspiracy, cults, murders, serial killers, let me know down below.
Eileen Wuornos is on my list, so don't worry about that.
But any other ones, let me know down below.
If you liked the video, please like the video.
And also, I hope you're having a happy holiday season.
Take care of yourself.
Be safe, please.
Also, don't hitchhike.
Side note.
And I love you.
And I will see your beautiful face in the next video.
All right.
Thank you.
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