Tombs of 19th century princesses found empty after Vatican search for remains of missing teen

The opening of two tombs inside the Vatican in the search for the possible remains of a girl missing for three decades on Thursday led to yet another mystery: the tombs were completely empty.

The inspection, which took about two hours early on Thursday, sprung from the tireless efforts of the family of Emanuela Orlandi, a 15 years-old Vatican citizen who disappeared in the summer of 1983, to shed light over the fate of the girl.

The Vatican gave the green light to the exhumations after the Orlandi family received an anonymous note last summer, hinting that the girl’s remains might be in one of the two graves located in the Vatican’s Teutonic Cemetery. 

According to the letter, Ms Orlandi’s body would have been found in the tomb which is pointed to by an angel on the cemetery wall holding a sheet saying: “Rest in peace.”

The two adjacent tombs unsealed were the “Tomb of the Angel,” of Princess Sophie von Hohenlohe, who died in 1836, and the tomb of Princess Carlotta Federica of Mecklemburg, who died in 1840. 

The heirs of one of the two princesses, Ms Orlandi’s relatives and their lawyer, forensics experts and the Vatican police were all present as the tombs were unsealed. 

In a statement released after a couple hours of work, Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said the operation had “produced negative results: no human findings or funerary urns were found” in either of the tombs.  

Not only did the tombs not contain any remains appearing to belong to a teenager from the 1980s, but neither were any belonging to the 19th century princesses recovered.

“That was a real surprise, the least expected outcome of this search,” said Laura Sgro, the Orlandi family lawyer, talking to reporters after the inspection. 

The Vatican said on Thursday it will make further checks to understand if the remains of the two princesses have been somehow moved over the years during the cemetery’s renovation works. 

Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican bank’s employee, disappeared after leaving her family’s Vatican City apartment for a music lesson in Rome on June 22,1983.

Her fate has been one of Italy’s most persistent mysteries. Over the years, many rumours have swirled about what happened to her – including conspiracies tied to the Mafia, the Vatican bank scandal and the plot to assassinate Pope John Paul II.