When we think of serial killers, images of some American television series, Agatha Christie’s detective stories or scenes from some good Hollywood film almost always come to mind. Yet there are many macabre stories that really happened in Italy and which are potentially excellent material for novels.
Among the most famous in Sicily we have the events that concerned “the old woman of vinegar”to the century Giovanna Bonanno. One of the first recognized serial killers in history.
She was born and lived in Palermo, a city closely linked to horror stories, even though they have often been forgotten by people’s collective memory. In fact, Palermo was a crossroads of different cultures, home of esoteric cults (the famous Count of Cagliostro, protagonist of legends and films, was born and lived right here), a place where important “deadly inventions” occurred and one of the most important Mediterranean cities in which the Inquisition operated for several centuries.
The story of Giovanna Bonanno begins at the end of the 18th century, in 1785, when by chance she discovered that a little girl had risked dying after drinking common vinegar for lice. This substance, after being modified by adding lead and arsenic, was in fact the basis of the famous “turf water”, a very powerful and colorless poison that was invented in Palermo, in 1600, and then forgotten.
Having been oppressed by her husband all her life, but now a widow, Giovanna saw in this substance not only a means to free several women of the city from bullying of violent husbands, but also a means of support, useful for freeing himself from his miserable economic conditions.
Carrying out various experiments, probably on mice, Giovanna then began to “open up” to her friends, saying that she had found an effective means to ensure that “May God grant separation to the most unfortunate women.”
The first customer was one of her neighbors, who poisoned her husband within a few days. However, the first version of “tofana water” didn’t seem to work, as Bonanno had diluted the arsenic too much. The man died after several days in hospital, suffering from horrible stomach aches, while his wife looked after him, forcing him to ingest at least two more doses of the “wonderful medicine”.
The second customer purchased from Giovanna an enhanced dose, to eliminate her husband who had tried to strangle her after she refused. In this case the death occurred in a short time and the doctors were not even able to understand what had hit the victim, since the tofana water leaves no visible effects.
The confusion of the doctors pushed Giovanna to sell her poison more frequently and she soon became known throughout the city, as the “mysterious old vinegar woman”. Thus it was that the Kalsa and Zisa neighborhoods, two of the oldest cities, began to be filled with mysterious deaths, which led the administrators of Palermo to ask for the help of the viceroy Domenico Caracciolo.
Meanwhile, deaths increased. Many known rapists died in the streets, while violent husbands began to fear for their lives. No one suspected the complacency of the Palermo women, who crowded Bonanno’s house, coming from all social classes.
In a short time, at the age of 75-80, Bonanno became so indirectly one of the most famous women of her time and her mysterious bottles began to travel throughout the kingdom of Naples, through friends who in turn occasionally sold the poison to couriers.
However, Giovanna Bonanno’s luck would soon end. One day one of her friends, Maria Pitarra, delivered the vinegar to a woman without knowing who the final recipient was. He didn’t know that he was the son of a neighbor of hers, Giovanna Lombardoguilty of having married a very beautiful and money-hungry wife.
The man, unlike many abusive husbands, was completely innocent, good at heart, and to make matters worse he was also one of Zisa’s most respected workers.
Maria Pitarra, having discovered the man’s name, rushed in horror to warn her friend, hoping to be able to save him, but she was unable to do so in time and found herself in front of gruesome scene della Lombardo, who was crying over her son’s still warm body.
It was precisely at that moment that the issues came home to roost and the fate of the Bonanno was sealed.
Maria Pitanna revealed to her friend her daughter-in-law’s role in that death and also explained what had killed the boy, describing in detail what the work of the “vinegar old woman” consisted of. Lombardo, for her part, he wanted to take revenge against Bonanno and the murder of his son and pretending to want to poison someone himself, he went to Giovanna’s house, with 4 hidden witnesses (all important men from his neighborhood), to buy some vinegar. His goal was to prove that a witch lived in Zisa.
Giovanna Bonanno was caught producing and delivering the poison and was immediately reported to the Royal Court of Palermo. In October 1788, she was tried for witchcraft and murder and declared responsible for many of the deaths reported in those 2 years in Palermo.
Six men who survived various poisoning attempts were called to testify, the unaware grocer from whom Bonanno purchased the vinegar for lice and Lombardo’s daughter-in-law, who he escaped the gallows thanks to his testimony.
For some time the old woman was held in the city prisons, until the court decided to hang her in front of the entire city, on July 30, 1789. Furthermore, not being able to define which citizens had actually bought the poison, the court decided not to start other trials, since there was not enough scientific evidence that could indicate the culprits.
Today we don’t really know how many men died in Palermo and in the rest of the kingdom of Naples because of Giovanna Bonanno. According to some legends, there would be hundreds of people, even if the court spoke of 6 official uxoricides. However, Tofana water remained very popular in the city and in other areas of Europe, even being exported abroad to carry out various murders.
Its effects were in fact comparable to those of common poisoning and the subjects died quickly, without attracting much attention. From this story the novelist Luigi Natoli he was inspired to write his novel “The Old Woman of Vinegar”, considered by many critics to be one of the first historical horror/mysteries in the history of Italian literature.
Years later, Agatha Christie – who worked as a pharmacy assistant at University College Hospital in London – came into contact with tofana water while carrying out studies for her novels, but never used this poison as an element in her works .