That first victim, Ermelinda, Sounds like a bit of a Whale, Am I right Taxonomists? congrats on your new channel Simon. Can you start a channel which focuses on the many frailties of the human condition? Like addiction, for example. Where one has an experience which triggers a strong pleasurable effect which one then pursues relentlessly yearning for that same moment of ecstasy felt in the initial experience.
Next time you go in the Italian bread shop, don't just say Buongiorno... add "Come Stai" into it. Come has an emphasis on the e and stai is pronouced sty.
I remember an old thing about curses. Whether the curse is actually real is irrelevant; what matters is whether the cursed person believes it to be real. If someone thinks they’re cursed, they’re liable to sabotage themselves because they are sure it will happen anyway.
To be fair, if I'd suffered that many miscarriages & child deaths I'd be desperate too, & now my children aren't dying? That's definitely a confirmation
I think it was Gerald Durrell who said that curses in Africa took two people - one to make the curse, and someone to run to the cursed and say, “don’t want to worry you, but you’ve been cursed.”
@@NM-wd7kx It probably doesn't help if you are living in Mussolini's Italy during the war either... Still, I think she was likely lying and that her and her son killed those women for money and she created the story to keep her son out of jail and to avoid the hangman's noose. Sure, she could have been raving mad, she wasn't exactly lucky and from regular Italians at the time the world must have felt like it was ending which certainly could make people insane but the only evidence we have for everything besides the murders are her word. That she could sacrifice someone for some weird ritual out of madness is one thing but turning someone into soap and giving it away to all her neighbors sounds a bit suspicious and something someone would say to shock people.
i want a tshirt with " if you take some one hostage atleast give them cigerrates" it sounds funny to me. the police who questions suspects give them, the questioned cigerrates some times for more infromation which is such a nonsense deal but whatever yeeah give the hostsge food water and tabbacco atleast make it liveable :) xd
Yo, Simon. Theres a word for that feeling you describe at 12:50. "Sonder: The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own-populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness-an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk." -The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
If CW wrote about her story it go something like: "My name is Leonarda Ciancuilli, and am the evil-est woman alive. When I was a young girl, i swallowed sticks and glass, but i lived. Now, with the help of my country's weird version of christianity, i eat people. I am... The Fla- i mean The Cannibal of Corregio"
She was simply hungry and liked human meat. Don't dis it until you try it. Properly pressure cooked in barbeque sauce on a bun with pickles it's even more delicious than pulled pork.
I live in the US. One of my best friends has a part-time soap-making business that she runs from her home. She was investigated by the feds (briefly) for the amount of lye she was using. She was quickly cleared. So yeah, they're definitely monitoring its use in the US.
What's extra fascinating to me is that even when people know they're taking a placebo, the placebo effect STILL works in a statistically significant way! It should only work if someone thinks they're taking a real medication and stop working if they discover it's just a capsule of sugar, but it still works better than taking nothing. The human body is weird and I'm forever torn between being horrified and being amazed by them!
Jen's editing is fucking fire today. I have never snortled so hard. I've always enjoyed her magic of satirizing and lightening the grim subjects and descriptions of CC without making it feel inappropriate or cold to the victims -- probably because all the jokes feel like they're mocking the villains' terrible decisions/logic or playing with Simon while still being respectful to those affected -- but seemingly every gag here landed soundly with a great rhythm and timing. Simon likewise gave some very relatable reactions, and the writing paints a clear and vivid picture as always. Well crafted by all, guys. Many kudos and likes to you!
Simon, as a suggestion for one of your infinite channels: folk Catholicism is absolutely wild. Southern Italy, Southern Spain, bits of South Eastern Europe. I grew up CofE (like you, I guess) and it wasn’t until I moved to Spain and met my some of my family from the south that I realised what we’ve been missing out on. As a brief taster, in the very south of Spain, each town has their own Virgin Mary (who has a specific name and character traits- monotheism my arse). Towns will literally fight over their own Virgin. With actual violence. My personal favourite- in a little town near Seville, we bumped into a procession for their own Virgin. People were absolutely trollied: struggling to keep upright from their alcohol levels but utterly euphoric. Everyone was catcalling the Virgin (“tia buena”- something akin to “you fit bird!”). The priest was smoking a cigarette and the men were trying to grope the statue. In a way, it’s a shame this is all dying out. We sceptical atheists are a boring, grey bunch. Please document it before it disappears! I need to know how all this came about and I need you and your team of writers to do it for me because I’m far too lazy to read academic papers.
The book that got turned into a not so great movie Simon was trying to think of is called Tomorrow When the War Began. I remember reading it in highschool (btw I live in Australia, where where book is set) so it hit quite hard for us as teenagers; was easy for us to imagine just going out into the bush for a fun night of camping and drinking only to come back to a society undone.
God that fucking scene where they're just eating Vegemite out of the jar and it's like we get it, they're Aussie. Ain't ever cringed so hard. Was devo that they butchered the book.
It's now on the Lit List, thanks! It's difficult to find Aussie literature, like what's taught in the schools, not what's crossed the ocean to make it on the NYT bestseller list. Cheers
Simon has a knack for hiring awesome people, every team on every video does a wonderful job at bringing the content together and Simon has well honed his presentation skills. Much thanks to all involved in the Whistlerverse and here's to many more years of engaging content!
Also, David's wrong, fortune tellers are not lacking skills, the good ones are excellent at observation, psychology, reading body language and selling it.
I find what they actually do SO much more impressive than if someone’s great-aunt from beyond the veil were whispering the answers, which are usually somewhat mundane for someone with knowledge of the afterlife.
@@valerielevasseur8674 When I did tarot readings for fun in high school, I usually found that the person who was getting the reading would link the meaning of the cards to something else going on in their lives, something they hadn't been consciously thinking of. The cards themselves are very Jungian and usually the person has the answer they just weren't aware of it until the reading was done. And I am not even very good at it.
@@td4190 those two skill sets often overlap, it doesn't actually take magic to know a teen girl who gets pregnant before she's wed in medieval Italy is in for a bad time, but claiming magic makes them more likely to listen to your advice not to do that.
“Would I kill people to protect my children? Admittedly? Yes…” We heard it here first Simon. When the casual criminalist episode of Simon the soap and pastry maker is recorded, we’ll look back on this episode. 😂
Most parents feel the same way. I couldn't believe my reaction when a strange woman yelled at my five year old. I would kill or take a bullet for my kids.
I was more concerned about the fact that he prefaced that with a disclaimer, which would seem to indicate he HAS killed to protect his children. Given the fact that they're under 5, who kidnapped his kids and made Simon go all Taken?
A little bit is OK but sometimes the story is hard to follow because Simon stops every few sentences to talk about some unrelated and insignificant thought the story just made him think. And some of these videos are 75% random asides that get so frustrating to listen to I have to change the video.
It's been a year since you commented this, but I went into the comments just to find others who want to applaud Jen's work on this episode. If you can't remember, fast forward to around 33:45 for a good giggle.
1. I live for the titles that Simon does react to. The ones where he laughs or says “WTF?!” in response to are the best. 2. Yes, there is a religious type of OCD, it’s called “scrupulosity”. 3. That Tim Minchin song that was quoted at the end is actually a beat poem. He doesn’t sing it. He performs the poem to specific music. There is a wonderful animated video version of it that an artist did for him. They also turned it into a book which is awesome. Simon, I think you’d probably love Tim’s work. He’s a comedic musician!
Religious type of OCD used to be the most common, back before germ theory was accepted. There's a case from Poland of a lady who compulsively washed her hands because she thought she might have bits of communion wafer on them I read about, in a casebook of abnormal psychology
Just an FYI regarding organ donation. Have you ever wondered why there is such long waiting lists for organs when so many people say they're organ donars? It because even if you're an "organ donar", your organs probably wont get used. Reason being is that in order for your organs to be used you basically need to die whilst hooked up to a machine that keeps your organs alive. Like, if you slip over and die in the bath and arent found for an hour, all of your organs have died by that point and are clogged up by congeiled blood etc and arent useable. Unless you die at a hospital while on some sort of life support then your organs cant/wont be used regardless of if you've opted in to organ donation.
The story of Leondarda's mother and the rape she survived is so heartbreaking... She was a horrible mother, but when you learn about her story a bit more it's so sad- she was forced to marry her rapist when she was 17 and was exiled from her wealthy family to live in a hut with her unemployed husband. Luckily he died after a few years, then she was able to marry again into a more "respected" family. But it just breaks my heart to see that the seeds of Leondarda's state of mind come all the way from the horrific violence in someone else's life. Just shows how one act can destroy a few generations of people
When she confided in her family that that was what had happened after they realised she was pregnant I imagine being forced to marry and live with him was the last thing she expected.🥺😔
@@piperjaycie I think the story was that she actually didn't really know what happened, because the sex ed wasn't really a thing back then, so she washed the blood of herself and tried to pretend nothing happened, but after a few months it became obvious to everyone that she was pregnant, and her family force her to confess what had happened. It is such a horrible story, they invited him and his family for dinner and basically agreed with him that he will marry their daughter. I feel so bad for this woman, even if she goes on to be a bad mother- imagine trying to raise a child when you grew up groomed to some day be a rich man's wife, have servants and be educated in fine arts, and then you get raped by a town drunk when you are 17 (and he's in his 40s I believe) and you are not only pregnant with a child you never learned how to care for, you are exiled from your family and the only way of life you know and then you have to marry said violent drunk and try to raise a baby in horrible environment, also having to put up with daily sexual assaults from your own husband, lack of food or any resources and being "disgraced" in your home town. I don't know why but Leondarda's mother's life story stuck with me very vividly since I first heard about that case
On rape and marriage in Italy: even though it is unlikely that Leonarda was the child of a rape resulting in a forced marriage (she was the last of 6 children) the situation was not so uncommon and it was actually totally legal. Known as "matrimonio riparatore", it was actually defined by a law: a man who raped a virgin, not married woman, could avoid any kind of sentence by offering to marry the woman. Women were often forced into marriage by their family or simply by their fear of being considered damaged goods of loose morals. The first victim to fight refuse this kind of marriage and have the rapist (who also belonged to a mafia family) persecuted was Franca Viola in 1966, and the law was only abolished in 1981. Rape was seen as a crime against public morality (and not against the person) until 1996. The surname is misspelled BUT you mispronounce it sooo convincingly that I actually had to double-check it even though I have known her story my whole life (it is Cianciulli, sounds something like /Chanchoolli/). You can sometimes find bars of soaps branded "Cianciulli's - soap bars since 1940" as novelty items.
Actually I think the theory is that a man raped her mother after her mother was married which is why Leonarda was a child of rape but her siblings weren’t.
The son being stuck in prison for the duration of the war most probably saved him from getting killed in the trenches. So, in a strange way, it’s a win-win for the son and for Leonarda.
As a magician I can say that a lot of these con people do in fact delude and mislead themselves. They take courses where they are told to listen to their feelings and that will be precognition and if they miss it is just that they need more training, so they cover both ends
I practice witchcraft and agree. Real Witchcraft works with Manifestation and the law of attraction. We collect rocks, flowers, and grow plants. And make Spells for protection, healing, self love, some practice shadow work but I've never heard those happening without the caster getting some hella Karma. But there's NO HUMAN SACRIFICE! Some practices do Animal sacrifice, but those are far and few between. And if they call themselves a witch but commit murder in the name of witchcraft they are not, I hate being lumped in with these fucking insane people. I read Tarot too and it's really not what you think.
Hey Simon, There is a word for that feeling you were trying to describe when you were talking about being the main character. sonder n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own-populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness-an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.
Simon is by far the best teller of them all. I binge watch all he do EXEPT when im off to sleep. Hes humor would kept me awake laughing. Watch anything from canibals to meteorites and everything between. Thank you simon, keep up the amazing job
Simon’s existential realization around the 13 minute mark. 😂 That was very cute and VERY relatable. This is the kind of stuff I randomly think about during my nightly bouts of insomnia at 3 in the morning. That, or in the shower, for some reason.
When I am in gridlock traffic, or better yet, a shopping line, I am always thinking that we are all together in this situation and making the worst of it. Not making eye contact, conversing or smiling at one another. I’m usually wondering, “do these people also think this music sucks ?” I never ask though… sad.
My SO claims to be 5'-0.25" but is really 4'-10 or 4'-11. That has always seemed like a silly thing to lie about. Her younger sister (5'-5") was braiding her hair while we waited in line at Disney several years ago and the lady behind us asked if our "daughter" was enjoying her time at the park. Cringe meter at 1,000.
I mean I'm 5ft tall but smaller women were the norm, if you look at statistics we are getting taller and taller. Small women got the OG genetics, we will rise again. Not literally we will just make everyone else our height.
i'd like to comment on the diagnosis mentioned early in the video - narcissistic personality disorder with schizoid and paranoid traits, and specifically on the "schizoid" part, since that's a more esoteric term. the narcissistic part you already explained - the grandiosity and low self esteem that's overcompensating for schizoid sounds like something 'scary' - but its (very simplified) more of an issue with (consciously) not wanting to connect with others for fear of being engulfed by the other person. there is still an unconscious desire, but often suppressed because it feels less painful/scary to be alone than to connect with others. often there's a history of a primary caregiver who was very detached early in life (which with leonarda. . .yep!) so attachment is fucked up. there's a lot of overlap with the 'negative' symptoms of schizophrenia, things like flat affect, social withdrawal, not being able to experience pleasure, etc. paranoid is basically what you think it is, very suspicious and hostile of others and well, paranoid. i wanted to explain the schizoid part since it isn't really a term people come across often, and although there is some tentative(?) evidence for an increased risk of schizophrenia with people who have schizoid personality disorder/traits, and there is some overlap with symptoms, its not the same as schizophrenia.
Also all of the disorders you mentioned are hereditary and genetic. Lol the SNP chains were identified a while ago. We know what causes schizophrenia, schizoaffective, schizotypal etc. It’s due to genetic mutation, it’s nature not nurture.
Now, this episode was a doozy. I love Simon’s disgust at every turn, it makes the story a little bit more palatable and I’m not embarrassed to say that I was very entertained
As soon as I looked at her picture, I said to myself..."That's the human soap lady!" Lol as a soap maker myself, her story is fairly well known in some circles ;-) And yes, there are legit, soap-making reasons to buy sodium hydroxide. Not only can you order it in bulk for soap making, you can buy it in the home improvement stores as drain cleaner.
as a train lab technician i encourage anyone to buy chemicals in bulk, if you know what you're doing you can save a ton of money and it should not be difficult to find out which chemicals to use for which purpose. just having a small stock of sodium hydroxide, industrial strength alcohol and acetic acid will give you so many household uses that people buy stupid expensive products for.
Hey, caustic soda is an important ingredient in (Bavarian) pretzels. They get dipped in lye (low concentration, food grade) before baking. So please don't try to ban the sale of caustic soda, a world without those pretzels would be a sad one.
“ Tomorrow when the war began” is the series Simon mentions. Decent books if your in that age range Teaching Aussie kids how to make an anfo bomb set off by an egg timer since the mid 90’s
@@highlandoutsider np fam. I think it’s like the third book in the series that has the anfo bomb. They blow up a petrol truck to take out a bridge in book 1 tho…… whole series is like Aussie anarchist cookbook lite
As soon as I heard "bomb" & "bunch of Aussie kids" I knew exactly what series it was and was screaming at my phone 🤣 The author created it so that he could get his teenage kids and their fellows willing to read books - that's why it's so good!
You’re dealing with the 1930s or early 40s. Soap was made with animal fat, caustic soda, and herbs. Most people who weren’t rich made their own soap this way because they couldn’t afford to buy it. My grandfather was sold into indenture by his family as a young teen and came to America. He loved store bought soap his whole life. He was a coal miner and at first my grandmother made the soap. My mother’s mother also made lye soap. My mother used to use it for laundry when she still used a washboard and mangle. That was when I was a child and I was born in 1960. I remember it vividly.
Yes, please......and an audio of Simon's English to Italian, please :) (why do we usually do that hand gesture when trying to speak Italian? Lol! I usually have to sit on my hands when ordering tortellini.)
"And got to spend her life in an asylum instead of prison" That is arguably worse. Especially back then. Insane asylums aren't the cushy hotels people expect them to be, even today. It often is a much worse experience than prison.
That particular time period is right when things went to hell and they starved the patients in order to feed the soldiers instead. Now while Leonarda missed the soldiers over patients part, there was still very little funding and reform didn't happen for years. So yes, Leonarda's years were likely lived in an abusive environment that we wouldn't put the world's worst enemies through.
All depends. Country, region, ward or module. I've been in both. One of prisons was better than mental clinic, some others i was transferred to was worse. Being alone on the street abroad is the worst of all though.
Depends on where you are today, as someone else said. In America, I would definetly take a mental ward over a maximum security prison, but some minimum security prisons actually aren't that bad, but I'd probably still take the ward. However, while I've never been inside one, if the reports are true I'd take a Norwegian prison any day. I'd probably pay to spend a couple weeks in one of those.
I've been watching your talents since the beginning Simon. I love the energy and production the three of you...well four with David have on this channel. Never stop telling your little stories or saying what you think in that wonderful English accent. It is extremely humorous even if you don't mean it that way. It's also one of the reasons I and probably many, many others tune in!
For what it's worth, spinster was not originally an insult. It meant an unmarried woman who was able to support herself through spinning yarn, one of the few non sexual ways a woman could earn money during the middle ages and one of the only respectable ways a woman could be self-sufficient. Yes, I'm a nerd. Whatever. Love your stuff, I watch your channel while I spin yarn. :)
People are going to be offended by anything including the word the. Next people will be offended by being called unmarried or single. Youll never win. I never interpreted spinster as an insult anyway and if it was then saying the person was unmarried would be just as insulting (youre insulting them being unmarried).
Here in the bush in Australia we have B&S balls. Bachelor and spinster balls. But although it may have started for singles it ends up being the biggest nights of the town and everyone comes.
I also think that because they believed she was involved in "magic" or alike, they easily followed her instructions. I'm from South Africa and in some parts "magic" still exists and it's usually something like; When someone who practices magic is helping you and gives you instructions, you better follow them to the t. These tend to include not telling anyone about what you are doing (why you're getting help)... Of course, if it worked out, I wouldn't know about it.
@@williamrosenbloom215 we’ve had a handful of unsolved murders starting with a police officer and ending with a local business leader with more between. This is my hometown and I love it but, there seems to be corruption to the highest degree.
@@theokay1 a police officer was assassinated in a trap, a mother and daughter were found mutilated and dead in their house, then a young mother went missing and she is assumed dead, then her father was shot by like a sniper. Also the young mothers boyfriend and brother are highly believed around town to be the perpetrators of at least 3 of the murders. And that all happened within 3-4 years. The FBI have been in town twice to investigate and we still have no answers
I have to say I love this channel!! I know these are serious topics, but Simon makes me laugh every time I watch. It's the combination of a well written and researched script plus Simon's genuine reactions that make this so entertaining! I'm a history major so I started watching Simon's Biographics channel (which is awesome) and now I watch several of his channels, and I haven't found one I don't like. Every time I find a new channel by him I check it out, and I'm yet to be disappointed! Thanks Simon for the great content! I'll keep liking and subscribing to your channels! By far my favorite TH-cam person!
I doubt you'll ever read this Jen, but bravo for the 33:53 insert. I literally had to rewind to not just to watch it again, but also because I was giggling so hard that I missed the next 30seconds of Simon's dulcet narration. You're my hero.
CHAPTER 2 Keyboards clacking endlessly, it was the only sound in David's mind. He wished he could daydream. That he could remember walking in the park, the sound of the fountain gently spraying water on the surface. The sound of muffled conversation and playing children. Then maybe for a moment...he could almost feel the sun on his face again. Unfortunately he couldn't, no fantasy or memory could overpower the endless clacking that filled every corner of the basement that had become his entire world. The clacking filled his days, his nights, and even his dreams. Constant and humming, building together like a plague of locusts swarming his mind and killing the harvest. He tried to busy himself working, he had double the load now since Callum had somehow escaped. He knew he had to focus, a shudder passed through him when he remembered what the content creator had done after he had failed to include a pronunciation guide for a U.T.E. in his first script. It didn't bear to think about. He tried to focus but that damnable clacking just wouldn't end, he screwed his eyes shut and prayed that it would at least get quieter...and then, to his surprise, it seemed to. He noticed the buzz had died down some and was getting even lower. Perplexed he looked around and he could see that many of the other writers had stopped and had their heads cocked like they were trying to listen...but to what? Then David heard it too, muffled noises in the room above. At first he couldn't make them out but one by one the keyboards stopped. As the last one fell silent he could make out not one, but two voices. "Oh no" he breathed quietly to himself. "It's in a lovely part of town with a short commute to most everything you would need." A familiar and terrifying voice said. An unfamiliar and decidedly less terrifying voice responded."Thank God I found this place, I'm still a temp and I read about an opportunity for a part time job as well?" "Oh yes." Said the first voice "let me ask you something, how fast can you type?" David took in a sharp breath, a breath he meant to fire out of his lungs as a warning...but he held it. He knew it was already to late. "Oh uh in college I got up to over 80 words per minute." "Excellent, well let me show you the room, I should warn you, it's a sub room...it's in the basement." To be continued in another casual criminalist comment section.
The wonderful Stephanie Harlowe did a little video series on this case as well! That’s how I heard of it. She goes into so much detail about all the cases she covers, it’s great. I loved Simons take on this story though, with all his little life experiences in there! You guys never put out a bad video, and David is doing a great job! This is one of my favorite channels💛
Yes the series that Harlowe does on this woman is good but I like Simon's take better 😉 no shade on her just not much into her style and her people think she is some kind of goddess and I'm not there.
@@janetrawlings1691 hey, to each their own! I love both, don’t know that I could choose. I love how informative Stephanie is. She always has multiple hour long 3-4 part videos going into detail, (not that Simon isn’t informative, because he is) but Simons personality is fantastic. I love his laugh and the way he always goes on tangents. There is so much to like about them both!
"Tomorrow When the War Began" is the teen movie/book series Simon was talking about, it is amazing, I have seen the movie and read all the books including the Ellie Chronicles that end the story and even though I'm in my 50's they are an amazing read.
I saw the movie but didn't realize it was based on a book, much less a series. Explains why the movie ended without the story really ending, if you know what I mean. I'll have to see about reading the series.
The part about country priests speaking broken Latin reminds me of my favorite anecdote about a first year medical student who had accidentally summoned the Devil)
Yeah, regarding the ghost thing: I have a condition that fucks up my sleep-cycles and as a result dreams and reality sometimes blend in on each other very shortly before or after sleep. It is definitely creepy to think that there is someone (else) in your apartment and it can give you a bit of paranoia. But I also like to see myself as a (mostly) rational person and to experience something like this, must be named for what it is: Hallucinations... Also, besides medication reducing the probability of occurrence, I also get better at controlling it. If you get the best 4D cinema you could possibly hope for, why not play the movies which you want to see? ;) ... Pro-Tip for all of you who believe in ghosts...
For those that care, the correct pronunciation of her last name is "Chan-chooli". It's also actually Leonarda Cianciulli. The U and the I are in the wrong place.
I know someone who has 2 boys. The oldest was from a rape situation, and the younger was born about a month after she married his father. There's a 10-year age gap. Both are treasured and wonderful young men!
Hey I've got something that might make an interesting topic for "Decoding The Unknown" a novelist named Ingersoll Lockwood from the 1800's who wrote stories about a Baron Trump guided by a man named Don, the final book in the series titled "The Last President"
The first book in the book series about the Australian teenagers is Tomorrow When The War Began. It is indeed a whole series. The books hold up pretty well.
me hearing simon plug his new channel, yeah yeah yeah we know about into the dark. decoding the unknown? hes doing a effing another one. mate.... you are half my channel subscriptions already lol
My partner and I have this show playing in the background while we're doing stuff around the house and when Simon starts to wrap up one of his tangents it's almost guaranteed that one of us is going to shout "Just read, Fact Boy!" or something along those lines. Of course, we actually like the tangents, but it makes me laugh every time it happens.
Cool...just finished watching an episode of Decoding the Unknown and got rewarded with an episode of this!!! Awesome Friday! (Edit: Sorry for the confusion. It was my friday...the end of the work week)
I’ve read parts of her memoirs and it’s actually not written poorly at all, it’s kinda weird for someone who finished school at 9 years old. Also I’ve read that the ratios for the soap she wrote were pretty much wrong so it’s likely she lied about other things too, maybe to save her son Giuseppe? idk
OMG, as a 43 yr old single woman, I cringed so hard my face hurt at, "Lifelong spinster with a square, somewhat masculine face." Ugh. I hope if I am eaten by a friend I'm described as "Too hot to handle singleton with a striking countenance." ;)
Yeah. Sorry about that. When I get into true crime mode I am dispassionate to the point of being mean sometimes. To be fair, I also described her a lovely old dear with kind smiling eyes.
Don’t worry, Audrey. To most of us “modern gals”, sisters are doin’ it for themselves, therefore: You rock! Keep in living your life according to your own rules. 🤘🏼
@@dr.davidbaker86 I do appreciate your flair for description. Leonarda's husband wasn't described as a stout, stooped old man much shorter than his wife, though. Seems that the men in the story escaped physical description at all.
@@audreyr.johnson8965 the man pictured isn't actually raffaele pansardi. It's Italian actor Gigi Reder. I have no idea what Pansardi actually looked like.
Simon, caustic soda is also used for cleaning really tough dirt off of surfaces or equipment. We use it at my workplace to clean our commercial extraction fans that get gunked up quite a lot
Yes Simon it is a form of OCD. Commonly known as the Religious OCD where a person is obsessed about their religious beliefs and practices fearing about the consequences if the rituals are not followed and worrying about having done something wrong in to offend The God or a higher power.
Simon, it's called ANFO. ANFO stands for ammonium nitrate fuel oil. It's made with diesel fuel oil. It is very commonly known & was used in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center & the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. My search even turned up the percentages that are usually used in manufacturing it which I think might not be the best idea but...
Nice Misery refrence Jen! Trying to pull a role reversal between you and Simon? Anything that gets you, Calum and David out of his basement dungeon I suppose!
The book about the Aussie teens who come back from an Outback trip to find out they've been invaded is "When the War Began" by John Marsden! A series that traumatised me as a kid...
29:00 Yes, Simon, that is OCD. The repeated behaviors keep anxiety at bay. It is a mental disorder. Confirmation bias is simply a thought trap any human can fall into, if ignoring their analitical thinking skills.
Except people who suffer from OCD KNOW it's crazy. More likely a person with OCD would get an intrusive thought telling them to eat their neighbor and then develop a compulsion to quiet that voice down. I've heard it said, as a reassurance, that if you worry that you may be psychotic, you're not, you just have OCD, because a psychotic person wouldn't question their thoughts.
Yes, this! Basically what happens in an OCD brain is that the brain accidentally flags certain thoughts as important or dangerous and since one of the primitive functions of the brain is too keep you safe it then sends that thought repeatedly. For example “Is the door locked?”. A person without OCD will either remember the door is locked or go check it once. The front of the brain does this in response to the question which originates in the back of the brain. The front of the brain then sends a signal to the back of the brain saying “The door is locked, switch off the signal/question”. The back of the brain does this and the thought isn’t sent again. In OCD the message from the front of the brain which has dealt with the problem ie. checking to door IS locked gets lost or stuck in the middle part of the brain. The back of the brain then thinks it hasn’t been dealt with and it has to be because this thought is important or dangerous so it sends it again. The front of the brain is aware of all these signals and keeps responding to them. This is why OCD is so distressing. The front of the brain knows it has responded multiple times but the signals(intrusive thoughts) keep getting sent. This is also why compulsions are done repeatedly because the front of the brain will say for example “This is clean” and the back of the brain doesn’t get this message and keeps saying “This needs to be cleaned”. So a person does it again.
In a way, her spell worked. By getting her son arrested for murder and held for 5 years, she kept him out of military service... And then he was free to go.
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Oh its so wrong...leonardas mother was emilia de nalfi and was raped mariano and forced to marry him 😖 sorry david, but so so wrong...
That first victim, Ermelinda, Sounds like a bit of a Whale, Am I right Taxonomists? congrats on your new channel Simon. Can you start a channel which focuses on the many frailties of the human condition? Like addiction, for example. Where one has an experience which triggers a strong pleasurable effect which one then pursues relentlessly yearning for that same moment of ecstasy felt in the initial experience.
John Marsden, "Tomorrow, When the war began."
you got another new channel? good god man
Next time you go in the Italian bread shop, don't just say Buongiorno... add "Come Stai" into it. Come has an emphasis on the e and stai is pronouced sty.
“I am gonna stop bc my italian accent is terrible”
*immediately continues in italian accent*
I remember an old thing about curses. Whether the curse is actually real is irrelevant; what matters is whether the cursed person believes it to be real. If someone thinks they’re cursed, they’re liable to sabotage themselves because they are sure it will happen anyway.
To be fair, if I'd suffered that many miscarriages & child deaths I'd be desperate too, & now my children aren't dying? That's definitely a confirmation
Ah yes... the nocebo effect. The evil twin of the placebo effect.
Also there's no such thing as an evil twin, that's superstition.
🎯
I think it was Gerald Durrell who said that curses in Africa took two people - one to make the curse, and someone to run to the cursed and say, “don’t want to worry you, but you’ve been cursed.”
@@NM-wd7kx It probably doesn't help if you are living in Mussolini's Italy during the war either...
Still, I think she was likely lying and that her and her son killed those women for money and she created the story to keep her son out of jail and to avoid the hangman's noose.
Sure, she could have been raving mad, she wasn't exactly lucky and from regular Italians at the time the world must have felt like it was ending which certainly could make people insane but the only evidence we have for everything besides the murders are her word.
That she could sacrifice someone for some weird ritual out of madness is one thing but turning someone into soap and giving it away to all her neighbors sounds a bit suspicious and something someone would say to shock people.
David: gets to the basement, and hears Simon block the door.
Everyone else: "First time?"
Just how many people does he have down there now? 😳😆
@@IntrepidFraidyCat Danny, Sam, Callum, Jen, and now David so 5 I think
@@-MarcusAurelius Wow, that's why Simon goes through so much Magic Spoon. 🥣
There's a twist magic spoon is helping him capture people and feeding them to test there next project on them!
Guys!....sounds legit actually 👌
I need a tee shirt. On the front "These biscuits taste weird", on the back "I'm definitely not going to kill you and the biscuits taste fine!"
Make you some there are online print t shirt companies that will make that for you.
OMG! Yes!,! I will go and halfsy with you. I Totally want that shirt.
Lol awesome
😂
I too want that shirt lol
i want a tshirt with " if you take some one hostage atleast give them cigerrates" it sounds funny to me. the police who questions suspects give them, the questioned cigerrates some times for more infromation which is such a nonsense deal but whatever yeeah give the hostsge food water and tabbacco atleast make it liveable :) xd
As a native Italian speaker, I came here just for Simon butchering the names. He didn't disappoint. You go man!
Also: it is spelled CIANCIULLI.
SALVATOOOORAY 😂😂😂😂😂
@@Midorikonokami Jee-you-SEP -or- Jee-you-SEP-PEEEEEE
Nona Srega. Wadda gal !
bro forget the italian names, it takes bro a full 45 minutes to realize Leonarda is a woman.
bro forget the italian names, it takes bro a full 45 minutes to realize Leonarda is a woman.
Yo, Simon. Theres a word for that feeling you describe at 12:50.
"Sonder:
The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own-populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness-an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk."
-The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
Oh I like that! I learned something new and very cool too.
I’m off to order the Dictionary of Sorrows - I assume it’s on Amazon. Thanks Tiaan! 👍🏼
That is perfect.
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is a beautiful name for a book.
And here I was going to ask if he was high - that's really lovely. I've always meant to check that book out.
@@DustWarden I was high...
“Is she eating people because she’s crazy?” Simon, you should write for The CW.
If CW wrote about her story it go something like:
"My name is Leonarda Ciancuilli, and am the evil-est woman alive. When I was a young girl, i swallowed sticks and glass, but i lived. Now, with the help of my country's weird version of christianity, i eat people. I am... The Fla- i mean The Cannibal of Corregio"
Simon could definitely get on the Riverdale writing team.
go easy on her! she has an eating disorder.
Shaming people for their taste. If humans are delicious why shouldn't she eat them 😉😜
She was simply hungry and liked human meat. Don't dis it until you try it. Properly pressure cooked in barbeque sauce on a bun with pickles it's even more delicious than pulled pork.
I live in the US. One of my best friends has a part-time soap-making business that she runs from her home. She was investigated by the feds (briefly) for the amount of lye she was using. She was quickly cleared.
So yeah, they're definitely monitoring its use in the US.
Yep
They investigate every strong acid
Thanks for the info! Interesting. Scary and not scary at the same (American here also!).
Wait until I tell you about rice lol😂.
@@khaosssssss1727 What about rice?
What's extra fascinating to me is that even when people know they're taking a placebo, the placebo effect STILL works in a statistically significant way! It should only work if someone thinks they're taking a real medication and stop working if they discover it's just a capsule of sugar, but it still works better than taking nothing. The human body is weird and I'm forever torn between being horrified and being amazed by them!
Isn't the placebo effect more in the realm of the mind?
@@alinac5512No. The mind is part of the body, not separate from it.
Jen's editing is fucking fire today. I have never snortled so hard.
I've always enjoyed her magic of satirizing and lightening the grim subjects and descriptions of CC without making it feel inappropriate or cold to the victims -- probably because all the jokes feel like they're mocking the villains' terrible decisions/logic or playing with Simon while still being respectful to those affected -- but seemingly every gag here landed soundly with a great rhythm and timing. Simon likewise gave some very relatable reactions, and the writing paints a clear and vivid picture as always. Well crafted by all, guys. Many kudos and likes to you!
Absolutely. 😊
Never stop with your life stories, Simon. They are adorable.
Danny's (Brain Blaze) life stories are much better. Simon just wishes he was that cool. Carry on Blaze Boi!
Tales from the Basement channel coming soon.
@@onlywisehermit6624 Tbh I am fairly certain that at least half of his stories never happened because the man writes stories for a living 🤣
“Adorable” is definitely what everybody here came for XD
:D
"she brought the axe down on her friend's head"
at what point can you stop calling them friends?
Lol. Dramatic irony.
The killer viewed the victim as her friend throughout while the victim probably gave up that friendship right before the first strike.
When your friend starts splitting hairs.
Bout the time leonarda called her dinner
I think that's a pretty good time.
Hey Simon, that book/series you're remembering that you read and loved as a teen is "Tomorrow, When the War Began" by John Marsden.
You legend, yes, that's it!!
I loved those books as a kid too!
Ah, beat me to it! One of my favorite series from my childhood.
Thank you. I loved that book as a kid
Simons description sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldnt remember the title. I loved those books
Simon, as a suggestion for one of your infinite channels: folk Catholicism is absolutely wild. Southern Italy, Southern Spain, bits of South Eastern Europe. I grew up CofE (like you, I guess) and it wasn’t until I moved to Spain and met my some of my family from the south that I realised what we’ve been missing out on.
As a brief taster, in the very south of Spain, each town has their own Virgin Mary (who has a specific name and character traits- monotheism my arse). Towns will literally fight over their own Virgin. With actual violence.
My personal favourite- in a little town near Seville, we bumped into a procession for their own Virgin. People were absolutely trollied: struggling to keep upright from their alcohol levels but utterly euphoric. Everyone was catcalling the Virgin (“tia buena”- something akin to “you fit bird!”). The priest was smoking a cigarette and the men were trying to grope the statue.
In a way, it’s a shame this is all dying out. We sceptical atheists are a boring, grey bunch. Please document it before it disappears!
I need to know how all this came about and I need you and your team of writers to do it for me because I’m far too lazy to read academic papers.
Cringe
Yes I agree 👍 😳🙄
Athiests aren't boring, we have science and it's honestly just as wonderful as religion
This is hilarious thanks for sharing omg
Yeah it’s so boring that we’re not having statue groping parties
The book that got turned into a not so great movie Simon was trying to think of is called Tomorrow When the War Began. I remember reading it in highschool (btw I live in Australia, where where book is set) so it hit quite hard for us as teenagers; was easy for us to imagine just going out into the bush for a fun night of camping and drinking only to come back to a society undone.
God that fucking scene where they're just eating Vegemite out of the jar and it's like we get it, they're Aussie. Ain't ever cringed so hard.
Was devo that they butchered the book.
@@finch600 where is the lie though? Y’all eat vegemite.
I read the series but didn’t like it much for some reason. Apparently the movie was shot in a town near where I lived.
@@Tsumami__We “all” most certainly do not 🤮
And no one eats Vegemite out of the jar. Even people who like it have it as a very thin layer on toast.
It's now on the Lit List, thanks! It's difficult to find Aussie literature, like what's taught in the schools, not what's crossed the ocean to make it on the NYT bestseller list.
Cheers
Simon has a knack for hiring awesome people, every team on every video does a wonderful job at bringing the content together and Simon has well honed his presentation skills. Much thanks to all involved in the Whistlerverse and here's to many more years of engaging content!
:)
The Whistlerverse, I love it!
@@dr.davidbaker86 Ohhhhhh look who it is!!
@@TheCasualCriminalist Hoping to get the next one to you tonight. Probs should get off YT.
@@dr.davidbaker86 I am so happy the basement has internet access
Also, David's wrong, fortune tellers are not lacking skills, the good ones are excellent at observation, psychology, reading body language and selling it.
I find what they actually do SO much more impressive than if someone’s great-aunt from beyond the veil were whispering the answers, which are usually somewhat mundane for someone with knowledge of the afterlife.
@@valerielevasseur8674 When I did tarot readings for fun in high school, I usually found that the person who was getting the reading would link the meaning of the cards to something else going on in their lives, something they hadn't been consciously thinking of. The cards themselves are very Jungian and usually the person has the answer they just weren't aware of it until the reading was done.
And I am not even very good at it.
Those were lyrics from Minchin's Storm, not me. I agree they are very skilled at lying and manipulating people.
@@biffyqueen Sort of like ink blot tests in psychology.
Cold reading is the term you're looking for.
A wise woman is a woman who knows the traditional remedies of an area. She's usually also the one that help when other women are giving birth.
My grandmother was one.
@@thomassultana263 mine too!!! Still use some of her remedies to date!
Yes, wisdom... Not magic though.
I'm pretty sure they didn't mean this kind of wise woman I think they were talking like a mystic or fortune teller.
@@td4190 those two skill sets often overlap, it doesn't actually take magic to know a teen girl who gets pregnant before she's wed in medieval Italy is in for a bad time, but claiming magic makes them more likely to listen to your advice not to do that.
Simon "Mr. Tangent" Whistler. Never change, you absolute legend.
Wow. Callum definitely has a unique talent with mystery/suspense, but David's got that spice for these more grisly and straightforward monster mashes.
Wow, thanks!
“Would I kill people to protect my children? Admittedly? Yes…”
We heard it here first Simon. When the casual criminalist episode of Simon the soap and pastry maker is recorded, we’ll look back on this episode. 😂
Most parents feel the same way. I couldn't believe my reaction when a strange woman yelled at my five year old. I would kill or take a bullet for my kids.
I was more concerned about the fact that he prefaced that with a disclaimer, which would seem to indicate he HAS killed to protect his children. Given the fact that they're under 5, who kidnapped his kids and made Simon go all Taken?
@@missolesoul same here tbh…
@@blueashke I have a very particular set of skills.
@@TheCasualCriminalist And they're greatly appreciated, fact boy.
The off course rants are half the reason I watch these, the other half is Jen and her choices of gifs and memes, absolute gold
Absolutely
Every time I listen to the podcast I have to rewatch it on TH-cam to see Jens memes
A little bit is OK but sometimes the story is hard to follow because Simon stops every few sentences to talk about some unrelated and insignificant thought the story just made him think. And some of these videos are 75% random asides that get so frustrating to listen to I have to change the video.
David’s Casual Criminalist scripts begin with an average of over an hour. This man’s got promise.
;)
"Five years without being found guilty? That doesn't seem fair."
*Simon learns the meaning of fascism*
Don't read aggression into my comment, I love this channel. I am just having a laugh.
Finally someone called out the fact that we’re not all NPCs 😂
Much love simon, you’re an awesome character in our movie
a big yes to the "these biscuits taste weird" merch!!!
Seconded.
Yes we need these.
@@dr.davidbaker86 great episode 😎
@@reg4211 thanks!
@@dr.davidbaker86 yvw! 🤙🏻 keep 'em coming
Cant believe Simon missed this....
"Making a corpse more palatable" in a cannibal story....
Oh well, you can't catch em all
Thinking the same!!! 🤣
The music that abruptly begins and ends with Simon’s Italian accent is a stroke of comedic genius (by I assume Jen)
Jen's editing on this episode is superb, gotta be one of my favourite episode so far
It's been a year since you commented this, but I went into the comments just to find others who want to applaud Jen's work on this episode. If you can't remember, fast forward to around 33:45 for a good giggle.
@@coryalexander6382 It has been four months since you commented on this but I just wanted to come back and say
🍷🗿
1. I live for the titles that Simon does react to. The ones where he laughs or says “WTF?!” in response to are the best.
2. Yes, there is a religious type of OCD, it’s called “scrupulosity”.
3. That Tim Minchin song that was quoted at the end is actually a beat poem. He doesn’t sing it. He performs the poem to specific music. There is a wonderful animated video version of it that an artist did for him. They also turned it into a book which is awesome. Simon, I think you’d probably love Tim’s work. He’s a comedic musician!
Religious type of OCD used to be the most common, back before germ theory was accepted. There's a case from Poland of a lady who compulsively washed her hands because she thought she might have bits of communion wafer on them I read about, in a casebook of abnormal psychology
Just an FYI regarding organ donation. Have you ever wondered why there is such long waiting lists for organs when so many people say they're organ donars? It because even if you're an "organ donar", your organs probably wont get used. Reason being is that in order for your organs to be used you basically need to die whilst hooked up to a machine that keeps your organs alive. Like, if you slip over and die in the bath and arent found for an hour, all of your organs have died by that point and are clogged up by congeiled blood etc and arent useable. Unless you die at a hospital while on some sort of life support then your organs cant/wont be used regardless of if you've opted in to organ donation.
Glad someone mentioned this! So, the process of donating your body should still be planned for, Simon and anyone else interested in it.
Some times they can still use some tissues like skin or eye lenses (still you basically need to die in the hands of healthcare)
Kidneys are usually gold though
They might still use the skin. A massive amount of cadaver skin is used on burn victims.
It's nice to give Callum a break since he lives in the basement along side all the other writers Simon stores down there.
Did anyone else notice David showed up after the episode when Simon said ‘it would be a cool story if Callum was murdered’… 🤔
Ooooohhhh shiiiit!!!!
@@HarbingersBuddy MWA HA HA HA HA
He is on holiday in the attic.
@@HarbingersBuddy damn I guess he tried to escape. Rookie mistake
The story of Leondarda's mother and the rape she survived is so heartbreaking... She was a horrible mother, but when you learn about her story a bit more it's so sad- she was forced to marry her rapist when she was 17 and was exiled from her wealthy family to live in a hut with her unemployed husband. Luckily he died after a few years, then she was able to marry again into a more "respected" family. But it just breaks my heart to see that the seeds of Leondarda's state of mind come all the way from the horrific violence in someone else's life. Just shows how one act can destroy a few generations of people
When she confided in her family that that was what had happened after they realised she was pregnant I imagine being forced to marry and live with him was the last thing she expected.🥺😔
@@piperjaycie I think the story was that she actually didn't really know what happened, because the sex ed wasn't really a thing back then, so she washed the blood of herself and tried to pretend nothing happened, but after a few months it became obvious to everyone that she was pregnant, and her family force her to confess what had happened. It is such a horrible story, they invited him and his family for dinner and basically agreed with him that he will marry their daughter. I feel so bad for this woman, even if she goes on to be a bad mother- imagine trying to raise a child when you grew up groomed to some day be a rich man's wife, have servants and be educated in fine arts, and then you get raped by a town drunk when you are 17 (and he's in his 40s I believe) and you are not only pregnant with a child you never learned how to care for, you are exiled from your family and the only way of life you know and then you have to marry said violent drunk and try to raise a baby in horrible environment, also having to put up with daily sexual assaults from your own husband, lack of food or any resources and being "disgraced" in your home town. I don't know why but Leondarda's mother's life story stuck with me very vividly since I first heard about that case
Same. I just remember being in such disbelief and anger that she was forced to marry her rapist and disowned by her own parents.
Well they were religious. That's what the bible tells you to do. If you're a Virgin and you're raped marry him 😭
In my opinion her mother's rape and her upbringing are proof of her family's curse.
On rape and marriage in Italy: even though it is unlikely that Leonarda was the child of a rape resulting in a forced marriage (she was the last of 6 children) the situation was not so uncommon and it was actually totally legal.
Known as "matrimonio riparatore", it was actually defined by a law: a man who raped a virgin, not married woman, could avoid any kind of sentence by offering to marry the woman. Women were often forced into marriage by their family or simply by their fear of being considered damaged goods of loose morals. The first victim to fight refuse this kind of marriage and have the rapist (who also belonged to a mafia family) persecuted was Franca Viola in 1966, and the law was only abolished in 1981. Rape was seen as a crime against public morality (and not against the person) until 1996.
The surname is misspelled BUT you mispronounce it sooo convincingly that I actually had to double-check it even though I have known her story my whole life (it is Cianciulli, sounds something like /Chanchoolli/).
You can sometimes find bars of soaps branded "Cianciulli's - soap bars since 1940" as novelty items.
The woman is always quality in the eyes of police and the public.
"soap" 😭
Actually I think the theory is that a man raped her mother after her mother was married which is why Leonarda was a child of rape but her siblings weren’t.
The writing was impeccable on this one. Thanks David Baker. Can't wait to hear your writing again.
Dear Simon, for my birthday, I'd greatly appreciate it if you did an entire episode in your Southern-Bible-Belt-American accent XD
yes, but i wanna add on he do a southern homicide case :3
Roll Tide
yeeeeeee haw
For the love of science, no.
Which southern accent? No need for the bible belt part. That is a stereotype. I live in the south and i am an atheist.
The son being stuck in prison for the duration of the war most probably saved him from getting killed in the trenches. So, in a strange way, it’s a win-win for the son and for Leonarda.
As a magician I can say that a lot of these con people do in fact delude and mislead themselves. They take courses where they are told to listen to their feelings and that will be precognition and if they miss it is just that they need more training, so they cover both ends
Interesting...
I practice witchcraft and agree. Real Witchcraft works with Manifestation and the law of attraction. We collect rocks, flowers, and grow plants. And make Spells for protection, healing, self love, some practice shadow work but I've never heard those happening without the caster getting some hella Karma. But there's NO HUMAN SACRIFICE! Some practices do Animal sacrifice, but those are far and few between. And if they call themselves a witch but commit murder in the name of witchcraft they are not, I hate being lumped in with these fucking insane people. I read Tarot too and it's really not what you think.
Hey Simon,
There is a word for that feeling you were trying to describe when you were talking about being the main character.
sonder
n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own-populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness-an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.
I'm a fan of hiraeth and schadenfreude..plus kut kanarie 😅.
Simon is by far the best teller of them all. I binge watch all he do EXEPT when im off to sleep. Hes humor would kept me awake laughing. Watch anything from canibals to meteorites and everything between. Thank you simon, keep up the amazing job
Simon’s existential realization around the 13 minute mark. 😂 That was very cute and VERY relatable. This is the kind of stuff I randomly think about during my nightly bouts of insomnia at 3 in the morning. That, or in the shower, for some reason.
I have that realization a lot if I'm on a long drive bc the whole time you're seeing cars and it hits me that I'll never meet any of those people
When I am in gridlock traffic, or better yet, a shopping line, I am always thinking that we are all together in this situation and making the worst of it. Not making eye contact, conversing or smiling at one another. I’m usually wondering, “do these people also think this music sucks ?”
I never ask though… sad.
"She was a tiny woman, standing at only 4'11"
Simon: wow that is very small
Me, being only 4'10: *sweats*
Cute.
My SO claims to be 5'-0.25" but is really 4'-10 or 4'-11. That has always seemed like a silly thing to lie about. Her younger sister (5'-5") was braiding her hair while we waited in line at Disney several years ago and the lady behind us asked if our "daughter" was enjoying her time at the park. Cringe meter at 1,000.
I'm 5'3"
Sit on my shoulders and let's be tall.
4'9 here! And about 70 lbs
I mean I'm 5ft tall but smaller women were the norm, if you look at statistics we are getting taller and taller.
Small women got the OG genetics, we will rise again. Not literally we will just make everyone else our height.
i'd like to comment on the diagnosis mentioned early in the video - narcissistic personality disorder with schizoid and paranoid traits, and specifically on the "schizoid" part, since that's a more esoteric term.
the narcissistic part you already explained - the grandiosity and low self esteem that's overcompensating for
schizoid sounds like something 'scary' - but its (very simplified) more of an issue with (consciously) not wanting to connect with others for fear of being engulfed by the other person. there is still an unconscious desire, but often suppressed because it feels less painful/scary to be alone than to connect with others. often there's a history of a primary caregiver who was very detached early in life (which with leonarda. . .yep!) so attachment is fucked up. there's a lot of overlap with the 'negative' symptoms of schizophrenia, things like flat affect, social withdrawal, not being able to experience pleasure, etc.
paranoid is basically what you think it is, very suspicious and hostile of others and well, paranoid.
i wanted to explain the schizoid part since it isn't really a term people come across often, and although there is some tentative(?) evidence for an increased risk of schizophrenia with people who have schizoid personality disorder/traits, and there is some overlap with symptoms, its not the same as schizophrenia.
I am not sure about narcissism. But schizophrenia and paranoia, yes.
Thank you for the information, so interesting.
Found the schizo.
Also all of the disorders you mentioned are hereditary and genetic. Lol the SNP chains were identified a while ago. We know what causes schizophrenia, schizoaffective, schizotypal etc. It’s due to genetic mutation, it’s nature not nurture.
Nobody has ever explained schizoaffective disorder so well, I have ocd too life is interesting, in an everybody's so creative way lol.
Now, this episode was a doozy. I love Simon’s disgust at every turn, it makes the story a little bit more palatable and I’m not embarrassed to say that I was very entertained
"People that believe in these things are crazy" also simon "I want to be cryogenically frozen"😂
As soon as I looked at her picture, I said to myself..."That's the human soap lady!" Lol as a soap maker myself, her story is fairly well known in some circles ;-)
And yes, there are legit, soap-making reasons to buy sodium hydroxide. Not only can you order it in bulk for soap making, you can buy it in the home improvement stores as drain cleaner.
Just... Just don't try to buy bulk from home improvement stores without a contractor card. 😅
It's apparently suspicious. 😅😅😅
as a train lab technician i encourage anyone to buy chemicals in bulk, if you know what you're doing you can save a ton of money and it should not be difficult to find out which chemicals to use for which purpose. just having a small stock of sodium hydroxide, industrial strength alcohol and acetic acid will give you so many household uses that people buy stupid expensive products for.
It gets clothes super clean,makes jeans soft and butter like and makes nice color changes 🤔🥰😉
Hey, caustic soda is an important ingredient in (Bavarian) pretzels. They get dipped in lye (low concentration, food grade) before baking. So please don't try to ban the sale of caustic soda, a world without those pretzels would be a sad one.
I am from Serbia ( ex Tito's Yugoslavia, Balkan peninsula, Europe ). Bavarian pretzels are simple but amazingly delicious. I bay them in Lidl.
Bagels, too, I believe.
“ Tomorrow when the war began” is the series Simon mentions. Decent books if your in that age range
Teaching Aussie kids how to make an anfo bomb set off by an egg timer since the mid 90’s
Thank you! I can't abide unanswered wonderings so had to immediately start scrolling in the hope of a legend like you 👍
@@highlandoutsider np fam. I think it’s like the third book in the series that has the anfo bomb. They blow up a petrol truck to take out a bridge in book 1 tho…… whole series is like Aussie anarchist cookbook lite
Thank you! I loved this series too!
As soon as I heard "bomb" & "bunch of Aussie kids" I knew exactly what series it was and was screaming at my phone 🤣
The author created it so that he could get his teenage kids and their fellows willing to read books - that's why it's so good!
12:49 "Sonder" was a word to encapsulate the entire multi sentence idea. Its such a good way to see the world, well it helps me at least
You’re dealing with the 1930s or early 40s. Soap was made with animal fat, caustic soda, and herbs. Most people who weren’t rich made their own soap this way because they couldn’t afford to buy it. My grandfather was sold into indenture by his family as a young teen and came to America. He loved store bought soap his whole life. He was a coal miner and at first my grandmother made the soap. My mother’s mother also made lye soap. My mother used to use it for laundry when she still used a washboard and mangle. That was when I was a child and I was born in 1960. I remember it vividly.
My mum lived out on a farm during the 1970's in new Zealand and she made her own soap from the fat of the animals that were butchered for food
I would 100% buy a shirt that says: “These biscuits taste weird” -Everyone in Correggio
Yes, please......and an audio of Simon's English to Italian, please :) (why do we usually do that hand gesture when trying to speak Italian? Lol! I usually have to sit on my hands when ordering tortellini.)
"And got to spend her life in an asylum instead of prison"
That is arguably worse. Especially back then. Insane asylums aren't the cushy hotels people expect them to be, even today. It often is a much worse experience than prison.
That particular time period is right when things went to hell and they starved the patients in order to feed the soldiers instead. Now while Leonarda missed the soldiers over patients part, there was still very little funding and reform didn't happen for years.
So yes, Leonarda's years were likely lived in an abusive environment that we wouldn't put the world's worst enemies through.
All depends. Country, region, ward or module.
I've been in both. One of prisons was better than mental clinic, some others i was transferred to was worse. Being alone on the street abroad is the worst of all though.
Electrocution! Isolation “therapy”! Abuse from staff! Random medications!
So many “fun” things to do
Depends on where you are today, as someone else said. In America, I would definetly take a mental ward over a maximum security prison, but some minimum security prisons actually aren't that bad, but I'd probably still take the ward.
However, while I've never been inside one, if the reports are true I'd take a Norwegian prison any day. I'd probably pay to spend a couple weeks in one of those.
GOOD
She really did save her son from being drafted for war and being killed. He spent the war in jail.
I've been watching your talents since the beginning Simon. I love the energy and production the three of you...well four with David have on this channel. Never stop telling your little stories or saying what you think in that wonderful English accent. It is extremely humorous even if you don't mean it that way. It's also one of the reasons I and probably many, many others tune in!
For what it's worth, spinster was not originally an insult. It meant an unmarried woman who was able to support herself through spinning yarn, one of the few non sexual ways a woman could earn money during the middle ages and one of the only respectable ways a woman could be self-sufficient.
Yes, I'm a nerd. Whatever. Love your stuff, I watch your channel while I spin yarn. :)
People are going to be offended by anything including the word the. Next people will be offended by being called unmarried or single. Youll never win. I never interpreted spinster as an insult anyway and if it was then saying the person was unmarried would be just as insulting (youre insulting them being unmarried).
Here in the bush in Australia we have B&S balls. Bachelor and spinster balls. But although it may have started for singles it ends up being the biggest nights of the town and everyone comes.
Those biscuits add a whole new nuance to the gingerbread houses fairytale witches are supposed to live in.
I also think that because they believed she was involved in "magic" or alike, they easily followed her instructions.
I'm from South Africa and in some parts "magic" still exists and it's usually something like; When someone who practices magic is helping you and gives you instructions, you better follow them to the t. These tend to include not telling anyone about what you are doing (why you're getting help)... Of course, if it worked out, I wouldn't know about it.
Ive said it before, and I’ll say it again, please look into the city of Bardstown, KY for a future episode! It’s crazy interesting!
How so?
@@williamrosenbloom215 we’ve had a handful of unsolved murders starting with a police officer and ending with a local business leader with more between.
This is my hometown and I love it but, there seems to be corruption to the highest degree.
@@2Dan3 sounds boring
@@theokay1 a police officer was assassinated in a trap, a mother and daughter were found mutilated and dead in their house, then a young mother went missing and she is assumed dead, then her father was shot by like a sniper. Also the young mothers boyfriend and brother are highly believed around town to be the perpetrators of at least 3 of the murders. And that all happened within 3-4 years. The FBI have been in town twice to investigate and we still have no answers
@@2Dan3 ending with? So it's over? When was this?
I have to say I love this channel!! I know these are serious topics, but Simon makes me laugh every time I watch. It's the combination of a well written and researched script plus Simon's genuine reactions that make this so entertaining! I'm a history major so I started watching Simon's Biographics channel (which is awesome) and now I watch several of his channels, and I haven't found one I don't like. Every time I find a new channel by him I check it out, and I'm yet to be disappointed! Thanks Simon for the great content! I'll keep liking and subscribing to your channels! By far my favorite TH-cam person!
I doubt you'll ever read this Jen, but bravo for the 33:53 insert. I literally had to rewind to not just to watch it again, but also because I was giggling so hard that I missed the next 30seconds of Simon's dulcet narration. You're my hero.
CHAPTER 2
Keyboards clacking endlessly, it was the only sound in David's mind. He wished he could daydream. That he could remember walking in the park, the sound of the fountain gently spraying water on the surface. The sound of muffled conversation and playing children. Then maybe for a moment...he could almost feel the sun on his face again.
Unfortunately he couldn't, no fantasy or memory could overpower the endless clacking that filled every corner of the basement that had become his entire world. The clacking filled his days, his nights, and even his dreams. Constant and humming, building together like a plague of locusts swarming his mind and killing the harvest.
He tried to busy himself working, he had double the load now since Callum had somehow escaped. He knew he had to focus, a shudder passed through him when he remembered what the content creator had done after he had failed to include a pronunciation guide for a U.T.E. in his first script. It didn't bear to think about. He tried to focus but that damnable clacking just wouldn't end, he screwed his eyes shut and prayed that it would at least get quieter...and then, to his surprise, it seemed to. He noticed the buzz had died down some and was getting even lower. Perplexed he looked around and he could see that many of the other writers had stopped and had their heads cocked like they were trying to listen...but to what?
Then David heard it too, muffled noises in the room above. At first he couldn't make them out but one by one the keyboards stopped. As the last one fell silent he could make out not one, but two voices.
"Oh no" he breathed quietly to himself.
"It's in a lovely part of town with a short commute to most everything you would need." A familiar and terrifying voice said.
An unfamiliar and decidedly less terrifying voice responded."Thank God I found this place, I'm still a temp and I read about an opportunity for a part time job as well?"
"Oh yes." Said the first voice "let me ask you something, how fast can you type?"
David took in a sharp breath, a breath he meant to fire out of his lungs as a warning...but he held it. He knew it was already to late.
"Oh uh in college I got up to over 80 words per minute."
"Excellent, well let me show you the room, I should warn you, it's a sub room...it's in the basement."
To be continued in another casual criminalist comment section.
Only 80 words a minute? I'd make fun of him. 100 words and above, ya p*ssies.
@@dr.davidbaker86 A few dozen beatings and a shock collar later and they'll get there.
Beautiful!
I love the side stories from the life of Simon just adds enjoyable spice to the landscape of death and murder!
Another over an hour long episode! Nice!
Incredible handle and pfp
Exactly! Just about right timing to drive to work and walk to the office 😁👍
Such horrific stories Simon. I thank you for your naïveté and humor in them. 😊
The story of Leonarda is one that just... completely breaks my heart. No happy endings here.
Honestly my favorite crime channel. I love the podcast style with visuals
13:00 I love those types of conversations! It's really hard to grapple the thought, and it's mind bending to think wbout
So two cannibals are eating a clown when one turns to the other and asks "does this taste funny to you?"
The wonderful Stephanie Harlowe did a little video series on this case as well! That’s how I heard of it. She goes into so much detail about all the cases she covers, it’s great. I loved Simons take on this story though, with all his little life experiences in there! You guys never put out a bad video, and David is doing a great job! This is one of my favorite channels💛
Yes the series that Harlowe does on this woman is good but I like Simon's take better 😉 no shade on her just not much into her style and her people think she is some kind of goddess and I'm not there.
@@janetrawlings1691 hey, to each their own! I love both, don’t know that I could choose. I love how informative Stephanie is. She always has multiple hour long 3-4 part videos going into detail, (not that Simon isn’t informative, because he is) but Simons personality is fantastic. I love his laugh and the way he always goes on tangents. There is so much to like about them both!
"Tomorrow When the War Began" is the teen movie/book series Simon was talking about, it is amazing, I have seen the movie and read all the books including the Ellie Chronicles that end the story and even though I'm in my 50's they are an amazing read.
I saw the movie but didn't realize it was based on a book, much less a series. Explains why the movie ended without the story really ending, if you know what I mean. I'll have to see about reading the series.
Definitely read it it's great I love it as have read them all including ellle several times
Another classic tale from our favorite fact boi. The past may be the worst, but it's interesting to explore. Lol
Well said!👍🏻😀
The part about country priests speaking broken Latin reminds me of my favorite anecdote about a first year medical student who had accidentally summoned the Devil)
Yeah, regarding the ghost thing: I have a condition that fucks up my sleep-cycles and as a result dreams and reality sometimes blend in on each other very shortly before or after sleep. It is definitely creepy to think that there is someone (else) in your apartment and it can give you a bit of paranoia. But I also like to see myself as a (mostly) rational person and to experience something like this, must be named for what it is: Hallucinations... Also, besides medication reducing the probability of occurrence, I also get better at controlling it. If you get the best 4D cinema you could possibly hope for, why not play the movies which you want to see? ;) ... Pro-Tip for all of you who believe in ghosts...
Oh my god, this happens to me too😮.
For those that care, the correct pronunciation of her last name is "Chan-chooli". It's also actually Leonarda Cianciulli. The U and the I are in the wrong place.
I know someone who has 2 boys. The oldest was from a rape situation, and the younger was born about a month after she married his father. There's a 10-year age gap. Both are treasured and wonderful young men!
Hey I've got something that might make an interesting topic for "Decoding The Unknown" a novelist named Ingersoll Lockwood from the 1800's who wrote stories about a Baron Trump guided by a man named Don, the final book in the series titled "The Last President"
why? kinda grasping for straws if wanna make a donald? connection on under 5 mins tho
.
The first book in the book series about the Australian teenagers is Tomorrow When The War Began. It is indeed a whole series. The books hold up pretty well.
me hearing simon plug his new channel, yeah yeah yeah we know about into the dark. decoding the unknown? hes doing a effing another one. mate.... you are half my channel subscriptions already lol
Really happy to see more frequent episodes once again. :D
My partner and I have this show playing in the background while we're doing stuff around the house and when Simon starts to wrap up one of his tangents it's almost guaranteed that one of us is going to shout "Just read, Fact Boy!" or something along those lines.
Of course, we actually like the tangents, but it makes me laugh every time it happens.
"I'm definitely not going to kill you and those biscuits taste fine" would be a better t-shirt 😂
Agreed! Gives more context than just “these biscuits taste weird.”
Cool...just finished watching an episode of Decoding the Unknown and got rewarded with an episode of this!!! Awesome Friday! (Edit: Sorry for the confusion. It was my friday...the end of the work week)
Friday?
It's Tuesday
You got to be in a very interesting time zone for it to be a friday right now xD
I’ve read parts of her memoirs and it’s actually not written poorly at all, it’s kinda weird for someone who finished school at 9 years old. Also I’ve read that the ratios for the soap she wrote were pretty much wrong so it’s likely she lied about other things too, maybe to save her son Giuseppe? idk
Just got home from a night shift and this is perfect👏🏼someone give these guys a budget and production team already.!
i made the poor choice to eat during this episode...almost lost it. very descriptive. great writing David!
I will absolutely buy a shirt that says “These Biscuits Taste Weird”.
OMG, as a 43 yr old single woman, I cringed so hard my face hurt at, "Lifelong spinster with a square, somewhat masculine face." Ugh. I hope if I am eaten by a friend I'm described as "Too hot to handle singleton with a striking countenance." ;)
Yeah. Sorry about that. When I get into true crime mode I am dispassionate to the point of being mean sometimes. To be fair, I also described her a lovely old dear with kind smiling eyes.
Don’t worry, Audrey. To most of us “modern gals”, sisters are doin’ it for themselves, therefore: You rock!
Keep in living your life according to your own rules. 🤘🏼
@@dr.davidbaker86 I do appreciate your flair for description. Leonarda's husband wasn't described as a stout, stooped old man much shorter than his wife, though. Seems that the men in the story escaped physical description at all.
@@audreyr.johnson8965 the man pictured isn't actually raffaele pansardi. It's Italian actor Gigi Reder. I have no idea what Pansardi actually looked like.
@@dr.davidbaker86
I thought it was Don Estelle.
Simmon with an axe in the same car as the rock is hilarious 😂😂😂 great episode.
Love the long form podcast videos. Really good to download and listen to at work. When you have TH-cam premium why look for it in podcast form.
Simon, caustic soda is also used for cleaning really tough dirt off of surfaces or equipment. We use it at my workplace to clean our commercial extraction fans that get gunked up quite a lot
Ah, a return to sweet, sweet cannibalism. This should be much more lighthearted than the usual.
When I think about old Italian women and their curses.. there's only 1 who comes to mind... Sophia Petrillo.
Sophia has the best curses. “May your hair never lie flat, and may your socks always slip down inside your shoes.”
Picture it…Sicily, 1935…
Yes Simon it is a form of OCD. Commonly known as the Religious OCD where a person is obsessed about their religious beliefs and practices fearing about the consequences if the rituals are not followed and worrying about having done something wrong in to offend The God or a higher power.
Yes I worked in psychology and saw it a lot🤔
Every time you announce a new channel, my belief in your ability to time travel deepens. Thank you for it all, SW.
Simon, it's called ANFO. ANFO stands for ammonium nitrate fuel oil. It's made with diesel fuel oil. It is very commonly known & was used in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center & the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. My search even turned up the percentages that are usually used in manufacturing it which I think might not be the best idea but...
Nice Misery refrence Jen! Trying to pull a role reversal between you and Simon? Anything that gets you, Calum and David out of his basement dungeon I suppose!
The book about the Aussie teens who come back from an Outback trip to find out they've been invaded is "When the War Began" by John Marsden! A series that traumatised me as a kid...
29:00
Yes, Simon, that is OCD. The repeated behaviors keep anxiety at bay. It is a mental disorder.
Confirmation bias is simply a thought trap any human can fall into, if ignoring their analitical thinking skills.
Except people who suffer from OCD KNOW it's crazy. More likely a person with OCD would get an intrusive thought telling them to eat their neighbor and then develop a compulsion to quiet that voice down. I've heard it said, as a reassurance, that if you worry that you may be psychotic, you're not, you just have OCD, because a psychotic person wouldn't question their thoughts.
Yes, this! Basically what happens in an OCD brain is that the brain accidentally flags certain thoughts as important or dangerous and since one of the primitive functions of the brain is too keep you safe it then sends that thought repeatedly. For example “Is the door locked?”. A person without OCD will either remember the door is locked or go check it once. The front of the brain does this in response to the question which originates in the back of the brain. The front of the brain then sends a signal to the back of the brain saying “The door is locked, switch off the signal/question”. The back of the brain does this and the thought isn’t sent again. In OCD the message from the front of the brain which has dealt with the problem ie. checking to door IS locked gets lost or stuck in the middle part of the brain. The back of the brain then thinks it hasn’t been dealt with and it has to be because this thought is important or dangerous so it sends it again. The front of the brain is aware of all these signals and keeps responding to them. This is why OCD is so distressing. The front of the brain knows it has responded multiple times but the signals(intrusive thoughts) keep getting sent. This is also why compulsions are done repeatedly because the front of the brain will say for example “This is clean” and the back of the brain doesn’t get this message and keeps saying “This needs to be cleaned”. So a person does it again.
In a way, her spell worked. By getting her son arrested for murder and held for 5 years, she kept him out of military service... And then he was free to go.