Original subtitles

[news anchor] The Vatican has opened up two tombs inside a tiny cemetery

in the hopes of solving

a 36-year-old disappearance of a teenage girl.

[female reporter] Emanuela Orlandi vanished

after a music lesson on June 22nd, 1983.

[eerie music]

By agreeing to open up these tombs, the Vatican is finally admitting

that someone inside may have been involved.

[people clamoring]

[Andrea] The case of Emanuela Orlandi is not a simple story

of disappearance of one girl.

So many Italians remain convinced that there is still a cover-up going on.

[VHS player clicking]

[Andrea] It's much more.

[whirring]

[male reporter 1] All the police have to work on

is a tape-recorded message received this week,

barely audible, the girl is heard begging for her life.

[distorted audio]

-[gunshots] -[crowd screaming]

An anonymous caller in Italy warned that a kidnapped girl would be killed

unless the man who tried to kill the Pope is freed.

[man 1] Agca said the Russians trained him.

[female journalist] And the KGB?

Yes, and KGB.

[Cristina] After Emanuela disappeared,

the house key was always in the lock.

[Pietro] We'll never stop looking for her.

[Ferruccio] I think that the Vatican knows what happened to Emanuela.

This story sounds, to, uh, a lot of Americans, a lot like

uh, a Dan Brown novel.

[Andrea] How does the Pope know?

Who gave to him this information?

[Richard] It was a mystery,

or it was the beginning of a mystery.

[Sabrina] It's all a game of power.

[man 2] This is so serious

that it would be the biggest scandal in the contemporary history of the church.

[Andrea] The Vatican has a history of 2,000 years of secrets.

In Italy we say…

[Andrea in Italian]

[tape player whirring]

[Pietro] My name is Pietro Orlandi.

I was born and raised in the Vatican with my four sisters.

Natalina, who was the eldest,

and then Federica,

and Emanuela, and Maria Cristina.

-[keys jingling] -[lock clicking]

[Pietro] My sister Emanuela has been missing for 37 years now.

[Pietro] This is the living room where she would study.

And here is the kitchen,

where, that day, my mom was making pizza.

There, this was her bedroom.

It hasn't changed.

This was her bed.

Here, there are still a lot of her dolls.

She loved pop music.

She was a fan of Claudio Baglioni.

I always made fun of her for it.

["Fotografie" by Claudio Baglioni playing]

My sister went missing…

on the 22nd of June, 1983.

[Dan] Good evening, this is the CBS evening news.

Dan Rather reporting.

Pope John Paul II returned home today.

Home to his Poland, home to an anguished country in turmoil.

Richard Roth was there…

[Pietro] I still remember how hot it was on that day.

[radio presenter in Italian] Welcome back friends.

African high pressure is affecting the Lazio region,

causing scorching days across the area.

In central Rome,

temperatures will reach 37 degrees Celsius with a humidity of…

[ominous music]

[Pietro] Emanuela played the flute, the piano,

and sang in a choir.

That day, she was supposed to be rehearsing

for the end-of-year school show.

[heart thumping]

She was carrying the flute

and the leather bag she always wore on her shoulder.

And she said, "Will you give me a lift?"

[Pietro] "Come on, please, give me a lift, it's hot."

Since I couldn't, I repeatedly told her "I can't, I can't."

[clock ticking]

But I could have taken her if I wanted to.

Maybe in that moment I was just being lazy, and…

I regret that so much now.

[clock ticking]

She looked at me, maybe told me to get lost.

She said something else, slammed the door, and…

and she left.

[announcer] The Pope arrived in a bullet-proofed car.

Security agents in dark suits were behind him.

John Paul celebrated the mass at an altar with a giant…

[Andrea] Emanuela was not an ordinary child.

She was a Vatican girl living in a building inside the Vatican,

which means inside the borders of the Vatican.

[tense music]

[Andrea] Which is a state into another state.

It's like a monarchy, and the Pope is the king.

0.2 square miles,

with a population of just a hundred secular people.

It's a very unusual place.

My family served for many years,

serving seven Popes.

And we spent our childhoods within those walls.

[Natalina] We lived in the Vatican like you would a small village.

[laughing]

The only difference between the Vatican and a village was that at midnight,

the Vatican closed its gate.

[clock ticking]

[Pietro] Her school is outside the Vatican.

Before leaving school, Emanuela calls home

and my sister Federica answers.

[phone ringing]

[Federica] I was at home, studying.

[phone ringing]

And Emanuela called home

sometime between the hours of 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m…

to tell me that a man had approached her outside of school

saying he represented Avon.

He offered her a small job…

handing out leaflets and advertising Avon's cosmetics line.

[Federica] Cristina and her friends were set to meet her at 7:00 p.m.

[clock ticking]

[Cristina] We had arranged to meet near,

between Ponte Castel Sant'Angelo and the Palazzaccio bridge.

[Cristina] But once we got there, we waited a bit,

until sometime around 7:30, 7:35,

by which time Emanuela hadn't shown up.

[reporter 1] Throughout this trip,

Vatican agents expect the Pope to walk a thin line

between religion and politics.

[Cristina] When I got home, I went in and asked, "Is Emanuela back?

Mom and Dad said, "No, not yet. Why?"

I said, "It's just that we were supposed to meet up and she never showed,

so I thought she'd already come home."

[reporter 1] John Paul has made his own feelings clear

about Polan's progress since martial law.

[intense percussion]

[clock ticking]

[dog barking in distance]

[eerie music]

By 9:30, we were panicking

because it was way past the Orlandi household's normal curfew.

[clock ticking]

So we decided to go out,

meet her on her route, go look for her somewhere.

[Natalina] I tried calling all the hospitals.

[line beeping]

We then met up with my mom and dad

in front of the music school.

And immediately we found something…

It was just wrong. Something was wrong.

[Pietro] And my father decided to file a report.

[Natalina] They said it was too soon to report her missing.

[clock ticking]

And they sent us away.

The gate shuts at midnight.

[Pietro] My father was really worried, agitated.

I remember he called uncle Mario straight away,

who immediately came to our house with his son, Pietro.

[Pietro Meneguzzi] I knew Rome well…

So, I got up and said to Pietro, "Look, Pietro…

[engine rumbling]

…let's go take a look around Rome."

[engine revving]

[Pietro] The first thing we did was we took her photo with us,

and show it to people.

It was like I was living through something strange, you know?

A kind of nightmare.

[thunder rumbling]

I go, "My God, what happened to her?"

You start assuming the worst.

[Pietro Meneguzzi] Honestly, I was convinced

that Emanuela had been, quote, "drugged".

That's what I thought.

[suspenseful music]

[Pietro] I remember being on the back of the bike

and falling asleep.

[ominous music]

The next morning, I went to report Emanuela missing.

This is the photo we showed the police, the one that we gave them.

They glanced at the photo and attempting to comfort me, they said,

"Well, I wouldn't worry. She's not really all that pretty,

at least not pretty enough to have been abducted.

She probably just ran off on her own accord."

[Mauro] My name is Mauro Obinu.

In 1983, I was a Captain of the Carabinieri in Rome.

I remember that in the course of the initial inquiries,

we found out two people,

a traffic warden and a retired police officer,

had noticed a girl similar to Emanuela,

getting approached by someone.

[Mauro] They described him as a man of about 35 to 40 years of age,

about 1 meter 80.

The officers said that he parked his car,

which was described as a green BMW…

in Corso Rinascimento, near Palazzo Madama,

the seat of the Italian Senate.

This information led us to believe that this person…

could have been the Avon man.

[pensive music]

But that year…

[hesitates]

…dozens of teenagers had gone missing,

only to return home shortly after.

At the time, my personal impression

was that the disappearance of the young Emanuela

could have fallen into this category.

She was not the sort to voluntarily run off like that.

We knew that much.

[suspenseful music]

My uncle called the newspaper Il Tempo to have them release a short piece.

It came out on the 24th.

It was just a little photo of her with a description,

"15-year-old girl missing since June 22nd, 1983."

And we included our home phone number.

[Andrea] In 1983 I was just 30 years old,

working for Corriere Della Sera which was the leading newspaper in Italy.

[Andrea] It was quite usual in cases of missing people

to see ads like this one.

But in this case,

we suddenly realized that this girl was a Vatican girl.

My editor was shocked by that.

He said, "Okay, we need to understand

what was going on behind the case."

That's when things got crazy. All these telephone calls.

[phone ringing]

Crazy people would call…

[phone ringing]

Everyone.

[ringing continues]

[male reporter 2] Most Poles certainly hope

for a message from the Pope.

The last time he came here it led to the birth of Solidarity a year later.

This was the scene of…

[Pietro] Out of the many horrendous calls we got,

there was one…

that was significant.

[clock ticking]

From a guy calling himself Pierluigi.

PIERLUIGI CONFIRMS… ANOTHER DETAIL… SAID THAT…

[Pietro] He told us he and his girlfriend were at Campo de' Fiori,

so a place that was somewhat

near the music school Emanuela disappeared from.

[Natalina] He never called her Emanuela.

He called her Barbara.

[Pietro] He said, "We met a girl.

She had a flute…

in a bag,

and she was also selling some Avon products."

So, as soon we heard the word "Avon"

we immediately associated it with Emanuela's call.

After these calls, it was confirmed that she had not run off.

We didn't believe it. She hadn't gone away.

Otherwise, this call didn't make sense,

why did people who were involved need to call us?

[sirens blaring in distance]

[Pietro] On the evening of Sunday the 26th,

we got a strange visit.

They introduced themselves as two SISDE agents, the Secret Service.

[interviewer] Do you remember what it was like

having the Secret Service at your house?

[Natalina] It was strange to think the Secret Service is at our house.

I mean, at the beginning we trusted

everyone and everything.

They said they absolutely had to install a recording device in our home

to record every telephone call we got from here on out.

[pensive music]

[Pietro] On Tuesday, the 28th of June,

so, one week since Emanuela's disappearance,

we get a second call.

[phone ringing]

Fortunately, we were able to record the call this time.

From someone who called himself Mario.

[Mario in Italian] My name is Mario, my name is Mario,

don't ask me anymore.

[Pietro] Because he said very similar things,

he talked about a girl he referred to as Barbarella.

[Mario in Italian] This guy lives with his girlfriend and two other girls,

and together they sell clothes, perfumes.

She is called Barbarella

or Barbara, a good looking girl

with dark hair.

[Pietro] And then he said something significant.

[Mario in Italian] Her only regret is that

she was meant to do something for school or somewhere.

She had this concert and this time she was going to sing.

[Ercole in Italian] Oh, she sings?

[Pietro] And that was true.

She was actually supposed to sing in the choir, not play the flute.

[Mario in Italian] Obviously, I wish you the best.

[Ercole in Italian] Thank you, goodbye. Goodbye.

[Pietro] These were details that had never been released,

and which only that person knew.

[siren blaring]

I've often tried to remember

the desperation that we all felt at home.

Each of us in a different way.

[Cristina] I shut myself in my room.

People were constantly coming and going

over the following days,

and that's all.

[dramatic music]

I mean, hearing this…

my mom constantly calling out to Emanuela,

it was upsetting because she was shouting loudly.

Then she'd see me and ask,

"Did you find her? Go out and look for her, go and look for her!"

with a… [Pietro sighs]

…a harrowing voice.

It's hard to describe now,

thinking about it now is upsetting, it's distressing.

[tense music]

[Pietro] A few days later, on the 29th,

we came up with the idea of making the posters.

Rome finally woke up seeing my sister's face,

that smiling face of hers.

We have more on that now from Richard Roth in Rome.

[Richard] All at once, they were all over.

Scomparsa, missing.

In America, when children went missing their faces were on milk cartons.

This was not an uncommon thing.

And I remember going into the office and asking,

"What's with the posters? Who's the girl?"

[Andrea] No one could ignore the posters.

Not even the Vatican.

[Richard] Every Sunday, the Pope would appear to the crowd

in St. Peter's Square.

[crowd cheering]

[Richard] And when John Paul II was Pope, there was always a huge crowd.

[applauding]

There'd be a microphone placed near the balcony,

and the Pope would say a few words.

And on that day,

he said a few words about Emanuela Orlandi.

[applauding, indistinct chatter]

[Pope in Italian] I would like to express the heartfelt feeling

with which I join the Orlandi family,

who suffer for their 15-year-old daughter Emanuela,

who has not returned home since Wednesday 22 June.

There was the Pope,

I mean, the Pope was talking about Emanuela.

[Pope in Italian] I share the anxieties

and the anguished trepidation of the parents.

We will not lose hope in the spirit of humanity

of those who are responsible in this case.

[soft piano music]

[Richard] It was curious

'cause there was no explanation of why he had spoken.

Was he intervening?

Or was he simply expressing sympathy for one of his citizens?

It was a mystery,

or it was the beginning of a mystery.

[tape player whirring]

[Pope in Italian] …my heartfelt feeling…

[Andrea in English] I personally found it very strange.

[Pope in Italian] …the Orlandi family…

[Andrea] His words are,

"Mi rivolgo a coloro i quali hanno la responsabilità di questo caso."

"I'm talking to whom is responsible for this case."

Meaning that, uh, he knows, in some way, that she was abducted.

[Pope in Italian] …is responsible for this case…

[Andrea in English] Number two, when he says,

"I hope she will be returned to her family,"

means that he knows she's alive.

[tape player whirring]

[Pope in Italian] …the Orlandi Family…

…is responsible for this case…

[Andrea in English] At the same time,

the police is investigating something completely different.

They're investigating, in Campo de' Fiori,

if she's selling cosmetics…

and decided herself to take some days off from the family.

I mean, doesn't make sense at all.

How does the Pope know?

Who gave to him this information?

[suspenseful music]

[phone ringing]

[The American in Italian]

[Pietro] Two days after the Pope's appeal,

we got another call.

On the other end of the line was the voice of a man

who spoke Italian with a foreign accent.

[Pietro] I remember my uncle said,

"It's a foreigner, sounded American."

[Andrea] This mysterious man says

he had communication with the Vatican press office,

and since then he will be called L'Americano, The American.

[The American in Italian]

[Ercole in Italian]

[The American in Italian]

[Mauro] I remember that during this call,

this person had us listen to a tape recording,

a recording where… where a girl says the following,

"School, National Boarding School Vittorio Emanuele II,

National Boarding School Vittorio Emanuele II."

Repeating this phrase several times.

We can listen to it now.

[distorted audio playing]

[girl 1 in Italian] National Boarding School

Vittorio Emanuele II.

National Boarding School Vittorio Emanuele II.

I should be in the third year of high school next year.

I should be in the third year of high school next year.

[interviewer] Do you remember the moment you heard the voice on the tape?

Yes, we had no doubts.

That was Emanuela's voice we heard on the tape.

It couldn't not be her voice.

[Andrea] The American also said

that the previous callers, Mario and Pierluigi,

were part of his group.

[Pietro] "You've already been contacted by two of our men.

Pierluigi and Mario."

And that call was them,

confirming Pierluigi's and Mario's involvement.

[Ercole in Italian] Is the girl okay? At least tell me that.

[The American in Italian]

Thinking back on it, it seems absurd

that we did not even feel hatred

towards this person that said they had abducted her.

We even treated them with respect.

[Ercole in Italian]

[rousing music]

My mom was pleased about this too,

about this person calling and saying, "We have Emanuela."

That voice was our link to Emanuela.

[film projector whirring]

[The American in Italian]

[Ercole in Italian]

[The American in Italian]

[Andrea in English] The final point of this phone call from The American

was a deadline fixed for the 20th of July.

DEADLINE FIXED FOR THE 20TH OF JULY

And he said they are ready to kill Emanuela…

unless the Italian authorities release Mehmet Ali Agca.

[Andrea] Everyone in Italy knew Mehmet Ali Agca.

Everyone. Not just in Italy,

they knew him all over the world,

because he was the man who had tried to kill the Pope

two years before in May 1981.

[Andrea] It was a very normal day of the Pope blessing the… the crowd

In the middle of St. Peter's Square.

[crowd cheering, applauding]

[woman] Your Holiness.

-[gunshots] -[crowd screaming]

-[beeping] -[phone ringing]

[in Italian] Yes?

[long beep]

[narrator] You know why…

[crowd screaming]

[tense music]

[clamoring]

[Andrea in English] The Pope is hit by two bullets,

fired by a nine-millimeter Browning semi-automatic pistol.

One bullet hits him on the left hand,

and the other one goes into his chest.

The Pope collapsed.

[presenter] The Pope was given emergency medical treatment

from a special…

[Andrea] The crowd is screaming.

[clamoring]

[presenter] Ambulances were called.

The 60-year-old pontiff rushed to Rome's Gemelli Hospital.

A nurse said his words when he was wheeled into the hospital after the attack were,

"How could they do this?"

[in Italian] Two gunshots have been fired at the Pope,

Pope John Paul II…

[Andrea in English] The shooter in the middle of the crowd,

in the confusion, is able to run away from the Vatican territory,

which is St. Peter's Square, to the Italian territory.

When he's almost gone,

there's a nun who rugby tackled him, and he's arrested by the Italian Police.

Doctors a few hours ago removed about a foot

of the Pope's large intestine.

They say his condition now is guarded.

[reporter 2] The man, police say, fired at least

part of the shots at the Pope,

has been identified as 23-year-old Muhammad Ali Agca.

According to reports tonight…

[Andrea] The Italian authorities very quickly identified Mehmet Ali Agca

as a member of the Grey Wolves.

A far-right Turkish ultranationalist group

responsible of many terrorist attacks.

[Richard] For American television, competition to get on the air is intense.

The story of an Italian girl,

even a Vatican citizen, kidnapped or disappeared in Rome,

is not a story.

Police in Rome had been treating it as a tragic

but more or less routine kidnapping of a young girl.

But then today, Richard Roth reports, a phone call changed all that.

[Richard] But if it turns out that this girl may have been taken

in an effort to free Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who shot the Pope,

that's a story.

[Richard] 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi,

the daughter of a Vatican City employee, was kidnapped three weeks ago.

Her kidnappers want to swap her for Agca.

All of a sudden, we had been catapulted into a world

that I never thought I know of.

[Dan] Family members who talked with police tonight

were not talking to reporters.

[in Italian] Every day is more mysterious in the case of Emanuela Orlandi…

The 15-year-old girl…

Daughter of a Vatican employee…

…you see her in the picture behind me, who has been missing since 22 June.

[Natalina] Personally, that scared me.

I was very blunt in that moment.

I said, "If this is about Ali Agca, we're not going to see Emanuela again."

[Natalina] Because it was something much bigger than us,

and that's when you feel you're totally powerless.

[phone ringing]

[Andrea] Just a few days after the first call from The Americano,

the kidnappers call the family

saying that they already instructed the ANSA,

which is the Italian press agency,

to go to a garbage can in Piazza del Parlamento

where they can find a package

which proves that the girl is in their hands.

The editor of ANSA rushes to Piazza del Parlamento

and he finds the package.

[tense music]

That was an important message,

because there was a photocopy of her music school card.

There was also a tuition payment.

Most importantly, there was a message from her.

"With much affection, your Emanuela."

[Andrea] "With much affection. Your Emanuela."

[interviewer] Are you certain this is Emanuela's writing?

Yeah, yeah. We were sure it was her writing.

We had no doubts,

such a short amount of time had gone by,

and Emanuela's writing was unmistakable.

[Andrea] The family may be right.

Maybe the message was written by Emanuela,

but this is just a photocopy.

It doesn't prove that she's alive now.

For me, what was inside the package

is only the proof

that the kidnappers have access to the personal effects of Emanuela.

I would add that this written phrase did not have

any kind of psychological element to it.

That is, it did not seem like it was written by Emanuela

in a state of agitation and fear.

At the time, I advised the family to ask for a proof of life,

something that proved that the girl was still alive.

[reporter 3 in Italian] The uncle of the missing girl,

Mario Meneguzzi, has launched a new appeal to the kidnappers.

There is no point in continually sending us letters,

photocopied IDs and continuing to tell us that Emanuela is alright.

These are not proofs of life.

[indistinct chatter]

[camera shutters clicking]

[in Italian] I am against this criminal action,

I am with the innocent girl and her ailing family.

I am with Italy.

I am with the Vatican.

[Andrea in English] Twelve days before the kidnappers' deadline,

Mehmet Ali Agca condemns the kidnapping of Emanuela.

[Richard] Today, Agca was brought to police headquarters in Rome

for questioning.

He's serving a life sentence for attempting to kill the Pope.

At the time, in 1983,

Agca was beginning to talk to Italian authorities.

And the stories that were emerging

about what Agca was saying were extraordinary.

[Richard] Later, speaking in Italian, Agca says he's sorry for the trouble.

Ali Agca says,

"Okay, I… I didn't try to kill the Pope because of the Grey Wolves.

But I did it because I was in touch with the Bulgarians."

[Richard] And had been directed in essence by the KGB.

Which was the Soviet Union Secret Service at that time.

[Richard] Speaking in English, Agca surprised reporters

by giving his details about Russian involvement in the plot to kill the Pope.

[female journalist] And the KGB?

Yes, and KGB, I said…

There was absolute logic

to, uh, Agca's claim that the KGB had been behind it.

On Thursday, the Pope returned to his native Poland

on a sentimental journey.

A visit filled with sadness…

[Richard] This is a Polish Pope…

[Don] Sadness that…

…who was widely seen as a challenge to the Eastern Bloc and Poland,

and by extension a challenge to Moscow.

[female journalist] Who trained you?

I have been trained by special experts…

Now that Ali Agca was beginning to talk about who's behind the operation,

it looks like the Soviet Union wants to free him

in order to silence him forever.

[interviewer] It must have been surreal, going from being a small family,

to being at the center of an international conspiracy.

[Natalina] Surreal is a euphemism.

You're just a pawn in the hands of others.

[tense music]

[Pietro] A few days after, the 17th of July,

we got another call from ANSA, an Italian Press Agency.

[Andrea] This time, The American says,

"We are going to give you another proof."

"You can find it in the rubbish can in Via Della Dataria,"

which goes from Fontana di Trevi

up to the presidential palace in the Quirinale.

[Pietro] Of course, the journalist rushed to the place

the kidnapper had indicated where this package had been left.

The journalist takes it, opens up the package

and finds an audio tape inside.

And on the tape, one side contained

the usual message from the alleged kidnappers,

demanding Ali Agca in exchange for Emanuela.

On the other side, there was a terrifying message.

[eerie music]

[girl 2 breathing heavily]

[girl 2 in Italian] Oh, God, it hurts.

Oh, God, why?

Oh, my God, yes.

Why?

Oh, God, why?

Oh, God.

Oh, God.

God, it hurts.

[tape whirring]

[clicks]

[overlapping voices]

[reporter 4 in English] Now with the deadline approaching,

the Vatican offered the girl's captors a confidential telephone line

to negotiate with secretary of state Cardinal Casaroli.

[choral music]

[Pietro] We still felt distressed.

[Natalina] The deadlines, the ultimatums they put on Emanuela's life

were terrifying.

It was almost like she was on death row.

[Federica] I can't even describe it, because…

I mean, it was just insane.

We all thought that on July 20th,

if they don't get what they want,

we're going to find Emanuela's body somewhere.

[reporter 5] The people who kidnapped

the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican messenger

say this is the day she will die.

Unless the man who tried to assassinate the Pope

is freed from jail…

[Andrea] The day the deadline expires…

there's a final call from The American.

[reporter 6] A phone message to a Rome church this morning

supposedly from the kidnappers, indicated the girl is still alive,

and asked for a gesture to resolve matters.

[reporter 7 in Italian] Father Ambrogio, what time was it?

[Ambrogio] More or less 10:30 a.m.

[reporter 7] And what did he tell you?

[Ambrogio in Italian] This is the last statement for Orlandi.

At that moment, I thought, who's Orlandi?

Oh, I was reading about it in the papers.

[Andrea in English] The message was,

"There are a few hours before we kill Emanuela,

if Mehmet Ali Agca is not freed."

[intense choral music]

[reporter 7] Early Thursday, after the midnight deadline,

police checked cars in Rome,

they gave no public indication of finding any clues

as to whether kidnappers had made good on their threat,

a threat to kill Emanuela

by midnight Wednesday unless Agca was freed from jail.

[Andrea] The day the deadline expired,

I only could refer to my experience, and my experience, uh, was that

in a kidnapping, there are more than one deadline.

[reporter 8] Every entrance to St Peter's Square was sealed off.

And security forces were in no mood to argue.

I think even my parents, though we were in such anguish,

their optimism to keep going and see Emanuela return sooner or later

was stronger.

[phone ringing in distance]

[reporter 9] This morning a search was resumed

for a motor car pushed into the Tiber river

just after Emanuela Orlandi disappeared.

There was no early sign the search had turned up any clues.

Emanuela didn't return to us dead, like the alleged kidnappers had announced

she would be,

so that optimism we had felt had been there for a reason.

[siren blaring]

[Richard] One assumption widely held is that

the Orlandi girl's captors realized

that Agca will not be freed,

and that a new demand will soon be made public.

The assumption is based on the belief

that Vatican officials have more information

than that which is being made public,

and on the hope that the girl is still alive.

Richard Roth, CBS news, Rome.

The Secret Service was always at our house.

One day, two of them arrived and said,

"This case is becoming really important, very big.

It's too big for one family to handle.

We want to relieve you of the burden of these phone calls.

We think it's best for you to have the calls transferred to a legal firm,

in a lawyer's office."

My father said,

"Listen, there's no way my family can afford that."

He said, "No, you don't need to worry about that. That's not your problem."

And we never paid that lawyer.

[in Italian] We, the Orlandi family, won't be answering the phone anymore.

If any of you really have Emanuela,

give some concrete proof to our sole representative.

-Our lawyer, Gennaro Egidio. -Gennaro Egidio.

♪ Ave Maria ♪

[Andrea] Gennaro Egidio was, uh, a lawyer

specialized in, uh, bankruptcy negotiations.

[in Italian] I always hope that Emanuela is still alive.

[reporter 10] On what foundations?

That is what we all hope, and we must keep hoping.

[in English] He had no experience at all in, uh, terrorism,

hostage negotiations, or crime.

[in Italian] Message from Ercole Orlandi, for the kidnappers of his daughter.

I, the father of Emanuela, do not want to argue with you.

If Emanuela is alive, then prove it.

If the dear and beloved Emanuela is dead, then tell us where to find our Emanuela.

[in English] For me, Gennaro Egidio was like a silenziatore,

you know, the silencer that you put at the end of a gun

in order not to have a boom,

uh, because he was the kind of person

who could put a lid on secrets.

John, can you get some photocopies?

[Andrea] I thought I have to work,

I have to dig behind this,

because only by scratching, and scratching, and scratching,

you find something which is very interesting

and you say, okay, you can understand what's going on.

The normal practice in a kidnapping

is that the first phone call

is a phone call in which the kidnappers say, "We have the hostage,

and we will let you know our conditions."

In this case, uh, it's totally different.

There's not a request.

The request comes later,

um, after the Pope speaks from the balcony of St. Peter's Square.

[tape player whirring]

[Pope in Italian] We will not lose hope in the sense of humanity

of those who are--

[Andrea in English] Another very strange thing

is that The Americano, the caller,

uh, never said, "I'm acting on behalf of the Grey Wolves,"

or the KGB or the Bulgarians.

My experience told me every time there was something so big,

we knew immediately who was behind.

[tape player whirring]

Here, we have a request,

but we don't know who's making the request.

[tape player whirring]

Another strange point

is that The Americano mentions Mario and Pierluigi

as members of his group.

But Mario and Pierluigi are Italians.

And as far as the authorities knew at that time,

there was no connection between the Grey Wolves

and someone in Italy.

♪ Ave Maria ♪

[crowd applauding, cheering]

[Pietro] On the 14th of December our lawyer received the final call.

And then, silence.

And silence is the most distressing thing a family can experience.

Because that silence can mean anything.

[church music]

And then, it was the 24th December,

they called my father and they say,

"Pope John Paul II is going to be at your house shortly."

[Natalina] The Pope was coming.

Although we lived in the Vatican City,

it wasn't as if we had any contact with the Pope.

At the time,

it seemed like they were helping us, alleviating the situation a bit.

[Andrea] The story of international terrorism

just didn't make sense to me.

Having all these doubts, I decided to reach out

with a very important source of mine,

a high-ranking official of the Italian Secret Service.

My source never met me in his office,

and he liked to talk to me while walking,

which was quite difficult because the streets were very tight,

I couldn't take notes, so I had to memorize everything.

[choral music]

I vividly remember seeing the Pope at our door,

because it's not, uh,

it wasn't a typical situation.

[choral music continues]

He came because of Emanuela.

Everyone was emotional, particularly my mom.

I felt his sympathy, he shared the family's suffering.

It was a beautiful moment.

[Andrea] My source said, "Andrea, listen, they had no strategy."

Can you imagine the KGB handling with a kidnapping

and having no strategy on what to do?

Number two, they analyzed the torture tape.

[girl 2 breathing heavily]

They believed the screaming, the moans,

came from a porn film.

[girl 2 moaning]

[suspenseful music]

[Pietro] The Pope arrives. We welcome him into the living room.

What was the motive behind Emanuela's disappearance?

He addressed us all.

We were all around him, and…

With downcast eyes,

he said, "We are doing everything humanly possible.

Unfortunately, Emanuela is a case

-of international terrorism." -"…of international terrorism."

My source said, "Andrea, listen,

this is not a terrorist plot,

nothing to do with Mehmet Ali Agca,

nothing to do with the Bulgarians, no KGB."

[female journalist] And the KGB?

Yes, and KGB…

Terrorism is just a decoy

to divert attention from some secret which took place inside the Vatican.

[suspenseful music]

[Andrea] Exactly what kind of information the Pope received about Emanuela,

and what was really behind this case, we don't know.

But immediately I wrote an article for Corriere Della Sera,

where I explicitly said

there was something else behind the case of Emanuela.

No terrorist plot,

but crime and money.

Of course, the Vatican denied that.

In fact, the day after,

I heard the Vatican press room say that this is just speculation,

and it's an attack against the Vatican.

The same day,

my editor, uh, told me

that, uh, it was not more necessary that I was covering the case,

and I could step back.

I felt outraged on one side.

On the other side, I was proud.

Thinking that this is the truth.

[male interviewer] That maybe you were on to something?

Yeah, I thought I was on the right line.

[Pietro] It couldn't just end there.

We had to know what had happened.

Because we never stopped hoping that Emanuela could still be alive.

I got a call from a journalist one morning.

She said, "Did you hear the news?"

I said, "What news?"

[reporter 11 in Italian] Sabrina Minardi, ex-lover of the Magliana boss

Enrico De Pedis,

has confessed that she herself held Emanuela hostage

in an apartment in the center of Rome.

Emanuela, who has…

[Sabrina] I am Sabrina Minardi.

I ended up in a house with Emanuela Orlandi for ten days.

[interviewer] Was she locked up?

[Sabrina] Yes, she was locked up.

I heard her moaning, poor thing.

Look, thinking about it hurts me, it really does.

I mean, she moaned a lot.

I said to him, "What mess did you rope me into?"

And he said, "Sabri, it's all a game of power.

Don't you get that?"

[closing theme music]