It has been four decades since the then-15-year-old girl, Emanuela Orlandi disappeared from the Holy City Of Vatican, mysteriously. The Italian masses and people worldwide were glued to the case till it got solved, but the mystery remains unsolved. Many controversial theories surround her missing. The theories up to the point include sex trafficking, Cold War, or the Italian mafia involved in the case.
Many journalists and other people have pointed out that the Papal administration must be aware of Emanuela’s disappearance. There has been evidence of pedophilia in the church and the religious shrine endorsing and forgiving the perpetrators. Recently, Netflix released a docu-series titled ‘Vatican Girl’ which has introduced a new angle to the case. So, who was the missing Vatican Girl, and what is the case about?
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What Happened To Emanuela Orlandi?
During the summer of 1983 on June 22, a girl striding toward Rome’s Sant’Apollinaire Complex attended her flute lesson but left early. Orlandi was not feeling right that day since a man stopped her to ask her whether she will sell Avon products. The 15-year-old narrated the incident to one of her three sisters about a man in a green BMW stopping her. As for her friends, she boarded a bus outside the flute classes venue and left. Since then, she went missing.
Emanuela was the daughter of an employee in the Pope’s office. Since his sister disappeared, Pietro, Orlandi’s brother, expressed how the Vatican was a safe space for him and his sisters. “The Vatican gardens were available to us as if it was our own back garden. We felt we were in the safest place in the world.” There was no news from her, so her parents filed a missing persons report. In the early investigation, the authorities thought that she eloped with a lover. Later on, there was a disturbing call received from a man who claimed to have kidnapped her.
In 1983, The New York Times reported about a Turkish anti-Christian group that claimed to have kept her hostage. The demand they posed was to release Mehmet Ali Agca, a man who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II. Over the years, the family received similar calls asking for the release of Agca in exchange for the Italian schoolgirl. However, none of the callers had evidence that they had Orlandi.
In 2019, there was a request from the family to open two tombs at the Teutonic Cemetery. There were many bones found inside the tombs, but after testing all of them were centuries old.
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The New Netflix Docu-series Brings Forward Another Shocking Angle
On October 20, 2022, Netflix released another crime-related docu-series which unveils the mystery of the 15-year-old Vatican Girl. In the course of the episodes, many theories revolve around Emanuela Orlandi. While doing so, Orlandi’s friend has come forward to detail a shocking episode before she went missing.
The friend claims that before she went missing, she was sexually molested in the Vatican by Pope John Paul II’s associate in 1983. In the series, the face of the woman was hidden, but she recounted the incident when Emanuela told her that she had “a secret to confess”. Orlandi told her that during her time at the Vatican she was bothered by a close associate of the Pope. When asked if the harassment was sexual, the woman agreed.
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