Breakthrough after 36 Years: Vatican Opens Graves in Case Disappeared Emanuela. There is a chance that one of the most famous unsolved missing person cases in the world will reach a climax next week.
The Vatican has ordered the opening of two tombs that may contain the remains of Emanuela Orlandi. The family has been looking for her for more than 36 years and takes into account the scenario that she is in the old and small “Teutonic cemetery”, right next to St. Peter’s Church.
In recent years, the Emanuela Orlandi family have regularly complained about the Vatican’s lack of cooperation and is now happy with “this breakthrough,” ANSA news agency said. According to the schedule, it should happen on Thursday, July 11.
Emanuela Orlandi, a resident of the Vatican City and the daughter of an officer of the Vatican bank, disappeared in 1983 on her way to a music lesson. Despite many years of searching, her body was never found.
A few months ago her family received an anonymous letter claiming that the 15-year-old girl is buried in a tomb at Campo Santo dei Teutonici and Fiamminghi, a cemetery in the Vatican City where Germans, Austrians, Dutch, and Flemish are buried.
On top of the tomb is the statue of a marble angel pointing to the ground. “Find where the angel points,” the anonymous informer writes in the letter.
The disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi is known as one of the most mysterious missing cases in the world. Over the years all kinds of theories have been spread about a kidnapping by clergy or diplomats for sex orgies.
Another 15-year-old girl, Mirella Gregori, would be the victim of that. She disappeared in Rome on May 7 1983 and is still without a trace.
There was also speculation about a link with the attack on Pope John Paul II in 1981 or a relationship with organized crime and the downfall in 1982 of the Banco Ambrosiano, of which the Vatican was a shareholder.
According to another theory, she would be held hostage to force the release of Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turkish shooter who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981.
In the investigations into the disappearance of Orlandi, the now existing Banda Della Magliana gang no longer exists. The dark gang was a sort of Roman mafia. Of the six people who were once suspected of dealing with the disappearance of Orlandi, five were members.
In 2005, an anonymous caller in an Italian TV program claimed that the secret of her kidnapping was taken into the grave by Enrico “Renatino” De Pedis, a Mafia boss who led the dreaded Magliana gang in the 1980s. His grave was finally dug up in 2012, but no connection was found with the death of Orlandi.
