Police investigating if remains are those of teen daughter of Vatican employee since 1983.
Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters
Italian police have opened an investigation after human remains were discovered at the Holy See Embassy to Italy, the Vatican announced Tuesday. Workers found human bones while carrying out renovations on an annex at the Vatican’s embassy compound in Rome. Forensic investigators are looking into whether the remains belong to Emanuela Orlandi, a 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee who went missing in 1983, according to Italian media reports. Orlandi’s disappearance has been a source of intrigue for decades, with earlier theories suggesting she was caught up in a plot to free the Turkish gunman who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981. More recently, police exhumed the body of a reputed mobster to check if Orlandi’s remains were buried with him. The Vatican made no mention of Orlandi in its statement, saying only that investigators are working to determine the “age, sex, and date of death” of the body.
