LA YLENIA MARIA SOLE CARRISI: Missing from New Orleans, LA - 6 Jan 1994 - Age 23

[Romulus]

1107DFLA - Ylenia Maria Sole Carrisi​

Name: Ylenia Maria Sole Carrisi
Case Classification: Endangered Missing
Missing Since: January 6, 1994
Location Last Seen: New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana

Physical Description​

Date of Birth: November 29, 1970
Age: 23 years old
Race: White
Gender: Female
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 120 lbs.
Hair Color: Blonde, medium length
Eye Color: Green
Nickname/Alias: Unknown
Distinguishing Marks/Features: Italian citizen but speaks English fluently

Identifiers​

Dentals: Available
Fingerprints: Unavailable
DNA: Available

Clothing & Personal Items​

Clothing: Floral print dress; waist-length jacket
Jewelry: Unknown
Additional Personal Items: Unknown

Circumstances of Disappearance​

Ylenia Carrisi arrived from Belize to New Orleans on December 30, 1993. She was staying at the Le 'Dale at 749 Charles Street in the French Quarter with a 54-year-old street musician, whom she had met during a visit to New Orleans the previous summer. The hotel was low rent and is now closed.

Her family in Italy last spoke to her when she contacted them via telephone on January 1, 1994.

According to the hotel, Ylenia left, without her personal belongings, around noon on January 6 and never returned. She left behind her backpack, notebooks, and passport. The musician remained at the hotel until he checked out on January 14th trying to pay the bill using traveler's checks made payable to Ylenia Carrisi.

On January 30, a security guard at the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas reported that on January 6 around 11:30 p.m. while on patrol around Woldenberg Park, located on the west bank of the Mississippi River, he saw a blonde woman sitting on the pier. She was described as blonde, aged 18 to 24, very pretty, and wearing a jacket and a floral dress that fell just below the knees. When the security guard told her she couldn't be in the park after hours, she reportedly replied "It doesn't matter...I belong to the river." The woman then jumped into the Mississippi River and swam toward the center. The police were called. The woman began to struggle and ask for help. A passing boat created a wake and the woman went under the water and did not re-emerge.

A search involving boats and police helicopters lasted for hours but the victim was never located. It has never been confirmed that the woman who drowned in the river was Ylenia Carrisa, nor have any of the bodies recovered from the river in the following months been identified as hers.

On January 31, the street musician was arrested in connection with Ylenia's disappearance. He claimed that he did not know where she was and police were unable to hold him due to lack of evidence.

Ylenia is the daughter of Italian singers Romina Power and Albano Carrisi, and the granddaughter of the American actor Tyrone Power. She was a celebrity in her on right as the letter turner for the show "La Ruota de Fortuna" - similar to the American show "Wheel of Fortune."

A year prior to her disappearance and while visiting New Orleans, her father stated that she had went into the Mississippi River but got scared and was able to get out. He said she had been under the effects of marijuana.

Investigating Agency(s)​

Agency Name: New Orleans Police Department
Agency Contact Person: Det. Winston Harbin
Agency Phone Number: 504-658-5315
Agency E-Mail: N/A
Agency Case Number: A-36564-94

NCIC Case Number: M13094630
NamUs Case Number: 17538

Information Source(s)​

NamUs
LSU FACES
WWLTV 4/CBS
The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA) - Mar. 5, 1994

edited by staff to add media link

YLENIA MARIA SOLE CARRISI is an Italian national who has been missing from New Orleans, #LOUISIANA since 6 Jan 1994 - Age 23

Ylenia Carrisi, the 23 year old daughter of Al Bano and Ramona Power - two of Italy’s most popular singers at the time - disappeared while on holiday in New Orleans. She hasn’t been seen since.

www.crimewatchers.net

*CLICK THE REPORT BUTTON IF YOU'D LIKE THIS CASE MOVED TO THE GENERAL DISCUSSION AREA TO BE OPENED FOR COMMENTING.

 

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Ylenia Carrisi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ylenia Carrisi
Born Ylenia Maria Sole Carrisi
November 29, 1970
Rome, Italy
Disappeared January 6, 1994 (aged 23)
New Orleans
Status Missing for 21 years, 5 months and 2 days
Height 5'9" (178 cm)
Parent(s) Albano Carrisi and Romina Power
Ylenia Maria Sole Carrisi (born November 29, 1970-missing since January 6, 1994) is the eldest daughter of Italian singers and actors Albano Carrisi and Romina Power. She disappeared under mysterious circumstances while visiting New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, in January 1994. Carrisi, upon her father's request, was presumed dead in January 2013. [1]


Carrisi was born in Rome on November 29, 1970, the eldest daughter of Albano Carrisi and Romina Power. Her maternal grandparents are American actor Tyrone Power and Mexican actress Linda Christian.

Life[edit]
In 1983, she appeared alongside her parents in the Italian film Champagne in paradiso. Later on, she was the letter-turner on La Ruota Della Fortuna, the Italian version of Wheel of Fortune. She envisaged for herself a career as a novelist, studying literature at King's College London, where she received the highest marks in her year.

Disappearance[edit]

LeDale Hotel on St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, where Carrisi was staying at the time of her disappearance.
During her studies, she began to entertain the idea of traveling the world solo with nothing but a backpack and her journal. She decided to take a break from studying and returned to Italy where she sold all her belongings in order to pay for the voyage. She began in South America. After having spent a few months in Belize, she decided to leave the day after Christmas 1993 by bus to New Orleans, Louisiana. Her brother Yari, also an experienced traveler, had decided to surprise his sister by visiting her that Christmas. He arrived on a rainy 27 December in the village of Hopkins, going door to door in search for her, only to find that the day before, she had hopped on a bus heading to Mexico. Unfortunately, he arrived 24 hours too late for she was already heading to New Orleans, where she disappeared on January 6, 1994.

Carrisi was last seen in the French Quarter area sometime during the month. Police efforts to find her did not yield any result. At the time of her disappearance, Carrisi was staying in the LeDale Hotel with African-American street musician Alexander Masakela, twenty years her senior. Masakela was arrested on January 31 on an unrelated charge[2] but eventually released for lack of evidence to connect him to Carrisi's disappearance.

In relation to her disappearance, a security guard testified that he saw a woman vaguely matching her description jump into the Mississippi River saying the words "I belong into water". A Coast Guard search turned up no sign of the young woman's body, which may have been washed out to sea. In any case, it has never been established that the person was Carrisi. In 1996, two years after her disappearance, an unspecified caller assured emphatically that Carrisi was still alive but her whereabouts were unknown.[3]

Carrisi's parents last heard from their daughter on New Year's Eve. They reported her missing on January 18.[4] Her mother believes she's still alive. In November 2006, Albano stated for the first time that he believed the security guard's story. In January 2013 he requested the declaration of the presumed death of his daughter.

She was reportedly discovered in June 2011 in a monastery in the United States. Her father dismissed the report as "shameful speculation containing not a bit of truth."[5]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ylenia_Carrisi

 

[Akoya]

Tyrone Power - one of his most popular roles was Zorro.

 

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[Akoya]

http://www.vanitatis.elconfidencial.com ... e_1101605/

"Ylenia Carrisi killed by a serial killer,"

Al Bano and Romina Power for the dramatic disappearance of Ylenia marked an irreparable break in their life, in their family. Learn that maybe 22 years later would be the victim of a serial killer opens disturbing scenarios rekindling the spotlight on one of the news stories unusual complex. "The police have asked him to, and a week ago I was taken DNA" said Al Bano, but added that he does not believe in the merits of the new investigation. The samples will be compared with those taken from the remains of a woman found dead in Holt, Florida, on September 15, 1994. It had been nine months after the disappearance of Ylenia. "I would be so," said the father. Ylenia could not have thrown into the Mississippi. "I confirm everything concerning the taking - told ilfattoquotidiano.it - but for me today is just too much. We wait."
An identikit and the DNA of a young woman killed by a serial killer who had hitched a ride may soon reveal what happened to the girl (then 24 years old) and, above all, whether it is the same person. In order to test this hypothesis in recent days in Cellino San Marco (Brindisi), the country where he lives Al Bano, DNA samples were taken at the head of the family and children Yari, Cristel and Romina Junior.

The truck driver Keith Hunter Jesperson is also known as the 'Happy Face Killer' for the smile that drew when he sent letters to the media. The alleged murderer would have killed at least eight women between 1990 and 1995, in six different states: Nebraska, California, Florida, Washington, Oregon and Wyoming. In 1996, he confessed that he had taken the life of a girl he met in a service station in Tampa, Florida. The body had been found two years earlier and the Sheriff of Palm Beach has never stopped to investigate, to get the identity of the woman. His face was reconstructed and the identikit has been recognized by the serial killer. The girl called herself Suzy or Suzanne. The detail has not escaped the sheriff that, during its investigation work, has found that even Ylenia Carrisi, in the last months before his death (when he was in New Orleans) called himself well. The comparison of the sketch of the victim of Jesperson and photos of Ylenia, whose resemblance is undeniable, would rise to speculation that the victim of the truck driver.

A week ago the police provincial command of Brindisi, mandated by Interpol, have taken DNA samples of Al Bano and children Yari, Cristel and Romina Junior. Do the same for Ylenia's mother, Romina Power, which in those days was in New York. As confirmed by the provincial command of the police in Brindisi, everything has been sent to the Ris of Rome for analysis. The results have already been submitted - through Interpol - to American investigators, which is in charge of the data comparison. Nothing on withdrawals has been leaked in recent days. Just Sunday Al Bano had spoken of his daughter Ylenia, interviewed by Massimo Giletti Arena. "It 's always yesterday when talking about Ylenia. They are those wounds that nothing and no one can mend" he said. Then the commotion. Inevitable. And the request to the driver: "Please, let's stop talking about another five minutes then just because I can do it".

Interpol is taking DNA samples from Ylenia's parents to test against a Jane Doe found in Florida. They aren't doing a damn thing to find these women.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... e-Doe.html

 

[Akoya]

Romina Power has requested a ''media blackout'' regarding her Duaghter Ylenia.

http://www.today.it/gossip/lettera-romi ... lenia.html

"Dear press, I go back to Italy to remain paralyzed in front of a newsstand." Thus begins the open letter to the press written by Romina Power, about the latest rumors related to the disappearance of her daughter Ylenia.

The singer demands a halt to speculation about the death of her daughter: "Just speculation! Enough activities! A mother asks, indeed imposes news blackout. For my daughter, my Ylenia Carrisi. Enough!".

The outburst of the mother continues: "There are so many misfortunes in the world every day but, consciously speculate on other people's pain, I find the greatest baseness. It gives for sure what it is, just to make the vulgar sensationalism, just to sell and earn some dirty money. Who fills the 'news' will also have a family, he will have a bit too' empathy, how do you not have more heart? A heart for a family that suffers for years."

 

[Akoya]

Ylenia Maria Sole Carrisi disappeared under mysterious circumstances while visiting New Orleans, Louisiana, on January 6, 1994. Ylenia was traveling during a study break. She stayed at Le'Dale Hotel, 749 Charles Street in the French Quarter, at the time of her disappearance. She stayed at the hotel with Alaxander Masakela, a 54-year old African-American street musician she had met during a visit to New Orleans, the previous summer. According to the hotel, Ylenia left, without her personal belongings, at noon on January 6th and never returned. She left behind her backpack, notebooks, and passport. The musician remained at the hotel until he checked out on January 14th and tried to pay the bill using traveler's checks made payable to Ylenia Carrisi. The hotel is now closed. Masakela was arrested on January 31 on an unrelated charge, but he was eventually released for lack of evidence connecting him to Ylenia's disappearance.

On January 30, a security guard at the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas reported that he saw a woman vaguely matching Ylenia's description jump into the Mississippi River saying, "I belong into water". A Coast Guard search turned up no sign of the young woman's body. It has never been established that the woman was Carrisi, or if there was a woman. Carrisi's parents last heard from their daughter on New Year's Eve. They reported her missing on January 18th. Her mother believes she's still alive.



Le 'Dale at 749 Charles Street in the French Quarter, New Orleans

Aquarium of the Americas

 

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http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/28/us/wo ... stery.html

Woman's Vanishing Engrosses a City Redolent of Mystery

By FRANCES FRANK MARCUS,
Published: February 28, 1994

NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 27— Getting lost in New Orleans has long had a certain cachet. The people who live here say the city is unique -- the food spicier, the music livelier, the mysteries stranger. But the mystery of a missing Italian traveler is distinctive even by New Orleans standards.

The main characters are a former American matinee idol's granddaughter and a mesmerizing street musician. The scene is the waterfront and the streets of the French Quarter. Swirling in the background is the blend of Spanish, French and African cultures that has drawn writers like Lafcadio Hearn and William Faulkner.

The Italian news media, which has recounted every twist of the mystery on newscasts and in newspapers, has even hinted of voodoo. Semicelebrity in Italy

Ylenia Carrisi, a 23-year-old blonde with green eyes, disappeared on Jan. 6, a week after arriving here, leaving behind her passport and some baggage. That night a young woman, whose body has never been found, jumped into the Mississippi River at the edge of the French Quarter and vanished. The questions she left behind are still unanswered.

Ms. Carrisi is a minor television celebrity in Italy, for a short time a counterpart of Vanna White on an Italian game show. But she is best known as the daughter of two Italian singers, Al Bano and Romina Power, and as the granddaughter of the American actor Tyrone Power and his actress wife, Linda Christian.

Ms. Carrisi and her parents came to New Orleans on vacation last July, says Fabrizio Mazza, the Italian Consul here, and Ms. Carrisi met a street musician, Alaxander Masakela, a 54-year-old cornet player with a Jamaican accent. Enchanted by the city and apparently by Mr. Masakela, Ms. Carrisi stayed behind when her parents went on to Florida, saying she wanted to write and paint.

According to accounts in the Italian news media, as described by Dr. Mazza, Ms. Carrisi rushed to Florida two days later, telling her parents that she feared that two men were trying to drug and kill her.

Nevertheless, Ms. Carrisi, who was on leave from her studies at the University of London, returned to New Orleans on Dec. 30. The Times-Picayune, New Orleans's main newspaper, quoted Ms. Power as saying that her daughter wanted to "find characters for a book she was writing."

The young woman mingled with street musicians and the homeless, and took notes. She stayed with Mr. Masakela in a scruffy hotel on St. Charles Street, five blocks from the French Quarter, where Mr. Masakela played his cornet for donations.

Mike Stark, who owns a French Quarter mask and hat store called The Little Shop of Fantasy, said that some homeless people he knows told him Ms. Carrisi worked "very hard at being a street person."

On Jan 6. at 11 P.M., a young woman jumped into the Mississippi River near the Aquarium of the Americas, on the edge of the French Quarter. Shortly before, she had told a security guard, "I belong in the water." The woman swam through the fast brown currents about 100 yards toward the middle of the river.

A barge then came by, making waves. The woman screamed for help and then vanished. The Coast Guard searched 90 miles of the river, almost to the Gulf of Mexico, and found only the body of an unidentified man. Lure of the River

The security guard, Albert Cordova, has tentatively identified photos of Ms. Carrisi as depicting the woman who spoke to him.

"It's not the first time someone tried to swim across the river," Mr. Stark said, "and they didn't show up either. There is a magic about that river. People who've been drinking too much can believe, 'I can swim that damn thing.' "

Ms. Carrisi's parents last heard from their daughter on Jan. 1, and despite her apparent drowning, they say they fear she is being held hostage.

On Feb. 18 they issued a statement from Switzerland, which Dr. Mazza translated as saying, "The investigations to find our daughter alive, and probably held against her will, are actively being pursued." It also said "there have been numerous and reliable sightings worthy of pursuit." That very week, for example, came an unconfirmed report that Ms. Carrisi had been seen in St. Augustine, Fla. Colleague Drops From View

Mr. Masakela has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but Ms. Carrisi's parents say they are suspicious of him. He had "some kind of power over her," Ms. Power said at a New Orleans news conference after her daughter vanished.

Mr. Masakela has no official address and has proved elusive in recent weeks, but in an interview published in late January in The Times-Picayune, he said of Ms. Carrisi, "I believe she is safe."

The police say only that the investigation is continuing.

The mystery has caught the imagination of New Orleans residents, who note that it would not be the first time a stranger has come to the city and disappeared from her previous life.

As Mr. Stark puts it, New Orleans is "a magical town" that attracts many people "who are trying to escape from wherever they've been."

Photos: The disappearance of an Italian celebrity is mysterious even by New Orleans standards. A poster in the French Quarter asked for help in finding Ylenia Carrisi, an Italian television personality and granddaughter of the actor Tyrone Power, who vanished on Jan. 6. Ylenia Carrisi last year. (Photographs by Associated Press)

 

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http://www.people.com/people/archive/ar ... 86,00.html

April 04, 1994 Vol. 41 No. 12

Seeking Ylenia

By David Grogan

Italy's Vanna White Drops Out of Sight on a Visit to America


FacebookTwitterE-mailYLENIA CARRISI SEEMED DESTINED FOR A life in show business. She was, after all, the granddaughter of the late matinee idol Tyrone Power and the daughter of Romina Power and Albano Carrisi (who goes by the stage name Al Bano), a popular Italian singing duo. As a teenager she briefly became Italy's Vanna While, turning the letters on La Ruota della Fortuna—Wheel of Fortune. But at 23, she changed careers; her true calling, she decided, was to write novels.

For her first book, she planned a gritty account of the life of down-and-out street musicians in New Orleans, a city she visited briefly last summer. She began her research by flying to the Big Easy last Dec. 30 and checking into a $23-a-night room in Le' Dale, a hotel frequented by transients located five blocks from the French Quarter. A week later she left the hotel around 11 a.m. and never returned. By mid-January, when Ylenia hadn't made contact by phone, her parents in Rome were frantic. They called a family friend, who reported her missing to the New Orleans police on Jan. 18. She has yet to be found.

Though police have not uncovered any hard evidence that Carrisi met with foul play, her parents, who flew to New Orleans after she was reported missing, fear she might have become entangled in a dangerous real-life drama. "I've heard a lot of strange stories in New Orleans about white slave trade and girls being abducted for black-magic rites," says Romina Power, 41, who is Tyrone Power's daughter by actress Linda Christian, now 70. "I believe she is being held somewhere against her will."

Whatever happened to Carrisi, her parents believe there is one person who may know more about her disappearance than he has so far revealed: Alaxander Masakela, 54, a gray-bearded musician who plays a cornet for tips on street corners. Carrisi met Masakela—described by fellow street musicians as a yarn spinner with a penchant for charming young women, usually tourists—during her summer trip to New Orleans. When she checked into Le' Dale in December, Masakela was with her. "They seemed out of place together, but I thought maybe they were just helping each other out," says Patty Eagle, the hotel's night manager. "She specifically asked for a room with two beds. I don't believe they were romantically involved."

No one at the hotel paid much attention to the comings and goings of the unlikely pair until a week after Carrisi's disappearance, when Masakela was evicted after allegedly trying to pay the room bill with unendorsed traveler's checks. "He asked if we could keep some stuff for a few hours," says Eagle, "but he never came back." Unclaimed was Carrisi's backpack, filled with clothing and personal effects.

In late January police found Masakela on the street and pulled him in for questioning. In a face-to-face meeting with Carrisi's father arranged by the police, Masakela denied knowing anything of Carrisi's whereabouts. Later, Masakela told reporters, "All of a sudden, I'm the Simon Legree in all this, and it's not justified." A few days later Masakela was arrested—but not because of Ylenia Carrisi. A former girlfriend accused him of rape. Details of the incident have never been released, and the charges were dismissed on March 10. Since then, Masakela has dropped out of sight.

While Carrisi's parents remain convinced that he somehow put their daughter "under a spell," there may be another explanation for Ylenia's disappearance. Near midnight on Jan. 6, the day Carrisi was last seen leaving Le' Dale dressed in a long flower-print dress and waist-length jacket, a young blond woman in similar clothing was spotted at a park by the Mississippi River. Albert Cordova, a security guard, noticed the woman sitting on a wharf, staring out at the river, and asked her to move along because the park was closed. "Well," he recalls the woman saying, "I belong in the water anyway." With that, she stood up and dove headfirst into the river—jacket, dress and all.

Cordova frantically pleaded with her to return to the wharf, but she swam casually away from the shore. "It was clear she was a very strong swimmer," says Cordova. "This wasn't a suicide. I thought, 'Oh, she's just playing with us.' " Cordova and a security guard from a nearby riverboat stood helplessly as the woman gradually swam toward the Mississippi's main channel, with its swift current and treacherous undertow. Finally, a tanker came barreling down the river, and the woman panicked. "All of a sudden she started screaming for help," Cordova says. "Then she went down once, twice, and after the third time she didn't come up again."

A Coast Guard search turned up no sign of the woman's body, which may have been washed out to sea. Given the timing of the incident and Cordova's description of the woman's clothing, police suspect she may have been Carrisi. However, the riverboat security guard didn't gel a good look at the woman, and Cordova has his doubts. "Based on the photographs the police showed me, I'd say it wasn't her," he says. "But it could have been. I don't know for sure. It was dark."

Carrisi's parents refuse to believe the swimmer was their daughter. They point to a reported sighting of Carrisi a day later by a Croatian fisherman who was visiting New Orleans. The man was shocked when he made an offhand remark in Croatian about a woman's good looks and she thanked him in Italian. "He bumped into the girl in the street and turned around and looked at her really close," says Power. "When he saw photographs of Ylenia in the paper, he identified her as the same girl."

Power's hopes have also been buoyed by her conversations with various psychics. "You know, we live on two different levels," Power says. "One is the daily, normal, routine level. The other is a level of ultra-sensitivity. As a mother, I know Ylenia is alive...somewhere. Yes, yes, yes. I'm absolutely convinced."

DAVID GROGAN
RON RIDENHOUR in New Orleans and PEGGY POLK in Rome

 

[Akoya]

Paper: Times-Picayune, The (New Orleans, LA)

Title: Eleven years ago, an Italian TV star disappeared in New Orleans. Police say she plunged into the Mississippi. But rumors persist that she is alive and well in Europe.

Date: June 5, 2005

New Orleans police have long since closed the book on the 1994 disappearance and presumed drowning of Ylenia Carrisi, a European TV celebrity by virtue of being actor Tyrone Power's granddaughter and the letter-turner on Italy's version of "Wheel of Fortune."During a visit to New Orleans, the glamorous Carrisi ditched her wealth and celebrity status to take up residence with a street musician in a low-rent hotel and then, perhaps undone by her walk on the wild side, was presumed to be the woman seen diving into the Mississippi River for an ill-fated swim.


Case closed? Not so fast.


Eleven years later, the one-time Vanna White of Italy has been reincarnated as the Elvis of European tabloids, the object of frequent "sightings" by admirers and curiosity-seekers who insist she is still alive. The media frenzy has only intensified in recent months by repeated publication of a 5-year-old photo shot by a free-lance photographer in a Venice train station.


"I called Ylenia, and she turned her eyes, her head, toward me and answered, 'Yes,' " Roberto Fiasconaro offered in a recent e-mail exchange explaining why he is so certain the look-alike in the train-station shot is Carrisi. Fiasconaro said he called police but that the woman and companions fled the station.


Police detectives, Italian officials and Carrisi's famous parents -- the now-estranged singing duo Al Bano and Romina Power, known as the "Sonny and Cher of Italy" -- don't appear to put much stock in the hubbub. But Fiasconaro's certainty has proved infectious among magazine publishers throughout Europe and legions of fans evidently susceptible to Elvis-like sightings of the vanished beauty.


There's a difference though.


The Carrisi stories don't have the tongue-in-cheek tone that supermarket tabloids accord the "King of Rock 'n' Roll," who has been "seen" everywhere from fast-food restaurants to alien spaceships. One reason is that, unlike the well-documented death of Elvis, the mystery of Ylenia Carrisi and her alleged plunge into the Mississippi River has never been solved. No body. No trace of clothing. No death certificate.


The New Orleans Police Department continues to list Carrisi's disappearance as a missing person case, even though the file has been gathering dust for years, spokesman Sgt. Paul Accardo said.


"At a certain point in an investigation like that, it becomes dormant," Accardo said. "We exhausted all of our leads, and there really has been nothing new to pursue."


Photographic jump-start


Initially, Fiasconaro had trouble getting his train-station photo published in Italy, where Carrisi's parents are darlings of the gossip rags. But after Fiasconaro burnished his bona fides by writing two books, "The American Dream of Ylenia" and "Ylenia X-File," some Spanish and German magazines published the photo last year and the floodgates burst open.


Publications throughout Italy picked up the photo. Credible journalists revisited the story. Fresh investigations were launched. Fresh sightings were reported from Austria to Belize to the Dominican Republic. One mainstream Spanish TV reporter, Lydia Lozano, blind-sided Al Bano during a March interview with suggestions that his daughter is alive. According to published reports, Al Bano yelled in Italian, "Stop raking the wound. I think these assumptions are outrageous," before storming out of the studio.


New Orleans police detectives believed, and still believe, that Carrisi was the woman who was spotted by a security guard as she jumped into the river near the Aquarium of the Americas on Jan. 6, 1994. The clothes matched. The time and location fit. The woman's strange demeanor and last words, "I belong in the water," seemed consistent with Carrisi's increasingly bizarre behavior before her disappearance.


At the time of her disappearance, Carrisi, though just 23, was a household name in Italy due to her celebrity pedigree and her job flipping letters on "La Ruota de Fortuna."


Drawn to the Big Easy


The wealthy and well-traveled Carrisi had been touring Central and North America when she visited New Orleans in July 1993. She developed a deep attraction to the city, friends and family said, but not for the fancy restaurants or high-style nightlife. While in New Orleans, she immersed herself in the world of street musicians and homeless people, constantly scribbling in a journal that she hoped to turn into a book. Her last known address was the $23-a-night Le Dale Hotel near Lee Circle, where she sometimes was accompanied by a street musician named Alaxander Masakela.


Carrisi's family became concerned when they did not hear from her over the holidays in December 1993. The last time anyone saw her in New Orleans was on Jan. 6, the same day the unidentified woman jumped into the river and swam for about 100 yards before struggling and going under.


Carrisi's parents came to New Orleans a few weeks later, maintaining a high-profile vigil as police, the FBI, the Italian Consulate and Interpol got involved in the case. Before departing New Orleans two weeks later, Al Bano resigned himself to the theory that the river jumper was his daughter.


Honorary Consul of Italy Arnoldo Partesotti, who has an office in Metairie, said he is not surprised at the recent flare-up of media speculation in the case.


"When it happened, it was really big news. Front-page news, all over Italy," Partesotti said. "Then it settled down, but now the story is being followed pretty closely by certain types of publications."


Partesotti was not the Italian consul when Carrisi disappeared, but he was briefed on the flood of information received by the office at the time. Today, he said, his office rarely gets such tips, although Italian visitors often inquire about the case out of curiosity.


"When some Italian visitor comes over here, the subject may come up as a colorful piece of a New Orleans-slash-Italian mystery," Partesotti said. "But the conclusion pretty much has been that she was the lady who was seen by the security guard."


Holding out hope


Amid the recent media buzz, some reports in the Italian press suggest Romina Power hasn't given up hope that her daughter might someday be found alive, although she shuns interviews on the subject. But at least one member of the family has publicly stated her belief that Carrisi is alive.


Linda Christian, Carrisi's grandmother and widow of Tyrone Power, said she never bought the account that her granddaughter drowned in New Orleans. She said her opinion hasn't been affected by the recent splash of publicity, although she has received several recent interview requests.


"They just keep talking about it," Christian said Friday from her home in Palm Springs, Calif. "I did a television show in Madrid the other day. Like I always said, I think she's alive. I know it."

 

[Akoya]

Paper: The Advocate (Baton Rouge, La.)

N.O. officials release man linked to missing Italian woman

Date: February 14, 1994

NEW ORLEANS - A man who stayed with missing Italian television celebrity Ylenia Carrisi is free following his release from jail on a charge unrelated to Carrisi's highly publicized disappearance. Magistrate Gerard Hansen released Alaxander Masakela, 54, on Friday after hearing police summarize their case against him and deciding they did not have enough evidence to detain him. Masakela was arrested Jan. 31 and booked with simple rape.

Masakela called the rape charge bogus and said he believes it was an effort to link him to the Carrisi case.

At the time of her disappearance Jan. 6, Carrisi was sharing a low-rent hotel room with Masakela, a street musician whom the 23-year-old woman considered her "mentor," relatives said.

Carrisi's parents, Italian singers Al Bano and Romina Power, have said Masakela put their daughter "under some kind of spell" when she came to New Orleans in December.

Bano and Power have been in New Orleans since they learned of their daughter's disappearance.

In a recent telephone interview from jail, Masakela denied responsibility for Carrisi's disappearance and blamed her parents for pressuring police to arrest him for the alleged rape of another woman.

Police believe Carrisi, the granddaughter of late American movie star Tyrone Power, is the woman who jumped into the Mississippi River from Woldenberg Park on Jan. 6. A security guard said the woman swam toward the middle of the river and disappeared. The body has not surfaced.

 

[Akoya]

Roberto Fiasconaro

The photo was shot by a free-lance photographer in a Venice train station.

"I called Ylenia, and she turned her eyes, her head, toward me and answered, 'Yes,' " Roberto Fiasconaro offered in a recent e-mail exchange explaining why he is so certain the look-alike in the train-station shot is Carrisi. Fiasconaro said he called police but that the woman and companions fled the station.

Initially, Fiasconaro had trouble getting his train-station photo published in Italy, where Carrisi's parents are darlings of the gossip rags. But after Fiasconaro burnished his bona fides by writing two books, "The American Dream of Ylenia" and "Ylenia X-File," some Spanish and German magazines published the photo last year and the floodgates burst open.


Publications throughout Italy picked up the photo. Credible journalists revisited the story. Fresh investigations were launched. Fresh sightings were reported from Austria to Belize to the Dominican Republic. One mainstream Spanish TV reporter, Lydia Lozano, blind-sided Al Bano during a March interview with suggestions that his daughter is alive. According to published reports, Al Bano yelled in Italian, "Stop raking the wound. I think these assumptions are outrageous," before storming out of the studio.

 

[Akoya]

 

[Akoya]

Ylenia grew up in Italy where her parents were recording stars. Her grandparents were well know American movie stars. Ylenia was a student at the University of London where she was studying to be a writer/journalist. She was fluent in several languages. Her trip to Belize and Mexico in December, and the trip to New Orleans in January were in search of material for a novel she was planning to write. She wanted to write about the street life in New Orleans and that is no doubt why she chose the Le'Dale Hotel.

Ylenia had met Alaxander Masakela the previous summer when her family visited New Orleans and Florida. She connected with him because she wanted information about his lifestyle for her novel. Reportedly, the room where she was staying had single beds and she claimed there was no romantic relationship between them. It sounds like she was studying him for information.

On January 6th, Ylenia disappeared at about noon. Alaxander Masakela made no attempt to alert anyone that she was gone. He continued to stay in her room and when he checked out of the hotel on January 14th, he attempted to pay with traveler's checks belonging to Ylenia.

In late January, police found Masakela on the street and brought him in for questioning. The police arranged for a confrontation with Masakela and Ylenia's father. Masakela claims he has no knowledge of anything that happened to Ylenia. A few days later, Masakela was arrested again on old charges of rape from an old girlfriend. Masakela claims that he was setup. The charges were dismissed in March and Masakela is no longer in the area. The rundown hotel was sold and it has been renovated.

Ylenia's parents are now divorced. They don't believe she jumped into the river near the aquarium. Ylenia's mother believes she is still alive.

 

[Akoya]

http://www.iltempo.it/cronache/2015/...enia-1.1481539

The teeth of the skull the same as those of Ylenia
The detective investigating the 20 women killed by the serial killer has no doubts Pending the results genetic Al Bano and Romina not want to comment

Texas for the extrapolation of the DNA and then back to Florida. Along with ... More articles about ... The skull of the unknown killed by serial killer Keith Hunter Jesperson was moved to Texas for the extrapolation of the DNA and then back to Florida. Along with the other bones of "Jane Doe" (as they are called by the Americans women without identity) is currently kept in the Office of the Medical Examiner district of Pensacola, Fla. The genetic profile will be (or has already been, who knows) compared with that of Al Bano, Romina Power and their three children in order to verify if the woman raped, strangled with three plastic ties in a truck from '' happy face killer "and then thrown into the middle of a bush at the side of the highway, near Holt city, belongs to Ylenia Carrisi, the eldest of the singers vanished from New Orleans on December 31 1994. The comparison between the teeth of the skull of the victim Jesperson and one of the beautiful Ylenia Carrisi, depicted thousands of times by Italian and foreign photographers, it shows some similarities that impress. (...) As the bill gown worn by the young woman asked a passsaggio the truck driver and serial killer "happy face" near Tampa city remembers the kind of clothes that Ylenia Carrisi loved to wear. Special Agent Dennis Haley American has few doubts about the identity of the body. A Jesperson showed twenty pictures of blonde young women and he has shown no hesitation the face of Ylenia.
"In the beginning - said Haley - did not want to cooperate. She was afraid of having to face a new trial but I told him clearly that the Justice Department would never have faced the very high cost of a new trial for a man who is serving seven life sentences. So he cheered and began to cooperate. These data are sufficient to say that the woman is Ylenia? Haley adds, "Before Christmas we will have the official results. People who care for them are very efficient. "
Details indicating a different track that currently used are tied to the times. Ylenia disappeared from New Orleans on Dec. 31 without taking away money but above documents. And where it is devoid of dollars and a passport? The body of "Jane Doe" is found only on Sept. 15, 1994, serial killer killed her probably 45-50 days before. This would show, if the woman was Ylenia, the daughter of Italian crooner has wandered for months through the United States without calling to the family, to whom he was very attached. Also linked to the father, despite talk of quarrels between the two occurred two days before the disappearance of Ylenia. They are worshiped but belonged to different generations, nothing more and nothing less.
Just Al Bano, after stating that in recent years he could write a book on all the tracks that have been followed, declined to release further statements. Romina Power is silent, the wound has never stopped bleeding.
Haley meantime, reiterates its truth: "I am twenty-one years that I try to put a face to that girl and just a couple of years ago I connected to Ylenia. When I asked the authorities of Louisiana to examining the file relating to the disappearance of Ylenia, I was not given the slightest help. There in New Orleans a file with the name of Ylenia, said that the archives were destroyed during Hurricane Katrina. "

 

[Akoya]

http://www.oggi.it/attualita/notizie...to-in-florida/

Ylenia Carrisi, the confirmation of the DNA: its not the corpse found in Florida


It was thought that the daughter of Albano and Romina Power could have been murdered by a serial killer. But DNA is not matched: the confirmation of the sheriff in charge of the case


Not Ylenia Carrisi the corpse found in Florida and for which it was collected DNA Dad Albano: confirms the sheriff who is following the case. It was believed to be the turning point in the yellow of the disappearance of the daughter of Albano and Romina Power


The Confirmation - Final confirmation comes in the night Italian: Sheriff Dennis Haley puts a lid on the hopes of having found at least the body of Ylenia Carrisi, scomprasa in anything in New Orleans in 1993. It was thought that she had been the victim of a serial killer . But DNA does not lie.


http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showth ... p-94/page2

"SHE IS NOT" - "The DNA of family Carrisi is not matched," he writes the sheriff. "We will continue to investigate, hoping to identify the corpse." And the yellow of Ylenia, therefore, remains open.