The Vatican on Monday said it was
opening a fresh probe into Emanuela Orlandi, a Vatican teenager
who mysteriously disappeared while returning home from a flute
lesson in Rome on 22 June 1983.
The Vatican's justice promoter, Alessandro Diddi, will make
fresh inquiries into the disappearance of the 15-year-old girl,
who was a citizen of Vatican City.
The probe has been opened on the basis of suits filed in the
past by her brother Pietro, sources said.
Sightings of Orlandi in various places have been reported over
the years, including inside Vatican City, but all have been
unreliable. The girl's disappearance sparked an intense media
frenzy in Italy that has resulted in the case being called
"Italy's most famous unsolved mystery".
Emanuela was the fourth of five children of Ercole and Maria
Orlandi (née Pezzano). Her father was a worker at the Institute
for the Works of Religion (IOR), the Vatican Bank), according to
some reports, or an employee of the papal household, according
to others. The family lived inside Vatican City, and the
children had the free run of the Vatican gardens, according to
Pietro Orlandi, Emanuela's older brother.
Orlandi was in her second year of secondary school in Rome.
Although the school year had concluded, she continued to take
flute lessons three times per week at the Tommaso Ludovico Da
Victoria School, connected with the Pontifical Institute of
Sacred Music. She was also part of the choir of the church of
Sant'Anna dei Palafrenieri, in the Vatican.
In July 2019 the tombs of two princesses in the Vatican's
Teutonic Cemetry, opened in a search for Orlandi's body, were
found empty.
Speculation on 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 Rome prosecutors said bones found in an
annex to the Vatican's nunciature to Italy do not belong to
Emanuela Orlandi or the other girl, Mirella Gregori.
Analysis of the remains showed that they date back to before
1964 and belong to a man, the sources said.
Gregori disappeared in May 1983.
Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican employee, went missing a
month later.
The Orlandi case has spawned several theories over the
years, including that she was murdered to gain traction to have
pope John Paul II's Turkish shooter Mehmet Ali Agca freed, or
that organised crime was involved.
Ali Agca was questioned in the case.
In 2016 investigations into the case were shelved.
Six people including a priest were implicated in the
investigations on suspicion of complicity in abduction and
murder.
All but one had links with the Banda della Magliana, a
now-defunct crime gang based in Rome.
In September 2018 the Vatican described as "false and
ridiculous" reports that the Vatican had spent large amounts of
money on the case.
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