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Vatican to open investigation into cold case of missing teen

AFP
AFP - [email protected]
Vatican to open investigation into cold case of missing teen
Demonstrators hold posters of Emanuela Orlandi, last seen in June 1983. Photo: Filippo Monteforte/AFP

The Vatican is opening an internal investigation into the case of Emanuela Orlandi, a teenager who disappeared in 1983 in one of Italy's darkest mysteries

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The Holy See has "authorised the opening of an investigation", the family's lawyer Laura Sgro told Italian media on Wednesday. The Vatican declined to comment.

Orlandi, the daughter of a member of the Vatican's police, was last seen leaving a music class aged 15, and theories have circulated for decades about who took her and where her body may lie.

The Vatican said last month that it may open a tomb within its grounds to see if it holds the girl's remains, after Sgro received an anonymous tip-off telling her to look inside the marble-topped grave.

Orlandi murder: Is a missing teenager buried inside a Vatican tomb?

According to some theories, the teenager was snatched by an organised crime gang to put pressure on Vatican officials to recover a loan.

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

"After 35 years of a failure (on the part of the Vatican) to collaborate, the opening of an investigation is an important step," Orlandi's brother Pietro was quoted by media as saying.

The family braced for a breakthrough in October when human remains were discovered on a Vatican property, only to be disappointed when tests showed the skeleton did not belong to a teenage girl. 

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