Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi

Emanuela Orlandi (born 14January 1968) was a Vatican teenager who mysteriously disappeared while returning home from music school in Rome on 22June 1983.

The case received worldwide attention from its very beginning, due to the public appeal of Pope John Paul II for her release after an unnamed terrorist organization claimed to be holding the girl in exchange for the liberation of Mehmet Ali Ağca, the Turkish terrorist who two years before attempted to assassinate the Pope.

However, the subsequent investigation discovered that the allegation of international terrorism was a misdirection, and the real motive of the disappearance remains unknown.

Over the course of decades, the case has created much speculation about the involvement of international terrorism, organized crime, the role of a possible serial killer, and a plot inside the Holy See to cover up a sex scandal involving ecclesiastical figures.

Orlandi's family, in particular her brother Pietro, consistently pressed the Vatican for the release of information about the case, believing that the Holy See knew more than it admitted.

The Vatican always maintained strict silence about the matter, denying any accusation of involvement, but over the years, many voices from inside the Holy See suggested that someone actually knew what happened to the missing girl.

Emanuela Orlandi was the fourth of five children of Ercole Orlandi and Maria Pezzano.

Her father was a lay employee in the papal household.

The family lived inside Vatican City, and the children had the free run of the Vatican Gardens, according to her older brother Pietro.

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 Scuola di Musica Tommaso Ludovico da Victoria, connected with the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music.

She was also part of the church choir at the Sant'Anna dei Palafrenieri in the Vatican.

Orlandi usually travelled by bus to the music school, located in Piazza di Sant'Apollinare, next to Piazza Navona.

She would get off after a few stops and walk the last few hundred metres.

Upon leaving home around 4:00p.m. on 22June 1983, Orlandi was late to class and the weather was extremely hot.

She asked Pietro to drive her, but he had other commitments.

"I've gone over it so many times, telling myself if only I had accompanied her maybe it wouldn't have happened", he recalled decades later.

At the end of class, Orlandi phoned home and explained to her sister Federica that before the lesson, she had received a job offer from a representative of Avon Products to hand out flyers at a fashion show for two hours and added that she would meet him again at the end of the lesson to give him an answer.

Federica told her not to accept the offer, believing the compensation to be excessive and thus unreliable, and suggested discussing the matter with their parents first.

While leaving school, Orlandi spoke of the job offer with two female classmates, who then left her at a bus stop in Corso Rinascimento, in front of Palazzo Madama.

She was last seen around 7:30p.m. at the bus stop, in the company of another girl, who was never identified.

Later that night, after hours of waiting, Orlandi's family began to worry and started looking for her in an area between the Vatican and the music school.

They called the director of the music school to ask if any of their daughter's classmates had any information about her.

Her father then went to the police to report her as missing, but they assumed she was with friends and suggested waiting.

Orlandi was officially declared missing the next morning.

Over the next two days, announcements of her disappearance were published in the Italian newspapers Il Tempo, Paese Sera, and Il Messaggero.

In the first days after the disappearance, Giulio Gangi, a young agent of the SISDE and friend of the Orlandis, supported the family in the initial investigations.

Gangi questioned the two police officers who were on duty in front of the Senate on the evening of the disappearance.

Both of them confirmed they saw a girl that could fit Orlandi's description talking to a man who was holding an Avon cosmetic bag, although they disagreed on the time.

One of them placed this event before the music lesson, while the other thought it was around 7:00p.m., by the time the class had ended.

According to the police, the man was driving a dark green BMW.

Gangi managed to track down the car, which was being repaired by a mechanic, as one of its windows had been broken from the inside.

Gangi discovered that the car belonged to a woman, but before he could dig deeper, he was removed from the investigation by his superiors.

At 6:00p.m. on Saturday 25June, a phone call was received from a youth who claimed to be a sixteen-year-old boy named "Pierluigi".

He reported that he and his fiancée had met a girl that could fit the description of Orlandi in Campo de' Fiori.

The young man mentioned her flute, long dark hair, and a pair of glasses that she did not like to wear, along with other details that fit the description of the missing girl.

According to "Pierluigi", the girl had just had a haircut and had introduced herself as "Barbarella", stating that she had run away from home and was selling Avon products.

All these elements that could fit the description of Emanuela and the fact that he mentioned the Avon products, a point that was not yet public knowledge, led people to think that the girl could actually have been Emanuela.

"Pierluigi" called two more times the same day and the day after, providing other information about himself and more details about the girl.

On the same day, agents of the Italian secret service visited Orlandi's house and made an inspection, after which they suggested that the Orlandi family should start recording all phone calls.