May 1, 2020 • 50 mins
On June 22nd, 1983, 15-year-old Vatican City resident Emanuela Orlandi disappeared after attending a music lesson. Over the decades, numerous people claimed to have seen Orlandi, or reached out with leads on her fate. Yet even now, the case remains unsolved. Join the guys as they explore the facts of the case, the wide-ranging possibilities, the allegations of conspiracy, crime and cover-ups, ultimately asking: What happened to Emanuela Orlandi?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Paul Mission Control decond. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know, coming to you live and direct.
Yet again, we're your favorite Quentin Quarantinos. We're still keeping
the lights on in our separate bunkers here. Just wanted
(00:49):
to check in with everybody real quick before we dive in.
How are you today? I'm really good. Over the weekend,
I spent some time digging through our voicemail arch I've
and everybody that's been calling in and got to talk
with several of you you listening right now, speaking to you.
I've been instructed to say the word divination to prove
(01:13):
to one person that I called that it was real.
So there you have it. UM. I would just say
everyone out there that I've that I've spoken to, and
a lot of people that have been calling in. You know,
we're all still dealing with this thing. A lot of
you are doing great work to continue both the economy
and the health of others of us who are listening
(01:33):
and present today. So thank you to all of you. UM,
just keep doing what you're doing, especially you truckers who
are out there are still going every day. You healthcare
workers who are going every day, essential workers in the
grocery stores who are going every day and putting yourselves
at risk. Big big props to you guys. Well said, uh,
(01:55):
what about you, nol. How's it going. Oh, it's good.
I had a really nice weekend. Uh. I am made
uh tied eye shirts with my daughter. Um, you know,
proof positive that the madness is really starting to take hold.
Uh because that's the thing I never would have done before.
But you know what, it turns out I really like
it and it's uh you get some really nice results.
(02:15):
We tried two different methods. There's the twist method where
you put rubber bands around it like a braid of
a giant ponytail, like a French braid. And there's something
we just bunch it up and put the rubber bands
around the wad and the results are really delightful. I
think I'm a tied eye guy. Now nice good here. Uh.
And of course you can find some of those results
(02:36):
on our very social media, which we will shout out
either during this show or at the end. Yeah, mind's
at how now, Noel Brown, if you want to check
it out, Ben, what have you been up to? All
sorts of things? You know? Um? Uh. They're really deep
into a really really deep into a strange web that
(02:57):
is the subject of today's show. This is something that
I think is familiar to a lot of our fellow
conspiracy realist It's it's a mystery, it's a disappearance. Uh.
And you know, of course, if we are being realistic,
which we must be, the sad truth of the world
is that thousands of people disappear every day, even now,
(03:19):
in as the surveillance state grows stronger than it ever
has been before. Yet, of all those disappearances, this case
has always stood out for us, for me, for you, Matt,
you know, and particularly for Paul Michig controlled decade himself. Recently,
we received several partially redacted records from a source that
(03:41):
prefers to remain anonymous, and this prompted us to finally
dive into one of the most mystifying disappearances in modern history. Today,
we are asking what exactly happened to Emmanuela or Landing.
Quick quick bit of how keeping here? First, our source
(04:03):
that decided to remain anonymous or preferred that way. Uh.
When when this source sent us these documents, we circulated
them amid ourselves. We haven't shared them anywhere. Uh, and
we're I don't I don't know if we should honestly, um,
but we'll we'll get into that. And secondly, as we
(04:24):
like to say at the top of every um, particularly
darker violent episode, Uh, there is content in today's show
that may be triggering to some people. We will be
talking about the allegations of sexual abuse, we will be
talking about murder, uh, and there will be scenes of violence.
(04:44):
So we want to put that up there at the top. Now,
we have to do some background for everybody who thinks
Manuela or Landy, who is that? Did you say Orlando? No,
we said or Landy. Uh. And let learn a little
bit about our main character. Here here are the facts. Yes, Uh,
(05:06):
Emanuela or Landy was born in nineteen sixty eight, UM,
one of five children, and according to records. Her father
worked either at the Vatican Bank or was actually a
member of the staff in the papal household UM. According
to a Manuela's older brother Pietro, the family lived inside
(05:28):
Vatican City and would often they grew up UH feeling
as though the Vatican gardens, which are lush and gorgeous,
were was their own backyard. That's according to him, and
he's been a very outspoken person in the press about
this story. UM. In nineteen eighty three, Emmanuela was a
sophomore in high school UM. The school year had ended
(05:48):
for the summer, and she was taking flute lessons nearby
the music school UH at the Tomaso Ludovico de Victoria
School UM, and she was into music. She sang in
the choir, played the flute, and seemed to have a
real gift for just picking up instruments. It was on
(06:08):
the twenty two of June in that year three when
she disappeared, and we don't know much, but this is
what we do know. She left the family apartment. She
was wearing a white T shirt. She had on denim
overalls and running shoes. She got onto a bus and
she traveled a pretty short distance only about two kilometers.
(06:30):
She got off near the Piazza Novona, and um, this
is right in front of the Italian Senate. By the way,
she was stopped by a young man in a green BMW.
There was a traffic officer who witnessed this whole scene,
just Emmanuela getting off in speaking to this man in
a green BMW. The Senate security cameras were not working
(06:52):
that day though, so there was no video proof of this. Um. Now,
I just want to interjected him put this in the note.
But it is important to note that her brother, Pietro
or Landy, who's going to play a big role in
this story. Uh, he is the reason that she ended
up using public transit. According to what we know, she
(07:14):
asked him for a ride to the flute lesson and
he refused for one reason or another. So that's that's
why she ended up on the bus. Yeah, he has
stated several times over the course of all these years
that they got into a fight a row and that's
why they decided not to go that route. Right for
(07:36):
him taking her there, But she did end up going
to her flute class or music class as she normally
would have. She did call her sister after that class
had completed, and that phone call was the last known
contact that anyone ever had with Emmanuel, at least the
last known contact to the family and to investigators. Right. Yeah,
(08:00):
she had made plans with her sister to meet at
a piazza at seven thirty pm, and that is where
her trail ends. She was reported a missing person the
next day. Also, want to bust a myth here. In
most countries you do not have to wait twenty four
hours to report someone missing. That's that's a story that
(08:22):
television has told us. If you have reasonable cause to
believe someone has gone missing, go ahead and report them,
because every hour, every second counts. So the investigation begins.
The next day, tips start rolling in. Some are much
more promising or seem much more solid than others. Two
(08:43):
tips in particular, capture the investigator's attention. There's one caller
who refers to himself as Pierre Luigi Uh. He makes
a call on June and he says, I've seen this child,
not in Vatican City, I've seen her earlier in Rome
on the day of her disappearance, and he provided details
(09:07):
that made it sound believable to the authorities. He mentioned
that she had a flute a flute case with her.
He described her clothing, which you described earlier, Matt and
his description match. However, he had some interesting things to say. Uh.
Pierre Luigi said the girl was not going by the
name Emanuela. Instead, she was calling herself Barbarella, and that
(09:30):
she had run away from home to sell, of all things,
products for Avon. That's an interesting detail too, because it
wasn't something that was out there in the public sphere.
You know. It's it's pretty common in high profile cases
for authorities to withhold some information because it helps you
separate the wheat from the chaff, believe it or not.
(09:52):
In a lot of missing cases, a lot of suspected homicides,
when authorities asked the public for tips, they get a
lot of really cold hearted pranks where they get some
unstable people making ridiculous claims. So the fact that he
knew about this Avon thing was especially fascinating because it
tracked with information provided by the family. Or Landi had
(10:16):
mentioned wanting to sell Avon products earlier to her sister
before her disappearance, which is something a lot of people
did not know. So a second call came just a
couple of days later, on June, another man claimed to
have met a young woman going by Barbara who had
also run away from home. And this caller said that
he had seen her in a bar nearby the music school. Uh,
(10:40):
and you know, calling herself Barbara. Um. There were several
other tips. Uh. Some callers speculated that there was a
conspiracy afoot. A Turkish terrorist group called the Gray Wolves
allegedly had planned to kidnap or Landy allegedly um then
exchange her for one of their members, sort of a
(11:02):
political prisoner swap situation, a memet ali aga. Um, it
would be assassin who had been imprisoned for shooting the
pope two years earlier. Uh so what where did it
go from there? Oh? Devil coins, that's where it went.
And we shall also mentioned that second caller also said
(11:22):
the young woman who was calling herself Barbara had run
away from home. So they have those commonalities. And we
have a great story that's not really ours to tell.
It is a story from our good friend writer or
Die Paul mission controlled decond about fascinating coins that were
allegedly discovered, uh during the the attempted assassination of the pope.
(11:46):
That's a story for another day. But there's the door
to the Google rabbit hole. If you want to get
lost over the week, You're you're asking a vital question, Noel,
what did happen? There's no shore ritage of intriguing, compelling,
tantalizing that would be the right word. Tantalizing theories surrounding
(12:08):
or Landy's disappearance and at this stage her presumed death,
you know, the Turkish terrorist group that's just scratching the surface.
We have to remember the Vatican and the surrounding region
is a hub of religious power, and it's a hub
of mafia power. It's a hub of organized crime, and
(12:29):
these groups often come under suspicion in the world of conspiracy,
I mean Vatican. The Vatican city itself is a very
very weird place. Uh. Let's see the the age of
consent for a long time, I think was twelve years old. Uh.
It's also the only place where you can find an
a t M in Latin, just so where these aren't
(12:51):
all horrible quick facts. Uh. And it also wields this
outsize tremendous influence on human civilization, and it has for
centuries and centuries. You know, the the nexus of powerful
religious organization, of incredibly powerful godlike financial institutions and criminal organizations.
(13:18):
It all comes to a head here in a very
real way. You could say it's um it's even more
powerful than the City of London, which long time listeners
you'll recall, is not actually London, it's just in London,
and it's called the City of London. It is a
very confusing time for names because Vatican City it's called
(13:40):
a city, and it is a city, but it's a state,
and it's an uber state, and it's beyond a lot
of laws that would apply to Jane and John Doe's
like us and the people listening, unless you're listening and
you're the pope, in which case thanks for checking in. Man.
It is very odd to imagine Vaticans City as a
(14:00):
religious monarchy. That is just a strange that's a strange
thing there. There are so few places that exists in
that are full on monarchies, you know, without a parliament
connected in some way, or without a secondary governmental institution
(14:22):
attached in some way. There are they. I'm not saying
they don't exist, they are certainly they're certainly I guess
a dozen or so dozens. Let's say, but um, just
just to have the amount of wealth and power that
they have. Um, it's pretty strange to see it both together.
And it's it's so weird to talk about this case
(14:44):
because you know, if you picture this episode and this
exploration as us walking through an art gallery in a hallway,
we're passing this gigantic mural that says Vatican Conspiracies, and
we're kind of pointing at it for you, But it's
not it's not the part of this episode that we're
going to focus on. You can find our earlier videos
(15:07):
on this, you can find some earlier podcasts we've done.
But it goes very, very deep, and a disturbing amount
of the things that are treated as conspiracy theories about
the Vatican have later turned out to be at least
partially true. This is reality, and given this reality, it's
no surprise then that the Vatican is the subject of
so many conspiracy theories. And like the leads in the
(15:30):
Orlandic case, some of these theories are way more plausible
than others. I think it's this inherent strangeness of Vatican City.
Uh and and this bizarre, tragic disappearance of this fifteen
year old girl that combined to make this such a
mystifying mystery. And you know this is just context for
(15:52):
the question we asked earlier. Will pause for a word
from our sponsors and return to ask what And to
Manuela or Landy, here's where it gets crazy. Yeah, decades later,
(16:13):
this mystery is still just that a mystery. It is unsolved,
though there are plenty of theories, as tends to be
the case when you have cold cases like this. We
had talked about the gray Wolves, but what about that
other organization that seems to thrive so readily in Vatican City,
(16:33):
the mafia. Mafia theories um largely revolve around a Rome
based syndicate, a crime syndicate known as the Banda della
Magliana led by Enrico di pettus Um. The theory states
that the syndicate had loaned large sums of money to
(16:54):
the Vatican Bank, but weren't getting their payments as quickly
as they would have liked were at all, They weren't
being paid back what they were owed, so they decided
that taking a Vatican officials daughter for ransom was the
way to get their money back, and one of de
Pettis's former girlfriends claimed on the record that her ex
(17:16):
told her he had kidnapped or landy Um, and these
claims were plausible enough that the authorities decided to get involved. Yeah. Yeah.
Deppettis himself, like many mafio so had a lived by
the sword, die by the sword situation. He was fatally
shot in a square in Rome back in and years
(17:39):
later after after his death, an investigative journalists found out
that de Pettus's body had been very very quietly moved
from a normal cemetery to the prestigious Basilica sant Apollinarii.
This is interesting because this Basilican picular is not It's
(18:02):
like a very exclusive club for corpses, if you want
to be crass about it. This is not where ordinary
people are buried. This is this is the eternal parking
spot for the bodies of cardinals and princes and other
you know, illustrious members of society, Vatican and lay people alike.
(18:24):
So it's odd that a very successful criminal would end
up first off buried somewhere else and then some for
some reason, have his body moved posthumously to a different site.
People were freaking out and so in like you're saying,
no from some of the leads they got. The authorities
(18:47):
actually decided that they would open the tomb of this mobster,
and they wanted to see whether the rumors were true,
whether it was in fact the case that Manuela or
Landy was dead and that her remains were secretly placed
inside the tomb of Deppetus, which does see him on
(19:09):
the surface like it would be a little odd, right
he was killed in n she's been missing since nine three.
That would mean seven years of waiting until you entered
her into a tomb. Just if he was if she
was put into his original resting place, right, and then
(19:30):
after he got moved. There were a lot of big
you know what ifs, but there was there was rumor,
and there was you know, possibility. So it was looked into.
And when they did open it up, they found more
than they bargained for. Right, his his body was there.
It was a very nice sarcophagus in which he was placed.
(19:51):
He was well preserved. He had a dark blue suit
and a black tie. They took fingerprints from his body.
They confirmed his identity. But they also found this other
thing talked away inside this ancient crypt where he was buried.
That's right, they found not just one person's remains, but
(20:13):
multiple remains. There were dozens of boxes that held unidentified
human bones. You know, So they went looking for one
secret corpse and they found multiple remains. And then this
is this here's where the plot gets even trickier. Around
the same time he said this was right, so roughly
(20:37):
around the same time, a returning guests of sorts to
our show, the infamous Vatican exorcist, Gabrielle a More claimed
that a Manuela or Landy did not run away and
claimed instead that she was kidnapped by a member of
none other than the Vatican Police Force. He said that
she was kidnapped for the purpose of being abused at
(21:02):
sex parties for lack of a better term, and then
that she would be murdered. After that, he said she
had already died. He also alleged, and this is public too,
It's been reported in multiple sources, he also alleged that
officials of a foreign embassy they did not name were
also involved in this crime. That's important because if any
(21:23):
of that's true, what that means is that there was
an organized sexual abuse ring. Now this is something that
you know, we here thrown around a lot in conspiracy circles.
But one of the most troubling things about these sorts
of allegations is that every so often they end up
being at least partially true. And this is something that
(21:45):
people from across the spectrum had been sane was going
on in the Vatican for a long long time, you
know what I mean. Well, at the very least we
have hard proof of systematic cover ups of set sual
abuse by priests, uh and and members high level members
of the clergy in the Vatican. You know, to take
(22:08):
it to the next level of organized sex abuse ring
doesn't feel like much of a jump to me personally. Um,
you know, people may or may differ on that, but uh,
it's certainly the cover up is essentially the same thing
as um advocating or protecting that kind of behavior. So
(22:30):
why would it be such a you know, suspension disbelief
to to think that there's a step further and actually
orchestrating that, especially for people that are very privileged and
used to being able to order people around and get
everything they want and be waited on hand and foot.
You know, yes, but we also have the words here
from an archives at the Vatican. UH, Monsignor Simeon Duca,
(22:53):
who in twos six backed up the claims of our
friendly neighborhood exorcist Gabriel. He cited quote credible information that
quote certain factions inside the Vaticans diplomatic Corps were involved
in procuring young adolescent girls for sexual slavery. And this
(23:17):
this gentleman, Monsignor Duca. He also believed that Orlandy was
abducted for that purpose, and he believed that she was
killed when I guess she had this it's terrible to
think about it this in this way, but when she
was no longer innocent in the way that perhaps the
people that we're doing this uh wanted. Yeah. Yeah, it's
(23:41):
a it's a terrifying and very grim allegation. Uh. One
thing that's interesting about both Duca and a more statements
is that they're inherently drawing a line to geopolitans and
also to the halls of power, uh, to intelligence agencies.
(24:05):
I mean, that's that's ultimately where that rabbit hole leads.
And it also jibes with ongoing, ongoing allegations like decades
and decades old allegations that certain factions of intelligence agencies
have coerced people into these heinous acts of child abuse, uh,
(24:26):
in order to ensure their loyalty. You know, it reminds
like as as out there in black mirror esque or
Dan Dan brownish as it might sound, Uh, these possibilities
are less implausible than they might seem. So you know,
the the scariest thing about this allegation is that you
(24:49):
can't immediately throw it out, you know what I mean.
It's it's close enough to things that we know to
be true that it bears uh, it bears siries this consideration.
Even if, even if you know that headline might sound
all red media and alarmists, that story doesn't come from
(25:09):
you know, thin air. There there's a vast, a vast
trove of precedent behind there. And you know this, The
thread of this continues in an Italian journalist named Amano
Fid and apologies for my Italian pronunciation here, folks. Uh.
(25:31):
This journalist was given a leaked document that appeared to
be from the Vatican, and it was listing expenses for
the care of Manuela or Landi abroad. It included things
like room and board, as well as guidecological examinations. Now,
when I say appeared to be a Vatican document. We're
(25:53):
being careful with our language there, because the Vatican vehemently
denied that this document was legit. They called it a false,
ridiculous reconstruction. And you know, I'm still kind of stuck
on the allegations of an organized abuse ring. It makes me,
(26:15):
it makes me think back when um, we're talking with
Dan uh, with Dan Harmon and he actually changed my
mind about whether large scale conspiracies were popular, were possible.
Do you remember that? And he's like, look, maybe they'll
just tell you can be in with us, but you
have to eat this baby. Yeah, yeah, No, I mean
(26:36):
it's compromised, right, But when people are compromised, uh, it's
a lot easier to control them. And this brings us
to another potential lead, one that we will address in
full after a brief word from our sponsor and we're back.
(26:59):
It's I'm to introduce a character known as Cardinal Ugo Pelletti. Yes,
and to discuss Cardinal Poleetti, we have to jump to
two thousand five, when there was a television program called
Who Has Seen? And on that program there was an
anonymous caller who alleged that Emmanuela had been seized at
(27:21):
the behest of someone Cardinal Ugo Polletti, who in three
was Vicar General of Rome. This anonymous caller said, quote
on the matter of Emmanuela or Landy. To find a
solution to the case, go see who was buried in
the crypt at St. Apollinaire Basilica, and about the favor
(27:42):
that Rennettino did for Cardinal Pelletti at the time. Right.
The caller also heavily implies that the motive behind the
kidnapping they thought it was and the later burial, uh
was it's health sexual in nature. Cardinal Poletti passed away,
(28:05):
so we can't get an official statement from him at
this point, but we do know a few more things
about him. We know that back in he is the
person who greenlit the removal of Depettus's body and it's
uh reinterment in the basilica. Uh. This this basilica again
(28:28):
is usually reserved for the burial of senior clerics, uh,
not mafio so crime bosses. And this is also like
we learned about Poletti because of these documents sent to
us by our source. We want to be completely fair here.
A lot of this is in English. A lot of
(28:49):
it's in Italian, and we have not been able to
verify the authenticity of what we were sent, but it's
got some damning stuff in it. If it's true, yeah, completely, Uh.
A lot of it appears to be some kind of
transcript of a conversation where the concept of uh, Palletti
(29:11):
being I don't know that there's some language that's really
kind of vague. Uh. He's referred to as having certain
like proclivities kind of you know, I think the implication
being that he likes young girls. Uh. There's also a
discussion of hiring kind of high class call girls as
(29:32):
well thrown around in there. But it's not clear to me,
and I did ask the listener um to clarify and
to maybe help with some translations, but haven't heard back,
uh since the initial uh you know, kind of document dump. UM.
I'm not quite sure who's meant to be speaking in
these um, but like you said, Ben, it is it
is quite damning. So let's let's talk about the implications here.
(29:56):
We we'd already gone over someone who was very in
that Basilica, right or Mafio so fellow de Pettis and
or d Petti. However, you say it, and this tip
that came through in two thousand five is referencing a
move that occurred in which is the year that the
(30:19):
mafia fellow du Pettis was killed. Correct, And the burial
like who is buried? That's the thing here, who is
buried there? In the basilica at St. A paulinaire Um.
They did find dozens of sets of bones when they
did end up incurring or looking at the tomb in
(30:43):
so it all it gets a little confusing here, but
essentially it's this person would allegedly be is allegedly saying
that this cardinal had this person killed Emmanuela and then
her bones perhaps moved around to different burial places. It's
pretty odd, but again, we did find a bunch of bones,
(31:07):
and we're gonna keep going on here. We're going to
learn what officially from the Vatican at least, what who
those bones were or how old they were at least.
And this is just something to quickly clarify here. In
that quote that we read earlier about on the matter
of Emmanuelo or landy Um, it's referenced a name is
(31:27):
referenced Rennettino. That name is referring back to de Pettus,
the the mafia boss that we mentioned earlier there, who
is in fact buried at the Saint Apollinaire Basilica. So
basically what was being you know, alleged here in all
of this discussion was that perhaps Rennettino ord Pettus the monster,
(31:53):
did a favor for Cardinal Palletti, and then Paletti in
turn did a favor for Rennettino, or for some other
reason to obvious skate other bones or the burial of
other you know, people who were killed, had Rennettino moved
to that Basilica from where he was first interred, perhaps,
I think? Is that correct? Bend, Yeah, that's about the
(32:17):
size of it. The allegation is that it was a
quid pro quose situation when this source first reached out
to me, and I believe to you as well. No,
one of the first things I did was capture images
of what this source sent so I could share it
and get us all in the loop on email. Um
instead of me just like telling you like, that's the
(32:39):
thing with this stuff, we can't really verify it. That's
an important point. You know. I may at the beginning,
but I want to I want to underline that still,
if any of this stuff is true, it is um.
It's fascinating, and we're following up with this source to
see what we can learn about the proven pints of
(33:01):
the stuff we found here, to see what we can
learn about the uh what they see as the latest
developments or unfolding developments. But this paints a picture of
Cardinal Ugo Poletti as sort of a a known predator
uh and indeed a sadist. There's an interesting line where
(33:23):
they say, uh, he was known for these weaknesses of
his as the euphemistically called them, and that uh people
also knew he was therefore easy to blackmail because like
the intelligence agency hunting traps we mentioned earlier, there was
you know, there was a way to get leverage on
(33:43):
this person. He was apparently pretty ruthless. Definitely in the
political sphere. I mean, you think that politics in your
country get nasty, imagine what goes on in the halls
of the Vatican right where people are jockeying for position
in one of the most powerful institutions in the world.
(34:04):
So Ploody played the game well. Uh. He was able
to make the right connections apply pressure, but he was
also due to his alleged activities. He was also easy
to pressure himself because you want to keep these kind
of um, these kind of despicable actions, uh, you want
(34:25):
to keep them secret. So there's this allegation that the
Judiciary of Italy of Vatican had names of companies that
owned these phone numbers, and the administrators of these phone
numbers were linked to the mafia. They were under their control.
And the recordings that were gleaned from these phone numbers
(34:47):
paint the picture of an organization that is participating in
human trafficking, providing women and children. Uh. To their quote
high ranking friends essentially that it's a vast network of
of of forced sex work. Uh, and it caters to
(35:08):
the elite. That's that's again that that's what these documents
are saying. It's terrible that, you know, it's terrible that
we can't verify this stuff. It would be amazing if
we could just come out and say, hey, look, this
has been confirmed. There's action that could be taken now.
But we have to caution anyone who's listening to not
(35:32):
think of that as fact, because we cannot verify any
of that stuff as of this moment. No, we can't.
And and and you know, just to clarify to our
our our source UM has somewhat clarified that these transcripts
that we're discussing were interviews carried out by this individual
(35:53):
and a team. But this person is not willing to
share the identities of any of the any of the interviewees.
So even if there are accusations being made that are
very inflammatory and damning by the stuff about potentially hiring
sex workers and this notion of Poletti's kind of proclivities
and also uh ties to underworld organizations and mob ties, UM,
(36:20):
we don't have the context of understanding who the speaker is. Understandably,
this individual wants to protect their sources because they're afraid
that they could actually be in harm's way because of
the power of of of the Vatican. And uh again
we we were not personally as a show accusing anyone
and individually about this. But it's hard to you know,
(36:41):
you can't we can't just gloss over getting this information. UM.
It's it's definitely seems like this is a uh serious
amount of work has gone into this project on this
individual side. UM, but we were not able to confirm,
you know, any of the stuff and and because we
don't have the information to be able to do that,
(37:01):
because we don't even know who's talking. But I think
it's worth mentioning. And in the most recent exchange with
with Ben and I, UM, there's a mention that Poletti,
you know, had ties to to the underworld and to
underworld organizations one this person mentioned called the Red Brigades
(37:23):
UH and the n r A. These are terrorists sects
is what this person mentions. UM. And the n R
n A R was responsible for a massacre, the Bologna
massacre that killed eighty five people UM and injured more
than two hundred. Uh. But again, it's it's it's very
difficult to I'm not quite sure what this person is,
(37:44):
what their angle is. Is it that the terrorists you
know angle is more accurate, that the crime boss angle
is more accurate the sex ring angle. It's very difficult
to say, and I'm trying to We're trying to find out,
but UM, it's it's it's hard to kind of pin
it down to one icular source, but it certainly does
seem like there was some foul play going on. There's
also implications that Poletti himself was murdered because of you know,
(38:09):
knowing too much and being able to kind of spill
the beans after he retired. Right Poletti officially died of
a heart attack in however, you know, there's plenty of
precedent for homicide by what appears to be a heart attack.
And then also, if we're going to be if we're
going to completely apply critical thinking here, we have to
(38:32):
remember that cause of death is ultimately the decision of
a medical examiner. God knows, there are conspiracy theories of
plenty about wilfully fallacious medical examinations on bodies, right tail
as old as time. This this isn't over right. There
(38:53):
was a another tomb search, an entirely different tomb back
in the Orlandi family received even an anonymous tip, a
brief letter that was sent to the Orlandes lawyer from
inside the Vatican, and it's pretty cryptic. It shows a
stone angel at an unmarked tomb in the Teutonic Cemetery.
(39:15):
This is a cemetery that is within the walls of
the Vatican. The cemetery isn't even accessible to the general public.
But on this, on this unmarked tomb, someone has kept
a red vote of candle lit only at this tomb
only at this specific one, and they've been replacing the
(39:35):
flowers on a regular basis. There's one thing engraved on
a marble scroll that the angel, the statutory holds and
it just says the English version would be rest in peace.
This letter and this cryptic picture, of course, came at
a time when there were bombshell confirmations of long running
(39:58):
allegations about sexual abuse within the church. UH. And this
so part of this is the the timing, I think. UH.
And then this leads to another another decision by the
Vatican UH to investigate grave sites. I believe this was
(40:21):
in July of last year. Yeah, July last year, Vatican
City decided that they were going to open up two
separate tombs and they're gonna allow these tombs to be
analyzed by forensic anthropologist Giovanni r. Couti or r qt um.
It's it's really interesting. So the two tombs, one of
(40:42):
them was the tomb of the Angel, that's the one
that was mentioned in that letter. And then actually part
of that letter, doesn't it say something about where the
Angel points um something to that effect within that letter
referencing the Angel's hand and this one tomb, the tomb
of the Angel was meant to contain remains of two princesses,
German princesses, Princess Sophie of Oh I'm not gonna be
(41:06):
able to pronounce this hollin all Waldenburg bern Stein, and
the adjacent one, the one that was right next to it,
was meant to contain the remains of Duchess Charlotte Frederica
of Mecklenburg uh Schwern schwarn And So check this out.
There were two princesses, German princesses. That's whos supposed to
(41:26):
be in these two tumbs that are right next to
each other where this exhamation is going to take place.
They did the exhumations on the eleventh of July. Here's
the deal. Not only did they not find the body
of EMMANUELA hidden in there, or you know, they didn't.
They don't think they found that body, they also didn't
(41:48):
find the bodies of the two princesses that were supposed
to be buried there. There's a there's a seems to
be almost a systemic issue with putting bodies where they belong.
Uh In at least those two burial sites, the Basilica
and the Teutonic Cemetery. Yeah, just a few days later,
they did find some bodies, not whole bodies, parts of
(42:11):
bodies of dozens of individuals. We're talking thousands of human
bones that were found underground at the Teutonic College where
this um, this burial site, where the tombs are located.
So how crazy is that. Okay, we opened these two tumbs.
Those bodies are not there. We don't find any evidence
(42:33):
of the body that was allegedly here, but we did
find dozens of other individuals that we have no idea
of the identities the what we did. What they did
find though, is that those bodies were likely prior to
the to the nineteen hundreds. I believe that's what they
found in this location. This is something that's happened multiple
(42:55):
times over the course of some of these exhumations, where
the person that's meant to be found there is not
there or is there, but with the addition of a
bunch of other bones, some of them very old. Yeah. Yeah,
And to be clear, we're pointing this out, but we're
not saying that those are necessarily related to the mystery
(43:17):
of a Manuela or Landy. We have to remember that
the Vatican and the Catholic Church is an ancient institution.
There are a lot of people who have passed away
over over the millennia, and this means, you know, if
you think about it from the other side of the equation,
(43:37):
it would be unusual not to find strange, unidentified remains
in a cemetery this old. And at this point the
mystery remains unsolved. However, NOL, I believe you have been
in contact with your source and there's an update. Yeah,
just you know, UM, just in going through this together,
(43:59):
there just a few questions that I had and UM,
I hadn't heard from from this individual since they sent
the initial uh scans um, and just as we're recording
this hearing back and again because of the fact that
I'm not sure if this person is an investigative journalist
or is part of some kind of organization that's generally
trying to like be whistleblowers. Uh, it's really not clear,
(44:22):
and they were not comfortable telling any of that stuff.
So it's you gotta take all these documents and in
this perspective for what it's worth. Like we said earlier,
but um, we had mentioned earlier in the episode, Uh,
this crime family or street gang is what this person
is saying. They were the Magliani Gang. And I asked
(44:43):
if this person's angle on the story was that there
was organized crime involvement and that that was part of
a sex trafficking operation that Poletti was essentially leading. And
I just wanted to clarify if was what this person believes,
and they said yes, I believe it's abundantly clear that
(45:05):
they had relationships with many people of high importance. Uh.
They supplied these individuals with girls, drugs, arms, cash, and more.
They knew full well that they would never be prosecuted
for their crimes as they held in their hands the
reputations of those who did the judging. Um. And then
I asked to clarify about the sex trafficking angle. Uh,
(45:26):
this notion of a sex trafficking ring, and I believe
referring to the Magliani gang, um, this individual says they
rose to power in the seventies mostly through drug pushing,
lotto machine sales, robberties, and occasional assassination. As for the
sex trafficking, most definitely, Palletti was allegedly using the convent
as a cover for trafficking. His representatives would bring random
(45:48):
girls to the convent. After a few weeks, other high
officials would come to collect them. From there, they would
assumedly be brought to the Vatican or the neighborhood which
surrounded it. And this person believes that sometimes I'm after
the kidnapping or Landy may have been brought to that convent,
which was called the Handmade Sisters of the Immaculate. Well,
(46:08):
well that's a lot to take in, yeah, I know,
and I off Mike. We talked about whether it was
even worth mentioning this because it is a lot and
it's just impossible to verify. But at the very least,
I think we can take away from this that there's
something unusual about this case. And it's hard to put
(46:28):
it's it's hard for us to put our fingers directly
on it. But organizations like the Vatican that have been
around for so long and literally have a whole city
of which they control, you know, and not to mention
an entire you know, religious mass, you know, this is huge.
I mean, everyone just feel that they they are essentially
can do no wrong, um, even though we know they
(46:52):
can do wrong and and and have and there's been
verified cases of this with the sex abuse obviously, So
I just thought it was worth mentioning this person's perspective.
And there are documents that do seem to have an
air of legitimacy to them, but that's about as far
as we can take that. Well, what we do know
that there is a light at the end of this tunnel,
(47:15):
though dim it may be because we do know that
Emmanuel as brother that we mentioned at the top of
the show about the the person who you know, had
a bit of an argument with his sister before deciding
not to give her a ride, right, so she took
the bus. He is not convinced of any of the
(47:36):
I guess official stories that are out there. He thinks
there's something else that's going on. He has organized an
online petition. It's attracted over a hundred thousand supporters, and
the attempt here is to, you know, get the Catholic
Church to appeal to the world headquarters of that institution,
to get them to reveal everything that the institution knows
(47:57):
on an official level about this parents. Um just whether
or not they comply right is going to be the
the issue right as of now, at least as far
as I know, the Vatican maintains that it is doing
literally everything in its power to solve this mystery. Of course,
(48:19):
UH Pietro is not convinced. UH. Neither are the more
than a thousand people who signed that UH petition. And
at this point we hand it to you, fellow conspiracy realists.
What do you think? Which of these conspiracy theories? Which
of these theories really? Uh? If any scene most plausible?
(48:41):
Is this a case of someone who ran away? Is
this a case of someone who was kidnapped and murdered? Uh?
And if so, what makes you ascribe to a particular perspective?
Let us know. You can find us on Facebook, you
can find us on Instagram, you can find us on Twitter.
We especially love to shout out our Facebook community page.
(49:01):
Here's where it gets crazy. Yes, join us there to
talk about each of these episodes, this one in particular.
I guarantee you there will be a lot of us
talking about theories behind all of this and posting things.
So join us there. If you don't want to do that,
give us a phone call. Our number is one eight
three three S T D W y t K. Again,
(49:22):
I've been talking to a lot of you, have been
listening to a lot of messages I've still got about
fifty to go through and I'll be doing that tonight,
but they will be caught up, so we're gonna need
more calls. So please call in with your thoughts on
this and any other topic you'd like us to cover
in the future. And if none of that quite backs
your badgers, you can always contact us directly via our
(49:43):
good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio
dot com. Yeah. Stuff they don't want you to know
(50:07):
is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Paul Mission Control decond. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know, coming to you live and direct.
Yet again, we're your favorite Quentin Quarantinos. We're still keeping
the lights on in our separate bunkers here. Just wanted
(00:49):
to check in with everybody real quick before we dive in.
How are you today? I'm really good. Over the weekend,
I spent some time digging through our voicemail arch I've
and everybody that's been calling in and got to talk
with several of you you listening right now, speaking to you.
I've been instructed to say the word divination to prove
(01:13):
to one person that I called that it was real.
So there you have it. UM. I would just say
everyone out there that I've that I've spoken to, and
a lot of people that have been calling in. You know,
we're all still dealing with this thing. A lot of
you are doing great work to continue both the economy
and the health of others of us who are listening
(01:33):
and present today. So thank you to all of you. UM,
just keep doing what you're doing, especially you truckers who
are out there are still going every day. You healthcare
workers who are going every day, essential workers in the
grocery stores who are going every day and putting yourselves
at risk. Big big props to you guys. Well said, uh,
(01:55):
what about you, nol. How's it going. Oh, it's good.
I had a really nice weekend. Uh. I am made
uh tied eye shirts with my daughter. Um, you know,
proof positive that the madness is really starting to take hold.
Uh because that's the thing I never would have done before.
But you know what, it turns out I really like
it and it's uh you get some really nice results.
(02:15):
We tried two different methods. There's the twist method where
you put rubber bands around it like a braid of
a giant ponytail, like a French braid. And there's something
we just bunch it up and put the rubber bands
around the wad and the results are really delightful. I
think I'm a tied eye guy. Now nice good here. Uh.
And of course you can find some of those results
(02:36):
on our very social media, which we will shout out
either during this show or at the end. Yeah, mind's
at how now, Noel Brown, if you want to check
it out, Ben, what have you been up to? All
sorts of things? You know? Um? Uh. They're really deep
into a really really deep into a strange web that
(02:57):
is the subject of today's show. This is something that
I think is familiar to a lot of our fellow
conspiracy realist It's it's a mystery, it's a disappearance. Uh.
And you know, of course, if we are being realistic,
which we must be, the sad truth of the world
is that thousands of people disappear every day, even now,
(03:19):
in as the surveillance state grows stronger than it ever
has been before. Yet, of all those disappearances, this case
has always stood out for us, for me, for you, Matt,
you know, and particularly for Paul Michig controlled decade himself. Recently,
we received several partially redacted records from a source that
(03:41):
prefers to remain anonymous, and this prompted us to finally
dive into one of the most mystifying disappearances in modern history. Today,
we are asking what exactly happened to Emmanuela or Landing.
Quick quick bit of how keeping here? First, our source
(04:03):
that decided to remain anonymous or preferred that way. Uh.
When when this source sent us these documents, we circulated
them amid ourselves. We haven't shared them anywhere. Uh, and
we're I don't I don't know if we should honestly, um,
but we'll we'll get into that. And secondly, as we
(04:24):
like to say at the top of every um, particularly
darker violent episode, Uh, there is content in today's show
that may be triggering to some people. We will be
talking about the allegations of sexual abuse, we will be
talking about murder, uh, and there will be scenes of violence.
(04:44):
So we want to put that up there at the top. Now,
we have to do some background for everybody who thinks
Manuela or Landy, who is that? Did you say Orlando? No,
we said or Landy. Uh. And let learn a little
bit about our main character. Here here are the facts. Yes, Uh,
(05:06):
Emanuela or Landy was born in nineteen sixty eight, UM,
one of five children, and according to records. Her father
worked either at the Vatican Bank or was actually a
member of the staff in the papal household UM. According
to a Manuela's older brother Pietro, the family lived inside
(05:28):
Vatican City and would often they grew up UH feeling
as though the Vatican gardens, which are lush and gorgeous,
were was their own backyard. That's according to him, and
he's been a very outspoken person in the press about
this story. UM. In nineteen eighty three, Emmanuela was a
sophomore in high school UM. The school year had ended
(05:48):
for the summer, and she was taking flute lessons nearby
the music school UH at the Tomaso Ludovico de Victoria
School UM, and she was into music. She sang in
the choir, played the flute, and seemed to have a
real gift for just picking up instruments. It was on
(06:08):
the twenty two of June in that year three when
she disappeared, and we don't know much, but this is
what we do know. She left the family apartment. She
was wearing a white T shirt. She had on denim
overalls and running shoes. She got onto a bus and
she traveled a pretty short distance only about two kilometers.
(06:30):
She got off near the Piazza Novona, and um, this
is right in front of the Italian Senate. By the way,
she was stopped by a young man in a green BMW.
There was a traffic officer who witnessed this whole scene,
just Emmanuela getting off in speaking to this man in
a green BMW. The Senate security cameras were not working
(06:52):
that day though, so there was no video proof of this. Um. Now,
I just want to interjected him put this in the note.
But it is important to note that her brother, Pietro
or Landy, who's going to play a big role in
this story. Uh, he is the reason that she ended
up using public transit. According to what we know, she
(07:14):
asked him for a ride to the flute lesson and
he refused for one reason or another. So that's that's
why she ended up on the bus. Yeah, he has
stated several times over the course of all these years
that they got into a fight a row and that's
why they decided not to go that route. Right for
(07:36):
him taking her there, But she did end up going
to her flute class or music class as she normally
would have. She did call her sister after that class
had completed, and that phone call was the last known
contact that anyone ever had with Emmanuel, at least the
last known contact to the family and to investigators. Right. Yeah,
(08:00):
she had made plans with her sister to meet at
a piazza at seven thirty pm, and that is where
her trail ends. She was reported a missing person the
next day. Also, want to bust a myth here. In
most countries you do not have to wait twenty four
hours to report someone missing. That's that's a story that
(08:22):
television has told us. If you have reasonable cause to
believe someone has gone missing, go ahead and report them,
because every hour, every second counts. So the investigation begins.
The next day, tips start rolling in. Some are much
more promising or seem much more solid than others. Two
(08:43):
tips in particular, capture the investigator's attention. There's one caller
who refers to himself as Pierre Luigi Uh. He makes
a call on June and he says, I've seen this child,
not in Vatican City, I've seen her earlier in Rome
on the day of her disappearance, and he provided details
(09:07):
that made it sound believable to the authorities. He mentioned
that she had a flute a flute case with her.
He described her clothing, which you described earlier, Matt and
his description match. However, he had some interesting things to say. Uh.
Pierre Luigi said the girl was not going by the
name Emanuela. Instead, she was calling herself Barbarella, and that
(09:30):
she had run away from home to sell, of all things,
products for Avon. That's an interesting detail too, because it
wasn't something that was out there in the public sphere.
You know. It's it's pretty common in high profile cases
for authorities to withhold some information because it helps you
separate the wheat from the chaff, believe it or not.
(09:52):
In a lot of missing cases, a lot of suspected homicides,
when authorities asked the public for tips, they get a
lot of really cold hearted pranks where they get some
unstable people making ridiculous claims. So the fact that he
knew about this Avon thing was especially fascinating because it
tracked with information provided by the family. Or Landi had
(10:16):
mentioned wanting to sell Avon products earlier to her sister
before her disappearance, which is something a lot of people
did not know. So a second call came just a
couple of days later, on June, another man claimed to
have met a young woman going by Barbara who had
also run away from home. And this caller said that
he had seen her in a bar nearby the music school. Uh,
(10:40):
and you know, calling herself Barbara. Um. There were several
other tips. Uh. Some callers speculated that there was a
conspiracy afoot. A Turkish terrorist group called the Gray Wolves
allegedly had planned to kidnap or Landy allegedly um then
exchange her for one of their members, sort of a
(11:02):
political prisoner swap situation, a memet ali aga. Um, it
would be assassin who had been imprisoned for shooting the
pope two years earlier. Uh so what where did it
go from there? Oh? Devil coins, that's where it went.
And we shall also mentioned that second caller also said
(11:22):
the young woman who was calling herself Barbara had run
away from home. So they have those commonalities. And we
have a great story that's not really ours to tell.
It is a story from our good friend writer or
Die Paul mission controlled decond about fascinating coins that were
allegedly discovered, uh during the the attempted assassination of the pope.
(11:46):
That's a story for another day. But there's the door
to the Google rabbit hole. If you want to get
lost over the week, You're you're asking a vital question, Noel,
what did happen? There's no shore ritage of intriguing, compelling,
tantalizing that would be the right word. Tantalizing theories surrounding
(12:08):
or Landy's disappearance and at this stage her presumed death,
you know, the Turkish terrorist group that's just scratching the surface.
We have to remember the Vatican and the surrounding region
is a hub of religious power, and it's a hub
of mafia power. It's a hub of organized crime, and
(12:29):
these groups often come under suspicion in the world of conspiracy,
I mean Vatican. The Vatican city itself is a very
very weird place. Uh. Let's see the the age of
consent for a long time, I think was twelve years old. Uh.
It's also the only place where you can find an
a t M in Latin, just so where these aren't
(12:51):
all horrible quick facts. Uh. And it also wields this
outsize tremendous influence on human civilization, and it has for
centuries and centuries. You know, the the nexus of powerful
religious organization, of incredibly powerful godlike financial institutions and criminal organizations.
(13:18):
It all comes to a head here in a very
real way. You could say it's um it's even more
powerful than the City of London, which long time listeners
you'll recall, is not actually London, it's just in London,
and it's called the City of London. It is a
very confusing time for names because Vatican City it's called
(13:40):
a city, and it is a city, but it's a state,
and it's an uber state, and it's beyond a lot
of laws that would apply to Jane and John Doe's
like us and the people listening, unless you're listening and
you're the pope, in which case thanks for checking in. Man.
It is very odd to imagine Vaticans City as a
(14:00):
religious monarchy. That is just a strange that's a strange
thing there. There are so few places that exists in
that are full on monarchies, you know, without a parliament
connected in some way, or without a secondary governmental institution
(14:22):
attached in some way. There are they. I'm not saying
they don't exist, they are certainly they're certainly I guess
a dozen or so dozens. Let's say, but um, just
just to have the amount of wealth and power that
they have. Um, it's pretty strange to see it both together.
And it's it's so weird to talk about this case
(14:44):
because you know, if you picture this episode and this
exploration as us walking through an art gallery in a hallway,
we're passing this gigantic mural that says Vatican Conspiracies, and
we're kind of pointing at it for you, But it's
not it's not the part of this episode that we're
going to focus on. You can find our earlier videos
(15:07):
on this, you can find some earlier podcasts we've done.
But it goes very, very deep, and a disturbing amount
of the things that are treated as conspiracy theories about
the Vatican have later turned out to be at least
partially true. This is reality, and given this reality, it's
no surprise then that the Vatican is the subject of
so many conspiracy theories. And like the leads in the
(15:30):
Orlandic case, some of these theories are way more plausible
than others. I think it's this inherent strangeness of Vatican City.
Uh and and this bizarre, tragic disappearance of this fifteen
year old girl that combined to make this such a
mystifying mystery. And you know this is just context for
(15:52):
the question we asked earlier. Will pause for a word
from our sponsors and return to ask what And to
Manuela or Landy, here's where it gets crazy. Yeah, decades later,
(16:13):
this mystery is still just that a mystery. It is unsolved,
though there are plenty of theories, as tends to be
the case when you have cold cases like this. We
had talked about the gray Wolves, but what about that
other organization that seems to thrive so readily in Vatican City,
(16:33):
the mafia. Mafia theories um largely revolve around a Rome
based syndicate, a crime syndicate known as the Banda della
Magliana led by Enrico di pettus Um. The theory states
that the syndicate had loaned large sums of money to
(16:54):
the Vatican Bank, but weren't getting their payments as quickly
as they would have liked were at all, They weren't
being paid back what they were owed, so they decided
that taking a Vatican officials daughter for ransom was the
way to get their money back, and one of de
Pettis's former girlfriends claimed on the record that her ex
(17:16):
told her he had kidnapped or landy Um, and these
claims were plausible enough that the authorities decided to get involved. Yeah. Yeah.
Deppettis himself, like many mafio so had a lived by
the sword, die by the sword situation. He was fatally
shot in a square in Rome back in and years
(17:39):
later after after his death, an investigative journalists found out
that de Pettus's body had been very very quietly moved
from a normal cemetery to the prestigious Basilica sant Apollinarii.
This is interesting because this Basilican picular is not It's
(18:02):
like a very exclusive club for corpses, if you want
to be crass about it. This is not where ordinary
people are buried. This is this is the eternal parking
spot for the bodies of cardinals and princes and other
you know, illustrious members of society, Vatican and lay people alike.
(18:24):
So it's odd that a very successful criminal would end
up first off buried somewhere else and then some for
some reason, have his body moved posthumously to a different site.
People were freaking out and so in like you're saying,
no from some of the leads they got. The authorities
(18:47):
actually decided that they would open the tomb of this mobster,
and they wanted to see whether the rumors were true,
whether it was in fact the case that Manuela or
Landy was dead and that her remains were secretly placed
inside the tomb of Deppetus, which does see him on
(19:09):
the surface like it would be a little odd, right
he was killed in n she's been missing since nine three.
That would mean seven years of waiting until you entered
her into a tomb. Just if he was if she
was put into his original resting place, right, and then
(19:30):
after he got moved. There were a lot of big
you know what ifs, but there was there was rumor,
and there was you know, possibility. So it was looked into.
And when they did open it up, they found more
than they bargained for. Right, his his body was there.
It was a very nice sarcophagus in which he was placed.
(19:51):
He was well preserved. He had a dark blue suit
and a black tie. They took fingerprints from his body.
They confirmed his identity. But they also found this other
thing talked away inside this ancient crypt where he was buried.
That's right, they found not just one person's remains, but
(20:13):
multiple remains. There were dozens of boxes that held unidentified
human bones. You know, So they went looking for one
secret corpse and they found multiple remains. And then this
is this here's where the plot gets even trickier. Around
the same time he said this was right, so roughly
(20:37):
around the same time, a returning guests of sorts to
our show, the infamous Vatican exorcist, Gabrielle a More claimed
that a Manuela or Landy did not run away and
claimed instead that she was kidnapped by a member of
none other than the Vatican Police Force. He said that
she was kidnapped for the purpose of being abused at
(21:02):
sex parties for lack of a better term, and then
that she would be murdered. After that, he said she
had already died. He also alleged, and this is public too,
It's been reported in multiple sources, he also alleged that
officials of a foreign embassy they did not name were
also involved in this crime. That's important because if any
(21:23):
of that's true, what that means is that there was
an organized sexual abuse ring. Now this is something that
you know, we here thrown around a lot in conspiracy circles.
But one of the most troubling things about these sorts
of allegations is that every so often they end up
being at least partially true. And this is something that
(21:45):
people from across the spectrum had been sane was going
on in the Vatican for a long long time, you
know what I mean. Well, at the very least we
have hard proof of systematic cover ups of set sual
abuse by priests, uh and and members high level members
of the clergy in the Vatican. You know, to take
(22:08):
it to the next level of organized sex abuse ring
doesn't feel like much of a jump to me personally. Um,
you know, people may or may differ on that, but uh,
it's certainly the cover up is essentially the same thing
as um advocating or protecting that kind of behavior. So
(22:30):
why would it be such a you know, suspension disbelief
to to think that there's a step further and actually
orchestrating that, especially for people that are very privileged and
used to being able to order people around and get
everything they want and be waited on hand and foot.
You know, yes, but we also have the words here
from an archives at the Vatican. UH, Monsignor Simeon Duca,
(22:53):
who in twos six backed up the claims of our
friendly neighborhood exorcist Gabriel. He cited quote credible information that
quote certain factions inside the Vaticans diplomatic Corps were involved
in procuring young adolescent girls for sexual slavery. And this
(23:17):
this gentleman, Monsignor Duca. He also believed that Orlandy was
abducted for that purpose, and he believed that she was
killed when I guess she had this it's terrible to
think about it this in this way, but when she
was no longer innocent in the way that perhaps the
people that we're doing this uh wanted. Yeah. Yeah, it's
(23:41):
a it's a terrifying and very grim allegation. Uh. One
thing that's interesting about both Duca and a more statements
is that they're inherently drawing a line to geopolitans and
also to the halls of power, uh, to intelligence agencies.
(24:05):
I mean, that's that's ultimately where that rabbit hole leads.
And it also jibes with ongoing, ongoing allegations like decades
and decades old allegations that certain factions of intelligence agencies
have coerced people into these heinous acts of child abuse, uh,
(24:26):
in order to ensure their loyalty. You know, it reminds
like as as out there in black mirror esque or
Dan Dan brownish as it might sound, Uh, these possibilities
are less implausible than they might seem. So you know,
the the scariest thing about this allegation is that you
(24:49):
can't immediately throw it out, you know what I mean.
It's it's close enough to things that we know to
be true that it bears uh, it bears siries this consideration.
Even if, even if you know that headline might sound
all red media and alarmists, that story doesn't come from
(25:09):
you know, thin air. There there's a vast, a vast
trove of precedent behind there. And you know this, The
thread of this continues in an Italian journalist named Amano
Fid and apologies for my Italian pronunciation here, folks. Uh.
(25:31):
This journalist was given a leaked document that appeared to
be from the Vatican, and it was listing expenses for
the care of Manuela or Landi abroad. It included things
like room and board, as well as guidecological examinations. Now,
when I say appeared to be a Vatican document. We're
(25:53):
being careful with our language there, because the Vatican vehemently
denied that this document was legit. They called it a false,
ridiculous reconstruction. And you know, I'm still kind of stuck
on the allegations of an organized abuse ring. It makes me,
(26:15):
it makes me think back when um, we're talking with
Dan uh, with Dan Harmon and he actually changed my
mind about whether large scale conspiracies were popular, were possible.
Do you remember that? And he's like, look, maybe they'll
just tell you can be in with us, but you
have to eat this baby. Yeah, yeah, No, I mean
(26:36):
it's compromised, right, But when people are compromised, uh, it's
a lot easier to control them. And this brings us
to another potential lead, one that we will address in
full after a brief word from our sponsor and we're back.
(26:59):
It's I'm to introduce a character known as Cardinal Ugo Pelletti. Yes,
and to discuss Cardinal Poleetti, we have to jump to
two thousand five, when there was a television program called
Who Has Seen? And on that program there was an
anonymous caller who alleged that Emmanuela had been seized at
(27:21):
the behest of someone Cardinal Ugo Polletti, who in three
was Vicar General of Rome. This anonymous caller said, quote
on the matter of Emmanuela or Landy. To find a
solution to the case, go see who was buried in
the crypt at St. Apollinaire Basilica, and about the favor
(27:42):
that Rennettino did for Cardinal Pelletti at the time. Right.
The caller also heavily implies that the motive behind the
kidnapping they thought it was and the later burial, uh
was it's health sexual in nature. Cardinal Poletti passed away,
(28:05):
so we can't get an official statement from him at
this point, but we do know a few more things
about him. We know that back in he is the
person who greenlit the removal of Depettus's body and it's
uh reinterment in the basilica. Uh. This this basilica again
(28:28):
is usually reserved for the burial of senior clerics, uh,
not mafio so crime bosses. And this is also like
we learned about Poletti because of these documents sent to
us by our source. We want to be completely fair here.
A lot of this is in English. A lot of
(28:49):
it's in Italian, and we have not been able to
verify the authenticity of what we were sent, but it's
got some damning stuff in it. If it's true, yeah, completely, Uh.
A lot of it appears to be some kind of
transcript of a conversation where the concept of uh, Palletti
(29:11):
being I don't know that there's some language that's really
kind of vague. Uh. He's referred to as having certain
like proclivities kind of you know, I think the implication
being that he likes young girls. Uh. There's also a
discussion of hiring kind of high class call girls as
(29:32):
well thrown around in there. But it's not clear to me,
and I did ask the listener um to clarify and
to maybe help with some translations, but haven't heard back,
uh since the initial uh you know, kind of document dump. UM.
I'm not quite sure who's meant to be speaking in
these um, but like you said, Ben, it is it
is quite damning. So let's let's talk about the implications here.
(29:56):
We we'd already gone over someone who was very in
that Basilica, right or Mafio so fellow de Pettis and
or d Petti. However, you say it, and this tip
that came through in two thousand five is referencing a
move that occurred in which is the year that the
(30:19):
mafia fellow du Pettis was killed. Correct, And the burial
like who is buried? That's the thing here, who is
buried there? In the basilica at St. A paulinaire Um.
They did find dozens of sets of bones when they
did end up incurring or looking at the tomb in
(30:43):
so it all it gets a little confusing here, but
essentially it's this person would allegedly be is allegedly saying
that this cardinal had this person killed Emmanuela and then
her bones perhaps moved around to different burial places. It's
pretty odd, but again, we did find a bunch of bones,
(31:07):
and we're gonna keep going on here. We're going to
learn what officially from the Vatican at least, what who
those bones were or how old they were at least.
And this is just something to quickly clarify here. In
that quote that we read earlier about on the matter
of Emmanuelo or landy Um, it's referenced a name is
(31:27):
referenced Rennettino. That name is referring back to de Pettus,
the the mafia boss that we mentioned earlier there, who
is in fact buried at the Saint Apollinaire Basilica. So
basically what was being you know, alleged here in all
of this discussion was that perhaps Rennettino ord Pettus the monster,
(31:53):
did a favor for Cardinal Palletti, and then Paletti in
turn did a favor for Rennettino, or for some other
reason to obvious skate other bones or the burial of
other you know, people who were killed, had Rennettino moved
to that Basilica from where he was first interred, perhaps,
I think? Is that correct? Bend, Yeah, that's about the
(32:17):
size of it. The allegation is that it was a
quid pro quose situation when this source first reached out
to me, and I believe to you as well. No,
one of the first things I did was capture images
of what this source sent so I could share it
and get us all in the loop on email. Um
instead of me just like telling you like, that's the
(32:39):
thing with this stuff, we can't really verify it. That's
an important point. You know. I may at the beginning,
but I want to I want to underline that still,
if any of this stuff is true, it is um.
It's fascinating, and we're following up with this source to
see what we can learn about the proven pints of
(33:01):
the stuff we found here, to see what we can
learn about the uh what they see as the latest
developments or unfolding developments. But this paints a picture of
Cardinal Ugo Poletti as sort of a a known predator
uh and indeed a sadist. There's an interesting line where
(33:23):
they say, uh, he was known for these weaknesses of
his as the euphemistically called them, and that uh people
also knew he was therefore easy to blackmail because like
the intelligence agency hunting traps we mentioned earlier, there was
you know, there was a way to get leverage on
(33:43):
this person. He was apparently pretty ruthless. Definitely in the
political sphere. I mean, you think that politics in your
country get nasty, imagine what goes on in the halls
of the Vatican right where people are jockeying for position
in one of the most powerful institutions in the world.
(34:04):
So Ploody played the game well. Uh. He was able
to make the right connections apply pressure, but he was
also due to his alleged activities. He was also easy
to pressure himself because you want to keep these kind
of um, these kind of despicable actions, uh, you want
(34:25):
to keep them secret. So there's this allegation that the
Judiciary of Italy of Vatican had names of companies that
owned these phone numbers, and the administrators of these phone
numbers were linked to the mafia. They were under their control.
And the recordings that were gleaned from these phone numbers
(34:47):
paint the picture of an organization that is participating in
human trafficking, providing women and children. Uh. To their quote
high ranking friends essentially that it's a vast network of
of of forced sex work. Uh, and it caters to
(35:08):
the elite. That's that's again that that's what these documents
are saying. It's terrible that, you know, it's terrible that
we can't verify this stuff. It would be amazing if
we could just come out and say, hey, look, this
has been confirmed. There's action that could be taken now.
But we have to caution anyone who's listening to not
(35:32):
think of that as fact, because we cannot verify any
of that stuff as of this moment. No, we can't.
And and and you know, just to clarify to our
our our source UM has somewhat clarified that these transcripts
that we're discussing were interviews carried out by this individual
(35:53):
and a team. But this person is not willing to
share the identities of any of the any of the interviewees.
So even if there are accusations being made that are
very inflammatory and damning by the stuff about potentially hiring
sex workers and this notion of Poletti's kind of proclivities
and also uh ties to underworld organizations and mob ties, UM,
(36:20):
we don't have the context of understanding who the speaker is. Understandably,
this individual wants to protect their sources because they're afraid
that they could actually be in harm's way because of
the power of of of the Vatican. And uh again
we we were not personally as a show accusing anyone
and individually about this. But it's hard to you know,
(36:41):
you can't we can't just gloss over getting this information. UM.
It's it's definitely seems like this is a uh serious
amount of work has gone into this project on this
individual side. UM, but we were not able to confirm,
you know, any of the stuff and and because we
don't have the information to be able to do that,
(37:01):
because we don't even know who's talking. But I think
it's worth mentioning. And in the most recent exchange with
with Ben and I, UM, there's a mention that Poletti,
you know, had ties to to the underworld and to
underworld organizations one this person mentioned called the Red Brigades
(37:23):
UH and the n r A. These are terrorists sects
is what this person mentions. UM. And the n R
n A R was responsible for a massacre, the Bologna
massacre that killed eighty five people UM and injured more
than two hundred. Uh. But again, it's it's it's very
difficult to I'm not quite sure what this person is,
(37:44):
what their angle is. Is it that the terrorists you
know angle is more accurate, that the crime boss angle
is more accurate the sex ring angle. It's very difficult
to say, and I'm trying to We're trying to find out,
but UM, it's it's it's hard to kind of pin
it down to one icular source, but it certainly does
seem like there was some foul play going on. There's
also implications that Poletti himself was murdered because of you know,
(38:09):
knowing too much and being able to kind of spill
the beans after he retired. Right Poletti officially died of
a heart attack in however, you know, there's plenty of
precedent for homicide by what appears to be a heart attack.
And then also, if we're going to be if we're
going to completely apply critical thinking here, we have to
(38:32):
remember that cause of death is ultimately the decision of
a medical examiner. God knows, there are conspiracy theories of
plenty about wilfully fallacious medical examinations on bodies, right tail
as old as time. This this isn't over right. There
(38:53):
was a another tomb search, an entirely different tomb back
in the Orlandi family received even an anonymous tip, a
brief letter that was sent to the Orlandes lawyer from
inside the Vatican, and it's pretty cryptic. It shows a
stone angel at an unmarked tomb in the Teutonic Cemetery.
(39:15):
This is a cemetery that is within the walls of
the Vatican. The cemetery isn't even accessible to the general public.
But on this, on this unmarked tomb, someone has kept
a red vote of candle lit only at this tomb
only at this specific one, and they've been replacing the
(39:35):
flowers on a regular basis. There's one thing engraved on
a marble scroll that the angel, the statutory holds and
it just says the English version would be rest in peace.
This letter and this cryptic picture, of course, came at
a time when there were bombshell confirmations of long running
(39:58):
allegations about sexual abuse within the church. UH. And this
so part of this is the the timing, I think. UH.
And then this leads to another another decision by the
Vatican UH to investigate grave sites. I believe this was
(40:21):
in July of last year. Yeah, July last year, Vatican
City decided that they were going to open up two
separate tombs and they're gonna allow these tombs to be
analyzed by forensic anthropologist Giovanni r. Couti or r qt um.
It's it's really interesting. So the two tombs, one of
(40:42):
them was the tomb of the Angel, that's the one
that was mentioned in that letter. And then actually part
of that letter, doesn't it say something about where the
Angel points um something to that effect within that letter
referencing the Angel's hand and this one tomb, the tomb
of the Angel was meant to contain remains of two princesses,
German princesses, Princess Sophie of Oh I'm not gonna be
(41:06):
able to pronounce this hollin all Waldenburg bern Stein, and
the adjacent one, the one that was right next to it,
was meant to contain the remains of Duchess Charlotte Frederica
of Mecklenburg uh Schwern schwarn And So check this out.
There were two princesses, German princesses. That's whos supposed to
(41:26):
be in these two tumbs that are right next to
each other where this exhamation is going to take place.
They did the exhumations on the eleventh of July. Here's
the deal. Not only did they not find the body
of EMMANUELA hidden in there, or you know, they didn't.
They don't think they found that body, they also didn't
(41:48):
find the bodies of the two princesses that were supposed
to be buried there. There's a there's a seems to
be almost a systemic issue with putting bodies where they belong.
Uh In at least those two burial sites, the Basilica
and the Teutonic Cemetery. Yeah, just a few days later,
they did find some bodies, not whole bodies, parts of
(42:11):
bodies of dozens of individuals. We're talking thousands of human
bones that were found underground at the Teutonic College where
this um, this burial site, where the tombs are located.
So how crazy is that. Okay, we opened these two tumbs.
Those bodies are not there. We don't find any evidence
(42:33):
of the body that was allegedly here, but we did
find dozens of other individuals that we have no idea
of the identities the what we did. What they did
find though, is that those bodies were likely prior to
the to the nineteen hundreds. I believe that's what they
found in this location. This is something that's happened multiple
(42:55):
times over the course of some of these exhumations, where
the person that's meant to be found there is not
there or is there, but with the addition of a
bunch of other bones, some of them very old. Yeah. Yeah,
And to be clear, we're pointing this out, but we're
not saying that those are necessarily related to the mystery
(43:17):
of a Manuela or Landy. We have to remember that
the Vatican and the Catholic Church is an ancient institution.
There are a lot of people who have passed away
over over the millennia, and this means, you know, if
you think about it from the other side of the equation,
(43:37):
it would be unusual not to find strange, unidentified remains
in a cemetery this old. And at this point the
mystery remains unsolved. However, NOL, I believe you have been
in contact with your source and there's an update. Yeah,
just you know, UM, just in going through this together,
(43:59):
there just a few questions that I had and UM,
I hadn't heard from from this individual since they sent
the initial uh scans um, and just as we're recording
this hearing back and again because of the fact that
I'm not sure if this person is an investigative journalist
or is part of some kind of organization that's generally
trying to like be whistleblowers. Uh, it's really not clear,
(44:22):
and they were not comfortable telling any of that stuff.
So it's you gotta take all these documents and in
this perspective for what it's worth. Like we said earlier,
but um, we had mentioned earlier in the episode, Uh,
this crime family or street gang is what this person
is saying. They were the Magliani Gang. And I asked
(44:43):
if this person's angle on the story was that there
was organized crime involvement and that that was part of
a sex trafficking operation that Poletti was essentially leading. And
I just wanted to clarify if was what this person believes,
and they said yes, I believe it's abundantly clear that
(45:05):
they had relationships with many people of high importance. Uh.
They supplied these individuals with girls, drugs, arms, cash, and more.
They knew full well that they would never be prosecuted
for their crimes as they held in their hands the
reputations of those who did the judging. Um. And then
I asked to clarify about the sex trafficking angle. Uh,
(45:26):
this notion of a sex trafficking ring, and I believe
referring to the Magliani gang, um, this individual says they
rose to power in the seventies mostly through drug pushing,
lotto machine sales, robberties, and occasional assassination. As for the
sex trafficking, most definitely, Palletti was allegedly using the convent
as a cover for trafficking. His representatives would bring random
(45:48):
girls to the convent. After a few weeks, other high
officials would come to collect them. From there, they would
assumedly be brought to the Vatican or the neighborhood which
surrounded it. And this person believes that sometimes I'm after
the kidnapping or Landy may have been brought to that convent,
which was called the Handmade Sisters of the Immaculate. Well,
(46:08):
well that's a lot to take in, yeah, I know,
and I off Mike. We talked about whether it was
even worth mentioning this because it is a lot and
it's just impossible to verify. But at the very least,
I think we can take away from this that there's
something unusual about this case. And it's hard to put
(46:28):
it's it's hard for us to put our fingers directly
on it. But organizations like the Vatican that have been
around for so long and literally have a whole city
of which they control, you know, and not to mention
an entire you know, religious mass, you know, this is huge.
I mean, everyone just feel that they they are essentially
can do no wrong, um, even though we know they
(46:52):
can do wrong and and and have and there's been
verified cases of this with the sex abuse obviously, So
I just thought it was worth mentioning this person's perspective.
And there are documents that do seem to have an
air of legitimacy to them, but that's about as far
as we can take that. Well, what we do know
that there is a light at the end of this tunnel,
(47:15):
though dim it may be because we do know that
Emmanuel as brother that we mentioned at the top of
the show about the the person who you know, had
a bit of an argument with his sister before deciding
not to give her a ride, right, so she took
the bus. He is not convinced of any of the
(47:36):
I guess official stories that are out there. He thinks
there's something else that's going on. He has organized an
online petition. It's attracted over a hundred thousand supporters, and
the attempt here is to, you know, get the Catholic
Church to appeal to the world headquarters of that institution,
to get them to reveal everything that the institution knows
(47:57):
on an official level about this parents. Um just whether
or not they comply right is going to be the
the issue right as of now, at least as far
as I know, the Vatican maintains that it is doing
literally everything in its power to solve this mystery. Of course,
(48:19):
UH Pietro is not convinced. UH. Neither are the more
than a thousand people who signed that UH petition. And
at this point we hand it to you, fellow conspiracy realists.
What do you think? Which of these conspiracy theories? Which
of these theories really? Uh? If any scene most plausible?
(48:41):
Is this a case of someone who ran away? Is
this a case of someone who was kidnapped and murdered? Uh?
And if so, what makes you ascribe to a particular perspective?
Let us know. You can find us on Facebook, you
can find us on Instagram, you can find us on Twitter.
We especially love to shout out our Facebook community page.
(49:01):
Here's where it gets crazy. Yes, join us there to
talk about each of these episodes, this one in particular.
I guarantee you there will be a lot of us
talking about theories behind all of this and posting things.
So join us there. If you don't want to do that,
give us a phone call. Our number is one eight
three three S T D W y t K. Again,
(49:22):
I've been talking to a lot of you, have been
listening to a lot of messages I've still got about
fifty to go through and I'll be doing that tonight,
but they will be caught up, so we're gonna need
more calls. So please call in with your thoughts on
this and any other topic you'd like us to cover
in the future. And if none of that quite backs
your badgers, you can always contact us directly via our
(49:43):
good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio
dot com. Yeah. Stuff they don't want you to know
(50:07):
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