Emanuela Orlandi

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Rome Prosecutors Office Vatican Magistrates Italian Parliament Bicameral (COMMISSION)

Missing From:

Rome, Italy

Summary:

Emanuela Orlandi, born January 14, 1968, was a Vatican teenager who mysteriously disappeared while returning home from music school in Rome on June 22, 1983. The case received worldwide attention due to the public appeal of Pope John Paul II for her release after an unnamed terrorist organisation claimed to be holding the girl in exchange for the liberation of Mehmet Ali Ağca, the Turkish terrorist who had attempted to assassinate the Pope two years prior. However, the subsequent investigation discovered that the allegation of international terrorism was a misdirection, and the real motive of the disappearance remains unknown.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Disappearance:

Emanuela Orlandi was the fourth of five children of Ercole Orlandi (died 2004) and Maria Pezzano. Her father was a lay employee in the papal household. The family lived inside Vatican City and, according to her older brother Pietro, the children had the free run of the Vatican Gardens. 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. Upon leaving home around 4:00 p.m. on 22 June 1983, Orlandi was late to class and the weather was extremely hot. On June 22, 1983, Emanuela left home for a flute lesson in the center of Rome. She called home afterward to say she had been recruited to sell Avon beauty products after the lesson. Orlandi was allegedly last seen getting into a green BMW. 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 7:30 p.m. at the bus stop, in the company of another girl, who was never identified.

Additional Details:

The case received worldwide attention due to the public appeal of Pope John Paul II for her release after an unnamed terrorist organisation claimed to be holding the girl in exchange for the liberation of Mehmet Ali Ağca. Orlandi's family received a series of mysterious phone calls claiming she had been kidnapped for ransom and would be freed if Mehmet Ali Agca were released from prison. The case was the subject of two judicial investigations, the first between 1983 and 1997, the second between 2008 and 2015, both closed without finding a solution. The case was opened again in 2023 by the Vatican magistrates, by the Rome Prosecutor's Office, and by a bicameral parliamentary commission, thus being the subject of three investigations simultaneously. On 24 December 1983, six months after the disappearance, Pope John Paul II visited Orlandi's house and told the family that "the case of Emanuela is a case of international terrorism" and assured them that "the Holy See is doing as much as humanly possible to have a positive ending". Years later, Pietro Orlandi commented that "from that moment, instead, the Pope allowed silence to surround Emanuela's case". In 2013, a few days after his election, Pope Francis met the Orlandi family after a mass and told them that "Emanuela is in heaven", implying the girl's death. In 2019 the Vatican opened two tombs in the Teutonic Cemetery, adjacent to St Peter's, following an anonymous tip-off received by the family of the missing girl. However the tombs, which were supposed to house the remains of two 19th-century princesses, were found to be empty, adding further mystery to a case that has enthralled Italian for decades. Then in 2012, the Vatican's chief exorcist Gabriele Amorth claimed Orlandi was kidnapped by Vatican police as part of a sex ring. Confidential documents from forty years ago that have been discovered suggest that at the time of the 1983 disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, Italian security officials believed the Vatican might already have paid a ransom to secure her release, even though a senior Vatican official denied it. On 10 July 2023, the Vatican released an "unedited file" to the Italian TV news program TG La7 that suggested a possible involvement of Orlandi's uncle, Mario Meneguzzi, in the disappearance of the girl. The document noted an "impressive resemblance" between Meneguzzi and the facial composite of the "Avon man" provided by the two police officers on duty at the Senate.

Case Last Updated:

May 11, 2026