Vatican opens investigation into disappearance after Netflix documentary

Crime series and documentaries are popular on Netflix. When the company at the red N decides to take an interest in truthful and, as a bonus, unsolved investigations, it is perhaps even more noise than in normal times. This is typically what just happened with the docuseries Emanuela Orlandi: the disappeared from the Vatican, released in October 2022 on the catalog. In four episodes, the mini-series looks back on a sordid criminal case that occurred in 1983: on June 22, 1983, in Rome, the young Emanuela Orlandi, 15, goes as usual to her flute lesson. But after her music lesson, no one will see the teenager again. For decades, the latter’s family has been demanding that an investigation be opened into the disappearance of the young woman who lived in Vatican City because her father, Ercole Orlandi, worked in the prefecture of the Holy See and was in charge of hold papal audiences. After the broadcast of the documentary on Netflix, a miracle seems to have happened: the Holy See announced to open an investigation on Tuesday, January 11, 2023 into the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi.

Emanuela Orlandi: the disappeared from the Vatican : 40 years after the disappearance of the teenager, the Vatican opens an investigation

“The Vatican promoter of justice, the equivalent of a prosecutor, has opened an investigation that the family has been asking for decades”, said the press service of the Holy See. A relief for the family, even if it was necessary to wait for the release of a documentary broadcast on Netflix involving the Vatican State, but also the Roman mafia, or even terrorist groups so that the Holy See decides to take an interest in it.

The various theories on the disappearance of Emanuela Orlanda exposed in the documentary Netflix

The miniseries brings to light several theories, unproven, but backed by ample evidence, regarding the teenage girl’s disappearance. First, a former mistress of Enrico de Pedis, a mafia boss also associated with the P2 Masonic Lodge and Vatican finance sectors, claimed he had abducted the girl and sunk her body in concrete. If Pope Francis has never confirmed or denied this hypothesis, he would still have told the brother of the disappeared “that she was in heaven”. Is this information he has from a deity or people from this lower world? Is this just a way to encourage Emanuela’s family to get on with their life or a true fact?

Another theory evokes a kidnapping of the teenager to snatch the release of Mehmet Ali Agça, the Turk who had tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981. Released in 2010, the principal concerned had explained in an open letter that it was a matter of revenge, but that Emanuela Orlandi was alive and that it was necessary to seek her trace in the archives of the CIA. Will the investigation opened by the Vatican make it possible to unearth new elements? The family’s lawyer, Laura Sgro, is eager to know their true intentions: “We don’t know what the Vatican is going to do. In the next few hours I will ask for a meeting with the promoter of justice to understand. So far, the Vatican has done nothing. What are the documents they want to review, those of the investigation of the Rome prosecutor’s office or do they have a file that they want to share? I have been asking for years that certain personalities belonging to the top of the Vatican be heard (…), unfortunately some have died in the meantime.

Article written in collaboration with 6médias