Vatican officials will reopen an investigation into the mysterious disappearance of a teenage girl nearly 40 years ago.
Emanuela Orlandi, 15, disappeared in Rome in June 1983 – just two years after a failed assassination attempt on then-Pope John Paul II – and there has been no trace of her since, with some linking her case to that of an attempted hit.
Vatican chief prosecutor Alessandro Diddi will lead the new inquiry, which will go through old case files and speak to witnesses again, although many are believed to have died – but Emanuela’s brother Pietrro is still alive.
Emanuela was the daughter of a Vatican employee and disappeared on her way to a music class. There has long been a suspicion that the Vatican knows more about what is happening but has remained silent.
The Vatican will reopen the case of Emanuela Orlandi, 15, who disappeared in Rome in June 1983
Vatican Attorney General Alessandro Diddi will lead the new investigation, which will go through old case files and speak to witnesses again
Some say it was an attempt to blackmail the Vatican into releasing Mehmet Ali Agca – a Turk jailed in 1981 for the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II.
Another theory, put forward by an exorcist in 2012, is that she was kidnapped by a member of the Vatican police to be used as a sex slave and later murdered.
Others said there was a connection to the tomb of Enrico De Pedis, a gangster buried in a Roman basilica who was a boss within the criminal organization Magliana Band.
Investigators were looking into the possibility that she had been kidnapped by members of the Banda della Magliana (Magliana Band) to recover money lost by criminal groups when Banco Ambrosiano, a Vatican-affiliated bank, collapsed.
In 1982, Roberto Calvi, the bank’s chairman, was found hanged from scaffolding under London’s Blackfriars Bridge.
Evidence of a connection between De Pedis surfaced last year, given in 2008 by a former mobster named Salvatore Sarnataro, who pointed the finger at his own son and De Pedis when speaking to police at the time.
Sarnataro said his son – Marco, a gang member – confessed to taking part in an operation to track and kidnap Orlandi on orders from De Pedis – who was not only a crime boss but also a member of the ultra-religious Catholic organization Opus Dei .
According to Sarnataro, Marco was ordered by De Pedis to shadow the teenager for days before he and two others took her to the EUR area of Rome in a BMW before handing her over to another crime boss who took her away.
A poster announcing the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican employee
A handout image provided by Vatican media shows experts opening the ossuary at the German Cemetery in Vatican City on July 20, 2019 to help solve the 36-year-old disappearance of Italian teenager Emanuela Orlandi
People hold pictures of Emanuela Orlandi reading ‘March for Truth and Justice for Emanuela’ in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican in 2012
Sarnataro said Marco told him about his involvement in the notorious conspiracy while the pair were in jail on drug charges.
In October, the mystery was the subject of a four-part series on Netflix called Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi.
Three weeks ago, a senator in the Italian parliament called for a commission to investigate the disappearance – and the reopening is said to be related to his request.
Senator Carlo Calenda said the goal of a commission is to pressure the Vatican to finally release everything it knows about Orlandi’s disappearance to Italian law enforcement, saying its longstanding official claim of ignorance was “hardly credible”.
“We are a large secular nation that treats the Vatican with respect, but this case certainly cannot be considered closed in this way.”
In July 2019, the graves of two princesses at the Vatican’s German Cemetery, which had been opened in a search for Orlandi’s body, were found empty.
Speculation about Orlandi’s disappearance and that of another 15-year-old girl in the same summer of 1983 has been rife over the years.
In late November 2018, prosecutors in Rome said bones found in an annex of the Vatican nunciature in Italy did not belong to Orlandi or the other girl, Mirella Gregori, who disappeared a month before Orlandi disappeared.