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A poster of missing girl Emanuela Orlandi Matteo Nardone via PA Images

Vatican search fails to find remains of teenager who disappeared in 1983

Emanuela Orlandi was the daughter of a Vatican City employee. She disappeared on 22 June 1983.

EXPERTS HAVE FOUND no recent bones in their examination of an ossuary as part of a search for a teenager who disappeared 36 years ago, according to Vatican officials.

A team of specialists, who completed their work today, had found no bones old enough to match those of Emanuela Orlandi, the missing teenager.

Orlandi was the daughter of a Vatican City employee. She disappeared on 22 June 1983, aged 15, after leaving a music class.

Forensics specialist Giovanni Arcudi, who led the team, said they had found “no bone structure dating back to a period later than the end of the 19th century”. 

However, an expert appointed to represent the Orlandi family’s interest has called for more detailed tests to take place on around 70 bones that Professor Arcudi did not think worth examining because he judged them to be very old.

The Vatican police have filed and taken possession of the remains, pending a court ruling on the question.

The experts removed thousands of bone fragments from the basement of the Pontifical Teutonic College on 20 July, searching for her remains. 

This followed a mysterious message sent to her family via their lawyer – a picture of an angel-topped grave in the Teutonic cemetery, and a message which simply read “Look where the angel is pointing”.

No bones were found there, not even those of two 19th-century princesses who were meant to be buried there. However, a further search found the bones underneath the College.

The bones were likely moved during work on the cemetery and college during the 1970s and 1980s, the vatican said.

Rival theories

There are a number of conflicting theories that have been widely circulated in Italian media regarding what happened to Orlandi. 

Some theories say Orlandi was snatched by mobsters to put pressure on the Vatican to recover a loan.

Another claim often repeated in the press was that she was taken to force the release from prison of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981.

In 2017, conspiracy specialists were driven into a frenzy by a leaked – but apparently falsified – document, purportedly written by a cardinal and pointing to a Vatican cover-up.

Five years earlier, experts exhuming the tomb of a notorious crime boss at a Vatican-owned church uncovered some 400 boxes of bones.

Head of the Magliana gang, Enrico De Pedis, was suspected of involvement in her kidnapping.

Some speculated Orlandi might be buried alongside him – but DNA tests failed to find a match.

Includes reporting by © – AFP 2019

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    Mute Renton Burke
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    Jul 28th 2019, 5:06 PM

    For some reason, I am not surprised that these guys have an excellent reputation got hiding bones from families

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    Mute The only INFP in Ireland
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    Jul 28th 2019, 5:10 PM

    Other than the claims and theories in the media, is there any evidence as to what might have actually happened to her?

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    Mute Ananya Sharma
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    Jul 28th 2019, 8:21 PM

    ”exhuming the tomb of a notorious crime boss at a Vatican-owned church” Says it all about what kind of people run the church.

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    Mute Artugal
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    Jul 28th 2019, 4:52 PM

    400 boxes of bones… wtf

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    Mute Artugal
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    Jul 28th 2019, 5:04 PM

    @Artugal: if anyone has any links to any further reading that’d be cool, finding many reports with the same small reference but can’t seem to find anything more than that

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    Mute Hardly Normal
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    Jul 28th 2019, 8:42 PM

    @Artugal: the guardian have done a few articles as far as I remember.

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    Mute Artugal
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    Jul 28th 2019, 10:43 PM
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    Mute Cathal
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    Jul 29th 2019, 1:36 AM

    @Artugal: Very common in the middle ages, there’s a church in the Czech republic built from bones, think there’s a few in Mexico

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    Mute Dave Walsh
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    Jul 28th 2019, 6:00 PM

    Open all the tombs… Except for that one…

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    Mute Dave Barrett
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    Jul 28th 2019, 7:04 PM

    Did they roll back the stone??

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