Who Was Vatican Girl? Pope Francis Determined To Solve Emanuela Orlandi's Disappearance

The mysterious disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi has left Italy puzzled for 40 years. Emanuela Orlandi, then 15 years old, disappeared on June 22, 1983, while she was returning from a flute class in Rome.

The case had now entered a new chapter on Tuesday when her brother met with a Vatican investigator who has been given free rein to investigate this case by Pope Francis.

Who Was Vatican Girl

Emanuela Orlandi was the daughter of a Vatican usher. The family lived in Vatican City. Several investigations were conducted over the years to solve the mystery behind her disappearance. Tombs were reopened and grave sites were re-dug, but she was nowhere to be found.

OTT streaming platform Netflix released a series titled Vatican Girl in 2017 based on a real-life incident. Since then, the case has garnered attention from across the globe. The Vatican's chief prosecutor, Alessandro Diddi, restarted a probe in January after receiving data from his predecessor, but it turned out to be unsuccessful.

In an interview, Chief Prosecutor Diddi said that Pope Francis strongly desired the truth to emerge without any reservations in this situation.

Emanuela’s elder brother Pietro and the family’s attorney Laura Sgro spent over five hours meeting with chief prosecutor Diddi in the Vatican on Tuesday afternoon.

Attorney Sgro told the press that they hoped that this could shed light on this episode and write a page of history. "  She added that the Vatican’s openness and the pope’s determination to solve this case were "absolutely positive."

Over the years, there have been several theories surrounding Emanuela’s disappearance. In the 1980s, Italian media speculated that she might have been kidnapped to demand the release of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who was imprisoned in 1981 for trying to assassinate Pope John Paul II.

Another report linked her disappearance to Enrico De Pedis’s grave. He was a mobster buried in a Rome basilica. His tomb was opened in 2012, but nothing was revealed. In an interview, Chief Prosecutor Diddi said that the suspected link between Emanuela and the Rome crime clan has been "over-evaluated."

In 2018, some bones were discovered during ground work at the Vatican embassy in Rome. The media suggested that they might belong to Emanuela Orlandi or Mirella Gregori, another girl who disappeared in the same year. However, DNA tests turned out to be negative.

In 2019, the Orlandi family received an anonymous letter. The letter read that Emanuela’s body might be hidden among the dead in the Teutonic Cemetery inside the Vatican walls, where a statue of an angel holding a book reads "Requiescat in Pace," which means "Rest in Peace" in Latin.

Two tombs were opened following that, but nothing was found, including the bones of two 19^th-century princesses who were supposed to be buried there. They were apparently moved during the restricting work decades before Emanuela Orlandi was born.

Last month, the lower house of Italy approved the establishment of a parliamentary committee to probe into the mysterious disappearance of the two girls.

Police have however never excluded the possibility that Emanuela Olandi might have been kidnapped and even killed for reasons that have no connection to the Vatican or that she might have been a victim of human trafficking.

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