Laura Richards (14:00)

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Peyton Moreland (15:39)

Now I also think it's worth mentioning that Pietro had another strange encounter with a different Pope many years later. See, after John Paul II passed away, a new leader took his place, Pope Francis. And not long after Francis took the office, he agreed to meet Pietro Emanuela's brother and talk to him about her disappearance. So this was fast forwarded all the way in March of 2013. The case hadn't had any major breaks in 30 years. It just been this mysterious disappearance. Anyway, during that meeting, Francis reportedly told Pietro that Emanuela was in heaven. Pope Francis came across as very confident, like he knew exactly what had happened. He wasn't just guessing. He seemed to know for sure that she had passed away. Now, once more, this left her brother wondering. Is there something the Church knows that we don't? Now, I know what you're probably thinking, that this sounds like a huge leap based on pretty little evidence. These were just a few offhand comments that two different popes made 30 years apart. But those statements aren't the only clues that could potentially implicate the Church in the theories in this case. There's also an alarming story that comes from an anonymous source. I don't know the source's real name, but for simplicity, I will call her Isabella. Now, Isabella claims that she was good friends with Emanuela before her disappearance. They were both teen girls at the time. They hung out a lot. Supposedly, Emanuela called Isabella on the phone one week before she went missing. And during that call, she said that she had a secret to share. According to Isabella, the secret Emanuela told her involved a high ranking Vatican official, someone she had met while living in Vatican City. Now, Isabella didn't know who the high ranking official was. Supposedly, Emanuela didn't want to talk about it over the phone. She wanted to meet Isabella in person to tell her everything when it was safe to do so. So according to this tipster, a short while later, the two of them got together in a public space. Now, right away Isabella could tell that Emanuela was upset and nervous. She didn't want to talk about what had happened to her. But eventually she opened up enough to say that this man, this high ranking individual in the Church, had been bothering her. And that was all. She'd say that like she didn't specify that he, he just was bothering her. She also said that the man was very close to the Pope, but she still didn't say his name. Isabella could tell from Emanuela's tone of voice and body language that she was talking about sexual harassment or even sexual assault. But she never learned any details because Emanuela was too nervous to say anything more specific. She also seemed a little embarrassed, even though she had nothing to be ashamed of and she hadn't done anything wrong. Now either way, Isabella wanted to be a good friend and she didn't want to push Emanuela out of her comfort zone. So she didn't really ask any more pressing questions. And after that meetup, she never got the chance to ask her Anything else? Because Emanuela went missing basically right after that conversation. It was just a few days later. Now, given what she knew, Isabella believed that the high ranking Church official had kidnapped Emanuela in order to silence her. He didn't want the world to know that he was preying on teenage girls. Now, it's possible that he knew Emanuela had already talked to Isabella, or that he just suspected she wasn't going to keep quiet. Isabella also thought it was possible that the Church had covered up the kidnapping and murder to protect this powerful official. Like maybe news had gotten out, but there was a cover up. Of course, it's hard to say how seriously we should take this story. Especially because there was never any hard proof shared. And since her identity is still anonymous, we don't know for sure if this girl even knew the victim. It's possible she made everything up. But here's where things get a little wild. Okay? It's 2012. Emanuela's case still hasn't been solved. We know that this was right around the time when Pope Francis was talking to her brother about her being in heaven. And her brother Pietro wanted better answers than that. So he wrote a book at this time all about his sister's disappearance and his family's nearly three decade search for answers. His hope was that this new book would raise more awareness. Maybe finally someone would read it and share a tip that would break the case wide open. Well, his book did not solve his sister's disappearance, but he did get help from an unexpected source. An official who worked for the Vatican wrote an open memo to Pietro. In the memo, he insisted that the Church had no idea what had happened to Emanuela and they had had nothing to do with her disappearance. But the memo also said that they had conducted their own investigation. This is a big deal, because the Vatican had always insisted they had nothing to investigate. She had gone missing in Rome, not Vatican City. So it was out of their jurisdiction and completely unrelated to their own work. And even stranger, the Church's investigation was separate from the work the police had done. It was something the Vatican had arranged independently. The officials shared some of the Church's evidence with Pietro. And when he went through their files, he saw a potential clue that he'd never known about before from the regular police. It was a screen grab of several WhatsApp messages that certain high ranking church officials had exchanged with one another. Now, this is obviously in the future, right? They were talking about Emanuela and heavily implying they knew she was dead and that she was buried. And they seemed to know where again, they don't come right out and say this directly, but if you read between the lines and the messages, it seemed like these officials knew for a fact that Emanuela's body was actually in a particular graveyard. A graveyard that the Vatican owned and operated. Now, as soon as Pietro read this, he obviously has a lot of questions. If the church didn't have anything to do with her disappearance, then how could their officials know for sure she's dead and know where she's buried? It was definitely suspicious, for sure. But when Pietro asked for permission to search for Emanuela's body in the Vatican graveyard, the church refused. They said his suspicions were wrong and there was no reason to think she was buried in that cemetery. They didn't want to cooperate with any kind of investigation. And without their permission, your Landy family couldn't move forward on the tip. But the case gets even stranger. Okay, seven years later, we're in 2019. Pietro's lawyer got a different anonymous tip in this disappearance case. This tip also said that Emanuela was buried in a Vatican owned graveyard, but not the same one that the WhatsApp messages had referenced. This particular graveyard was supposed to be for members of Germany's royal family. Now, according to the tipster, whoever had killed Emanuela had dumped her body in a long dead princess's tomb. The murderer had known that nobody would ever think to look for her there. Well, Pietro's lawyer was very good at his job. He reached out to the church to ask if they could search the graves, and he managed to get them to say yes. Now, this is huge for this case. The church had barely been willing to work with the family before this point. So right away, Emanuela's loved ones seized the rare opportunity. They found a team to dig up the old tombs and examine the remains inside to see if one of the dead bodies belonged to Emanuela. The investigators pulled up the graves, cracked them open and did not find her remains. In fact, they didn't find any bodies. The princess who was supposed to be buried there, she was gone. Our tomb was completely empty. This is incredibly suspicious. And it was a massive sign that there was something going on nobody knew about. But still, even though they had unearthed this big secret that the princess's body was missing, no one knows if this actually has anything to do with Emanuela. As if that all wasn't weird enough, the investigators found something else while they were searching for the tombs. A secret hidden chamber that was full of bones. And I mean, like thousands of bones in this old tomb. Nobody had known about this chamber. Before, nobody knew whose skeletons these were. However, experts ran tests on the bones, determined that these were old. Too old to be Emanuelas. The best guess anyone could make was that the burial chamber had been renovated in the 1960s and 70s. So maybe as part of the project, construction crews had dug up old graves and put those bodies in the chamber. Now, again, nobody knew for sure. The whole situation's incredibly weird. But it didn't get anyone any closer to finding Emanuela. It also didn't prove that the Church had anything to do with her disappearance. Now, either way, to this day, some people say that even if the Vatican didn't kidnap Emanuela themselves, they might still know what happened to her. In fact, for years there have been rumors going around that the Church has a file on Emanuela in their secret archives. For those who don't know, the Vatican has been keeping very detailed records on everything they've ever done, basically since the 1600s. So the secret archives are a huge trove with thousands of documents on Catholic history, finances, legal issues, letters and diaries written by different leaders. The list goes on. And many of those documents are heavily classified and the general public cannot see them. So there are a lot of tinfoil tells just alone about these archives. Okay, about the Catholic archives. Some people even think that the Church has proof in those archives that aliens exist. Or that the archives contain hidden prophecies about the end of the world, or evidence that Jesus got married and had children before the crucifixion. I don't know if any of this is true or not, but there are also people who believe the archives have a file that contains the truth about what happened to emanuela. Now, in 2017, a group of hackers even claimed that they had found that particular file in the digital archives. And with the file, they had solved the case. Supposedly they found a memo detailing all of the money that the Church had spent on Emanuela since her disappearance. This is what this these hackers claim. Allegedly, after she went missing, she moved to London, where she lived with a group of priests who were taking care of her. The document also said that the Church paid all of Emanuela's bills from the year she went missing, 1983, until 1997. So for 14 years, they covered her rent, her utilities, groceries, doctors, appointments, everything. And then in 1997, Emanuela passed away. The spending stopped. Work management, platforms. Ugh, endless onboarding. IT bottlenecks, admin requests. But what if things were different? Monday.com is different. No lengthy onboarding, beautiful reports in minutes, custom workflows. You can build on your own. Easy to use prompt free AI, huh? Turns out you can love a work management platform. Monday.com the first work platform you'll love to use. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. Now this document doesn't explain why the church had done all this, why they were keeping this a secret. I mean, her family had been demanding answers for years. Allegedly, at any time the Vatican could have said, it's fine, she's in London, you can go see her. But for whatever reason, if this document is to be believed, they didn't bother to say a word to her parents or her brother. The memo did heavily imply that while Emanuela was alive in London, she definitely was not free to leave. It was still a kidnapping, meaning the Vatican wasn't just financially supporting her and hiding her, they were also allegedly holding her hostage. But again, we have no explanation as to why this happened, just records of it happening. Now, it's worth mentioning that after the memo was released to the public, the Vatican came forward, denied it was real. They said the leaked document was a hoax. And in fairness, some journalists and other experts looked at the file and they agreed with the church. They said the paperwork just didn't look authentic and it was probably fake. But the history of this case is not over because In November of 2024, a church official drops a bombshell. It had been 12 years since that leak. And now the speaker said the rumors were true. Not about Emanuela living with priests in London, but all of the allegations about the Vatican having a confidential file on the disappearance. Apparently that part's real. They had all of this evidence about Emanuela's disappearance and no one, not even the police, not even her family had ever laid eyes on this paperwork. Now, according to this church official, in 2024, they hadn't meant to keep this information from her family on purpose. Instead, supposedly the church had done an investigation, compiled all of the evidence, and then just kind of let it go. That is their official story anyway. Allegedly some employees just happened to find the file in November of 2024. This is almost 40 years after the disappearance. And as for what this file said, the official refused to share that information. So apparently he's just confirming the file exists, but the evidence is still confidential however, the Vatican promised to share what they knew with the police and cooperate with the officials who were still trying to figure out what had happened. Now, this is all pretty strange and pretty suspicious, but I don't want to make it sound like all of the theories about Emanuela's disappearance have to do with the Church. There are plenty of other suspects and lots of wild allegations flying around. Some people think that Emanuela's disappearance had to do with organized crime. The mob was actually very active in rome in the 1980s, and apparently one mafia boss's ex girlfriend went to the police at one point and told him that her ex with the Mafia had kidnapped Emanuela. Allegedly, he kept her drugged so she'd be compliant, and he held her at a variety of different safe houses, moving her around frequently, until eventually he passed her off to someone else. The ex girlfriend didn't know what happened to Emanuel after that. And assuming that is the tipster was telling the truth. There are also a lot of rumors that Emanuela might have been the victim of a serial killer, especially because another teenage girl went missing in Rome right around the same time as Emanuela. This theory is that the murderer killed Emanuela and the other girl and then hid their bodies so well that neither of them have been found to this day. And other people believe that Emanuela's uncle killed her. Those allegations are very similar to the ones Isabella made. Supposedly her uncle had an inappropriate interest in Emanuela, so he may have assaulted her and then killed her to cover up that crime. For what it's worth, the police actually took the accusations against her uncle pretty seriously. Early on in the investigation, they actually interrogated him, but then they learned that he actually had the perfect alibi. He was on vacation more than 100 miles away from Rome at the time of her disappearance. And on top of that, his whole family, including Emanuela's closest relatives, believe that he wasn't capable of doing this. So the uncle has been cleared, and most people who are close to the case say he's not a credible suspect. But that hasn't stopped people from accusing him of the crime. There are a lot of other ridiculous allegations too. Except I will be honest, it's hard to say which theories are credible in this case, because there's so much that's up in the air and so many details that have been disputed, it's almost impossible to really say what the truth is about Emanuela's disappearance. One thing is certain, her family never gave up on her, and they still haven't to this day. I mentioned Some of the things they did to try and raise awareness. Hanging missing persons posters, taking out ads in the paper. Her brother wrote that book on her. And in more recent years, he and his relatives have made television appearances and organized rallies. In 2022, they appeared in a four part Netflix series about Emanuela's case. They and the rest of the world applied so much pressure that in early 2023, the church said they'd launch a new investigation into the disappearance. In that same year, the Italian government also promised to open their own inquiry too. Only time will tell if these efforts will uncover anything new. And in the meanwhile, it has been 41 years since Emanuela went missing. She still hasn't been found, and we still can't confirm if she's alive or dead. Her brother Pietro believes that the Church knows more than what they're saying. He's not convinced that they actually took Emanuela or had anything to do with her disappearance. But Pietro does think the Vatican has all the answers, and they're not sharing. His father said something similar before his death. Back in 2004, he went to his grave without any answers about what had happened to his daughter. And toward the end, he told Pietro, I was betrayed by those I served. Given that his family had served seven different popes, that implication is pretty clear. He thought the Vatican had betrayed him by either stealing Emanuela away or by hiding evidence about her case. Now, in an interview, Pietro also acknowledged that his family had a long history of latching on to whatever theory came their way. They were so eager for answers, they were willing to believe almost anything. Sadly, until her disappearance is solved, the truth will always be up for debate. And like her family, we'll be stuck chasing wild theories without ever knowing if we're getting closer to the truth. That is the mysterious and unsolved disappearance of Emanuela. Thank you so much for diving into the dark with me today, and I'll see you next time for another episode. Goodbye.