In fact, the case remained without a solution: it was never discovered what happened to Emanuela Orlandi, who was 15 years old at the time of her disappearance. Here are the main stages of the story

Emanuela Orlandi disappeared around 7 pm on 22 June 1983, after having left a music school. The girl is the daughter of a messenger of the prefecture of the papal household and is a citizen of the Vatican. In May, another Roman girl, Mirella Gregori, had already disappeared

In the following days, Rome is plastered with posters looking for the girl. Various telephone operators, mythomaniacs, jackals or misdirectors enter the story. The case soon turns into an international mystery, but no concrete elements emerge, and Emanuela’s presence over the years is reported in various locations but the revelations are never reliable: the first investigation is closed in July 1997.

However, the attention on the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi does not end with the closure of the first investigation: a first apparent investigative breakthrough is recorded on the occasion of an episode of the program “Chi l’ha visto?” when an anonymous phone call arrives inviting to see who is buried in the basilica of Sant’Apollinare: the deceased is Enrico De Pedis, known as Renatino, one of the bosses of the Banda della Magliana, killed in February 1990.

In June 2008, Sabrina Minardi, De Pedis’s lover for a few years, revealed to the investigators that Emanuela Orlandi had been killed and that her body, locked up in a sack, had been thrown into a cement mixer in Torvaianica. According to the woman, the 15-year-old was held prisoner in a house near Piazza San Giovanni di Dio. But concrete evidence does not emerge on this track either.

In May 2012, the tomb of De Pedis was also opened: the man’s body was identified, but nothing else of use from an investigative point of view emerged from the examination of the bone remains found inside the crypt of the basilica.

In December 2014, then, a new hope arrives for the family of Emanuela Orlandi: Alì Agca, a former Gray Wolf who had shot Pope Wojtyla in 1981, shows up unexpectedly in St. Peter’s Square to bring flowers to the tomb of John Paul II. The family immediately takes action to present a request to the judiciary for the former Turkish terrorist to be questioned.

However, the request was rejected: Agca was deemed an “unreliable subject” for having repeatedly made statements on the Orlandi case, both publicly and in court, which turned out to be “unfounded” and “scarcely credible”.

Thus comes the request for archiving forwarded by the prosecutor according to which “from all the leads followed and matured on the basis of statements by collaborators of justice and numerous witnesses, of the results of journalistic investigations and also of ideas offered by anonymous writings and trusted sources, not suitable elements have emerged to request the indictment of any of the suspects”. A conclusion received first by the investigating judge and then confirmed by the Cassation.

We therefore arrive in March 2019, when a request is presented by the lawyer of the Orlandi family to the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, for information on a tomb in the Teutonic cemetery within the Holy See. The petition deems it “appropriate to search the archives for every document relating to this niche to identify who appears to have been buried there. In any case, the request is made for the tomb to be opened” to dispel any doubts about the matter.

In April, the Vatican Secretariat of State authorized the opening of an investigation to start investigations into the tomb in the Teutonic cemetery, and in July the Vatican ordered the opening. However, the proceeding is archived by the Single Judge of the Vatican City State Court: the checks on the artifacts found conclude that the fragments found can be dated to an era prior to the girl’s disappearance. And the most recent ones date back at least a hundred years ago.

Finally, in January 2023, the Vatican Promoter of Justice “opened a file” on the case of Emanuela Orlandi “also on the basis of requests made by the family in various locations”. Pietro Orlandi, brother of Emanuela, said: “For many years we have been asking for a collaboration to arrive at a final solution. That the investigations are opened is a very positive thing”.