Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 433 - The Vatican Girl Disappearance

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

On June 22nd, 1983, 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi disappeared after attending a music lesson in Rome. Following her disappearance, a mystery surrounding it has deepened for over four decades, involving the  KGB trying to assassinate the Pope, an allegation of a satanic sex cults within the Vatican, Catholic prophecies in Portugal,  anti-communist revolts in Poland, the Holy See being involved in money laundering,  and Italian mob bosses being in cahoots with top Vatican officials. Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch.

For over 1500 years, the Vatican has kept the world out and its secrets in. It's a place shrouded in mystery, operating in obscurity under the supreme dominion of His Holiness, the Pope. Using both its religious and political power, the Vatican has long been able to bury its proverbial skeletons deep, deep away from the prying eyes of the public and out of foreign authorities' reach. And for the past 40 plus years, it sure seems like the Vatican has been trying desperately to keep one of their secrets from rising to the surface. The secret

of Emanuella Orlandi. On June 22nd, 1983, 15-year-old Emanuella Orlandi disappeared after attending a music lesson in Rome. Back then, hundreds of teens were going missing all across Italy, most of whom were runaways trying to escape their parents. But Emanuela was different. She wasn't just any Italian teenager, she was a Vatican girl. Because her father was a special employee of the Holy Seas, Emanuela and her family actually lived inside the Vatican.

It is extremely rare for a lay person to be a Vatican citizen. Even more rare for a Vatican citizen to go missing. So when Emanuela disappeared it got a lot of people's attention. And then when Pope John Paul II made a statement suggesting to some at least that he seemed to know what had happened to her, her story got the world's attention. Today we're investigating the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi. Our search for the truth will bring us all over the place. From the KGB in Russia to alleged satanic sex cults within the Vatican, from Catholic prophecies in Portugal to anti-communist revolts in Poland, from fiscal corruption in the Holy

Sea to Italian mob bosses in consecrated tombs. We'll cover all that and more in today's Crypt Excav money laundering, international terrorists, and God asked you to do what? True crime. Who done it? Italian masterclass edition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck. Well, happy Monday and welcome to the Cult of the Curious. I'm Dan Cummins, the Suckmaster, Chicken Baby Slayer, DJ Tunks, and you are listening to Time Suck. Hail Nimrod, hail Lusifena, praise be to good boy Bojangles, and glory be to Triple M. Can't wait to watch that rock doc on HBO.

Meeting to for a little while now and I've heard is fantastic. And this episode, another one where the only announcement I have is keep fucking listening to the show. Thank you. Now, please allow me to push this button to reenter this episode. this button to re-enter this episode. The disappearance of Emanuella Orlandi is one of the most famous unsolved mysteries of the 21st century in Europe. And after Molly Box, this week's initial researcher and myself looked into it, we

completely understand why. Emanuella's story is not simple. It is not straightforward. there are so many violent and shocking twists and turns that you could get whiplash trying to keep up with them all. So Buckle Up Meatsacks is going to be a crazy ride. Of course it is. We are heading back to Italy. Mamma mia, cuppa truppa, benito Mussolini, Lenguini della tella, madonna, le de gaga,

tora banderas. That was perfect Italian for, boy how Howdy this episode sure is a wild ride Ain't it Wally master class hot damn. It's fun to be so fucking trilingual or something I can speak Least three languages. I'm pretty sure now anyway but for real What story set in the? Mediterranean horn dog of a peninsula a nation so rich in history so gorgeous and so sexual Has not been crazy

Most of today's episode will take place in our absolutely batshit timeline But before we get into that it'll be helpful to first learn a bit about what the Vatican actually is and how it works The Vatican is located within of course Italy It's completely encircled by the great city of Rome, totally surrounded by Italy, but technically not part of Italy. Vatican City is a separate, sovereign, fully independent nation state. I mean, really, it's Italian, I mean, culturally, but not Italian for legal purposes. Important to point out that distinction as it factors into today's tale. The

nation's government is the Holy See and the Holy See is also the authoritative body that governs every Catholic institution in the entire world. So essentially the Pope is the president of the Vatican, also Pope for every Catholic in existence around the world. The strange power dynamic is, in my opinion, why the Vatican can be so problematic in some ways. Their power is on the one hand very limited to the confines of this teeny tiny itsy-bitsy country at only 121 acres with a population of around 764, fluctuates. It's the smallest nation in the world by both size and population. However,

simultaneously they have global dominion. It is the world's largest Christian church and Christianity is the world's largest single religion. There are an estimated 1.28 to 1.39 billion baptized Catholics in the world today. And the Pope is a spiritual leader for all of them. A lot of power. Unhindered power is actually the reason why the Vatican became independent in the first place. The city-state was cleaved from Italy through a thing called the Lateran Treaty in 1929 and that treaty gave the Vatican quote full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction of the Holy See. Essentially what that meant is that the Holy See is no longer has to

operate since 1929, has no longer had it operate under the pesky laws and regulations and supervision of the Italian government. They were freed in 1929 from the shackles of any authority but themselves and, you know, theoretically God. Every citizen of the tiny Vatican, again less than 800 people, all living on less than a fifth of a square mile of land, is Roman Catholic and almost every citizen is a member of the clergy. So the Pope, his cardinals, priests, nuns. Interestingly, citizenship in the Vatican works very differently than any other nation in the world. There are no hospitals in this tiny nation, which means there's nowhere to give birth on Vatican soil, which means there's no such thing as natural Vatican citizenship. Instead, citizenship is granted on a temporary basis, depending on your capacity to serve the Holy See. So basically, if you get hired to work inside the Vatican,

either as a Cardinal or as an office clerk or custodian or whatever, you're automatically given citizenship and a place to live. Well, I should not have said custodian, some positions grant you citizenship and a place to live. And then as soon as the positions end, your citizenship is taken away, you're kicked out, you don't get to just retire and live in the suburbs of the Vatican because there are not any. At any given time there are only

about a hundred laypeople who are citizens of the Vatican. And even though these citizens are not part of the clergy, they still have to be considered significant to Catholicism in some way. So just because you have a job there doesn't mean you automatically get to be a citizen there. There are currently a little over 2,400 people who work within Vatican City. Almost none of them are citizens because their jobs within the Vatican are not considered crucial or significant to Catholicism. So you know tour guides, museum secretaries, custodians like I said, priest fluffers, none BDSM sex down your custodians,

cardinal dominatrices, altar boy, procters, nun BDSM sex down your custodians, cardinal dominatrices, altar boy proctologist, adrenochrome cocktail mixologist, you know stuff like that. Maybe not those last few positions. But yeah just a few positions are you know for lay people give them citizenship. The reason Emanuela and the rest of her family had Vatican citizenship was because her dad Urcoli, Orlandi, worked as an office clerk in the prefecture of the Pontifical House of none other than Pope John Paul II, so his job was considered vital to the function of the faith. The prefecture of the Pontifical House is the office in

charge of the papal household, which is a subset of the body of administrative institutions in the Vatican called the Roman Curia. The papal household is split into two sections, the chapel and the family. The papal chapel consists of the ecclesiastics assisting the pope in his spiritual duties, i.e. in religious ceremonies, and the papal family is composed of those who help him out with his civil duties. You know, just fucking making a turkey sandwich, putting his pants on, his Pope pants on under his Pope robe. I don't know.

So Ercole Orlandi was like a dude working in a cubicle, one or two floor down, or one or two floors down from the Pope's penthouse in a papal office building, maybe it's a guy, you know, worked for the Pope, guy who Pope might never talk to directly, but a guy who, I don't know, maybe sees the Pope on a regular basis at the fucking water cooler, you know, using the fucking fax machine as he's going to the building something like that Okay, now that we know a little more about how the Vatican works and what Emanuella's family was doing there time to tell her story But first just one more thing

Have you heard the singles for the upcoming wombat's album? Oh, they're so fantastic Such a consistently good band very excited for that album. But, well that's true. That's not the thing I wanted to share with you. What I wanted to say was as we travel down today's Time Suck Timeline, we're gonna make a few stops. Especially the beginning. That may seem totally unrelated to the actual story, but I promise they're not. Everything I go over today from the most niche Catholic holidays to the most random bits of international affairs, they are integral to the Manuela story, but that won't necessarily come together. Some of them won't come together until the very end. So all I ask is that you trust me, stick with me no matter how outrageously scattered the

timeline may appear because I promise it will all make sense eventually. I'll even try and keep my misdirection bullshit to a minimum this week to not add to any confusion. Okay, you got this. I believe in you. Let's do it. Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time suck timeline. Emanuela Orlandi was born on January 14th, 1968, the second youngest of five siblings. She had two older sisters named Federica and Natalina, one younger sister named Maria Cristina, and an older brother named Pietro. By all means, the Orlandis were your typical Catholic Italian

family, the kids spent their days attending school in Rome, playing with friends in the piazzas, attending mass on Sundays, making pizza and pasta together in the kitchen with their mother, constantly being thwarted by Bowser and his minions while trying to save Princess Peach. For real, they were a very typically Catholic, traditional Italian family in many ways. Their mother Maria Pizzano was a stay-at-home mom, their dad, Urqually Orlandi, was an office clerk. But in one way, the Orlandi, was an office clerk. But in one way, the Orlandi's extraordinary, not typical at all. What separated them from nearly every other family in all of Italy was the fact that they

were citizens of the Vatican. As we went over in the introduction, the office that Ercoli Orlandi worked at was not your average run-of-the-mill commercial business. It was the prefecture of the Pontifical house of Pope John Paul II. So because our dad worked for the Holy See the Orlando kids lived and played within the city walls of one of the most exclusive and secretive nations in the world and for a while living there was like a beautiful dream. The Vatican gardens were available to us as if it was our own back garden said Pietro Orlando while being interviewed in 2019.

We felt we were in the safest place in the world. The kids loved growing up in the Vatican because they had lived there their entire lives. They were blissfully unaware of how strange it was. Natalina Orlandi once said that growing up, she felt the only difference between living in the Vatican and living in a small village was that at midnight, the Vatican closed its gates.

There's not really much else that we know about Emanuella's childhood, so we'll now skip ahead to the next important event in this story, the day the Pope was shot. On May 13th, 1981, during the annual Catholic celebration of Our Lady of Fatima, a Turkish hitman named Mehmet Ali Azwa attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City. Dude intended to kill the Pope in the middle of Pope-dom. The Pope who was 60 at the time, but could still bench press over 405 pounds. Raw! No spotter! I don't know how much he benched. Probably more like 100 pounds or less. He had been passing through the square in his Pope Mobile, offering blessings to the massive crowd of the faithful

who had gathered there to see him when suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, four shots rang out across the Vatican and the Pope collapsed. Immediately the crowd erupted into screams and chaos and the Pope Mobile, which sounds and looks like a lesser version of the Batmobile, I gotta say, sped away as fast as the Pope Mobile can speed away.

Go, Pope, go! The Pope had been shot twice at close range. One bullet pierced the Pope's abdomen and the other blasted off four inches roughly of his Popecock, which wasn't that big of a deal since he had a good 16 inches of Holy Sea Snake left. No, that's not sorry. That was the devil. The devil made me say that. Anytime I say something naughty, just know it's not me. I don't want to say it. Satan. Yes, I am fighting him and he will not ruin this episode. Now, he was shot in his right arm in addition to the stomach. He was then immediately rushed to Rome's Gimelli Hospital where he received emergency surgery for four hours.

In the end, the surgery was very successful, which the doctors attributed to the fact that no vital organs had been hit by the bullets. A miraculous fact that the Pope attributed to Madonna of Fatima. The would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Ajoa, initially managed to circumvent the security team and almost made it out of the Vatican. And he would have made it out if it wasn't for Vatican security chief Carmelo Sibin, who tackled Ali Ajoa and took him into custody. At the time Ali, oh my god, Ali Ajwa. Not the easiest name for me to have. Doesn't roll off my tongue exactly.

He was 23 years old on the run from both the Turkish police and Interpol for escaping from prison. He had been serving time for the murder of leftist journalist and human rights activist Abde Pekce which Ajwa had committed on February 1st, 1979. Upon his escape, he headed straight for the Vatican using a fake passport with a 9mm Browning high-power semi-automatic pistol concealed in his luggage. Although Ali Aja never confirmed this, it was believed by the Italian Vatican authorities that he had shot the Pope on behalf of the Grey Wolves, a Turkish far-right, ultra-nationalist, neo-fascist, Islam nationalist, and racist political movement slash terrorist organization

slash death squad. The Grey Wolves were known to target non-Turkish ethnic minorities including Kurds, Greeks, and Armenians as well as leftist activists and Christian organizations. Ali Aja had previously been tied to the Grey Wolves, so even though he never said why he attempted to shoot the Pope for many years, it was largely believed to be because the Grey Wolves had instructed him to do so. The day after the assassination attempt, May 14th, 1981, the Pope addressed the people of the Vatican and around the world in a recorded video from his hospital bed. In the video Pope John Paul II asks the faithful to pray for the man who shot him referring to Ali Aja as my brother and offering his would-be assassin his sincere

forgiveness. You know what? That is pretty badass. Not sure I could take as mature and empathetic of an approach if some maniac shot me. Whether or not the gray wolves were involved and with or not the gray wolves were involved and with or without the Pope's forgiveness Ali Aja was still guilty of trying to kill the holiest of all men so in July of 1981 he was sentenced to life in prison and then a few months later December 27th 1981 he fully recovered and on his feet Pope John Paul II actually personally visited Ali Aja in Rome's Rabibia prison. After this Ali Aja got kind of obsessed with the Pope. He converted to

Catholicism and upon his release from a Turkish prison where he served ten years for the murder of a journalist, that journalist we mentioned, after serving 19 years in an Italian prison for his assassination attempt, he then became a Polish citizen because he wanted to spend the last years of his life living in the home country of Pope John Paul II. Same man he had shot in the stomach. He is currently 66 and still living in Poland. Pretty amazing turnaround.

Okay, and then back to all these events. The following summer on June 5th, 1982, Pope John Paul II receives a letter warning him that a disaster monumental enough to bring the Vatican to ruin was very near. This guy can't catch a break. First he gets shot, then he gets told the Vatican is going down. I can't the world just let the Pope, Pope. As much as that might sound like the rantings of an apocalyptic conspiracy theorist, the letter had actually been written by a successful businessman and close friend of the Pope's.

And the cataclysm, he prophesied, was actually pretty fucking accurate. The author of the letter was a man named Roberto Calvi, chairman and CEO of a private bank located in Rome called Banco Ambrosiano. Around town, Calvi was known as God's banker, partially because he was an especially outspoken Catholic, but mostly because of his close association with the Vatican. The Vatican's Institute for the Works of Religion, aka the Vatican Bank, was a Banco Ambrosiano's primary shareholder and Banco Ambrosiano's Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr- Ambr Abrogianos was the Vatican's primary commercial banking partner. At first this relationship between the Vatican and Banco Abrogiano appeared to be solid, symbiotic, totally above board. However, in reality, that was not the case.

Calvi was shady as fuck and the Vatican knew it. And after Calvi was put on trial in 1981, all of Italy now knew it too. A little less than a year before he penned his ominous letter to the Pope, Calvi had been found guilty of having illegally exported several billion lira to foreign nations. The lira, by the way, was the Italian currency between 1861 and 2002. Now they use the euro. For his crime, Calvi was given a sentence of four years, but then released on bail after just serving a few months. Following his suspicious, sure reeks of bribery release,

further criminal investigations into Calvi and Banco Abrogiano continued throughout the rest of 1981 until they finally reached a boiling point in June of 1982. By then, the Banco Abrogiano was on the brink of collapse and that meant that every illegal transaction it had ever made, and every person or institution it had ever done a legal business with would soon be brought to light. And that is why Roberto Calvi wrote to Pope John Paul II on June 5th, 1982 to give His Holiness a heads up that all their dirty laundry was about to get aired the fuck out in front of everyone. In the letter Calvi told the Pope that Banco Abrogiano's collapse was imminent and that the collapse would undoubtedly quote, provoke a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions in which the Church

will suffer the gravest damage. Now you're probably asking yourself, but why? What exactly did the Vatican do? What shady dealings did it make with Calvi and Banco Abrogiano? Well, to answer those questions, we have to go back to the day the Pope was shot, May 13th, 1981, which also happened to be Our Lady of Fatima feast day or just Fatima Day. For all the non-Catholics out there, Fatima Day is an annual celebration of the Fatima prophecy or the Fatima miracle which took place on May 13th, 1917 in the Portuguese village of, probably guessed it, Fatima.

On that day, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, is alleged to have appeared to three village children while they were tending to their family's sheep herds. The children's names were 10-year-old Francisco, 9-year-old Jacinta, and 7-year-old Lucia. And according to this legend, clad all in white, more brilliant than than the Sun and indescribably beautiful The Virgin Mary imparted upon these three children her important message Which she bid them to share with every man woman and child on earth The Virgin's message was pretty complicated and biblical so I'm not gonna go over the entire thing But here's the highlights of what she had to say

highlight number one The Blessed Virgin Mary said that in order to end World War I and bring peace on earth, everybody needed to get their shit together and start praying the rosary a whole lot more often, which is to say everyone needed to become a lot more Catholic. Got it. Highlight number two, Mary also told the kids that unfortunately they would all endure unbearable suffering, but that they should quote accept the sufferings that the Lord allowed them to undergo as an act of reparation for the sins which offend him. All right. She then went on to explain

that they wouldn't actually have to suffer for all that long though because the two youngest children in Francisco and Jacinta, they were gonna die pretty soon. So classic case here of good news, bad news, or bad news, worse news. Depending on how you want to look at it If you're an optimist or you know pessimist If you're an optimist, you know optimist well, you're gonna be torched that's the bad news, but hey It's not gonna last long because you'll be dead. So that's the good news If you're more pessimistic, you know, you're gonna be tortured. That's the bad news

And then the worst news is that you're also gonna die pretty soon Finally highlight number three and what I think is the most fun part of the prophecy, the Mother of God informed the Portuguese children that unless the Soviet Empire was converted back to Catholicism, a pope would be murdered. And look, I don't mean to throw shade at the immortal and perfect Blessed Virgin Mary, but kind of a weird way to pass along a very important message to all of the citizens on earth, right? I mean if my goal was to dismantle the expansion of a communist regime's atheist ideals and convert a massive global power to Catholicism I don't know if I would have chosen three very young kids in a remote

Principality on the other side of Europe to achieve that for me I perhaps would have instead appeared to I don't know a hotshot bolshevik with some real political power You know somebody else important, but you know that that's just me Anyway, do you see where I'm going with this whole prophecy thing? Pope John Paul the second is shot May 13th 1981 on the 64th anniversary of the Our Lady of Fatima prophecy Pope John Paul the second had also grown up in Poland under Soviet rule and partially because of that Pope John Paul the second and staunchly anti-communist and anti-dictatorship. So, Pope John Paul II concludes that he is the Pope from the Fatima Prophecy,

even though he didn't get murdered, but you know, he almost did. And now he feels that it is his sacred duty to fulfill the Blessed Virgin Mary's request and make Russia Catholic again. Which, spoiler alert, never fucking happened. Was never gonna happen. to fulfill the Blessed Virgin Mary's request and make Russia Catholic again. Which, spoiler alert, never fucking happened. Was never gonna happen. But back in the early 1980s, how did Pope Johnny P.2 think it was gonna happen? Well, to Johnny Paul Deuce, the most obvious way to achieve this would be to fund anti-communist

organizations within the Soviet Bloc. For some quick background, the Soviet Bloc, also called the Eastern Bloc, was quote a group of Eastern communists or Eastern, excuse me, European countries that were aligned militarily, politically, economically, and culturally with the Soviet Union approximately from 1945 to 1990. This Bloc consisted of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Poland. Although there were anti- communist movements and organizations throughout all of these countries, Pope JP the sequel was most interested in sending money to the ones in his homeland of Poland. Specifically he wanted to help finance an independent

anti-authoritarian and massive social movement and trade union in Poland called Solidarity, which had already quickly gained over 10 million members. Unfortunately for Jonathan Paulus in the second, by law the Vatican is forbidden from sending money to any sort of political organization in foreign countries. They're only allowed to give financial support to church related institutions like monasteries, schools or convents. But Pope, the return of JP, decides to fund Solidarity anyway. He thinks obeying what he interprets as the demands of the Virgin Mary herself to be more important than following any existing law of man.

He also tries to do this in a way that won't get the Vatican into any legal trouble. In other words, he decides to send money to Solidarity without letting those transactions appear on any Vatican bank books. In other words, he decides to start laundering money. Yes, the Pope is laundering money. And to do this, the Pope and the Holy See team up with their trusted Italian banker, Mr. Big Catholic, Roberto Calvi. A journalist, Larry Gerwin later explained in the four part Netflix docu-series, the first episode of which aired October 20th 2022, maybe all four debuted that day. The Vatican Girl, the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, the whole concept of laundering is to take money which is of criminal origin and disguise that origin so that it appears

to be clean. And that is exactly what Banco Ambrosiano and the Vatican did together. The dealings that took place between the Vatican and the bank were like the Fatima prophecy pretty complicated and biblical. So I'm not gonna go over all the specifics. However, according to later police investigators, this is basically how it all worked. Step one, through Banco Abrogiano, Roberto Calvi collects money from private investors and from the Italian mafia. Step two, in order to circumvent Italy's strict foreign exchange control laws, Calvi then takes this money sends

it to the Vatican Bank as Andrea Purgatoni, a renowned investigative journalist who followed the case from the day Emanuella went missing in 1982 or excuse me in the early 80s. Oh my gosh I don't have the date in front of me at this moment in time. I thought it was 1983. I think it's 1983. Anyway, the day she went missing. We'll go over here soon to the day He died in 2023 As he explained this worked because the Vatican is a different state a state with different rules a bank without any kind of foreign exchange Control right it being a little sovereign nation very important here Step three combined with their own funds the Vatican Bank sends the private investors

and the Italian Mafia's money to an offshore shell company in Nassau, Bahamas in order to be laundered. The fake business in the Bahamas, just one part of a massive network of shell companies opened by Roberto Calvi. But what made this one extra special was that Calvi opened it with the help of Bishop Paul Marcinkus, the head of the Vatican Bank. Step four, once the money was cleaned in the Bahamas, it was sent back with profit to the Vatican Bank who then sent it to Banco Abrogiano where it was dispersed between private investors and the mafia.

Following these easy step-by-step instructions, Banco Abrogiano and the Vatican laundered over 500 million dollars together. The Vatican able to spend 200 million of those dollars and send that to solidarity in Poland. So man, it's a lot of money. That was the Vatican's dirty laundry. And just like Roberto Calvi said it would by the end of the summer that year, all of it got aired out. A few days after Calvi wrote his letter to the Pope, Banco Abrogiano officially falls into a spectacular bankruptcy and collapses, losing billions and billions of lira,

a lira that it owed not only to private investors, but to the motherfucking mob. And as we all know, if you owe money to the mob that you can't pay, you're in for a world of hurt. Especially if you owe a fuck ton of money to the mob. Roberto Calvi knew this all too well. So in the midst of his bank's collapse, he disappears. But he won't stay hidden for very long.

Before we find out what the hell happens to this shady banker with ties to the Vatican, time for the first of two mid-show sponsor breaks. And I am back. And now let's head to June 18th, 1982 and see how Roberto Calvi on the run from the mob is faring. On June 18th, 1982, just 13 days after he wrote the Pope that warning letter, the lifeless body of 62 year old Roberto Calvi found dangling from some scaffolding under the Blackfriars Bridge in London. Did not take the mob long to track this dude down

at all and to symbolically display his dead body. Blackfriars Bridge was named after an order of Catholic monks who used used to operate out of London. Keep that in mind for this next bit. When they found his body, Calvi had an orange rope cinched tightly into a lover's knot around his neck, five heavy bricks tucked into his clothes, and what amounted to about $16,000 in various currencies in his pockets. In addition to Italian lira, the 16,000 was also comprised of US dollars, UK pounds, and Austrian shillings. Despite the very odd state Calvi's corpse was found in, the authorities in London ruled

his death a suicide. Which is interesting. Did the mob pay off some authorities in London? Sure feels like they did. The deceased banker's family did not buy the suicide designation for a second. They said that even though Calvi had been of course wildly stressed and scared and overwhelmed by the collapse of his bank, he would never kill himself. After all, he was a devout Catholic and suicide a big no-no for Catholics. So his family hires a forensic scientist to review the case and determine if Calvi really did kill himself and in the end the scientist and her team determined that of course he

did not. They found that it would be nearly impossible to hang oneself in the position Calvi's body was found in under the Blackfriars Bridge. This is because in order for someone to hang themselves in that way they would have to have climbed down the rusty side of the bridge, then navigated the sharp angular scaffolding to get to its underbelly, then somehow balanced on a steel pole while simultaneously tying the rope around their neck, then they would have had to have fastened it to a piece of scaffolding multiple feet or multiple feet above their head, all while getting pelted

with cold, often choppy river water below and then also why do you have the fucking bricks and everything on you? Because of these reasons and so many more, the forensic scientist and her team concluded that Roberto Calvi did not commit suicide under Blackfriars Bridge but was murdered at a different location, then transported like cargo via a boat to Blackfriars Bridge, and finally his body then carefully arranged underneath it After some exhaustive exhaustive testing they also discovered that arranging a dead body in the position Calvi was found would require a lot of effort Extensive planning arduous physical labor a team of multiple people

This led them to believe that whoever killed Calvi really really really wanted his corpse to be found at that very specific location under Blackfriars Bridge Why else would they put in all that work to get him there when they could have just tossed him in a wood chipper or fed him to some pigs for half the effort and a fraction of the time. Furthermore, given the theatrical presentation of the corpse, investigators also concluded that Calvi's murderers very, very likely members of the Italian mafia. No surprise there, of course. This determination was made because at the time Italian gangsters were known to have a real flair for the dramatic when it came

to killing. Dead bodies were typically or often being arranged in extravagant peculiar ways in order to send messages to people. It was theorized by investigators, journalists, and the public alike that the core message that Calvi's murderers were trying to send with his corpse was essentially This is what happens to the people who don't pay us back It was believed that the currency in Calvi's pockets were a reference to the billions He owed to his various illicit and licit investors The rocks weighing his body down were symbolic of the fact that he was killed intentionally and that where his body was found Blackfriars Bridge was indicative of the messages intended recipient,

who many believe was the Vatican. If the mafia really did kill Roberto Calvi and if they really were trying to communicate something to the Vatican by doing so, then according to multiple experts, perhaps the message his murders were trying to send the Holy sea was not simply, this is what happens to the people who don't pay us back, but he didn't pay us back, so you will. After all, the Vatican was partially responsible for Banco Abrogiano's financial ruin, and therefore partially responsible for the millions and millions of the Mafia's dollars that Roberto Calvi lost.

After Calvi's murder, the Vatican would confess to their wrongdoings. Sort of. They denied legal responsibility for Banco Averro Giano's going bankrupt, but they did admit to quote moral involvement in the whole money laundering affair and ended up paying out the equivalent of 241 million in US dollars, around 807 million in today's money to some of the investors, but interestingly not to the mafia. They didn't appear to, didn't appear, my god I cannot talk mafia they didn't appear to didn't appear my god I cannot talk to you did not appear to pay them back a single cent

Did the Pope think that he and his people were above being touched by these gangsters? Did the Pope think that the Pope can't be groped? Okay, we're gonna come back to the Vatican's shit show of a financial scandal further down the timeline But for now, let's jump ahead a year 1983. And as I kind of fumbled through earlier, yeah, when I referenced 1982, I don't know about that yet. No, in 1983 is when Emanuella goes missing. June 15th of that year, 15 year old Vatican City citizen, Emanuella Orlandi, calls her best friend from school, asks if they can meet up somewhere in Rome that afternoon. Emanuella explained that she had a secret that she needed to share but she could only share it if they were far away

from the Vatican and that information does not sound good in light of her soon disappearing does it? Her best friend who remains anonymous to this day out of fear of retribution agreed thinking that maybe Emanuela had met a new boy or heard some new gossip that she wanted to talk about but as soon as she saw Emanuela in the park that afternoon, she knew that the secret was not a good one. Emanuela's face was full of fear and shame. She looked like a shell of herself and she would not look her friend in the eye. Finally, Emanuela revealed her secret. She said a few days earlier,

while taking her daily walk around the Vatican gardens, she was approached by someone she described as being, quote, very close to the pope. And then Emanuela began to cry. When she was able to speak again, she said, again, seeming ashamed. And he, he bothered me. That was all she said about him, but that was all she needed to say for her best friend to understand that by bothered, Emanuela definitely meant molested. Together the two girls decided that there was nothing to be reasonably done regarding whoever sexually assaulted Emanuela. Emanuela felt that she couldn't tell her family because her family owed their lives to the Vatican.

Her dad worked for the Holy See and their house was paid for by the Holy See. So how could she accuse a member of the Holy See of such an egregious wrong? And even if she did, she wondered who would believe her. Who would believe her word versus the word of her holy attacker? They felt that the only thing to do was to keep this secret a secret. And Emanuella's best friend did just that. Out of fear and out of shame, for roughly four decades, she never told a soul what her best friend revealed to her that day, even after Emanuella went missing exactly a week later.

Cue ominous sound effect. Or I guess you can just listen to this one. June 22, 1983, Emanuela Orlandi disappeared. Emanuela had just finished her second year of secondary school, which is equivalent to being a sophomore in high school here in the States. That summer, she was taking flute lessons at the nearby music school of Luis de Victoria. Although she mainly played the flute, Imanuela also sang in the choir and played the piano. The music school was located in Rome near the Piazza Navona, one of the city's most popular and crowded public spaces.

To get to her lessons, which occurred three times a week, Imanuela would catch the public bus just outside of the Vatican gates, ride it for a few stops, then walk the last couple hundred meters. Emanuela took this route all the time, had actually been taking it since she was a little kid, but this day, she desperately wanted to be driven. Rome was in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave, and as she told her brother Pietro, it was just too hot to walk to the bus, and then too hot to have to sit on the hot bus. She begged her older brother to please drive her to the lesson but he refused. Over and over again he told her

he was busy, that she just had to take the bus and walk. And that poor bastard, that decision unsurprisingly has haunted him ever since. Decades later Pietro revealed that this was his greatest regret in life. The truth was he was not busy. He could have driven her but he just didn't want to. He was feeling lazy, didn't want to be bothered by his little sister. Eventually, Emanuela gave up on asking her older brother for help, and with her leather flute case slung over her shoulder, she stomped out the door. And that was the last time Pietro or anyone else in their family would ever see his sister. Although she was a little bit late, Emanuela did make it to her class at the music school.

That night, the group was rehearsing for the upcoming end-of-the- the year concert which Emmanuela was actually going to sing at instead of playing the flute. When rehearsal ended, Emmanuela called her house using one of the school's phones and her sister, Frederica, who was at home studying answered. Emmanuela told, actually it might be, I think I added an R there all these times. Emanuela told Federica That a man had approached her outside of school before class that night He said that he represented the international cosmetics company Avon and he offered the job of handing out advertising pamphlets in town square Emanuela's older sister told her she should not take the job without first talking to their parents and Emanuela agreed and then they hung up And that was the last time Federica ever talked to her sister.

Later that evening the girls other sister Maria Christina and her friends went to go meet up with Emanuela in Rome city center near the Ponte Umberto bridge. They'd agreed to meet there at 7 p.m. That night, but Emanuela never showed. They waited, they waited, they waited until finally Maria Christina said they should just go home. She returned to her family's apartment in the Vatican where every every member of the Orlandi family was, except Emanuela. Maria Christina, growing worried, asked her parents if they had seen her, and they both said no, and then asked what was going on. She explained that Emanuela was supposed to go meet her and her friends at 7pm, but she never showed.

By this time it's now 9.30, well past the family's nightly curfew, just a few hours away from the gates of the Vatican closing at midnight And now the Orlando family's worst nightmare has begun a nightmare for any parent when your child has suddenly gone missing The family sprung into action Natalina called every hospital in Rome asking if a girl named Emanuela Orlando was there they all said no The rest of the siblings then split up to check the various spots Emanmanuella might have stopped along her route home from the music school. She was not at any of them. Finally, the whole family decided to go to the music school and wait for her there.

Immediately when they arrived, we felt something, said Natalina. It was just wrong. Something was wrong. Her father, Urcoli, decided it was finally time to go to the police to report her missing, but they turned him away, saying it was too early to call her a missing person. They told him that she had probably just run off with some boy in Rome. Hormonal teenagers, you know? Fabio, Sofia, Lorena, Rodolfo, Valentino, Casanova, Monica Bellucci, Chabela. Which is perfect Italian for, these crazy kids, they love to have a sex to watch each

other in the bushes and be off. But for real, they told him that she would return home soon. But of course, she never did. After an awful sleepless night in the early morning of June 23, 1983, Natalina Orlandi went straight to the police in Rome to report her sister Emanuela is missing. Natalina gave the officers a full description of what her sister looked like, what she was wearing when she disappeared. They showed them a photo of her to copy for the report.

After taking a moment to examine the little girl in the picture of the officer, what in the actual fuck is going on in Italy so much of the time, he looked back up at Natalina and said to the best of Natalina's recollection, quote, well, I wouldn't worry. She's not all that pretty. Not pretty enough to be abducted. She probably just ran off on her own accord. If you're a cop and you say that to the family member of a missing child, you should be immediately fired. Doesn't matter how great you were before that moment. That is so inexcusable. Like how much of a tone-deaf heartless piece of shit

do you have to be to say that to the sister of a missing girl? Ciao bella! I don't even worry about it! She's a very fugly! I would not fucking assist her with my western enemies of caca! She's probably living under the bridge with the rest of the trolls! It's fucking insane that he actually said that. At the time, the captain of the Carabinieri in Rome was a man named Mauro Ubbino. While being interviewed decades later for the Netflix docu-series, Ubbino admitted that he was also pretty sure Emanuella had just run away like so many other teens were apparently doing at that time.

And the organization I mentioned, the Carabinieri, like military police, just the police. Still, he led the initial inquiry into the missing persons case during which he did find two important witnesses, a retired police, just the police. Still, he led the initial inquiry into the missing person's case, during which he did find two important witnesses, a retired police officer and a crossing guard. On the night Imanuella went missing, both of these witnesses said they had seen a girl matching her description get approached by someone

in a green BMW parked outside the music school. Captain Obino immediately assumed that the man in the green beamer, who witnesses said looked to be between 30 and 35, must have been that Avon representative that Emanuella had told her sister about. On June 24, 1983, the local newspaper in Rome, The Times, released a short piece about Emanuella's disappearance. The piece was written by Emanuella's uncle, Mario Maniguzzi, and included a recent photo of her face, a description of her appearance,

the last place she was seen, and most importantly, the Orlandi's home phone number. At this time, missing persons ads like this were super common, both in Italy and elsewhere around the world, including the US. But Emanuela's was different. It caught Italy's attention because Emanuela was not just anybody. She was the exceptionally rare, as I mentioned earlier, Vatican girl. Almost immediately, the Orlandi family's home phone is inundated with calls about their missing daughter. Sadly, most of them are bullshit. What the fuck is wrong with people?

Just calling the reports of nonsense. Out of the hundreds of messages they received in those first couple of days, there was one that stood out. The caller introduced himself as Pierre Luigi and said that he was pretty sure he had met Emanuela the night before, only he didn't call her Emanuela. Strangely he called her Barbarella. He said the last night June 23rd he and his girlfriend were having drinks in a public square near where Emanuela had gone missing called Campo de Fiori. There he said they met a young girl selling Avon products to the patrons of the square who looked to be about 15 or 16. He said she had dark hair, was wearing a leather flute bag slung around her shoulder. And she told him her name was Barbarella.

This tip helps lead the police to thinking that Emanuella had simply left home to be independent and sell some Avon shit. And now they continue treating the case as one of a teenage runaway, not an abduction. And once again, I am left thinking the majority of Italian police officers are morons. I mean okay yes this tip comes in but we don't know who this person is. We don't know if they're credible or not either and I just think like the the notion that a teen girl is gonna run away from the Vatican like so she's like she's you know I don't know she's not to get away with this.

If she runs away and just sells like Avon shit a few blocks from home. And when does that happen? What teenage girl decides to run away from home so she can work for Avon? And near home. What? There's, there's no evidence about her having a rough home life. No friends are coming forward saying that she's been talking about running away. You know, she wanted to have more independence.

None of that. But these guys are like, It's a story as old as time. A young girl runs away to sell her to Eve on a pamphlet. If I seen her once, I seen her a hundred times. She move a couple of blocks away from home to take her dead end job and throw her life away. I'm not saying that doesn't happen ever, but for them to be like, yeah, that's probably

what happened. Seems weird to me. Two days later, on the evening of Sunday, June 26, 1983, two Italian Secret Service agents pay a visit to the Orlandi family's apartment in the Vatican. Secret Service agents, like think of like domestic intelligence agents, basically the CIA for a rough approximation. So two of these agents appear at the Orland Orlando's front door and bluntly inform them that it is absolutely necessary for them to install a recording device in their home phone. So that the agency can track every call the family gets from here on out, which is good.

The family agrees. Two days later, they are able to record what they thought was another authentic tip about Emanuela's whereabouts. On Tuesday June 28th 1983, family received a call regarding Emanuela's disappearance from a person who introduced himself as Mario. He said, it's me Mario. I doubt he said it like that but maybe he did. It's me Mario. Let's hope so. That'd be you know that, that'd be kind of cute, kind of fun. Right off the bat, very real, not cartoon Mario. Says not to ask him about any questions about his identity. He said he only called to tell them he had met a young girl named Barbarella who along with one other woman was selling perfumes and makeup in the city center. This Mario claimed that Barbarella said she was living with the other woman and the woman's boyfriend in an apartment nearby and that quote her only regret was that she was meant to do something for school or someplace. She had this concert and that this in this place, you know, she was supposed to sing at.

And that detail shook the family. Not only was it true that Emanuella was meant to sing at the upcoming end of the year concert instead of playing the flute, but it was also a detail that had not been made public. So how did he know this? They assume he must know Emanuella. But he will not tell them where she currently is or even if she's okay, which had to have been so fucking heartbreaking to Magny. And then the next day, June 29th, 1983, the family now puts missing person posters up

all over Rome. The posters contained the same info and photo of Emanuela as the newspaper ad, but made more of an impact. As Emanuela's brother Pietro Orlandi put it, Rome finally woke up seeing my sister's face, that smiling face of hers. With these posters plastered all around the city, the world could no longer ignore Emanuela and neither could the Vatican. A few days later, July 3rd, 1983, during his weekly Sunday address,

Pope John Paul II made a public plea to Emanuela, Orlandese captors, asking them to return her home safely. He's the first person to imply now that Emanuela has not run away, but rather that she was kidnapped, which a lot of people found very curious. From the open window of his apartments in the Apostolic Palace in Italian, Pope John Paul II said, 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, June 22. 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." Though the family was honored that the Pope would

include Emanuela in his prayers, members of the Orlandi family, as well as some Italian investigators and newspaper reporters, they were slightly confused as to why Pope John Paul II phrased his message like he did. In a fairly recent interview, Andrea Purgatori explained why he found the Pope's rhetoric so unsettling. For starters, the Pope makes a direct appeal to the people, quote, responsible for the teen's disappearance, meaning he knows on some level that she was abducted according to Purgatoni, at least. I don't know about that.

It could have also just been, you know, like the thing you say, just trying to say something nice when somebody's gone missing. Feels like you might be reading into this, but that's what he said. On top of that, the Pope also expresses hope that Emanuela's captors will return to say something nice and somebody's gone missing. Feels like you might be reading into this, but that's what he said. On top of that, the Pope also expresses hope that Emanuela's captors will return her safely home to her family, meaning he knows, again, according to Percatone, that on some level she's still alive. Again, I don't know about that. It's also just what you might say when you hope somebody is still

alive. Keep in mind, though, that at the same time the Pope is saying all of this, the Italian police are investigating an entirely different theory. At that point they're still believing that Emanuella has just run away. But now here's the Pope who was not only a religious figurehead but the commander in chief of the Vatican City government and therefore political authority and the spiritual leader for the overwhelming amount of Rome citizens saying that Emanuella did not run off as she was abducted. And I'll admit, you know, that does read as a bit strange.

It was about to get stranger. July 4th, 1983, 12 days after Emanuella goes missing, the Orlandi family receives a call from a man speaking Italian with a foreign accent. The man calls himself Li Americano, the American, and tells Urcoli, I spoke to your daughter tonight. Then to prove it, the American plays a recording of a young girl repeating the following phrases in Italian. School, 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. School, national boarding school, Vittorio Emanuele II. As strange as that recording is, the family has no doubts that it was in fact Emanuele's voice in that recording. Emanuele's. The American then explains that he is part of a larger group and that the family had already been contacted by two other members of this alleged group. The men who called themselves Mario and Pier Luigi. Arcoli interrupts and asks, is the girl okay? At least tell me that. And the American responds by saying, look, don't worry.

I can't put forward the, I'm not authorized. Decades later, Pietro will muse that he and his parents and siblings should have been furious with the man on the other line. He had kidnapped Emanuela and was holding her hostage. He was the reason she was gone. But as Pietro explained, he was also the only connection to Emanuela and was holding her hostage. He was the reason she was gone, but as Pietro explained, he was also the only connection to Emanuela. They'd had it almost two weeks, so instead of treating the man like an enemy, they were exceptionally polite, respectful, and appreciative. At one point during the

call, which was recorded on the device installed by the Secret Service agents, Arcoli says to the American, I am infinitely grateful as you are so kind, please be good to Emanuelalla in the American response to this with My personal wishes are for this to end well But for that to happen he goes on to explain the Italian authorities must release Mehmet Ali Aja from prison by July 20th Which is just a just over two weeks time If Ali Aja the man who attempted to assassinate the Pope in 1981, is not released by that deadline,

the American says that he and his group will kill Emanuela. Upon hearing that, Ercoli hangs up the phone in stunned silence. The rest of the family remains silent for several moments as well. The Natalina, his oldest daughter, speaks and says, if this is about Ali Aja, we're never going to see Emanuela again.

So, not good news. Following day July 5th, the American calls again to inform the Orlandese that he has provided the Italian National Associated Press Agency, or ANSA for short, with instructions on where to find proof that his group has Emanuela alive. At that very moment, per the Americans instructions, an editor from ANSA was rummaging through garbage cans outside the Italian Parliament in search of this alleged proof, and eventually he found it. A bag containing a photocopy of Emanuela's music school ID card, a photocopy of a tuition payment to the music school, and a handwritten message which read, with much affection, Your Emanuela. The Orlandi family did unanimously agree that the handwriting was absolutely without without a doubt, Emanuela's, but the message itself so strange.

It was clearly not written by someone in a state of distress like you would be if you were being held hostage, and there was nothing about the message to indicate when it was written. She could have wrote that, you know, months earlier. Furthermore, as the family's lawyer pointed out to them, the photocopied documents not prove that theers have Emanuela or that she is even alive it only proves that they have access to some of her personal effects. The next day July 6 1983 Emanuela's uncle Mario appears on live television with a message for his nieces alleged captors. It's me Mario. I'm sorry what was that was that Mario? It's me Mario. I'm sorry what was that Mario? It's me Mario. That's not what he said. That's not what he said. He said there is no use in continually sending us letters,

photocopied IDs, and continuing to tell us that Emanuela is alright. These are not proofs of life. It's important to note that at this point the story of the kidnapped Vatican girl and her alleged captors demands for the release of Ali Aja had become global news. The investigation quickly turned into the Italian police's main priority and of course the Italian Secret Service had also already involved themselves in solving this case. The one entity to remain almost silent about the matter, at least since the Pope's initial plea for the girl to not be harmed, is the Vatican.

Even though Emanuela was a Vatican citizen, the Holy See said it was not their responsibility to investigate her disappearance because the crime did not take place on Vatican soil. Technically, it happened in Italy. So it was the Italians' job to find her, not theirs. And while that may be true, that is also so shitty. And while that may be true, that is also so shitty. With all the money the Vatican had back then, back in 1983, before so, so many massive lawsuits related to pedophilia scandals have been waged, you know, why did the Vatican pour a ton of money into an investigation, into the disappearance of one of the very, very, very few miners who was actually a citizen of the Vatican?

I mean, at the end of 2022, the most recent year for which I can find this info, the Vatican Bank had assets worth over five and a half billion dollars. I found an old Time Magazine article from 1965 that said the Vatican Bank had assets then worth 10 to 15 billion dollars. So they probably had between five and 15 billion in 1983. And the Catholic Church overall with all of its global real estate holdings and so many incredibly valuable pieces of art and more has an estimated value as of 2023 of at least 73 billion dollars. It was likely worth even more than that back in 1983 relative to inflation. And so why didn't they, especially since only a handful of kids ever lives in the Vatican at any

one time, so it's not like you're had to be really worried about setting a terrible precedent, why not go all out to take care of one of their own? Help one of the very few actual families living in the Vatican by spending millions and spending it quick to hire an army of investigators to help solve this mystery. They are arguably the most powerful organization in the world. And they do nothing here. Nothing to help one of the very few people, the very few kids who lives in the Vatican city, who disappeared just a few blocks away.

That reads to me as if not evidence of them being involved at least of them just being weirdly selfish. It's also important to note before I move forward that although the American never said he was acting on behalf of the Turkish terrorist group the Grey Wolves, it was largely still assumed that he was. Ali Ajah was supposedly a member of the Grey Wolves himself so it appeared as though they were holding Emanuella hostage now in order to get their man freed. Two days later July 8th 1983, 12 days until the deadline put forth by the American, Ali Aja is transported from prison to police headquarters in Rome for some questioning. While being escorted

from the doors of the police station to the prison van, Ali Aja makes some startling announcements to the crowd of reporters that had gathered to see him. Referring to Emanuele's kidnapping, the would-be assassin proclaimed 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.

Now speaking in English, Ali Aja then says that the reason he tried to kill Pope John Paul II was not because of his involvement with the Grey Wolves but because the KGB had hired him to do so. This is the first time Ali Aja has made any statement regarding his motive for the assassination attempt and although the claim was out of the blue a lot of people believed him when he said he'd been working for the Soviet Union secret police. This is because Pope John Paul II as we went over earlier, grew up in Poland under Soviet control and was openly and aggressively anti-communist. Pope and I agree on that. The Pope was seen as a challenge to the Soviet block and subsequently

the Soviet Union. So after Ali Aja makes these claims, investigators start theorizing that the American is not a member of the Grey Wolves, but that he and his group are acting on behalf of the KGB. Remember that the Grey Wolves are known to target leftist activists, leftist as in communist. If what Ali Aja is saying is true, the thought is that perhaps the KGB is holding Emanuella hostage in exchange for his release so they can finally silence him forever then. Nine days later, July 17th, 1983, now the Italian press agency Ansa receives another tip from the American who tells them to look in a trash can on Via della d'Attoria in Rome. The journalist did as they were told and found an audio tape with Emanuella's name written on it. On one side of the tape is a message from

the kidnappers demanding Ali Aja be released by July 20th or else Emanuella will be killed. Other side of the tape is a recording from the kidnappers demanding Ali Aja be released by July 20th or else Emanuella will be killed. Other side of the tape is a recording of a young girl wincing in pain, breathing heavily, moaning, in Italian, God it hurts, oh God why, oh my God yes why, oh God why yes, my God, oh my God it hurts, it hurts. Was this audio the sound of the girl being tortured? No. At least not this teen girl. It was definitely not Emanuela being tortured. The audio was taken from an Italian porno. Unfortunately, investigators were not able to confirm that until months later and to the grieving parents of a missing girl, the audio of a feminine voice saying, it hurts, it hurts, does sound like their daughter getting beaten.

That same day, seemingly out of nowhere, the Holy See publicly offers Emanuella's kidnappers a confidential telephone line so that they can negotiate with the Secretary of the Vatican State Cardinal Carrolli. It's been over 41 years since that day, and despite two official investigations and repeated formal inquests from the Italian authorities, the Vatican has never revealed whether or not the kidnappers ever accepted their offer and spoke with him. And their silence regarding that question bothers me. Why? Three days later, July 20th, 1983, Ali Aja is still in prison and Emanuela Orlandi still missing. At around midday on the 20th, a priest at a random Catholic church in the middle of Rome now receives a call from the American.

The American orders this priest to deliver the following message to the family of Emanuela Orlandi. There are a few hours before we kill Emanuela. If Ali Aja is not freed, the final deadline is midnight. Poor fucking family. The Orlandi family wakes up the next day, July 21, expecting to find their daughter's corpse dropped on their front doorstep as the American had promised it would be if his demands were not met. Instead, the Orlandis are met with three days of agonizing silence. The Italian Secret Service agents reminded them that in kidnappings, there are often more than one deadline, and they told Urquely Orlandi that,

This case is becoming really important, very big, too big for one family to handle. We want to relieve you of the burden of these phone calls from the American. We think it's best for you to have the calls transferred to a legal firm in a lawyer's office." Urquayle told the Secret Service agents that although he thought that was a good idea, there was no fucking way he could possibly afford a lawyer. They then told him he wouldn't have to worry about that. They would find the lawyer and cover the fee.

Why the fuck is the Vatican not covering this fee? Why aren't they making offers like this? The lawyer the Italian Secret Service appointed to the Orlando's was a man named Wario. And Wario, weird choice. He just, I don't know, there's just something about him that just looks really, really, I don't know, villainous for lack of a better word.

But he was confident he could win the case. Ha ha ha ha ha! I'm a Wario. I'm a gonna win. word. But he was he was confident he could win the case. Okay, I mean he says I'm gonna win so you know maybe they just got sucked in by his confidence. No, no, his that's stupid I know. His name was Gennaro Egidio. His last name does sound almost like idiot. I said my name is Gennaro idiot. No No, Egyidio. But Janaro was a, he was a weird choice. He was an accomplice in his field as a bankruptcy lawyer, but he had literally no experience whatsoever in terrorism, hostage negotiations, or just in violent crimes of any sort. However, as journalist Andrea Purgatori pointed out, he was the kind of man who could put a lid on secrets, and that it seems was a pretty important aspect of this case.

Two days later, July 23, 1983, Emanuella's uncle Mario Meregozze, it's me, Mario, well now he appears on Italian television, the network REI, to ask that from here on out the kidnappers communicate only with the family's newly hired lawyer, Gennaro Egidio, instead of sending their message to the press or random priests in churches across Rome. He says the lawyer is our choice as the only authorized representative in all matters connected to the disappearance of Emanuela. During the TV segment, Urquely Orlandi also made a statement directed at the kidnappers saying, I, the father of Emanuela, do not want to argue with you. If Emanuela is alive, then prove it. If the 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. Mere hours later, the alleged kidnappers called ANSA, the Italian press agency that they had sent a few tips to before, to tell them that, we will have to use the press organizations to communicate to public opinion, but the nature of the relationship is changing. We will consider the press organizations an adverse element because of the inexactness and disinformation. However, we will carry forward our request despite the Orlando digression. Well, the digression the anonymous caller is referring to is Mario Manegussi's plea for the kidnappers to stop communicating with the press. Basically,

the caller, if it really was one of Emanuela's kidnappers, was saying, fuck your plea, we'll talk with whoever we want to talk with, but in a weirdly kind of diplomatic and even-toned way. By this point, practically everyone in Italy knew the name Emanuela Orlandi and was following the progress or lack thereof in her missing persons case. Also at this point, a lot of people were also noticing how weird her case was. Not just because the Manuela was taken from the Vatican, not just because the kidnappers are trying to free the man who shot the pope, but because of the way the kidnappers are going about it. In that year alone there have been 20 cases of people being

kidnapped and held for ransom in Italy, and in the year prior, 1982, there were roughly 50 kidnappings that resulted in over $20 million US paid in ransoms. Oftentimes the children of wealthy parents were the ones kidnapped, but it was also a not uncommon occurrence for politicians to be abducted and held for ransom. Actually for an example, just four years before, former Italian Prime Minister and current presidential election front runner Aldo Moro was abducted in Rome, held for ransom by a leftist terrorist group called the Red Brigades when the government refused to

negotiate Moro's release his kidnappers promptly shot him to death fucking crazy that is not happening today to an important political figure Italy had clearly seen its fair share of kidnappings in the last five years and all of them followed the same structure kidnappers take their victim hostage then the kidnappers contact the victim's family to tell them what their demands are and who they represent. But in Emanuella's case, the demands of the alleged kidnappers come only after the Pope spoke about her on the balcony of St. Peter's Square, almost two weeks after her initial

disappearance. On top of that, Emanuella's kidnappers are still completely anonymous. Normally, the Italians knew immediately who was behind the abduction, especially in cases of political abductions for ransom, which in a way this appears to be since their alleged goal is to free Ali Aja. But the American never says anything like, I'm acting on behalf of the gray wolves or I'm with the KGB. None of that. The American says he's part of a group. And that the callers Mario and Pierluigi, also a part of it, but Mario and Pierluigi, very clearly Italian, and as far as the Secret Service was aware, neither of the organizations

that would want Ali Ajafri, the Grey Wolves or the KGB had Italian members. So if Emanuela's abductors are not part of a foreign terrorist group, then who the hell are they? Why do they want Ali Ajafri? This is some asshole just just bullshitting everybody. Well almost two weeks later on August 4th 1983, six weeks after Emanuella's gun missing, ANSA receives a written letter from an organization calling itself the Turkish Anti-Christian Turkish Liberation Front. Okay, seems like they're gonna figure out how to get that down to one Turkish, but whatever. The authors of the letter claim that they were holding both Emmanuela and also a little girl who went missing 40 days prior, Mirela Grigori, hostage and that they would

release them both in exchange for the freedom of Ali Aja. However, the authorities of the letter, or excuse me, the authors of the letter, these supposed members of the letter or excuse me the authors of the letter these supposed members of the Turkish anti-christian Turkish Liberation Front are able to provide zero proof that they have Emanuella or Marella but they are able to give some weirdly specific information about the girl from the Vatican such as how many moles she has on her back so now we have two entities the Turkish Liberation Front and the American and his anonymous group claiming to have Emanuella or Landy The girls' families, the investigators, their individual cases have no idea who to believe. And now current Italian President Sandro Portini is asked to help out.

And on October 20th, 1983, four months after Emanuela has gone missing, Portini makes a public appeal for Emanuela and Morella's release. But sadly, it does not help one bit. Jumping ahead another six weeks. The morning of December 4th 1983 Pope John Paul II visits the Orlandes in their Vatican apartment. He wants to know why they haven't paid their rent since their daughter's disappearance. In addition to being the leader of the Holy Sea he is also the chief Vatican landlord and his authority will be respected and Johnny Pauley the deuce wants to know where's my fucking money you think just cuz your girl got now

You have to pay me my fucking money You fucking cocksucker with my fucking money I'll get it. I'll get it Obviously the Pope did not go full Tony Soprano about his rent money I don't even know if the Orlandes paid rent I'm getting, I'm getting. Obviously the Pope did not go full Tony Soprano about his rent money. I don't even know if the Orlandes paid rent. Maybe they didn't. But the Pope did stop by and the Pope swung by.

Huge deal. Even though the Orlandes lived in the Vatican, even though Ercole worked for the Holy See, the only time that he ever really saw the Pope in person was during his Sunday address in St. Peter's Square. So I guess he didn't really walk by, you know, Ercole's cubicle. Like maybe I was thinking there was no scenario like that, apparently. When Pope arrived at the Orlando's apartment, Pope was incredibly sympathetic, warm-hearted, and emotional. And I very much enjoy referring to Pope

as Pope, just as Pope. I find it very silly for some reason. To the Orlando's, it really felt like Pope shared their suffering. And the whole family was incredibly honored by Pope's display of solidarity. According to Pietro, Pope's visit was especially touching because it felt like confirmation that the Vatican actually did care about Emanuele's disappearance. It was the first time in a long time the missing girl's loved ones had felt any comfort. Decades later in the Netflix documentary, Emanueuela's older sister, Natalina, said that, at the time it seemed like the Pope was helping us, alleviating the situation a bit.

But then at the end of the visit, Pope gathered Emanuela's family in the living room to impart one last very important message. With a heavy sadness in his eyes, Pope looked at them and Pope said, we are doing everything humanly possible. Unfortunately, Emanuela is a case of international terrorism. Pope's words were like a punch in the gut, some salt in the wound. Why would Pope say that? We are doing everything humanly possible. Unfortunately, Emanuela is a case of international terrorism.

Pope's words were like a punch in the gut, some salt in the wound. Why would Pope say that? Why would Pope tell them that her case was essentially hopeless? It had only been five months. Wasn't it possible that she could still be found? That she could still return home to them? According to Pope, the answer was no. Pietro Orlandi later said that from that moment on, the Pope allowed silence to surround Emanuella's case.

I wonder why the fuck did Pope wait so long to swing by? These people live like a block away from him. Remember how tiny the Vatican is? The entire country takes up less than one-fifth of a square mile of land. He couldn't have swung over during a lunch break from doing some popin'. And why when Pope finally comes over is he essentially telling the family to give up looking for their daughter. What's going on with you Pope? News that the Holy See had confirmed Emanuella's kidnapping was an orchestrated subplot of some larger scheme of international terrorism quickly spread from the Vatican and

throughout all of Italy. And it seemed to many that perhaps the case was just going to grow cold now. After all, no one outside of the girl's family was going to choose the life of one girl over the safety of the Pope. However, there were still many people that weren't quite convinced that this case was closed. One of these people was none other than Andrea Purgatory. So he decided to get to the bottom of it. Purgatory, like all great old school investigative journalists, had a connection in the Secret

Service who he relied on to get the inside scoop on whatever the fuck was really happening behind closed doors. In early December of 1983, around the same time that Pope made a house call to the Orlandes, Purgatory reached out to this anonymous source and requested they meet up. He wasn't buying the international terrorism narrative that the Vatican was spinning and he hoped that his source could shed some light on the situation that the Holy See couldn't or just wouldn't. Purgatory's anonymous source was a high-ranking official at the Italian Secret Service, and the two men met often to exchange information, though never at their offices or homes and never alone.

Instead, the anonymous source preferred to have their meetings in the busy streets of Rome, walking around town, weaving through the barrage of tourists and locals, speaking in hushed tones beneath the roar of the crowd. As they walked and talked on this occasion, Purgatory was not allowed to take notes or to record the conversation. He just had to try his best to memorize what his companion was revealing. During their meeting in early December of that year, Purgatory's source disclosed the most critical piece of information yet. Despite what the Vatican said, due to an overwhelming amount of evidence, the Secret Service knew, without a doubt,

that Emanuella's disappearance had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with international terrorism. It was a job done by someone in Italy and it involved, quote, local crime organizations and Vatican money. After their meeting, Percatori immediately went home to write an article summarizing what he had learned. The article was published the following day in the newspaper Evening Courier. The next morning the Vatican press office released a statement denying the claims made in Purgatory's article saying that

it was slander and a blatant attack on the Vatican and coincidentally or not coincidentally at all that very afternoon Andrea Purgatory was told by his editor that he was being taken off the case and he was no longer permitted to write about Emanuela or Orlandi, or the Vatican. Stop talking shit about Pope, asshole! Pope no like it! Pope no stand for disrespect! Pope want respect!

Pope want love! Pope need adoration! Pope no need, Pope no want questioning. Pope strong, Pope righteous. Pope must focus on poping. Sounds like Purgatory's editor got some orders from the powers that be. In an interview decades later Purgatory said, I felt outraged on one side. On the other side I was proud. They shupped me up because that was

the truth. I was on to something. Despite the Holy See's best efforts, the news that the Vatican and the Italian Secret Service were at complete and utter odds with each other regarding Emanuella's disappearance spread rapidly throughout all of Italy and beyond. It was an agonizing period for the Orlandi family, their missing daughter, to become the subject of gossip and conspiracy and a headline for entertainment news. The Vatican claimed to be investigating the foreign terrorists that took her, and the Italian Secret Service was furiously hunting down local criminals they believed to be responsible. No one knew in the public who to believe.

The Orlandis no longer knew who to trust trust but as horrible as the end of 1983 was for Emanuella's family, what followed was even worse. For the next 10 years, nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. With each passing day, they hoped that new information regarding their missing daughter would appear but zero new evidence came to light. No new witnesses came forward, no new leads were found, the case had gone ice-cold. And now worse than everyone gossiping about their daughter was the new reality of no one talking about her. It was like Italy had just forgotten that she'd gone missing. It was like she had been forgotten by both Italy and the

Vatican. Why Pope? Why Pope? No care no more. Why Pope? Forget. Why Pope? Be such dope. And now before we get to the next long-awaited break in this case, time for today's second of two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thanks for listening to those sponsors. Now let's see what happens in 1993 when another clue in this mystery surfaces. In 1993, after that unbearable decade of silence, the Orlandes finally get a call from Pope. He's like, sup? And Urquely Orlandy is like, Pope, is that you? And now Pope was all, yeah, Pope. And then Urquely asks, what gives us the pleasure of speaking with you, your Holy Eminence?

Do you bring word regarding our missing daughter, Emanuela? And then Pope's like, what? Who dis? And Emanuela's father replies, Urquay Orlando, your Eminence. And the Pope's like, oh snap, shit, wrong number. Be blessed and shit. Pope out. Of course, that was not who called. It was not Pope. It was Italian magistrates, but a possible new lead. The officers received a tip that there was a young nun living in a convent in Luxembourg who looked to be about the same age that a manuela would have been by then and had very very similar facial features. Had she been hiding as a nun all these years? The magistrate showed Urquely and Pietro a blurry black-and-white photo of the girl asking what they thought it was

a manuela. Shockingly they said yes, definitely yes. This poor family. Now the family has been given new torturous hope that a Manuela might not only have been found but incredibly might still be alive. Soon after alongside a gaggle of investigators and Secret Service agents, Urquayle Pietro and Manuela's mother Maria are on a flight from Rome to Luxembourg. Luxembourg by the way, a tiny and insanely beautiful country sits snugly between Belgium, Germany and France. I used to be fascinated by Luxembourg. Whenembourg by the way, a tiny and insanely beautiful country, sits snugly between Belgium, Germany and France. I used to be fascinated by Luxembourg when I was a weird little kid, always studying old maps and articles and National Geographic. While

the convent the mystery girl was spotted at is located less than four miles from the French border in the southernmost part of the tiny country and is still active today. When the Orlandes arrived at the convent, the local police in Interpol already had the Gothic Cathedral surrounded. The family was ushered into a small room in the back of the convent, told that the mystery girl was waiting in the room next door. And then for reasons that are not made quite clear in sources we could find, they also were informed that Maria, Emanuella's mother, was the only person permitted to go meet her. Guessing they had some very strict no dudes policy when it came to who got to be close to the nun her. Guessing they had some very strict no dudes policy when

it came to who got to be close to the nuns. Gotta keep that dick energy away from those ladies. Help them stay chased. Too many nuns seeing, smelling, talking about cock. The fate of the entire convent's in jeopardy. A cock crazed revolt could destroy it. A cock alt. a cock revolt. Maria soon disappeared into the next room leaving Pietro and Urquely to wait for what felt like an eternity for her to return, hoping that she would tell them that the mystery girl really was Emanuela, that their family was finally whole again. Also in the room with them is the then head of Rome's flying squad, a mobile division of the Office of

General Prevention and Public Aid of the Italian State Police. According to Pietro, while the three men waited, the head of the flying squad made a call to a journalist back in Rome and said, get ready because we're bringing Emanuela home. Holy shit, they are feeling incredibly hopeful. But when Maria comes back into the room just a few minutes later, both Pietro and Erkley know immediately by the look on her face that the girl was not Emanuela. Man, how crushing to have their hopes raised like that only to be so quickly dashed after so many years of waiting. Fucking brutal. Three years later, November

13th 1996, now Italian judge Ilario Martella presents a formal request to the Vatican, which is as a reminder technically a foreign government to that of Italy, asking the Holy See to cooperate with their investigation and to release any documents that they have relating to Emanuele Orlandi and curiously this request is promptly denied Balzi why would they do that sure seems like they're hiding something March 7th 1997 judge Adele Rondo sends two more letters to the Vatican The first is another summons for the Vatican to release any documents they might have relating to a Manuello Orlandi. The second is a request to question Cardinals Agostino Casaroli,

Angelo Sodano, Giovanni Battista Ray, Dino Manduzzi, Eduardo Martinez, Samalo Marisa Torme, Antono Banderas, Arvasachi Barbagare, Rafferrari Lamagire. and Toro Manderes, of Asachi, Barabugare, and Ferrari, and Lamborghini. Sorry, that last part was obviously nonsense. I just hear a bunch of those names. I just get kind of worked up. Guess my blood, guess my blood and heat, it's so heated. What I was talking about was what's going on in Sattali. And it's Italy, sorry, I'll stop. I felt like I was having a stroke there. Both requests are again promptly denied. Why?

What information? How Italian authorities found that possibly linked to Emanuella's disappearance of these cardinals and why are they hiding? Give this information over to the authorities. Later in 1997, the investigation into the disappearance of Emanuella, oh my God, Emanuella Orlandi is now officially closed due to insufficient evidence and quote lack of cooperation with Vatican institutions and Italian excuse me lack of cooperation of the Vatican institutions with the Italian magistrates jumping ahead seven years now in 2004 Urqually Orlando passes away at the age of 73 without ever

learning the truth about what happened to his daughter who has now been missing for over 20 years. Up until the very end of his life, Urquely had faith that the investigators and the Vatican would eventually find him or find for him his beloved, Emanuela, that poor bastard. But then right before he died, he finally looked at his son Pietro and said, quote, I was betrayed by those I served. Interesting. About a year later, April 2nd 2005, Pope, Pope John Paul

II dies. His funeral is held in the Vatican of St. Peter's Basilica and one of the many prominent people in attendance, none other than Prince Charles, now King Charles, when Pope was finally six feet under, the journalist Andrea Purgatori said that quote, probably a lot of people in the Vatican thought the secret is buried forever. But less than a month after the funeral, for the first time in over 20 years, a lot of people in the Vatican thought the secret is buried forever. But less than a month after the funeral for the first time in over 20 years a new witness emerges in the case of Emanuella Orlandi's disappearance. One morning in the summer of 2005, Raffaella Norreale, a reporter for the popular Italian TV show Spaghetti Linguine al Nocce, no the show is called Hussot, comes to work and I don't know why I feel like I have to get louder as I keep going.

Like you gotta start kind of quiet. And then you just get like worked up. I don't know. Anyway, this reporter, Raffaella, for Hussot, popular TV show in Italy, comes to work, finds a mysterious message waiting for her on the office answering machine. The message had been left anonymously and the only identifiable characteristic Raffaella could glean from the audio was that whoever left it had to be Italian, excuse me, because he was speaking the language fluently, kind of like I do, and with no perceivable foreign accent. Master class! Maybe he took it. Translated to English, this is what the man said in his message regarding Emanuella Orlandi to find the solution to the case,

investigate who was buried in the crypt of Santa Palinera Basilica and the favor Renatino did for Cardinal Poleri at the time. Well Santa Palinera Basilica and the favor Renatino did for Cardinal Poletti at the time. Well Santa Palinera Basilica is located at the center of Rome in front of Piazza Navona directly next to Emanuele's music school, the last confirmed place she was seen before being abducted. But more importantly the Santa Palinera Basilica is a Vatican-owned church and as Andrea Purgatori put it, nobody can be buried inside unless you have a special permission or you made a very big favor to the Vatican. So why is it then that the person Raffaella found buried in the crypt the Vatican-owned

Santa Polinera Basilica was once Rome's most infamous and feared gangster, Enrico de Pettis? Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Enrico de Pettis was the boss of the Banda della Magliana, an organized crime mob based out of Rome. During the height of his power, he had a few nicknames including the King of Rome, the King of the Underworld, and Renatino, which was the name of the person the anonymous caller said did a favor for Cardinal Palletti during the time of Manuela's disappearance. Very interesting news. After discovering the tomb of Enrico, aka Renatino, in the

Basilica's crypt, Raffaella began investigating possible connections between the mob boss, the missing girl, and the Vatican. This led the reporter to Sabrina Minardi. The woman Enrico de Pettis was dating from 1983-1984 when Emanuella went missing. Raffaella eventually tracked down Sabrina's address, which was a small apartment building on the outskirts of Rome's city center, and headed straight there. But when Raffaella asked tracked down Sabrina's address, which was a small apartment building on the outskirts of Rome city center, and headed straight there. But when Raffaella asked the building's doorman which apartment Sabrina Menardi lived in, he said very flatly that Sabrina Menardi hadn't lived there for years.

Raffaella politely said thank you, walked back outside. Despite what he said, Raffaella felt in her guts that the doorman was lying. So instead of heading back to the office, she waited for him to go to lunch. When he finally did, she snuck into the building, began going door to door, searching for the one with the name minority written across it. None of them did. But Raffaella still wasn't ready to give up. She noticed there were three apartment doors with no names written on them. Maybe they were vacant or maybe whoever lived inside didn't want anyone to know that they did live there. Trying her luck, Raffaella knocked on the first unmarked door and after a moment of silence,

a gruff voice on the other side asked who was knocking, Raffaella knocked on the first unmarked door, and after a moment of silence, a gruff voice on the other side asked who was knocking. Raffaella introduced herself, said she was a reporter for who saw it, said she was hoping to talk to Sabrina Menardi. Now suddenly, the door flung open, and who was it? I'm Luigi, number one. What?

Bingo. Ho, ho, ho, ho. Fucking crazy. No, it was not Luigi. It was an intimidating looking woman without a word She began patting down Raffaella reaching down both the front and back of her jeans groping up her shirt Feeling around her ankles and shoes for a recording device not just not just feeling her up Once the woman was certain Raffaella was not wearing a wire She bluntly said that she was Sabrina Menardi and she gestured for the reporter to come inside and then she began to tell her story

Sabrina said she had met Enrico de Pettis in 1983 at a piano bar in Rome. She was 23 He was 29 despite his young age at the time The Italian gangster was already the boss of the band of Della Magliana The band of Della Magliana was involved in all your typical organized crime activities Some highlights include drug dealing illegal gambling gambling slash betting, money laundering, grand theft auto, prostitution, contract killing, and political terrorism. They didn't fuck around. They're doing some heavy shit. After the bonda was dismantled in the mid 1990s, it was discovered that during the height of its power in the late 70s and 80s,

they were in cahoots with multiple big-name politicians, a la Carmine Falcone, right? And the Gotham City Council in the Batman universe. Anyway, one of the reasons Enrico De Pettis rose so high in the gang's ranks was because he was a really good businessman and kind of an entrepreneur. As one Italian news article put it, unlike his other accomplices, De Pettis was recognized for his extraordinary entrepreneurial spirit. While the others squandered their loot on vices, Renatino invested in legal activities, construction companies, restaurants, boutiques, and the like.

Being that he was a renowned boss of the most violent and feared mafia organization Rome had seen in quite some time, pretty much everyone knew who Enrico De Pettis was. However, during her first meeting with Raffaella, Sabrina Minority swore up and down that when she met De Pettis at that piano bar, she said she had no idea who he was. She thought it was just a handsome well-dressed stranger who had sent her some expensive champagne. Supposedly she didn't find out who he was until a whole month into dating when she saw his face in the paper with a caption that said he was wanted for eight murders. According to Sabrina, she then immediately confronted her boyfriend about being a murderous mob boss and asked him if he had ever killed.

He told her he had never hurt anyone in his life and she said she believed him. Highly doubt that happened. That's what she claimed. To look like a better person, I guess. She said they stayed together and she got swept up in his world. In that same Italian news article I quoted earlier, the author wrote, Sabrina Minardi and Enrico De Pettis, a story of love and knives. They met and she became his lover for a few years.

There were years of crimes, or these were years of crimes of violence, but also of high-ranking acquaintances of wealth and rivers of money. And on one exceptionally hot summer's day in 1983, the specific date of which he couldn't remember, Sabrina and De Pettis went to a lake outside of Rome where they met up with De Depetis' personal driver. And remember, when the Vatican girl disappeared, it was in the middle of this famous heatwave. Sabrina now tells Raffaella the girl was there.

By the girl she means, of course, Emanuella Orlandi. In interviews with Sabrina, she does this quite a lot. She very rarely calls Emanuella by her name. She seems to only ever call her the girl or that girl. Is that because Sabrina is overwhelmed with guilt over not helping return Emanuella by her name. She seems to only ever call her the girl or that girl. Is that because Sabrina is overwhelmed with guilt over not helping return Emanuella to her family when she could have? Sabrina said that when the pettis's driver pulled Emanuella out of the back of his car she had no idea who the terrified 15 year old girl was. All Sabrina knew was that her boyfriend

told her was what her boyfriend told her, excuse me, and what he told her was that she needed to take this girl to her place in Torvan told her, excuse me. And what he told her was that she needed to take this girl to her place in Torvanica for a few days. Sabrina agreed. And Torvanica is a small seaside town, sorry if I'm butchering the name, about 30 minutes outside of Rome. It's far more secluded, much less crowded than the city.

And it's a very popular place for people who live in Rome to have a second summer home, which luckily for Depetis, Sabrina's parents did. So they bring the girl to the minority summer home, which luckily for Depedes, Sabrina's parents did. So they bring the girl to the minority summer home that night and Sabrina said she was locked in a bedroom at the back of the house. Sabrina said that she stayed in the house while her boyfriend and some other members of the bandedela magliana were keeping Emanuela hostage back there. She said that she of course kept herself far removed from what they were doing to and or

with the kidnapped child. Huh. According to Sabrina there was another woman called Adelaide that occasionally came by to quote take care of the girl. Adelaide fed, bathed, clothed and medicated Emanuela giving her pills to quote make her behave. Sabrina said she didn't know what the pills were but assumes that they were some sort of sedative or tranquilizer based on how out of it to Manuela was. According to Sabrina, every hour of every day that they kept to Manuela there, quote, she heard the girl moaning. Poor thing. Thinking about it is distressing. She moaned a lot. Sabrina also stated that throughout the entire ordeal, she never asked anyone, not even her

boyfriend, who the hostage was, why they had kidnapped her, or what they were going to do with her. Really? Never once? I have a hard time believing that but you know I'm also not someone shacking up with murderous gangsters. Allegedly Sabrina only discovered who the girl was when the missing person posters started showing up around Rome and she recognized the face of her hostage. They'd cut her hair but it was the same face said Sabrina. Even after she figured out the identity Sabrina said Imanuela stayed in Torvanica for another 10 days, or Torvanica and then according to of course Sabrina, Depetis decided it was time for her to

be moved. So they transported Emanuela to a house in Rome called Via Antonio Pignatelli that had quote huge basements. A few days later Depetis and Sabrina are allegedly enjoying an evening you know drinking at bar, at Bar Giancolo in the center of city Rome, or in the city center of Rome. After a few minutes, Sabrina said that a Renault 5, this car, arrived driven by a woman with the girl inside with a man whale inside, pardon me, she says. The woman who Sabrina did not recognize parked the Renault 5 near a BMW that Sabrina also didn't recognize. DePedas then handed her a pair of car keys and gave her the following instructions. These are the keys to the BMW.

You have to take this girl just below here to the Vatican Petrol Station where there will be a person with the Vatican City license plate car that will take her. Deliver her to this person. Sabrina agreed. She drove Emanuela, who said she was crying and moaning in pain in the backseat down a street known as, quote, the road of a thousand bends to the Vatican gas station. During the five minute drive, Sabrina said that she contemplated letting the girl go, but couldn't bring herself to do it because she was afraid of the consequences.

I don't doubt that. She said she asked Emanuela what her name was, but received no answer. She just kept driving. When she arrived at the Vatican petrol pumps, which were located just 300 meters or so outside the Vatican's actual gates, Sabrina saw a black Mercedes with the Vatican City license plate. According to her confession, a priest got out of the Mercedes, or at least someone dressed as a priest, so we took the girl and forced her into his car. As the priest drove away with Emanuela, Sabrina returned to Bar Giancolo and to, as she alleged,

confront Dep Petis. Furious again allegedly she asked him what mess did you rope me into? First Torvanica now here that's Emanuela Orlandi I don't need posters in the street to tell me that I'm not an idiot. In response she said De Petis told her Sabri it's all a game of power don't you get that? Sabrina said she understood what he meant. She knew that De Petis had connections with the church and the Vatican and the Holy See. And although she didn't know exactly how Emanuela fit into those connections, she knew that somehow the kidnapping was because of the connections and what De Pettis wanted out of them.

Over the course of a year, Sabrina told this story to Raffaella in bits and pieces during countless interviews, and by the end, Raffaella was convinced that Sabrina Monardi was telling the truth. Or at least, most of the truth. The reporter assumed that Sabrina embellished some parts of the story to make herself appear less guilty, make herself look better, make herself look like a pawn being used instead of a willing participant. But the core narrative she did by that. After Raffaello breaks the news of Sabrina Monardi's confession, in June of 2008, the Italian

police now bring in De Pettis' ex-lover for questioning, formal questioning, about the disappearance of the Manuela Orlandi. Giovanna Petroca, the deputy chief of Rome's flying squad at the time, listened to Sabrina tell her story over and over and over again. At first, Giovanna thought what Sabrina had to say was bullshit. In a later interview, though, Petroca said, I didn't believe her at first. A priest wearing a cassock personally went to pick up a kidnapped girl everyone in Rome

and the world was talking about. It seemed a little far-fetched. But as Petrocha continued talking with Sabrina and investigating her claims, the deputy chief began to suspect that she was actually telling the truth as bizarre as the truth seemed. The first thing the police did with Sabrina's testimony was retrace the route down the road of a thousand bends she allegedly took from Bar Giancolo to the Vatican petrol stations, which they discovered was accurate. They then went to confirm the existence of the apartment with the huge basements in Via

Antonio Pignatelli that Sabrina claimed Emanuela had been held at. They found that the apartment did in fact exist exactly how Sabrina described it and it was now under the ownership of a woman named Daniela, a woman who once had been heavily involved with the Banda de la Magliana. Matroka said, we saw that in reality the descriptions Sabrina had given were truthful. She described the apartment very precisely, very truthfully with regards to what we were able to confirm. I remember the day I went into the apartment very well. From the cadastral maps we saw that one of the walls of the apartment was the one going into the left if I'm not mistaken was

built afterwards to create a secret room. When I saw the secret room my imagination started taking over and I saw scenes I didn't even want to think about. So what the fuck was going on with this girl? Why did these gangsters take her? Why did they then hand her over to the Vatican? Why if she knew something really damning didn't they have her killed? Was that like a moral line that they just wouldn't cross? You know they wanted her silenced? They weren't gonna give her back to her family but they didn't necessarily want her killed? Because the police have been able to corroborate some of the verifiable aspects of Sabrina Menardi's confession later that same year, 2008, a second investigation into the disappearance

of Emanuela Orlandi is officially opened. All at once, the case surges back in full force and although Emanuela's family had never stopped hoping that they would one day find her, they met the sudden renewed effort to do so with trepidation. Over the years, we became tougher because there had been an infinite number of leads," said Emanuela's older sister Federica. And, in the end, most of them have led nowhere. So, I move forward more and more cautiously.

But, let's say there's one thing I'm certain about. I think the Banda della Magliana are involved in some way. Based on the information provided by Super Witness Sabrina Menardi, the new investigation into Emanuela's disappearance centers around the theory that an Italian criminal organization had kidnapped her in order to get a ransom from the Vatican. Now that might sound like a crazy theory, especially because the only evidence they had for it relied entirely on Sabrina Menardi, who just gave off a pretty untrustworthy vibe in general, I gotta say. But as investigators started putting the pieces of history together, it started to make sense. Remember that poor son of a bitch, Roberto Calvi? From the beginning of the timeline, the Vatican and Mafia connected banker who went bankrupt, disappeared, and then was found dead

days later dangling under Blackfriars Bridge in London. Almost three decades later, Italian police began taking another look at his death to see how it might be connected to a man with his disappearance. Calvi's official cause of death had been overturned from suicide to murder but still remained unsolved. Despite that many were and still are convinced that the Banda della Magliana were the ones responsible for the banker's demise that they had him killed for the millions and millions of their dollars that he had lost.

Many people also still believe that after killing Calvi the Banda della Magliana set their sights on the next institution in line to pay them back, which of course was the Vatican. Since we've covered a fuckton since then, here's a quick refresher on why the Vatican could have logically been the Mafia's next target to get their money back. One, the Vatican was not only Banco Abrogeano's primary shareholder, they were also heavily involved in the money laundering scheme that contributed to Banco Abrogeano's collapse. Two, the bulk of the money channeled through the shell companies in the Bahamas belonged to the Vatican, as did the shell companies themselves. Three, the Vatican was and still is fucking loaded,

as I went over earlier, to the estimated tune of $5 to $15 billion, not counting the overall wealth of the Catholic Church's global assets. So the Vatican was not only partially responsible for losing the millions that Roberto Calvi owed them, they were also in a financial position to pay the mafia back, plus maybe a little extra. Or maybe a lot extra. Following that line of logic, the Italian police realized that if the Banda della Magliana really did kill Roberto Calvi and demand the Vatican pay off his debts, then it was possible they kidnapped Emanuella as a way to incentivize the Holy See to do so. Despite all these ifs,

paired with Sabrina Menardi's entire confession and her claim that she handed off Emanuella to a Vatican priest, the theory doesn't seem all that far-fetched. So now the police will spend the next couple of years following the Banda della Magliana trail trying to find some evidence that they had in fact kidnapped the Vatican girl in order to go the Vatican into coffin up some big bucks. Jumping ahead another four years now. In February of 2012, the chief exorcist of the Vatican aka the Pope's exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth, makes a pretty bold claim about what happened to Emanuela Orlandi.

During an interview with an Italian news agency, the Exorcist used Emanuela's kidnapping to explain how the Prince of Darkness can infiltrate even the highest echelons of the church's hierarchy. He claimed that because no one is immune to the devil's temptations, not even cardinals, not even the pope, there is a satanic sect within the Vatican itself. And that sect, that satanic sect, was responsible for Manuela's disappearance. A 15-year-old girl, as Orlandy was the time, does not get in a car if she does not know the person inviting her to get in, said Father Amorth. I think investigations into Manuela's disappearance were necessary inside, not outside, the Vatican. I think that only someone that Manuela knew well could have convinced her to get in the car. Often satanic sex do it. They invite a girl in a car and then they

make her disappear. Yikes! Satanic groups do that often? I feel like we gotta get the devil's energy out of this episode right now! this episode right now. We've actually met Father Amorth before here in Time Suck. Episode 388, How to Rid Yourself of Demons. Fascinating dude. If you want to hear more of the cryptic shit he has to say or learn about what being an exorcist in the Vatican actually looks like, you can give that episode a listen. Also, maybe been a little fucking nuts before he passed away in 2016. I'm not putting a ton of weight into the whole Satanic sect of priests uses Vatican Girl in sacrificial rite theory. However, also would not be shocked to hear about a Satanic cult inside the Vatican. As a part of the still ongoing second investigation,

in May of 2012, the tomb of Sabrina Minorities ex-boy toy and former mob boss Enrico De Pettis is exhumed in the Vatican-owned Santa Polinara Basilica in Rome. After hours of delicately chipping away at the ancient marble, the tomb was finally opened. Inside lay a three-layer sarcophagus in which De Pettis's well-preserved body was enclosed. She even laid to rest in a dark blue suit and black tie and was still pretty recognizable. Still as a precaution, investigators took fingerprints to confirm the dead man's identity. I have fucking no idea how he still was able to give fingerprints off of his corpse, but I guess that happened. In addition to the sarcophagus and corpse, quote, tucked inside in each of the ancient

crypt a burial place since before Napoleonic times, investigators found 200 boxes containing unidentified human bones. So many bones. Forensic experts were immediately brought in to conduct tests on the bones in an attempt to identify their origins. However, we generally could not find the results of those tests anywhere we looked on the internet. Most conclusive thing we found is a quote from Vittorio Rizzo, the head of the Rome crime squad at the time, who said that most of the bones appeared to be from pre-Napoleonic times and that the more recent bones were taken away to a remote lab for DNA testing. So probably no Emanuela or Landy in those bones.

Jump ahead another year. March 13th, 2013, 76-year-old Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Buenos Aires, elected to be the next pope and takes the name of Francis. Because his entire platform was based on the need for reform and transparency in the Catholic Church, Emanuela, Orlando's family, feels hopeful that new pope might be inclined to actually finally help them figure out what happened to their daughter. Two weeks before his election, Emanuela's brother Pietro, her sister Federica, her mother Maria, they actually got to meet almost Pope Francis when he held mass at their parish. After the service, they approached the pope to be

excited to meet the man who would undoubtedly usher the Vatican and the Catholic Church into a new, better, more truthful age. Maria was the first to speak. She introduced herself to Pope Francis as the mother of Emanuela Orlando and waited expectantly for his warm reply. But instead, all, almost Pope Francis said to her was, Emanuela is in heaven. She and her children were taken aback by that. They couldn't quite comprehend what he just said to them or why. Pietro later said that almost Pope Francis' words chilled his blood, made his heart sink into his stomach. After a moment of day of silence, Federica spoke up and told Almost Pope

that she and the rest of her family actually were so hopeful that their beloved Emanuela might return to them one day. Almost Pope nodded as she spoke, but then again, his only reply was, Emanuela is in heaven. Pietro then interjected, stating the same thing as his sister, asking Almost Pope what he meant by Emanuela is in heaven. Againro then interjected, stating the same thing as his sister, asking Olmos Pope what he meant by Emanuela is in heaven. Again, instead of answering Pietro's question, all Olmos Pope Francis did was just repeat the phrase again, Emanuela is in heaven. Well, thank you. Thank you, Olmos Pope. That was very helpful. That was a great exchange. May 6, 2015 now, the second investigation into Emanuele Orlandi's disappearance is officially closed, for the same reasons as the first, lack of evidence, lack of progress,

lack of cooperation from the Vatican. Of this decision, Pietro Orlandi said, Petty behavior of the prosecutor and the Holy See. It is clear that there is the will on the part of someone not to get the truth. The Vatican has obstructed the investigation without responding to the various regulatory letters and preventing the acquisition of some telephone calls. Although it wouldn't become public knowledge until two years later, that same year the Vatican is robbed by one of their own.

The thief doesn't steal gold or jewels or money or precious artifacts, all of which the Vatican had a shit-ton of. Instead, they stole something perhaps more precious. Confidential documents. One evening the thief, whose identity is still unknown today, used a set of keys to enter the Vatican prefecture of economic affairs in Rome, climbed the staircase to the third floor where all the important shit was kept, then used a motherfucking blow torch to break into one of the 15 massive steel safes that line the walls. Gotta get those secrets! Yeah! From the safe, the thief stole a series of confidential Vatican documents, all of which dealt with what the priest in charge of the

Prefecture of Economic Affairs called, quote, things from the past, relationships, political scandals, financial investments, relations with the Masons, odd, etc. Despite the severity of the crime, no one except those involved knew what had taken place if the Vatican made sure of that. Even though the Prefecture of Economic Affairs was located in Rome, outside of the Vatican's physical borders, it still did not fall under the jurisdiction of Italian authorities. Because it took place on Vatican property, only Vatican police were permitted to investigate the crime and were under no obligation to share what happened or what they found. That's why to this day we have no idea who the thief was

or why they did what they did. Only reason we know about the crime at all is because the priest in charge of the Prefecture of Economic Affairs at that time shared the story with investigative journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi who then shared it with the world. And he said that some of the documents were eventually returned to the Vatican including the most damning stolen document of all, a dossier titled Summary Statement of Expenses Incurred by the Vatican City State for Activities Relating to Citizen Emanuela Orlandi. Oh shit. You know what? One time not enough for me. Let's play that again based on what I just shared. Again, Stolen from the Safe was a document that was titled summary statement of expenses incurred

by the Vatican City stage for activities relating to citizen Emanuela Orlandi. Now, if you're like me, you're probably thinking that the dossier was probably forged, that it may have been planted with the real stolen documents before they returned to the Vatican. However, when the story finally broke two years after it happened, the Holy See never denied the fact that the dossier had come from within the Vatican, more specifically from within a locked safe in a secure office of the Vatican ministry. They only ever denied the legitimacy of the dossier. They said they did not know how the forged document ended up in a Vatican safe amongst real ones, but they did know according to the press office that it was undoubtedly false and ridiculous. Was it false and ridiculous, Vatican stooges, or undeniable proof that

you were mixed up in that poor girl's death. And I won't keep doing that. But seriously, remember what Emanuela's supposed best friend from school said exactly a week before Emanuela disappeared? She said that a few days earlier while taking a daily walk around the Vatican Gardens, she was approached by someone she described as being very close to the Pope and then she said that person molested her. If the dossier is genuine that its implications are obviously monumental not only for Emanuela's family and their search for the truth but for the Vatican is both a religious and political institution. The discovery of this document changes completely the story of Emanuela said

Andrea Purgatori because they indicate that inside the Vatican someone knew exactly what happened to her for years after her disappearance even. The dossier which Fittipaldi received a copy of from the head priest of the Vatican prefecture of economic affairs five pages long and typed the signature on the last page and the header on the first indicated its author to be Cardinal Lorenzo Antennetti. Under the title there are a few brief introductory paragraphs. The Prefecture of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See has been mandated to drop a summary document of the economic services required to support the activities

carried out following the removal from home and the phases following the same of citizen Emanuele Orlandi. The relevant section under my supervision has collected the material through the state actors who have interacted with the matter. Many limitations in the reconstruction were found in the impossibility of tracing documentation relating to the support agents used on Italian soil, given the prohibition imposed on me to directly question the sources by exclusively assigning the head of the Vatican Military Police in this sense. The analysis activity is divided into

time periods relevant to events and expenses incurred. The document does not include the activity commissioned by his Eminence Cardinal Secretary of State Emeritus Agostino Casarolli to Commando 1 as nobody known to us or reachable is aware of what emerged and the amount of money invested in the activity cited. After that there's a long list of expenses supposedly incurred on Emanuella's behalf as well as the years which they took place and a short description of what was purchased. The expenses add up to over 500 million Vatican lira and began in 1983, the year she disappeared though through, excuse me, me through 1997 here are some but not all of the expenses listed on the

document preparations for foreign investigative activity 450,000 lira fees food and accommodation at 176 Chapman Road London interesting 8 million lira formal investigation costs in collaboration with Rome, 230,000 Lira. Travel and Accommodation Expenses, Commandant Camillo Sabin at 6 Ellardale Road, London, NW3 6NB, 18,000,000 Lira. Investigative Activity Relating to the Diversion with the Use of a Support Agency for Analyses in Italy, 9,000 Lira. Summary Expenses of Comprehensive Tuition for the Reference Period, Monthly and Annual Details in Attachment 21, 100 million Lira. Clinic Expenses, St. Mary's Hospital,

Campus, Imperial College, London, Mint Wing, South Warfroad, London, W2INY, 3 million Lira. Summary Expenses of Comprehensive Tuition for the Reference Period, Monthly and annual details in Annex 22. 70 million lira. If we put all these expenses together, what they tell us is that after she first disappeared in 1983, Emanuele was not only alive, she was living inside the Vatican.

Then at some point between 1983 and 1985, she was moved to London, England. After receiving a copy of the dossier from a source in the Vatican, Emiliano Fittipaldi, the investigative journalist that first broke this story, spent months and months pouring over every detail of it. One of the most staggering discoveries he made while investigating the document was the address listed as Emanuela's first accommodation in London. It's actually a youth hostel for girls run by the Scalabrini Fathers.

The Scalabrini Fathers are a Catholic congregation of brothers and priests dedicated to providing religious aid to migrants, refugees, and other displaced persons. The congregation has been around since 1887 and since it began it's shared a uniquely close relationship with the Vatican. For example, its founder Giovanni Battista Scalabrini Marista Lamborghini Ferrari and Chove Versace opera,pera, Chicken Massara, Antonio Manderes, Olive Garden Breadsticks, Winnie Hill, Your Family, Deepin Sosa, Ferretera, Mamma Mia! Sorry, I may have fictionally extended his name just a tiny bit. The founder was Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, and he was actually

beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1997, and then later canonized by Pope Francis in 2002. Realizing this connection, Fetipaldi got on the first flight out of London, or out to London, excuse me, from Rome, to go see this priest run youth hostel for girls for himself. Unfortunately, he arrived. No one claimed to know anything about Emanuela or whether or not she'd spent time there. They may have been instructed to not say, which could have been all the surprising for him to hear that. After all, you know, if you believe the document, the last time she was there was over two decades prior, and most if not all of the priests running the place at that time are probably now gone.

Though if it appalled he returned to Rome empty-handed, he was still convinced that within the dossier there was some truth to be unearthed about what happened to the missing girl. He also felt that if the dossier was legitimate, which his Vatican source assured him it was, then based on the last expense listed, Emanuele Orlandi had been dead since 1988. General activity and transfer to the Vatican City State was the related final formalities. 21 million lira. That's what that entry said.

In his interview for the Netflix documentary, Filippaldi said, When I read that, I immediately imagined that Emanuela had died, she had died in London, and that somebody had brought her body once more to her home, the Vatican, where evidently maybe, according to the document, she was buried. Buried and hidden just a few meters from her home and from the family that had been searching and waiting for her for 37 years. If this document is to be trusted, then according to Andrea Percatori, maybe that means that when Pope Francis met the Orlandi family in 2012 saying

Emanuela is in heaven, he was telling them the truth. Now you might be thinking, this all sounds too fucking sinister to be true. How could the Vatican possibly keep a secret like that? But as Purgatory also pointed out, the Vatican has a history of 2,000 years of silence. It actually hasn't been around that long, but whatever. And keeping secrets behind the walls of the Vatican State. Yeah. I mean, think about how many pedophile scandals the Vatican has kept quiet about over the years.

They never, to my memory, just volunteer info. They're never like, oh hey guys, you missed a whole bunch of molestations. Sure, you figured out what we were up to in Boston, a few other cities. But do you have any idea how many kids we've been fucking in Africa? Holy shit! It's insane, even for us. Whenever you get a chance, swing by St. Peter's, bring a few moving vans for the

boxes of files we're gonna give you. Oh, get ready to have your mind blown! No, over and over and over again, around the world the Catholic Church has known priests were literally fucking kids and has never to my knowledge voluntarily confessed to local authorities what's going on. Instead they wait until they get caught and you know like whenever they're found guilty of doing what they've done in courts around the world for decades now it comes out that they knew Catholic children were being victimized and instead of doing something to protect future possible victims to shut it down

instead of trying to make amends with the kids who have already been harmed, with their families, you know, they've instead protected themselves and the institution of the church over and over and over again. So for me, them having something to do with Emanuela Orlandi's death and hiding that information, because they might have had her killed so she wouldn't report what some friend of the pope, you know, of the pope did to her, that's not far-fetched at all. That is perfectly on-brand. And by the time we hear about a lot of these molestation cases behind closed doors, the Catholic Church has been trying to keep them quiet for years if not decades. So that's also on-brand for them to be able to keep it secret that long. The Orlando

family had varying emotions about the alleged Vatican expense report. Pietro, for one, was enraged, not necessarily by the contents of the dossier, but just by its existence. Ever since Emanuella went missing, the Vatican had refused to involve themselves in any way besides offering the stereotypical thoughts and prayers. For decades, they claimed that the case was none of their business because the crime itself did not take place inside the Vatican, that because Emanueuela was kidnapped in the streets of Rome On untimely soil. It was the Italian government's problem

Additionally Pietro explained the Vatican had also quote always denied the existence of internal documents the existence of internal investigations within the Holy See Be it the archive of the Secretary of State or any other archive If the dossier was legit then that meant meant the Vatican had been lying their fucking asses off, that they were purposely withholding documents from the investigation, which means of course they had something to hide. Every time we asked the Vatican something, their attitude was always exclusively defensive. We have nothing to do with this. We never did anything, said Pietro before adding.

So if this matter of the dossier is true, that to me is just cruelty. Cruelty and indifference to the suffering of others. Following the release of the alleged dossier, Emanuela's mother had only one request. If what the document implies was true and Emanuela really did die in 1988, all she asked was for the Vatican to tell her where her daughter was buried so she might place a rose on her gravestone. And that is so sad to me. That even after being presented with the possibility that the Vatican hid her daughter intentionally away from her, kidnapped, moved her until she died, she is still not like, fuck these motherfuckers! I want to burn the Vatican to the ground! No, she's just like, just

just tell me where the tombstone is so I can put a rose on it and then I'll just I'll keep tithing. I'll keep going to Mass also in 2017 on September 14th, Maurizio Abatino a former boss of the Banda de la Magdalena Confirms that the mob was responsible for Manuel's disappearance Abatino was actually one of the original founders of the Banda For a long time he and Enrico de Pettis were co-bosses before his reign came to an abrupt end when he was arrested in 1992. To avoid jail time upon his arrest, Abatino immediately agreed to cooperate with authorities, tell them everything, anything they wanted to know.

So instead of going to prison as a criminal, he was sent to the witness protection program as a police informant. Abatino stayed in the program for a little over two decades before being released in the early 2010s. As soon as he came out of hiding, re-entered regular society, every journalist in Italy, it seemed, wanted to interview him about Emanuella. Sabrina Minority's testimony was still a huge topic in the news at this point and it seemed likely that Abatino was just the person to either confirm her claims or shut her down completely. The former mob boss denied every request for an interview, except for one. After she messaged him every day for two years, asking, demanding, begging him for just five

minutes of his time, Abbotino finally agreed to do an interview with a journalist named Raffaeli Fanelli. That's fucking great. Wait, Raffaella Fanelli. I thought it was Raffaeli Fanelli. Raffaeli Fanelli! Raffaella Fanelli. A different Raffaella than the Raffaella who interviewed Sabrina, by the way. This Raffaella and Abatino finally met September 14th, 2017. And during the interview, Abatino revealed that although he personally had nothing to do with Emanuella's disappearance, he said he knew for a fact the girl was kidnapped by other members of the Banda. Might be Banda, might be Banda. Anyway, Abatino's alibi was a good one. When Emanuella was kidnapped, he was incarcerated. Had been for many months. He said he only found out about the kidnapping when his friend and fellow gang member, Claudio Cecilia, visited him in prison.

Claudio, if I didn't say Claudio correctly. The former police informant said Cecilia visited him late in the summer of 1983 to give him some updates about the banda and one of those updates was about Imanuella Orlandi. He claimed that Cecilia told him that Enrico De Pettis had recently orchestrated the kidnapping of a teenage girl that he was holding her for a hefty ransom from the Vatican. According to Appatino, De Pettis did this not only for money but to save his own ass. Because he was the one who lost the money in the first place. Ever the entrepreneur, it had been De Petis' idea to invest the Mafia's money in Banco Abrogiano and the Vatican Bank.

So when the Banco Abrogiano collapsed, lost all of its investors billions and billions of dollars, the Mafia said it was De Petis' responsibility to get them their money back. Appetino also said that De Petis was in the best position to get them their money back because he had extensive connections deep inside the Vatican and he knew how to use them. So did the Vatican take the girl or did De Petis? Or were both the Vatican and some gangsters involved somehow? Did the Vatican pay the ransom, get the girl back, then try to avoid a huge public scandal

by shipping the girl off to England. In the summer of 2018, the Orlando's newly appointed lawyer, Laura Sergo, receives a mysterious anonymously written note with instructions on where to find Emanuela's body or where the sender alleged her body to be. Laura found the instructions tucked inside a completely blank envelope that someone had left in her office mailbox. Also inside the envelope was a photograph of an angel statue in a cemetery but no information about the photograph as far as where it was taken or by whom. The instructions, if you can even call them that, were written on a separate sheet of paper and contained just a single sentence which translated to English reads, if you want to find Emanuela, search for where the angel is. After some digging, Laura Sergo figured

out that the photograph for the statue had been taken in the Teutonic Cemetery, which is the Vatican's sole graveyard located only a few hundred meters away from the Orlando's apartment. Now to clarify, the Vatican has multiple burial sites, including the subterranean Vatican Grottoes, where all the dead popes are laid to rest, the ancient Roman Acropolis located beneath St. Peter's Basilica, and all the crypts in each of the 15 churches that the Vatican operates outside of its own territory. However, none of these are technically graveyards. They're burial sites. Consecrated. Burial sites, sure, but not the same thing. Anyway, Laura Sergo immediately starts petitioning the Vatican to dig up the tomb beneath the angel statue in the Teutonic cemetery. She explained

that they had received a tip the tomb might contain, if not Emanuela's body, information that could lead to the discovery of it. To no one's surprise, the Vatican did not respond to her requests. However, she was pretty used to that and she had had experience with the Holy See before. In 2016 Laura served as a defense attorney for Italian PR consultant Francesca Ciauchi, who was accused of releasing confidential Vatican data and documents to Italian journalists. That stuff I went over earlier. The Vataleaks. Also facing prosecution during the trial where Francesca's co-conspirators, a Vatican official named Monsignor Angel Vallejo Balda and his personal assistant as well as two Italian journalists Gianluigi

Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi. Yep, that Emiliano Fittipaldi, the guy who discovered the secret dossier on Emanuele Orlando. It was actually during this first trial that Fittipaldi learned about the dossier from the head priest of the prefecture of economic affairs. Anyway, Francesca was granted access to the Holy See's confidential documents back in 2013 when the Vatican hired her to assist with the financial cleanup commission ordered by Pope Francis and she was shocked to find that these documents did not contain the standard run-of-the-mill boring ass info she expected from a supposedly stand-up institution like the Vatican. No no no!

Now these documents were rife with evidence of gross mismanagement of finances like tax evasion, embezzlement, money laundry, as well as moral corruption, inappropriate relationships, exploitation, and internal power struggles that have taken place within the Holy See, within the Vatican. Given the shocking truths about the Vatican, these documents exposed when they were released to the public, it was a huge fucking scandal, which was eventually dubbed as I just kind of referenced, Vatileaks. As Francesca Czauke's defense attorney in the Vatyleaks trial, Laura Sergo learned a lot about the Vatican,

including how impossible it is to usually get information out of them. In the Netflix doc, Laura stated, the challenge of starting to ask the Vatican for answers is truly immense because it's a system that depends entirely on the absolute monarch, which is the Holy Father. However, Lord did not give up and somehow her poking around eventually led to an exhumation. On the order of the Vatican promoter of justice, the two graves beneath the

angel statue in the Teutonic cemetery are exhumed July 11th, 2019. This is the first time in history that a consecrated tomb on Vatican City ground is interred. The guest list for the unprecedented event includes the entire Orlando family and their attorney as well as multiple of the Vatican's own attorneys, the commander of the city's armed police force, a handful of priests, a few descendants of the two German princesses whose graves were getting dug the fuck up. While many expected the bones of a 15 year old girl, what they actually discovered in the tombs was nothing. Like literally nothing. Not even the remains of the princesses who were supposed to

have been buried there. Despite this apparently dead end, pun not intended, the excavation still has a major impact on this case because it prompts a new witness, another new witness to finally come forward. November of 2019 Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano shows up at Laura Sergo's office in Rome to confess an important piece of information. According to the senior Vatican official, on the night that Emanuela disappeared, the Holy See did receive a call from her kidnappers. A call they have never told anyone about. Back in 1983, Vigano, oh my gosh, Vigano, there we go. Fucking all these names. Carlo Maria Vigano. Back in 1983, Vigano said he was working as a personal secretary to the Cardinal State Secretariat, basically the Prime Minister

of the Holy See. And according to Vigano, at around 8pm on the night of June 22nd, 1983, the state secretariat's office phone rang, but the state secretariat was not there to answer it. The cardinal was in Poland with Pope, so his personal assistant, Vigano, took the call instead. On the other end of the line was the head of the Vatican press office, Father Panzeroli. He informed Vigano that he had just received an anonymous call from someone claiming to have abducted one of their citizens, a 15-year-old girl named of course, Emanuela Orlandi, and that they would release the girl when the Holy Sea fulfilled their request. What the request was exactly, Vigano said he couldn't remember.

However, he was certain that the call really had come from the girl's kidnappers because at that time no one knew Emanuela was missing, not even her family yet. The Orlandes didn't go out searching for her until two hours later and they didn't report her missing until the next day. Vigano passed the message on to the head of the State Relations Department, Archbishop Achille Silvestrini, who promptly deemed it bullshit, but Vigano was not sure about that being bullshit. He urged the Archbishop to the threat seriously, but was ignored for some reason and because

Silvestrini was his superior, oh my god, his superior, fucking back and forth with his Italian and English, Vigano had no choice but to yield. The whole ordeal was completely out of his hands, according to Vigano, because it was the responsibility of his senior officials, he never heard about it again. So is Vigano credible here? I think he is actually very credible. And let me explain why. Let me share some info to explain why. Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, highly involved in publicizing the Vata leak scandal back in 2012. Really he spearheaded his closing documents and taking accountability for what they contained. He was also the

highest ranking member of the Catholic Church to first corroborate that much of what was leaked was true. Then in 2018, he openly, publicly, and directly accused Pope Francis and other high-ranking Catholic leaders in the Vatican of going out of their way to help cover up sexual abuse allegations against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick amongst other misdeeds. McCarrick was the Archbishop of Washington, as in Washington DC here in the states, from 2001 to 2006. He had been accused of sexually assaulting young men studying to become priests for decades and an investigation revealed that the Diocese of Matuchin, the Archdiocese of Newark, and the Diocese of Trenton, all these New Jersey places, had beginning in 2005, worked together to secretly pay victims of McCarrick to stay quiet.

McCarrick had also recently had charges filed against him for molesting a whole shit ton of young boys back in the 1970s. A fucking dirtbag. A serial pedophile, of course. Yet another one. An untold number of victims have received settlements regarding him in recent years. This motherfucker, still alive at the age of 94, I am sure the Catholic Church continues to cover his living expenses, finally defrocked by the Pope in 2019, but only because Vigano was making so much noise about the Vatican covering up for this son of a bitch.

Vigano actually called for Pope Francis to step down over the cover-ups he committed regarding McCarrick. And then earlier this year in 2024 Pope Francis had Vigano excommunicated for trying to lead a schism. A super rare event to have such a high-ranking member excommunicated. Yeah, for attempting to lead a schism to divide the Catholic Church. But really, was he trying to divide the Catholic Church or has he just been consistently calling out these motherfuckers for being pedophiles or the people who cover up for pedophiles and the church has had enough? Yeah, maybe he wanted to divide the church because he thinks the Vatican is corrupt as fuck and why would he think that?

Because it is. I mean, how many scandals do there have to be to make that so painfully clear to everybody? In response to his excommunication, Vigano has charged Pope Francis just recently with heresy. Yeah, I love it. Heresy. My God. He's feisty. I like it. And he thinks that the Vatican knew that someone kidnapped Emanuela Orlandi, someone who wanted to be paid, and that the Vatican hung her out to dry. Focusing back on Emanuela now.

October 20th, 2022, the limited-docu series Vatican Girl premieres on Netflix. And in the final episode, for the first time ever, the missing girl's best friend reveals the secret Emanuela shared with her the week before she disappeared. The one we went over earlier where she revealed she had been sexually assaulted by a cardinal in the Vatican. In her anonymous interview through Tears, the now middle-aged woman told the producers, I think it's important to say this because I didn't before and maybe if I had done this sooner

something could have changed. I don't know. I'm sorry. She said she kept the secret out of shame and embarrassment and that even now all these years later with whoever molested you know, Emanuela, likely dead and buried. She still fears what the Vatican might do to her in retaliation. She said, I'm always afraid because unfortunately it's an ugly world, a world where many things should not exist, but they do. If this woman is telling the truth, this revelation answers the final question that everyone is asking. Why Emanuela?

If you believe this theory that it is possible that Bandadela Magliana knew a sexual secret like this one, and they saw Emanuela as the ultimate leverage to blackmail the Vatican, said Andrea Percatone. Or he continued, there is a theory that it's about the financial scandals, the Vatican bank and the mafia. Or maybe the Soviet Union was behind the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi in order to free Ali Aja and silence him forever. No matter which is the right theory, there are grains of truth in each one.

And in all these cases, all the roads lead to the Vatican. I think that's an important note that in all the leading theories regarding why something terrible happened to Emanuella Orlandi, the Vatican looks guilty. On January 10, 2023, three new investigations into Emanuela's disappearance singular are opened simultaneously by the Rome Public Prosecutor's Office, by Cameral Parliamentary Commission, and the Vatican itself. A little late to the party Vatican. On April 11, 2023, Pietro Orlandi is questioned by the Vatican prosecutor Alessandro Didi for eight

hours about his sister's disappearance. One of the things Pietro shared with the prosecutor was a list of current Vatican officials he suspected of being involved with Emanuela's kidnapping. Didi took the list, assured Pietro that each name would be properly looked into. He said Pope Francis had granted him complete freedom to investigate anyone in the Vatican from the lowest to the highest up and given him a firm order to silence nothing. Do you really believe the Pope meant that? I don't. During the extensive questioning Pietro also shared an audio tape of an alleged Banda della Magliana member talking about how the

late Pope John Paul II and his clergymen liked to fuck young girls. Few days later a snippet of the audio was aired on an Italian TV program during an interview with Pietro. After it played, Pietro told the host of the show, They tell me that Pope John Paul II occasionally went out in the evening with two Polish Monsignors, and it certainly wasn't to bless Holmes. Obviously, the super-duper pissed off Pope. The Vatican City's Daily Newspaper published multiple pieces criticizing Pietro now, and calling the accusations made against Pope Johnny P. Dittelfinger's complete and utter madness.

Pope Francis himself also called out Pietro, though not by name. But are the accusations madness? I mean there have been credible accusations against Pope's engaging in sexual activity while being the Pope going all the way back to the very beginnings of the papacy. Pope Alexander the Six during the end of the 15th beginning of 16th centuries, he was rumored credibly to be involved in orgies held inside the Vatican. In 2019, an Associated Press investigation found nearly 1,700 priests and other clergy members that the Roman Catholic Church considers credibly accused of child sexual abuse, living under the radar with

little to no oversight from religious authorities decades after the first wave of the church abuse scandals in the U.S. So many, that's such a big number, so many priests, other clergy, but what we're supposed to believe that that shit doesn't get wild in the Vatican? It stops there, you know, priests all over the world doing a bunch of heinous shit but oh but not the Vatican, come on. No accusation of sexual impropriety within the Catholic Church is too extreme for me not to find plausible.

On June 22nd, 2023, the Vatican announced that all the evidence it had gathered regarding the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi will be handed over to investigators in Rome. According to the press release, the Office of Vatican Promoter of Justice Alessandro Didi had, quote, collected all the evidence available in the various institutions of the Vatican and the Holy See, while also seeking evidence through conversations with the persons in charge of certain offices at the time of the events. Didi himself also said that while combing through the evidence, he did find, quote, some investigatory leads that merit further consideration. Therefore, we are sending all the relevant documents to the prosecutor of Rome so that

he can review them and proceed in the direction he considers most opportune. As benign as it may seem, the fact that the Vatican relinquished his evidence to the prosecutor's office in Rome is a huge deal. Because for the first time in over 40 years, the Vatican displayed a willingness to collaborate and share information with investigators on the outside. For the first time in over four decades, they didn't say Imanuela was kidnapped on Italian soil, so not a problem. For the first time in over 40 years they admitted that it's possible one of their own was involved. But still how gross that they waited over four

decades to maybe possibly actually try and help the family of a Manuela Orlandi find some closure. Good job soldier you made it back. Barely. Now before I get into any final thoughts, let's shake off some of the heaviness of this episode. All these crazy plot lines, converging, it gets a little confusing. A lot of big Italian words are probably fucked up. Let's just let's just shake it off before I recap and let's just dance. Today's time suck also brought to you. In addition to other sponsors by the new hit single from D J Tongues. It's called Tongue Fire, featuring Pastor Chris, bringing us to a higher level.

Check this shit out. Speaking that still meditation, but this is the higher level. Oh, where you are now talking out? Oh Talking out. I'm a she come on. Yeah When you declared with your tongue, it is written it is shit It is time to ascend it is written mash. It is written Get off your motherfucking ass and move Get them titties out!

Get that dick of a dance floor! Holy Spirit colliding with the devil's beat, y'all! I'll stop. Okay. Oh my god. That makes me so fucking happy. I haven't been able to stop thinking about mashing up clips of people speaking in tongues to EDM beats since last week. I've been doing it on my own, just for my own amusement, all week.

It's so good! I can't not smile when I hear it. Okay, I'm back. What happened to Vatican Citizen? This part's not back. What happened to Vatican citizen? This part's not funny. What happened to Vatican citizen? 15 year old Emanuella Orlandi, when she went missing on the night of June 22nd, 1983 after attending a music lesson in Rome. Just one week after possibly being molested by someone close to the Pope. Or excuse me, someone close to Pope. We may never know. But based on what we do know, I

can't see how the Vatican was not involved somehow. It sure seems that the most likely answer is that she was kidnapped by some gangsters. Gangsters who had just lost a shit ton of money when a big bank that the Vatican was involved in a money laundering scheme with went under. And in order to get some of that money back, those gangsters took a Vatican girl. A girl who may have also been able to spill some secret dirt on some high-level member of the Holy See. Maybe the gangsters felt that this gave them an extra blackmail advantage. Also looks like the Vatican may have secretly got Emanuela back from these gangsters.

Perhaps hid her for years away from her family until she died. Who knows? But it sure seems like the Vatican had a lot to do with this. And while we may never know with certainty if they were or were not involved in Manuelis' appearance, what we do know for sure is that they did very very little to help the investigation into her disappearance and in fact were actively went out of their way it seems to be unhelpful and that's pathetic. If you're telling the world that you are God's representative here on earth, act like it! Do the right thing! Be as close to perfection as a lowly meat sack can be! Because if you don't behave that way, you look like a fucking phony. Just a big old grifter.

I hope that someday we know for sure what happened to Emanuela Orlandi. I also hope that someday someone else breaks into the Vatican and gets a whole shit ton of their secrets and exposes them publicly. I want to know what else are they hiding? Besides whatever they undoubtedly know or knew about Emanuella Orlandi. Time for the takeaways. Number one, 15 year old Emanuella Orlandi went missing on the night of June 22nd, 1983 after attending a music lesson in Rome. Despite the fact that she was a citizen of the Vatican City, the Holy See refused to investigate her disappearance because it didn't happen within their borders.

That's scummy. Number two, following her disappearance, an anonymous man called the American announced that he was Holy Emanuella hostage and that he would kill her unless the man who shot the Pope, Mehmet Ali Aja, was released from prison. Despite multiple requests, the American never provided proof that he actually had Emanuela, only that he had access to her personal effects. How did he get that access? We still don't know. Number three, in 2006, Sabrina Menardi admitted to holding Emanuela hostage for a few weeks or helping hold her. In 1983, on behalf of her then boyfriend, mafia boss Enrico De Pia boss, Enrico De Pettis. Sabrina said De Pettis kidnapped the girl

in order to blackmail the Vatican. And then after some sort of agreement was met with the Holy See, De Pettis had her personally deliver Emanuela to a priest at a Vatican gas station. On number four, during the Vati Leaks scandal of the 2010s, a dossier with a list of expenses incurred by the Vatican City State for activities relating to citizen Emanuele Orlandi, was stolen from a Vatican safe and released to the public.

For years the Vatican has denied the legitimacy of the document saying it was a farce. However, that changed very recently. Number 5 New Info On Thursday, November 28, 2024, Vatican promoter of justice Alessandro Didi publicly declared the legitimacy of the Leit dossier saying that it does in fact exist and is currently being investigated by himself and his team. Though Emanuella's family is thankful for the discovery, their attorney Laura Sergo did point out that it should be noted that the Orlando family requested to view and extract a copy of this file as early as 2017 but the Vatican investigation was only open in January of 2023 a full six years later. Therefore

it is legitimate to ask who has kept this file until now given that on several occasions it has been publicly stated by the Vatican authorities that there was no file and that Emanuella Orlandi's case was closed. Yeah, exactly. Why have they been sitting on it for so long? Are they waiting until the men responsible for doing something terrible to that young girl are finally all dead? So that they can then hollowly condemn them, you know, when it doesn't actually matter anymore. If we have learned anything about the Catholic Church over the past several decades, it's that they consistently fight tooth and nail to protect each other, regardless of how much pain that protection costs their parishioners.

Time Suck Top 5 Takeaways The Vatican Girl disappearance has been sucked. Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for all their help making Time Suck, starting with Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsay Cummins. Thanks also to Logan Keats helping to publish the episode and designing merch for the store at BadMagicProductions.com. Thank you to Molly Box for her initial research. Awesome stuff. Thanks to the all-seen eyes moderating the Cult of the Curious private Facebook page. The Mod Squad making sure Discord keeps running smooth. And everyone over on the Time Suck Subreddit and Bad Magic Subreddits. And now time for this week's updates.

Start with a quick silly one before getting into some heavier stuff this comes in from silly sack TJ sorrow Who wrote it with the subject line of proverb? Wrote in a recent episode you were talking about people who are obsessed with their heritage. It reminded me of a funny proverb I heard People who define themselves by their heritage are like potatoes the best parts of them are underground That's so good TJ. Short and sweet and accurate. Yeah exactly. If the most interesting part about you is where your ancestors are from, then the most interesting part about you is literally dead. And now from Jack Jones. Very sweet sack who wrote in with the subject line of life can be a kick in

the nuts. Hey Dan Dan, can you do the Dan Dan? First of all I just want to say thank you for everything you do. I love the show, have been a long time listener. Unfortunately today I'm writing in with some heavier news but before I get there let me give you some background to what makes this a particularly hard situation for me. My dad and I have always been in a contentious relationship. I for lack of a better term fucked up quite a bit my younger years. I've always been the black sheep in my family. My dad was always frustrated by this because he knew I was smart, knew I could do something

I loved that made good money without breaking the law, and knew that I was basically stuck in a cycle of fucking up, going to jail, getting out, straightening my life out, but then slowly straying back down dangerous paths that would likely lead me back into the previous steps. It made me upset that he couldn't just accept me where I was in life and for the and for my part I made little effort to ever fix our relationship and basically shut him out of many aspects of my life. That said last year I decided it was finally time to stop this cycle and get my shit together. I re-enrolled to school got the credits I needed and this year was able to enroll in a radiology technician program that takes around 26 months

will put me in the 90 to 120k earning range to start with where I live and give me a promising career that can support me and my fiance while she goes back to school for her masters that will give her a similar earning potential and will eventually give us decently comfortable a decently comfortable life going forward. I was so excited to be more stable to be able to get my shit together and most of all to make my dad proud and to begin repairing our relationship. I'm a little more than four months in, doing well with grades and practical lab work. I was starting to make plans with my dad to do things we've always talked about, have been telling him more about the harder parts of my journey,

why I didn't share them, and then boom, last week, my dad gets diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Luckily, it was caught fairly early and it looks to be removable but even then the majority of people who are in my dad's position get another couple years at best with only 13% making it past the first making it past the five-year mark. This diagnosis and the likely prognosis is killing me. I haven't slept a full night since diagnosis. I'm numb and sad. You've mentioned my dad before in the content of one of your episodes in the Mandela Effect and false memory podcast man long time ago. You talked about the case of Steve Titus whose acquitted of rape charges that have been falsely implanted in his victims head.

My dad was his attorney that got him exonerated, Jeffrey Jones. I've always respected my dad's dedication to justice, his commitment to his clients, and his willingness to look at situations from different perspectives and try and see the best possible outcome. Unfortunately, I'm having a hard time doing that last one myself right now. The thought of being in a position to finally be making my father proud only to get news that he might not be there to see me actually achieve my goals is heartbreaking. That said Dan, I want to say thank you. You and your view on the world helped convince me to go back to school.

Your podcasts have been incredibly helpful and alleviated my anxiety even just for small moments of my day. And most of all they have helped me come to terms with the reality that life is short, that I need to make the time I have left with my dad worthwhile, however long that is. And that even with this beginning step I'm making my dad proud as hell and helping him not have to worry so much about what will happen to me when he's not around anymore. I've never been religious and don't think I ever will be, but I wanted to ask those time suckers who are to please keep my father in your prayers. I want him to see me graduate, get married. I want him to meet any grandchildren I may give him. I know the odds are stacked against us, but they aren't impossible,

and I hope that he is one of the outliers who gets another decade. With that said, thank you again, Dan. You've made me more confident in myself. You've helped me love myself more and strive for success and you've not only immortalized my dad and one of your sucks, you've helped me make the right decisions to make him proud of me. Hill Nimrod, praise the Sufina and good boy Bojangles, yours truly Jack Jones. Well Jack, what a message man. First off, so sorry to hear about your dad but also thank God he is alive and that the current treatment is looking good. Second, congrats on really turning your life around. You didn't have to do that.

You could have stayed on that other path. A lot of people do, maybe most. A lot of people aren't willing to put in the work, you know, that it takes to turn shit around. But you did and things are turning around. That's no small feat. So be proud of yourself. Not for what you're on track for accomplishing, but for what you have already accomplished. And yeah, happy to be a very small part of that. And then third, as a father, speaking of myself now, and the father of one grown child, one almost grown child,

I can say pretty confidently that your dad is already so fucking proud of you. Because he sees the work that you're already putting in, that you have put in. You've already showed him, showed him that you've changed. Right? So don't rush your life to try and show him more. Be happy with what you've already shown him truly and keep going, not for him, but for you. And as you keep living to give yourself the best life and your fiance, uh, the

best life as well, a wonderful side effect, you know, to you living this life is him being able to worry so much less about you and to be so proud of what you're doing. And again, he's already, I'm sure, so proud of that. So try to worry less about how much time you might have with him and enjoy the right now and enjoy today. Enjoy these days. Your dad is not the only one not promised many more, right? None of us are promised that. We just don't know what's ahead. Easier said than done, I know. Enjoy today, enjoy these days. Your dad is not the only one, not promised many more, right? None of us are promised that.

We just don't know what's ahead. Easier said than done, I know. But try to live as much as you can right now. Soak up every moment with him, with your fiance, with your own journey right fucking now. And live as little as possible in the tomorrow. So hail Nimrod Jack Jones, man. Good on you, truly. And now one more

big one a heavy one and a sweet one man get your fucking tissues ready. Hopefully I can hold it together this time. This is from heavy-hearted sweet-natured Marissa Atwood who writes in with the subject line of hail Nimrod praise good boy Bojangles and be gone Lusophina. What's good Mr. Can Dummins? That's exactly what my boyfriend of nine years Wade would say. He said shit bass ackwards. Like that all the time. And your name was one of them. My boyfriend is the love of my life and that is why I'm writing to you Dan.

We lost him to type 1 diabetes six days ago. We buried him yesterday. Time suck was a huge part of our lives. I started listening about a year ago, turned him on to it shortly after. He fell in love with all your stories and shenanigans like I did. We had a very special bond over it. He bought me a Time Suck shirt a few months ago. I wore it for two days and then buried him with it.

Weird I know, but I'm grieving dammit. I've done a lot of weird shit the past few days. That's how special Time Suck was to us. We listened all the time. In the car, at work, it was the center of many of our conversations. We told other people about it all the time, but none got around to listening. That will change now. So it was really something just the two of us shared together. I'm getting the time suck tattoo as well. On to some darker shit here now.

Dan Wade was somewhat new to managing his diabetes. It was going on five years that he had it and going from living your life, eating what you want, living how you want, to constantly having to monitor your sugar and watch what you eat was no easy task. I tried so hard to take care of him and support him. We learned so much together. It was a huge stress in our lives though. He wasn't great at managing it and I always came off as controlling trying to help him and get him to stay on top of it. It caused problems in our relationship. That being said, we got into one of the worst fights we had in a long time. I drew a boundary with him, made him go

stay with his best friend Sterling so we could both get some space. He had been there five days. I never got to talk to him again, Dan We never got to apologize to each other his best friend of 20 years was the one to find him He got the flu and got too sick his sugar went crazy and his body shut down. I'm grieving Dan I never thought I'd feel this way Wade Van Hook was one of the best people ever. He was loved by so many. He was so kind and loving He worshiped the ground I walked on he was loved by so many. He was so kind and loving. He worshipped the ground I walked on. He was always praising Lucifina when he was in my presence. We didn't have kids together but he was an amazing bonus dad to my three kids Jaden 16,

Connor 14, and Sophie 11. He played video games and D&D with them amongst many other things. He was there every day of our lives for nine years. We had a boxer baby. Her name is Daisy and she's eight years old. Wade was an incredibly talented guitarist and was in a metal band with his friend Sterling named Catawampus for the past year. Yes, your podcast played a part. They put the name together shortly after I introduced him to you. We listened to the Appalachian Cryptids episode. We're Kentuckians, so it was a good one to start with. He was hilarious and ridiculous too. He was always doing impressions of random shit. That's why he loved you so much. He did your impressions all the time. What's his big deal? He said that a lot. As a matter of fact,

I'm gonna send you a clip. It was one of the last things him and his bestie started recording together. Excuse me. Him and his bestie Sterling recorded together. Sterling is beat boxing and Wade is doing your impression of Albert Fish. I think you'll love it. I threw in some pictures as well. Before I wrap this novel up Dan I'd like to ask you to consider a diabetes research slash awareness fundraiser in the future. He was so open and tried to learn everything he could about his diabetes managing it as hard. I wish there were more resources available that could have made it easier. All he ever wanted was a good pancreas. I planned to put together some type of benefit for it myself. Since he was such a talented musician and had plenty of close friends who are as well,

I'd love to make that the theme somehow. It'll be in the works soon. Mr. Suckmaster, make sure you tell your friends and loved ones how much you love them as much as possible. Give my love to the queen of the suck and hold her tight. Never leave each other mad because you never know if you'll get a chance to make up. This is something I'm painfully having to accept and it's agonizing. Sorry not sorry for the long ass message, Dan.

As Wade always said to everyone, appreciate love. Marissa Atwood. Well, Marissa, so sorry for your loss. Wade Van Hook sounds like he was incredible. I cannot imagine how it stings with the fight you had at the end, especially. But I will say that that Lindsay and I have had, you know, like almost every couple, some really heavy arguments, you know, fights, what have you over the years where one of us has been really mad at the other one or sometimes when both of us are really mad at each other.

But even in those moments, we still love each other so much. And we still know the other person loves us. I like Lindsay would say, you know, I don't like you right now, but I love you still. And I'm strongly assuming that Wade felt like that, that even though you were upset with him, you know, he still knew how much you loved him and he still loved you so much. And for all we know, he's somewhere nearby right now knowing you love him still. Lindsay and I disagree on this whether or not there's life after death. I know I can't prove it. I know science has never proved it. I

know a lot of people think I'm being foolish for believing it, but I do believe that there's something after this life. And I hope Wade is so fucking happy wherever that is. Maybe in Nimrods, Alpha, in Omega Balls, maybe just in a general feeling of love and oneness with the universe and a complete lack of ego. That's what the Toad Venom once told me anyways. I hope sharing your message, hearing it read here, helps with the pain at least a tiny little bit. I hope sharing your message, hearing it read here, helps with the pain at least a tiny little bit. Maybe somewhere Wade is hearing this as well and soon, you know,

he'll be hearing his voice once this goes out there. Let's get out of here now. Let me get out of here now so we can get to that message. I want to play it at the end of the show. The one you attached to your email. So thank you Marissa. Be kind to yourself. You know, you didn't do anything wrong. Arguments happen. Death happens. You're a good one. Hail Nimrod. Thanks Time Suckers. I needed that. We all did. Well thank you for listening to another Bad Magic Productions podcast. Scared to Death. Time Suck each week. Short Sucks and Nightmare Fuel on the Time Suck and

Scared to Death podcast feeds some weeks. Please don't molest and or kidnap any 15 year old girls this week for any reason at all. Also, if that specific request bums you out, I want you to instead this week, I want you to head to the nearest ocean and just try and swim across it. You got it. You can do it. While you do that, the rest of us will stay on dry land and watch you and just keep on sucking. And now let's end this one with Wade Van Hooks, Albert Fish Beatbox with his buddy Sterling. Rest in peace Wade.

And also rest in peace Nick Tyson, another silly guy, the man who gave me my first paid gig in standup and supported everything I did until he died just recently on December 6th after a long hard fight with cancer. Maybe Nick and Wade are beatboxing silly shit somewhere together right now. Nick would love that. So here is Wade and Sterling. I went up to that peanut butter, I scooped it up into my hand and I slugged his bare asshole with it. Shit went everywhere. Boy, did he scream when I whipped him with my dickie.

Well done, Wade. Well done.