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Following information provided by the Vatican, Rome prosecutors probing the disappearance of a teenager 40 years ago are reexamining the probable participation of her uncle, according to Italian media on Tuesday.
On June 22, 1983, Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee, was last seen leaving a music class in Rome.
Decades of speculation followed about what happened to her, with allegations ranging from mobsters to secret services to a Vatican plot, which sparked a blockbuster Netflix series.
Over the years, the Vatican has been accused of hindering investigation efforts, but in January, it opened an investigation into its most famous cold case. Prosecutors in Rome then launched their third investigation in May.
The Vatican recently handed over its case files to Rome, stating that they contained “some lines of inquiry worthy of further investigation.”
A letter from a priest to the Vatican’s then-secretary of state stated that Orlandi’s older sister Natalina had revealed at confession that her uncle, Mario Meneguzzi, had s-xually mo-lested her, according to Italian news channel La 7.
Orlandi’s brother Pietro, who has for years campaigned for the truth and believes the Vatican knows what happened to Emanuela, reacted angrily to the La 7 report.
“They cannot put it all on the family. I am furious,” he told the news agency Adnkronos, saying the Vatican had “crossed the line” by implicating his uncle.
Rome prosecutors are now reportedly looking again at Meneguzzi, who was only superficially investigated during the original probe.
Identikit
Meneguzzi, who died several years ago, looked remarkably similar to an identikit drawing of a man spotted talking to Emanuela in the street after her music lesson, La 7 said.
He also played a key role in the months following her disappearance, answering the calls of the purported kidnappers, the report said.
Meneguzzi had ties to the secret service, and managed to get the family a lawyer paid for by the service, it said.
During the first, brief investigation into him, he was also warned by the service that he was being tailed by police, it said.
Meneguzzi told investigators at the time that he was out of Rome on the day the teenager disappeared, in the village of Torano east of the capital, along with several relatives including Emanuela’s father Ercole, according to the Open online newspaper.
But Ercole Orlandi told investigators on several occasions that he was not in Torano that day, but in Fiumicino, west of Rome, Open said.
The Corriere della Sera’s investigative reporter Fabrizio Peronaci said Tuesday he had also uncovered information that the kidnappers had insisted from the start that Meneguzzi be their point person for the ransom negotiations.
The twists and turns of the case were documented in a 2022 TV series by Netflix, “Vatican Girl”, though it did not look at Meneguzzi.
In the documentary, a friend claimed the teen confided the week before she disappeared to having been harassed in the Vatican gardens by a figure close to then Pope John Paul II.
Another claim often repeated in the Italian media 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.
