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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsItalian Police Open a Mobster’s Vatican-Owned Tomb in Search of a Missing Girl
Searching for the remains of a teenager missing for three decades, Italian police opened the Vatican-owned tomb of mobster Enrico De Pedis, but the boxes of bones they found interred with his corpse only deepen the mystery, Barbie Latza Nadeau reports.The smell of death wafted through the 7th-century courtyard of Vatican-owned SantApollinare church in central Rome on Monday as bricklayers pried open the tomb of notorious mobster Enrico Renatino De Pedis. Police scientists and criminal investigators at the scene quickly identified De Pedis first by sight and then by taking a fingerprint from his remarkably well-preserved hand. His dark blue suit and black tie were as pristine as the day he was buried.
But when investigators opened the mobsters tomb on Monday, it was not to look for answers as to why such a man was interred in a church owned by the Vatican. Instead they were searching for the remains of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi, who has been missing for three decades and who has been rumored to have been buried in DePediss tomb. Orlandis father, Ercole, was a Vatican employee who is believed to have stumbled upon damning information linking the Vatican to De Pediss gang. Emanuela may have been nabbed as collateral, or simply to keep the elder Orlandi quiet. The girls body was never found, and the mystery surrounding her death is one of Italys most mysterious unsolved crimes. Frequent purported spottings of her as an adult still make headlines. But despite the intense interest, no credible theory explaining what happened to her has ever been proven.
De Pedis died of gunshot wounds in 1990 and his body was interred in the Vatican-owned church sometime before 1997, when an investigative journalist discovered the tombs existence among those of important prelates. De Pediss was the only crypt with the last name written in diamonds. Why such a notorious mobster with an undisputed affiliation with the Banda della Magliana criminal gang was buried in the company of bishops, cardinals, and popes in a Vatican church has been a question that has dogged the Holy See for the last 15 years. Conventional wisdom often points to a favor or payback by the Vatican to his family, likely for a massive donation or loan made to pad the church coffers. The Vatican has never commented on why the gangster had such a privileged burial plot, but the local rector, himself a former coroner, said De Pedis had won the trust of a prison priest who agreed to the protected burial so members of rival gangs wouldnt desecrate his tomb in a public cemetery.
The link between Emanuela Orlandi and Enrico De Pedis came to light in 2005, when an anonymous caller tipped off police during a segment of Chi Lha Visto, a hugely popular missing persons program in Italy. The caller said that Orlandi was kidnapped as a favor to Cardinal Ugo Poletti and the secret to the mystery lies in a tomb in SantApollinare basilica. Years later, De Pediss mistress suggested that the girl was kidnapped on orders from Paul Marcinkus, an American archbishop who was president of the Vatican bank when Orlandi disappeared.
Rumors that the young girl was buried alongside the mobster have haunted the Vatican for the last decade. The church is adjacent to a pontifical academy run by Opus Dei, which, thanks to the success of Dan Brown novels, only added to the pressure for the Vatican to resolve the issue. Despite denials that De Pedis was buried alone, opening the tomb would be the only way to put the theories to rest. The Vatican agreed last month to finally settle the issue by granting the Italian police permission for the exhumation. /snip
The rest at >>>>> http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/16/italian-police-open-a-mobster-s-vatican-owned-tomb-in-search-of-a-missing-girl.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_afternoon&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_afternoon&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet
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Italian Police Open a Mobster’s Vatican-Owned Tomb in Search of a Missing Girl (Original Post)
gateley
May 2012
OP
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)1. i just hope that phone call wasn't a hoax