Cristina Pittalis said she received ‘anonymous and disturbing’ messages a year after her son vanished without trace while in Italy with a woman she claims he met online
The heartbroken mum of a Brit who went missing while on holiday with his apparent girlfriend was sent chilling messaged about her son’s disappearance a year later.
Michael Frison, 26, vanished while camping in Sardinia, Italy. His mum believes he was with Jersey-born Niomi Orlandini, who he met online in July 2024, having arrived just days earlier to volunteer on a farm. Mum Cristina Pittalis, 49, started a campaign to help find her missing boy but revealed she received messages from a mystery account saying: “I tried to believe it was an accident.” Cristina, originally from Sardinia but living in Chard, Somerset, said she believed the Facebook account sending her these “anonymous and disturbing” messages was by “someone with insider knowledge”.
The distraught mum said the words from the Facebook account “reference guilt, fear, and the inability to remain silent”, according to The Sun. The mysterious messages said: “You cannot live a lie without it finding you eventually.
“I’ve seen it in nightmares. This isn’t about blame, it’s about the silence that eats away. I tried to forget. I tried to believe it was an accident. But the fear… it doesn’t go.”
Michael vanished on July 13, 2024 – just days after arriving on the Italian island. Despite extensive searches of nearby woodlands, caves and mountains, no trace of him has ever been found.
Cristina has since moved back to Sardinia, with her 11-year-old son, to desperately try and find Michael, as she urged Interpol to investigate his missing person case. The mum said he flew from Bristol Airport to Olbia on July 2, 2024, and drove to his grandparents home to celebrate his 25th birthday and his grandma’s 70th.
According to Cristina, Niomi asked to join Michael on his travels and he cancelled his return flight to the UK in order to stay with the woman for a week, according to The Sun. His mum said the pair went to volunteer on a local farm, owned by a German couple. Michael and Niomi reportedly slept in a tent about “100 metres away” from the German couple, who stayed in a campervan.
Cristina revealed the last message her son sent before he vanished, saying: “He texted me saying he was going to sleep and that he’d call me tomorrow. He ended it with a heart emoji.” Michael had reportedly gone out for a walk and returned in a confused state, showing signs of heatstroke.
He then left again – this time barefoot – and never came back. His clothes and trainers were later discovered nearby the site. Despite this, Cristina believes the heatstroke theory doesn’t add up saying it was “extremely unlikely” he would suffer in the heat, as he’d previously lived on the island, and said it was “completely out of character” for him to abandon his belongings and wander off. She also called on Niomi to step forward with any information.
She said Michael’s younger half-brother Emanuele, whose father died in 2017, was “devastated” by his brother’s disappearance. She said: “The three of us were extremely close, the two of them, they used to do everything together. It’s horrible, he lost his father and now he lost his brother.”
A friend of Cristina’s previously launched a GoFundMe to support the family’s search efforts, raising over £10,000 to help cover travel, legal costs, and awareness campaigns.