One of Italy’s greatest mysteries – the disappearance of a Vatican schoolgirl 40 years ago – took a new turn on Tuesday when her brother met with a Vatican investigator who was given free reign by Pope Francis to dig into the thread of the investigation. wherever it leads, Reuters reports.

Demonstration in the Vatican for the disclosure of the case of Emanuele OrlandiPhoto: Andrew Medichini/AP/Profimedia

Over the past four decades, graves have been opened, bones exhumed, and conspiracy theories abound in attempts to determine exactly what happened to Emanuela Orlandi.

The daughter of a Vatican employee whose family lived in the Vatican, Emanuela Orlandi, then 15, did not return home on June 22, 1983, after a music lesson in Rome.

The case, which was the subject of investigations in Italy and the Vatican, returned to the world’s attention after the release of the series “Vatican Girl” on Netflix late last year.

In January, the Vatican’s chief prosecutor, Alessandro Didi, reopened a previously inconclusive Vatican investigation based on the files of his retired predecessor.

Emanuela’s older brother, Pietro, and the family’s lawyer, Laura Sgro, met Tuesday afternoon at the Vatican with prosecutor Alessandro Didi.

There are different versions regarding the disappearance of young Orlandi. In the 1980s, Italian media speculated that the young woman had been kidnapped in an attempt to free Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turk imprisoned in 1981 for attempting to kill Pope John Paul II.

In 2019, two tombs in the Vatican were exhumed and reopened after it was discovered that Emanuela may have been buried there. But human remains were not found, reminds The Guardian.

In 2018, bones found while working at the Vatican’s embassy in Rome caused a stir in the media, with speculation that they could belong to Orlanda or Mirella Gregory, another teenager who disappeared the same year. DNA tests were negative.

Last month, Italy’s lower house approved the creation of a parliamentary commission to investigate the disappearance of the two girls.

Police have never ruled out the possibility that Orlandi was abducted and possibly killed for reasons unrelated to the Vatican, or that she was a victim of human trafficking.