The graves were opened at a tiny Holy See cemetery on Thursday but turned out to be completely empty.
Emanuela Orlandi’s disappearance in 1983 is one of Italy’s most enduring mysteries, and the opening of the tombs at her family’s request was the latest search for possible leads.
Instead, the grave site inspections raised only new questions: what happened to the remains of the two princesses who were buried in the side-by-side tombs in 1836 and 1840, respectively, in Teutonic Holy Field near St Peter’s Basilica?
“The tombs are empty. We are all amazed,” Orlandi family lawyer Laura Sgro told reporters. It was Ms Sgro who had received an anonymous letter suggesting the family check out the tombs in the cemetery where a stone angel holds a scroll reading in Latin “Rest in peace”.
Witnessing the tomb’s opening along with Ms Sgro, and a technical expert for the Orlandi family was Pietro Orlandi, whose 15-year-old sister disappeared after she went to her music lesson in Rome on June 22 1983.
The siblings’ father worked as a messenger for the Vatican and the family lived in Vatican City State.
The Vatican said in a statement that the opening of the tombs “yielded a negative outcome. No human remains nor funereal urns were found”.
It said the inspection of Princess Sophie von Hohenlohe’s tomb turned up an underground chamber measuring roughly 13 by 12ft that was “completely…
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