30 Celebrities Who Disappeared Mysteriously—Their Fates Still Unknown Today

Still, she was determined to pursue her own passion: writing.

After appearing alongside her parents in the film Champagne in Paradiso, Ylenia enrolled at King’s College London to study literature, earning the highest marks in her year.

During her studies, she began dreaming of traveling the world solo, armed with nothing but a backpack and her journal.

She returned to Italy, sold all her belongings to fund the trip, and set off for Latin America. After months in Belize, she left the day after Christmas 1993 for New Orleans, Louisiana.

By early January 1994, Ylenia was staying at the LeDale Hotel in New Orleans with Alexander Masakela, a street musician twenty years her senior. Around January 6, she was last seen in the French Quarter.

A security guard testified, saying that he had seen a woman matching her description jump into the Mississippi River.

Her final words: “I belong in water.”