The Vatican reinvestigates the case of a teenager who went missing in 1983 | Vatican

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The Vatican has reopened an investigation into the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, a case that has gripped Italy for nearly 40 years and implicated the powerful Holy See.

Emanuela was 15 years old when she disappeared on June 22, 1983 while on her way home from a flute lesson in Rome. The Orlandi family lived in the Vatican City, where her father was an ordinary employee of the papal house.

The case has raised several theories, including that Emanuela was kidnapped by a mob in order to blackmail the Vatican into releasing Mehmet Ali Agca, who was imprisoned in 1981 after attempting to assassinate Pope John Paul II, but he did not provide any definitive answers.

The Vatican justice promoter, Alessandro Dede, reopened the case after several requests from Pietro, Emanuela’s older brother, who has been relentlessly campaigning to discover the truth behind her disappearance, according to news agency La Presse.

“We only learned of the investigation through the media,” said Laura Sgro, an attorney for the Orlandi family. We wrote to the Pope a year ago with the intention of speaking to the promoter of justice. We are of course glad they are conducting an investigation but we really hope this will provide concrete answers.”

Dede confirmed the reopening of the investigation in La Presse after it was reported by the Adnkronos news agency, which said that “all files, documents, reports, information and testimonies” related to the case would be re-examined in order to clarify a set of questions and “leave no stone unturned”.

Furthermore, the investigation will focus on the case of Mirella Gregory, who was also 15 years old when she disappeared in Rome weeks earlier from Orlandi after telling her mother she was on a date. It has long been believed that there may be a link between the disappearances.

The investigation comes a few months after the release on Netflix of Vatican Girl, a documentary that explores the theories surrounding the Orlandi case. In the most surprising of allegation, a childhood friend of Emanuela who was interviewed in the documentary said the teen was molested by “someone close to the Pope,” who at the time was John Paul II.

Another theory revealed in the documentary is that Emanuela was taken to London, where she lived for years in a youth hostel owned by a Catholic congregation, with her expenses funded by the Vatican. According to this theory, Emanuela died in London before her body could be transported back to Rome and buried in the Vatican.

In 2019, two tombs in the Vatican were exhumed and reopened after information that Emanuela may have been buried there. But no human remains were found.

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Other theories have linked Emanuela’s disappearance to the Vatican’s financial scandals, an alleged sex ring run by the Vatican Police and Rome’s criminal underworld.

The reopening of the case also comes after Georg Ganswein, longtime personal secretary and close friend of the late former Pope Benedict, said he would tackle the Orlandi mystery in his book, which will be released on January 12.

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