Although the school year had concluded, she continued to take flute lessons three times per week at the Scuola di Musica Tommaso Ludovico da Victoria, connected with the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music.

[7][8] While leaving school, Orlandi spoke of the job offer with two female classmates, who then left her at a bus stop in Corso Rinascimento, in front of Palazzo Madama.

[8] During the Angelus on 3 July, Pope John Paul II issued an appeal to those responsible for Orlandi's disappearance, making the hypothesis of kidnapping official for the first time.

[14] On 8 July, a man with an alleged Middle Eastern accent phoned one of Orlandi's classmates, saying the girl was in his hands and that they had twenty days to make the exchange with Ağca.

Although they showed no evidence of Orlandi's captivity, Turkesh was able to provide many precise details about her private life, even mentioning the number of moles on her back.

However, the detailed information they provided about the girl led Italian investigators to conclude that Turkesh was a fake organization created by the people responsible for her disappearance, with the intent to mislead them.

According to Bohnsack, it was the Stasi who sent fake letters to the Vatican, written in Turkish or Italian, in order to make them believe the Grey Wolves were holding the girl captive and wanted Ağca's release.

[26] A controversy arose as to why De Pedis, a violent criminal, had been buried in the crypt of a major Roman basilica, a mode of burial normally reserved for high-ranking figures such as cardinals.

[27] In fact, a newspaper article from 1997 had reported on this strange burial, provoking protests from the police union, but when neither the Vatican nor Opus Dei (owners of the basilica) felt the need to justify it, the matter was forgotten.

[26] In 2012, the Italian Ministry of Interior confirmed that Poletti, who at the time of De Pedis' burial was serving as president of the Episcopal Conference of Italy and Cardinal Vicar of the Diocese of Rome, had indeed given his approval.

[30][31] While no clues were found in the tomb linking De Pedis to Orlandi, the controversy prompted speculation that Banda della Magliana was involved in the girl's disappearance.

This testimony was corroborated by Sabrina Minardi, De Pedis' former girlfriend, who claimed that Orlandi was kidnapped by Banda della Magliana on the orders of Archbishop Paul Marcinkus (1922–2006), the disgraced former head of the Institute for the Works of Religion (Vatican Bank), as part of a "power game".

[39] Since the early 2000s, Italian journalist Pino Nicotri, who conducted a detailed study of the Orlandi case based on judicial documents, has rejected the kidnapping hypothesis.

Nicotri also stated that the theory of kidnapping by international terrorists was contrived to divert attention from the scandal, while the hypothesis of the involvement of Banda della Magliana in the 2000s was made up by the mass media after the anonymous phone call to Chi l'ha visto?

[41][42] This allegation re-emerged with the 2016 publication of Atto di dolore, a book by Italian journalist Tommaso Nelli, which contained an exclusive testimony from a friend of Orlandi's who claimed that, some months before her disappearance, she had confided that she had been molested by "someone close to the Pope" in the Vatican Gardens on several occasions.

On 17 June 2011, during an Italian television program that included Pietro Orlandi, an anonymous caller, who identified himself as a former SISMI agent, claimed that she was still alive and being kept in a mental hospital in London.

He stated that this was done as part of an internal blackmail campaign and a feud between rival factions within the Vatican to influence the anti-communist policies of Pope John Paul II.

However, on 12 October 1993, Italian authorities recorded a telephone conversation between Raoul Bonarelli, then-deputy chief of the Gendarmerie of the Vatican City, and Monsignor Bertani, then-Chaplain of His Holiness to Pope John Paul II.

[54] In December 2021, Giancarlo Capaldo, the former public prosecutor of Rome who led the second investigation over the Orlandi case, revealed that in 2012, years after the discovery of De Pedis' grave, secret negotiations were held in the Palace of Justice between him, his deputy Simona Maisto, and two emissaries of the Holy See.

However, this negotiation was not followed by any firm action, which is why, on 2 April 2012, Capaldo made a public statement, saying that the Vatican was aware of the truth about the case and that he was not going to disturb the De Pedis' grave for the moment.

[57] On the morning of 14 May 2001, the parish priest of the San Gregorio VII church, near the Vatican, discovered a human skull of small dimensions and lacking a jaw in a bag with an image of Padre Pio in a confessional.

[58] On 6 April 2007, in a Good Friday sermon in St. Peter's Basilica, Reverend Raniero Cantalamessa advised the congregation to make amends for sins before dying.

Federico Lombardi issued a statement that detailed Vatican cooperation with civil investigators over the years and said the Church had no objection to the opening of the De Pedis tomb, which was then being discussed.

[75] On 25 June, during his Angelus address, Pope Francis recalled the fortieth anniversary of Orlandi's disappearance, "expressing closeness to the family, above all, the mother", and then extended the prayer to all missing persons.

[78] On 10 July 2023, the Vatican released an "unedited file" to the Italian TV news program TG La7 that suggested a possible involvement of Orlandi's uncle, Mario Meneguzzi, in the disappearance of the girl.

In the letter, Casaroli asked Alzate if it was true that Natalina Orlandi, Emanuela's older sister, confided to him that her uncle Mario Meneguzzi once molested her.

[80] The Orlandi siblings also pointed out that in the months following the disappearance, their uncle had been the family spokesperson, appearing in press conferences, interviews, and on TV multiple times, so it would not have been odd for the police officers to confuse him with the "Avon man".

[80] During the press conference, Natalina Orlandi revealed that she had already been aware of this file, because in 2017 she was summoned to the Vatican by Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, the then-Substitute for General Affairs in the Secretariat of State, who showed her the documents related to the incident with her uncle.

In those days, the Orlandi family and their lawyer were asking the Vatican for the release of a secret dossier about Emanuela, held in the Secretariat of State, as revealed to them by Georg Gänswein.

[81] Both Natalina and Pietro Orlandi commented that the release of these documents on television, rather than to the investigating magistrates and to police authorities, was outrageous and "a vile attempt by the Vatican to publicly attack their uncle's memory and pass the responsibility off on the family".