The mysterious disappearance of The Vatican Girl — Emanuela Orlandi
40 years since the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, and it is still a mystery
It has been 40 years since the disappearance of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi, who went missing after attending her flute classes. Many theories popped up after her disappearance but none brought the police close to Emanuela. What happened to Emanuela Orlandi? It is still a mystery.
Emanuela Orlandi was born on January 14, 1968, as the fourth of five children, to Ercole and Maria Orlandi. Emanuela’s father worked as an employee of the papal household. The family lived inside the historic Vatican City having access to the Vatican gardens.
“The Vatican gardens were available to us as if it was our back garden. We felt we were in the safest place in the world,” Pietro, the eldest brother said.
In Rome, Orlandi was a sophomore in high school. Even though the academic year was over, she maintained her three times weekly flute classes at the Tommaso Ludovico Da Victoria School, which is affiliated with the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music. She also sang in the choir at the Sant’Anna dei Palafrenieri cathedral in the Vatican.
To commute to the music school, which was at Piazza di Sant’Apollinare, Orlandi generally traveled by bus. After a few stops, she would get off and walk the remaining few hundred meters. On June 22, 1983, Orlandi arrived late for class. Since it was a hot day, she had requested her brother Pietro to take her, but he had other responsibilities.
He recounted years later, “I’ve gone over it so many times, telling myself if only I had accompanied her maybe it wouldn’t have occurred.”
She loved going to the music class not only because of her immense interest in music but also because she was attracted to Alberto Laurenti, a guy in her class who was four years older than her. On her way to class that afternoon, Emanuela encountered a man who had a green BMW who claimed to be from Avon and offered her a job to promote Avon cosmetics.
When Emanuela called home that afternoon to talk to her mother, her sister Federica informed her that her mother was not present. Emanuela mentioned that a man had offered her a job where she had to promote Avon cosmetics the next Saturday. She also said that he was visiting after class to check if her Mama gives her permission or not, and he had promised her 375 liras. The payment provided for a two- or three-hour work was not reasonable. Federica, who had once worked for Avon, advised her sister to put the situation behind her and come back home right away.
When she got to the lesson, she was disturbed and asked to leave early, at about 6:50 pm. Orlandi and a female friend discussed the job offer after class, and the friend later left the girl at a bus stop with another girl. According to witnesses, Orlandi was last seen getting into a big, dark-colored BMW.
On Thursday, June 23, at 3:00 p.m., Orlandi’s parents called the dean of the music academy to inquire whether any of their daughter’s peers had any vital information. The police had urged waiting, because “maybe the girl was with companions”. That day, she was formally declared to be missing. Orlandi’s disappearance was covered in articles in the tabloids Il Tempo, Paese Sera, and Il Messaggero in the days following her last sighting. The Orlandi family’s phone number was listed in the papers, and calls started to come in almost immediately.
A boy called the Orlandi residence on June 25 at six o’clock, stating that his name was Pierluigi and he was sixteen years old. He provided a profile that fits Emanuela when he informed Orlandi’s parents that he and his partner had seen her that afternoon in Piazza Navona. Pierluigi claimed Orlandi had just gotten a haircut and that she had simply run away from home because her life was dull and monotonous and was now earning money by selling Avon cosmetics. He conveyed that she would return by the end of summer.
Two SISDE agents call the Orlandis on the 26th at about 23:45. They are Mario Vulpiani and Giulio Gangi. Ercole, Emanuela’s father, adds, “They said they were from the SISDE and that they were looking into the white slave trade.” To record the calls, the agents were instructed to install a listening device on the phone, so they did as instructed. They then requested to take a brief peek at Emanuela’s room and all of her belongings, including her diaries. It wasn’t just a cursory glance; rather, it was thorough documentation that was repeated on succeeding days.
I’m unsure if they took anything. We were in a difficult situation and had something entirely different in our minds, so it goes without saying that I trusted them, says Ercole Orlanda.
On June 28, a man who answered the phone and introduced himself as “Mario” claimed to run a pub close to Ponte Vittorio, between the Vatican and the music academy. He claimed that a young woman named “Barbara,” a new client had opened up to him about running away from home but had promised to return for her sister’s wedding. On June 30, several posters with Orlandi’s image were pasted throughout Rome.
The theory of abduction was made official for the first time on July 3, when Pope John Paul II addressed those guilty for Orlandi’s absence at the Angelus. The first of many anonymous phone calls reached the Orlandi family two days later. Emanuela was allegedly held captive by a terrorist organization that demanded Mehmet Ali Aca, the Turkish man who shot the Pope in May 1981, be released. No other details were provided. Other calls were received over the next few days, including a call from a man who called himself “the American” and played an audio tape of Orlandi’s voice over the phone.
A few hours later, the same individual proposed trading Orlandi for Aca during another phone call to the Vatican. The unnamed speaker referred to the prior phone conversations’ with“Mario” and “Pierluigi,” describing them as “members of the organization.”
On July 6, Ercole visits Dino Monduzzi, the prefect of the pontifical residence, to inquire if a communication regarding his daughter has been delivered. The prefect queries Martinez Somalo, temporary secretary of state, who rejects. Martinez Somalo refuses to acknowledge that a call was made until Monduzzi insists on it.
The high prelate stated, “But absolutely nothing they said or intended could be understood.”
The national information agency Ansa receives a call from a young guy the same day saying, “We have spoken to the Vatican Secretary, an information that the Vatican is withholding.” You can locate “the evidence that the girl is in our custody” in a trash can on Parliament Square. The Ansa editor visits the location and discovers a copy of the identity card from the music school, a receipt for an exam fee, the phone number of the Orlandi family, and the handwritten words
“With great affection, your Emanuela.”
On day 8, a voicemail addressed to Ansa is left at the home of a classmate studying music, Laura Casagrande, with the following statement:
“We have abducted the citizen Emanuela Orlandi just because she belongs to the Vatican State,” We are not a revolutionary or terrorist organization, and we have never identified ourselves as either, according to Vatican officials and Italian Republic investigators, who tend to downplay the genuine essence of the demand. This adversely impacts the amount of time available for our conversations. The only thing that interests us is releasing Agca, and the ultimatum is July 20.
Three calls were made to the Paese Sera editors on July 10. The caller, who has an Anglo-Saxon accent, claims that the organization is just concerned with freeing Agca and has no desire in demanding a ransom. The airport chapel holds a letter that Emanuela wrote to her parents. A picture of the back of the music school card and a handwritten note that reads, “Dear Mama and Papa, don’t worry about me, I’m all right,” are actually on the altar.
On July 14, Emanuela’s friend Carla De Blasio receives a call with a message that needs to be given to Ansa: “In St. Peter’s Square, facing the Angelus window, we are placing a tape, directed to some technicians who have regarded the first one fraudulent.” The mother of Carla informs Ansa journalists, who visit St. Peter’s Square but discover nothing. A tape encased in a sheet was found on the stairs leading from Dataria Street to Quirinal Square on June 17, according to a phone call to the Ansa office: “The tape of which we had spoken to Mrs. De Blasio was discovered by Vatican officials. The technician who looked over the initial recording is addressed in the one from this afternoon.
On both sides of the tape are recordings. On the first, amid wails and groans, these words are heard: “But why are you doing this to me? But what is it, Oh God? Blood! I’m hurt, and my God, I feel horrible. Her uncle identifies the voice as Emanuela’s. On the other side, preceding communications’ declarations are reiterated.
On July 21, two identical letters are delivered to the Messaggero and Ansa offices. The letters are written in German without a name and are sent from Frankfurt; the postmark is for July 17. “We provide the Italian and Vatican authorities another warning. Release Mehmet Ali Agca, Sedar Celebi, and all of our other friends right away! If not, additional measures will be taken, just like with Emanuela Orlandi!
The communications regarding Emanuela’s disappearance that were received between July 5 and October 24 were analyzed in a top-secret report dated November 14, 1983, which won’t be made public for another twelve years. Vincenzo Parisi, the Italian secret service’s temporary director at the time, contributed significantly to the report’s creation.
One is led to believe that “definitely they are the handiwork of a single mind” after analyzing the 16 conversations that have been linked to the alleged captors of the Orlandi girl.
On the morning of May 14, 2001, eighteen years later, the parish priest of the Gregory VII Church, close to the Vatican, found a small, incomplete human skull in a bag with a photograph of Padre Pio in a confessional. Orlandi’s skull has not been positively identified, but the finding raised questions about whether or not it is.
Ercole, Emanuela’s father, passed away in 2004 just one month after his final interview. Pope Francis met the Orlandi family in 2013 a couple of days after his election and informed them that “Emanuela is in heaven,” inferring the girl’s passing. The Orlandi family believed that this comment was evidence that the Holy See was aware of what happened to Emanuela, despite the Vatican’s long-standing denials to the contrary. Pietro Orlandi repeatedly requested a meeting with the Pope so that he could ask more questions, but the Vatican never responded.
On July 11, 2005, a caller to the Italian television program Chil’ha visto? commented that the Orlandi case needed to be solved by determining who was buried in the vault of Rome’s Basilica di Sant’Apollinare. Enrico De Pedis (1954–1990), the head of the Roman gang Banda della Magliana, was found buried in the tomb. The De Pedis tomb was unearthed by the Italian police on May 14, 2012, and DNA samples were collected.
The reason De Pedis, a violent offender, had been placed in the crypt of a significant Roman basilica — a location often designated for dignitaries like cardinals — was instantly questioned. In reality, a media report on this unusual interment from 1997 provoked outrage from the police union, but since neither the Vatican nor Opus Dei — owners of the basilica — felt compelled to defend it, the issue was forgotten.
In 2005, an unidentified caller urged they look into “the favor that De Pedis did for Cardinal Poletti,” ostensibly because it was the reason for his interment at Sant’Apollinare.
At the time, Poletti served as both the Cardinal Vicar of the Diocese of Rome and the president of the Episcopal Conference of Italy.
The Italian Ministry of Interior acknowledged in 2012 that Poletti had given his consent for the burial. Even though there were no hints in the tomb connecting De Pedis to Orlandi, the revelation aroused for the first time the possibility that Banda della Magliana may have been responsible for the girl’s abduction.
Antonio Mancini, a previous member of the Banda della Magliana, revealed to Chil’ha visto? in February 2006 that he recognized the voice of “Mario” — one of the first two anonymous callers to the Orlandi family — as Ruffetto, one of De Pedis’s men. Sabrina Minardi, De Pedis’s former lover, later supported this testimony, stating that Orlandi was abducted by his men and that she was involved in the girl’s disappearance.
She said that the young woman had been sedated and confined at her apartment in Torvaianica, close to Rome, before being transferred to another. In addition, Minardi asserted that Orlandi was taken hostage by De Pedis’ group at the behest of the disgraced former president of the Vatican bank, IOR, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus (1922–2006), “to send a message to someone above them” as part of a “power game.” She also later claimed to have taken Orlandi, who was under the influence of drugs, to the Vatican, where a man posing as a priest helped her get into another vehicle. Mancini corroborated Minardi’s evidence in 2009.
Mancini claimed in 2011 that the gang was attacking the Vatican in several ways, including Orlandi’s kidnapping, in an effort to get them to repay significant sums of money they had lent to the Vatican Bank via Roberto Calvi’s Banco Ambrosiano. This was a Vatican-affiliated Roman bank that was used to launder funds obtained through fraudulent transfers, notably those made by the Banda della Magliana. Later, this idea came to be known as the “Polish money theory.”
Father Gabriele Amorth, an exorcist who is 85 years old, said that Orlandi was murdered after being abducted by a Vatican policeman for sex parties in May 2012. Amorth asserted that representatives of an unknown foreign embassy were also involved.
With the October 2022 launch of the Netflix documentary Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, which featured an exclusive statement from one of Orlandi’s closest friends, the Vatican sex scandal theory reappeared. The unnamed woman said that a week prior to Emanuela’s disappearance, Orlandi told her that she had been sexually assaulted in the Vatican Gardens on numerous occasions by “someone close to the Pope.”
A new investigation committee was requested in the Italian parliament’s December 2022 cross-party motion regarding Orlandi’s disappearance and two other incidents of murdered and missing girls.
“The Vatican knows lot more than what it says,” said opposition legislator Carlo Calenda in favor of the move. “A sovereign state, like the one where Emanuela’s abduction occurred, has to raise its voice, without passively accepting the Holy See’s perspective.”
The Vatican declared on January 9, 2023, that it will resume the investigation into Emanuela Orlandi’s disappearance. Alessandro Diddi, head prosecutor, was chosen by Pope Francis to oversee the investigation. The Vatican intends to carry out a thorough investigation that will reevaluate all documents, studies, and testimony.
This investigation will tell us what actually happened to Emanuela Orlandi or she might always remain as the missing Vatican girl.
