For some time now, Netflix has started betting on true crime series and documentaries, the same ones that, with their few chapters, have managed to catch the attention of their users. Just a week ago, we saw how “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” positioned itself as the most watched streaming.
In that sense, a few days ago “The girl from the Vatican” premiereda series that investigates a case that shocked Italy in 1983 and that today is revived thanks to a family that is still looking for one of its members.
Who is Emanuela Orlandi and how did she disappear?
In “The Girl from the Vatican”, the Orlandi family recounts how after the mysterious disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, on June 22, 1983, little or nothing has been known about her. At only 15 years old, the young woman, who lived at that time in the Vatican City, left home one day to take some music classes, she must have met her sister at the end of them, but this never happened.
The last time her family spoke to her was the afternoon she was supposed to go home. She called on the phone and her sister answered. He indicated to her that she was about to return, but while she was waiting for a friend of hers, a man approached her to ask her if she did not want to sell cosmetics. Federica replied that before she accepts something, she should talk to her parents. The conversation ended and nothing more was heard of her.
Trailer for “The Girl from the Vatican”
Netflix reopens a case that the Vatican has prevented
In three chapters, Emanuela’s brothers talk about what has happened in her case in the last 39 years. With more than one hypothesis, which rubs against the Italian mafia, terrorism, sexual abuse and pederasty —even coming from the church— nothing has been known about the young woman.
“John Paul II Y Benedict XVI knew about the case, the first went to my parents’ house to give them support. The Pope Francis has built a wall on this history. There is a total closure on Emanuela and her kidnapping,” Pietro Orlandi told the Nueva Societa newspaper.
The criminal involved
Only in the first chapter, it is explained that the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi is related to Mehmet Ali Agcaman that tried to kill John Paul II in May 1981. Thirteen days after the ‘kidnapping’, a man called his house to say that they had the young woman and would only release her if the attacker was released. This did not happen, but it caused John Paul II to speak on the subject.
The mafia in the Emanuela Orlandi case
In chapter two, the mob becomes recurrent in this case. On stage he makes his appearance Sabrina Minardi, who identified himself as a former lover of capo Enrico ‘Renatino’ de Pedis. She assured that Emanuela was under her care after being kidnapped. Despite her version, the mobster was not investigated and died in the 2000s.
Abuse and the Holy See
In 2012, Father Gabriele Amorth denounced that Emanuela Orlandi was kidnapped by the Vatican police, in order to use it in sexual parties where men of high command and diplomats were part. Amorth was known in the Holy See for having been appointed by John Paul II as an exorcist.
In 2016, the appearance of the ‘Vatileaks’ on the internet exposed the relationship, denied by the Vatican years ago, with the Emanuela case. The series indicated that these documents contained records about Orlandi’s accommodation in a girls’ hostel in London. The Holy See denied this information and declared the investigation closed in April 2020.
39 years after the disappearance of the young woman, things are not clear. Her brothers continue to search for her, wondering what happened the night she didn’t come home. With the passage of time, the questions continue, but there is one that has not changed: Where is Emanuela Orlandi?
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