Original subtitles

[Music]

an international team of forensic

experts is flying into the scene of a 90

year old crime

in a far-flung siberian forest

including a leading forensic

anthropologist and veteran of the 911

investigation

anthony falcetti it's really

vast out here so desolate

so far away from civilization but that's

where two bodies are supposed to be

it's another case of huge significance

especially for russia

the remains of long-lost members of its

royal family may have been found

at last but nobody knows for sure

the truth of what happened to the

romanovs has long been blurred by myth

and legend did the royal line of russia

end in a violent murder

or did an heir to the throne escape and

survive

the investigation team also includes dr

michael koval

a leading forensic dna expert who works

for the pentagon

identifying the remains of american

soldiers

with the american military's

laboratories at his full disposal

he'll attempt to put names to these

mystery bones

the team is headed into a remote forest

twenty kilometers outside the siberian

city of yekaterinburg

this far-flung industrial outpost is

where the fate of russia's royal family

was written

five children born into royalty

the grand duchess is olga and tatiana

the flower of young womanhood

[Music]

maria and anastasia are beguiling

teenagers

thirteen-year-old crown prince alexei is

the boy born to be king

millions of loyal russians revere them

even worship them

a divine family set on earth to rule the

nation

but the romanov line would end with them

1917 the russian revolution in its wake

a civil war raged

the bolsheviks against the cyrus

loyalists

the royal family was imprisoned exiled

to siberia

under house arrest in yekaterinburg

but their popularity among the masses

presented a problem for the fledgling

soviet administration

the bolshevik leadership planned a show

trial and execution for the tsar perhaps

wary of a populist backlash

some accounts say lenin wanted the rest

of the family kept alive

as political pawns

from here forensic anthropologist dr

anthony falcetti and the investigative

team

have to complete their journey on foot

to meet the men who may have made a

stunning historical find

so no what did you find actually

the remains have been moved to a morgue

for safe keeping

what else did you find with it any

artifacts

yeah what i'm hearing from these

archaeologists is they've

bones maybe some projectiles

what we don't have is any evidence of a

really controlled excavation

and it's quite frankly making me nervous

so far there's not much to go on there's

no evidence of the crime scene

and scant documentation to support the

find

the romanov case has been plagued by

hoaxes and cover-ups over the years

and this latest find may be no different

in the days after the murders newspapers

reported only that the czar had been

killed

for eight years the soviet state

maintained that the rest of the royal

family was alive and well

but the cover-up failed forcing the

russian government to change its story

and make a shocking admission

all 11 members of the royal household

had been executed

[Music]

then came reported sightings of prince

alexey and princess anastasia

were the children dead or alive

sensational rumors kept emerging

[Music]

in moscow there was unease about the

exact fate of the romanovs

an imposter claiming to be alexei was

officially investigated

years pass

under stalin's iron rule it was

forbidden to even mention the royal

family

in the 1950s a member of the original

firing squad surfaced in the united

states austrian rudolf lacker

claimed he had been left to guard a

truck carrying the royal bodies

when he got stuck in the mud in the

middle of a forest he said he helped a

wounded anastasia escape

the romanov legend and rumors of a

surviving air were revived

after the soviet union collapsed in 1991

local academics armed with shovels and

vital information ventured into the

kochiaki forest to dig

although the executioners were long dead

papers handed down by their commander

jakob yorowski held clues as to where

the bodies of the royal household might

lie

the dig revealed a shallow grave skulls

bones full skeletons but something was

missing

in 1991 nine sets of remains were found

there were 11 people that were killed

in a catering bird that night two

sets of remains were still missing

the tsar and zarina three of their

daughters and four attendants are

identified

but two of the youngest royal children

aren't among the dead

now little more than 60 meters from the

first grave

a second find is being investigated by

leading american forensic experts

locked away in the yekaterinburg city

morgue the newly uncovered bones will be

subject to the most intensive

21st century forensic analysis

did all of the russian royals come to a

violent end at the hands of bolshevik

executioners

or could the legends be true

did two of tsar nicholas's children

survive

forensic anthropologist anthony falcetti

and dna expert michael cobel

are about to get their first look at the

bones that may answer these intriguing

questions once and for all

under lock and key in the ekaterinburg

morgue access to these potentially royal

remains

is tightly controlled

in the year 2000 the romanovs were

canonized as martyrs by the russian

orthodox church

if authenticated these bones could

become holy relics

[Music]

anthony falcetti is no stranger to these

halls

he was part of the original team

assembled in the 1990s to investigate

the first set of romanoff bones

the investigation and its findings

proved highly controversial

sparking a very public row

russian scientists used facial

reconstruction techniques

to claim that one of the bodies was that

of anastasia

but others were unconvinced still more

troubling was the body count discrepancy

two bodies

are still missing if two bodies were

missing

was the entire grave unrelated to the

romanovs

there were accusations of political

interference and rushed rash conclusions

in the end the russian orthodox church

rejected the dna evidence as tainted

and refused to acknowledge that the

remains were in fact the romanovs

but now this new find could change all

that

and this time the team wants to avoid

the storm of publicity

that engulfed investigations in 1991

but the romanov mystery is an enduring

fascination

we arrive into the lab and there's a

massive number of cameras

and people doing interviews while we're

trying to

look at the remains the start of the

latest investigation

makes the evening news

but once the cameras have gone a

critical story emerges

once the cameras are gone we get down to

work

and what i discover is that these 44

fragments

many were not going to be able to

identify as being human

perhaps they're not there's just not

enough material here

these shattered remains look nothing

like the nearly complete skeletons found

in 1991

broken almost unrecognizable

[Music]

but careful inspection by expert eyes

reveals the fragmentary remains

are human

but exactly who are they the remains of

could these be the bones of alexei

maria or anastasia or do they belong to

someone else entirely

[Music]

the mystery within the mystery is what

happened to anastasia

did she escape or is she here

right now i can't tell whether i have

two females

or a male and a female or whether these

fragments are part of the other bones

that were already recovered

handling and photographing what may be

the bones of saints is a delicate matter

each fragment must be handled with the

greatest respect and sensitivity

then after intricate examination a

breakthrough

it doesn't look like much it is a

portion of the

pelvis it is our oscox

and as it turns out it is from a female

we can deduce that by the sciatic notch

in males it would be more narrow in

females

it is quite wide that is critical we

know we have

two people now we know that one of them

is female

a male and a female

body parts from two individuals but are

they the missing romanoff children

anthony falcetti and the forensic

anthropologists will have to dig

deeper

for mike cobel and the dna team there's

another problem

these bones show evidence of burning

looking at the remains i'm beginning to

think

this is going to be a very difficult

case when when the bone is burned

there's a lot of heat generated which is

not very good for dna

take our sample from down here

two and a half three centimeter cut

michael cobalt selects fragments most

likely to yield readable dna

my new pieces will be cut off and sent

to his lab in america

and to other researchers around the

world for independent analysis these are

the fragments that we think but teasing

out the 90 year old genes that may lie

dormant in the fragments will take weeks

and the chances that the dna has

survived intact are slim

for the forensic team a few pieces of

badly damaged bone isn't much to go on

[Music]

but in the town where the romanov family

met their end there are more leads to

pursue

local archaeologist sergey pogoliov was

one of the excavators who found the

second lot of bones in 2007

he has kept and carefully stored

evidence taken from the grave in the

forest

among the artifacts he's preserved are

fragments of a wooden crate

quantities of ash and some pieces of

pottery

each is a clue to what might have

happened when the remains were buried

the ash corroborates with burn marks

found on the bones

a grim picture is beginning to

materialize what kind of

container

[Music]

the pottery shards are perhaps the most

compelling evidence

they match similar fragments found in

the nearby grave uncovered in 1991

these are the ones from 1991

other pieces of the puzzle will have to

be found and put together correctly

before a true picture can emerge of

exactly what happened in the forest

outside yekaterinburg more than 90 years

ago

the most important pieces to that puzzle

three bullets exhumed from the grave

these projectiles may be the very

bullets that killed the heir to the

romanov throne

if they match the bullets found in the

nearby grave in 1991

a conclusive forensic connection could

be made between the two graves

the bullets are taken for expert

analysis

when fired from a gun a bullet is scored

with distinctive scratches as it travels

through the barrel

these so-called boar markings are like

fingerprints

the first of the three bullets found in

the 2007 grave excavation is too damaged

for analysis

but the other two have survived intact

initial tests show the other two bullets

have nearly identical ball marks

implying that the same kind of gun was

used

we can determine that the bullets were

shot from the same weapon

a browning pistol the type of weapon may

have been identified

but the results have exposed yet another

twist in the tail

these bullets are different in caliber

than the ones found in 1991

the bullets don't match those found in

the earlier grave

meaning a different gun had to have been

used to kill those buried in the other

grave nearby

we know that this gun is from the same

time period but we don't

have a direct tie to the 91 finds

no link a new and previously unknown

weapon

if there's no hard evidence linking the

graves to the same crime

and perhaps the remains in the latest

grave belong to nameless victims

and have nothing to do with the

slaughter of the romanov family

[Music]

so far forensic investigations haven't

been able to link the graves

or the remains found inside them

in russia the forensic investigator

anthony falcetti's trail

is running cold

but the answer to the lost bones

identity and to what really happened to

anastasia and the rest of the romanov

children

may be inside this box

these are the samples dna expert michael

cobble selected back at the ekaterinburg

morgue

they've made the journey halfway around

the world to the united states

sealed in contamination-proof containers

other samples are on their way to

austria and other labs around the world

[Music]

the package is brought into a sterile

room

at each stage proper procedures are

followed to make sure that the samples

aren't damaged or contaminated

the tiny samples inside weigh just a few

grams each

are these the remains of alexey maria or

anastasia romanov

to find out viable dna will have to be

extracted

then traced back through the generations

to genetic markers shared by a select

group of people

the intermarried households of european

royalty

[Music]

the romanov children like the british

royal family were descended from queen

victoria

the dna in this royal bloodline bears

unique identifying genetic

characteristics

[Music]

michael coble and his team are more used

to dealing with modern remains

these bone fragments are nearly a

century old and teasing viable dna out

of them won't be easy

dna is fragile and easily damaged by the

ravages of time

they've endured almost a century below

ground in the climate of extremes

well below freezing in winter and

swelteringly hot in summer

[Music]

to extract and test the dna most of the

powdered sample will be used up

if this first attempt fails there might

not be enough material left over for a

second definitive dna analysis

and the mystery of russia's royal grave

may never be solved

an international effort is underway to

solve the 90 year old murder mystery of

the russian royal family

american forensic anthropologist anthony

fulcetti has a lead that may help him

piece together separate shreds of

evidence recovered from the crime scene

it's a testimony from a long dead

witness

years ago it would have been unthinkable

but now an american investigator has

high level access to moscow's state

archive

here i am an american scientist two

floors below ground

a hundred years worth of communist

secrets the keeper of those secrets

is dr ludmila likova

giant glass doors designed to protect

the kremlin's most precious records from

nuclear attacks swing open

we're down here it's 30 feet walls are

two feet thick and this is lennon's

archive

if soviet archives hold the missing

pieces to the romanoff puzzle

this is where they'll be so these are

lennon's documents these originals

this one's from copenhagen correct yeah

okay rumor here going that the tsar has

been murdered

kindly wire facts this inquiry was one

of many

sent to lenin in the weeks and days

before the killing

this was his reply rumor not true tsar

safe

all rumors are only lie of capitalist

press

and it's signed

when lenin wrote this reply the royal

family was alive

asleep but they had only hours left to

live

by daybreak on the 17th of july the deed

had been done

but exactly what happened in the cellar

is still open to question

only the execution is new and their

statements are on file in another

basement

the report filed by the head executioner

commander jakov

is regarded as the most accurate account

and makes chilling reading

said this about the execution of the

emperor's family

they stood along the wall and here he

said the following words to them

despite the fact that relatives both

outside and inside the country are

trying to liberate them

the euro soviet of the workers deputies

has decreed they must be shot

[Music]

when the executioners opened fire there

were a number of problems

amongst them they were in a basement

room with stone walls which

sent the bullets sort of ricocheting

around the room

the firing jarovsky says becomes ever so

confused

and when this confused fire ended the

shooters saw the daughters were still

alive

they shot the girls but nothing happened

they weren't able to kill them

incredibly eyewitness accounts agreed

that the duchesses seemed to be

protected by jewel-filled corsets

that acted like bulletproof vests

statements by surviving firing squad

members recorded in the 1960s confirmed

this

it appeared diamonds into their brass

variety of necklaces pearls etc etc

bullets were bouncing off

there was somebody

[Music]

anastasia may have survived the initial

gunfire

could she really have cheated death with

a gem laden corset

and if that was true then what else

might be possible

all the accounts go on to say that

everyone was finally killed

with a gunshot wound to the head but

what if that's a lie

what if there were co-conspirators

co-conspirators that could have helped

her escape

it's another unsubstantiated story

the forensic investigator decides to

stage an experiment to put the first

part of the story to the test

could jewels stop a bullet

diamonds are the hardest naturally

occurring substance known to man

but aren't practical or within the

budget of this experiment

scoring a respectable 8 out of 10 on the

gem hardness scale

zirconias are a more realistic

alternative

the replica corset is finished with rose

quartz and carnelian

bullets will smash into it at a thousand

feet per second

will they be deflected

interior ministry colonel vladimir

soloviev is the leader of the romanov

investigation

he's got special permission to handle

the actual guns fired by yourofsky and

his execution squad

tsar nicholas ii was killed with this

pistol

this second pistol was also in the

basement of the impatief house

and it may have been used to kill other

members of the tsar's family

this pistol was also used in all the

events in the impatief house

it's a grotesque feeling to be in the

presence to hold

the weapons that killed this

[Music]

the reconstructed dual corsets are

placed on a mannequin

for safety only the shooter is allowed

in the room

could a diamond corset have shielded

anastasia from a hail of bullets

we have different powered weapons they

were

fired sequentially and what we have on

the first two

was clearly some fragmentation there

were these projectiles

did not pass through on these first two

there's an impact site here from the

second

but none of these were what we would

consider penetrating

gunshot wounds this acts like a

bulletproof vest

maybe the legend is true

[Music]

perhaps the bones found in the forest

aren't from people killed in the

basement that night after all

a gunshot aimed at the heart deflected

by jewels sewn beneath the clothes

[Music]

the accounts that bullets ricocheted

that maria or anastasia and alexei

perhaps survived the initial gunfire

are becoming plausible for almost a

century these accounts have been the

basis for many spurious claims to the

russian throne

anna anderson's claim was the most

famous

she went to her grave claiming to be the

last grand duchess anastasia

she convinced many people including the

family of peter sarandonaki

whose ancestors were part of the tsar's

inner circle

my mother-in-law took her dying days to

her last day belief that anna anderson

was anastasia

for instance she had a triangular injury

on her foot

which was probably a bayonet stab

she also had the same stub toe

problem as anastasia

she had the same ear as anastasia

there were a lot of similarities between

the two

[Music]

despite her persuasive story dna testing

after her death revealed her true

identity

she was not a royal but a former factory

worker from poland

but determining whether the latest

remains of those of the romanov family

or simply another case of mistaken

identity will take time

the dna is so degraded that it must be

copied or amplified

to recover and identify any surviving

fragments of genetic information that

remain

at his lab outside washington dc dna

expert michael kovale and his team

are using a process called pcr or

polymerase chain reaction

by exposing the faint traces of dna that

remain to a bacterial enzyme

a single piece of dna can be multiplied

generating millions of copies

but even after amplification there are

no guarantees that any readable dna will

emerge to make identification possible

for now the identity of the two

individuals in the grave

remains a mystery

while the search for viable dna

continues in america

in russia the search for clues has come

to an end

forensic expert anthony falcetti is

going back with more questions than

answers about the most recent grave

in the 1991 excavation nearly intact

full skeletons were found

but in the grave uncovered in 2007 only

fragments were unearthed

why were there so few bones

less than 10 percent of a full skeleton

was found

but even these scant remains can reveal

more than dna

the degraded condition of the most

recently discovered bones might actually

be a clue in itself

anthony falcetti is about to take

another look at the information he's

collected

at his laboratory at the university of

florida

drawing on his long experience of

bringing stories of the dead back to

life

he's looking for any patterns or links

with other evidence

[Music]

he'll comb through the accounts of the

executioners

and see if the history and bones tell a

common story

he already knows that this will be a

harrowing tale

the savagery did not end when the

shooting stopped

firing squad leader jakov yourofsky

wrote that after the killing was done

he feared that loyalist troops might

catch them red-handed

the plan was for a quick and clean

disposal

but as the bodies were being loaded into

a truck the plan

unraveled as they were lifting up one of

the bodies

she sat up and screamed it was either

maria anastasia

we know that two of the grand duchesses

left that room alive

irmakov grabbed a nearby rifle and ended

up smashing them repeatedly

in the face until they stopped screaming

the bodies were then transported a dozen

miles outside yekaterinburg

to the coptiaki forest to an area of

abandoned mineworks

so here's what we know the bodies were

taken into the forest

they were thrown down a mine shaft

grenades were thrown after him in an

attempt to collapse the walls

the bodies were only partially hidden

as dawn approached yurovsky returned to

yekaterinburg to report to his superiors

misfortune struck again juropsky's men

got drunk and bragged to locals

telling them how they killed the royals

and the location of the bodies

their commander insisted on keeping the

burial secret the corpses

had to be moved

the next day the bodies were retrieved

and yourofsky has his men

looking for a new location

but after the bodies were exhumed summer

rain turned the ground to a gloomy mud

the truck got stuck the corpses had to

be offloaded

commander was exhausted and his men

became mutinous

he decided to try burning two of the

bodies

to make the process easier his men were

ordered to dismember the corpses

physical damage to fragment number 147

supports the dismemberment story

the royal remains were allegedly subject

to another in dignity

but the evidence wouldn't be visible

yurovsky claimed that his men poured

acid over the corpses

to disfigure them beyond recognition

composition tests on the bones conducted

in russia revealed faint traces of

sulfuric acid

according to yourofsky it was then that

his men burned what was left of the two

bodies

[Music]

it's another element of the story that

can be put to a forensic test

as an alternative to human flesh pork

is a good substitute the composition and

structure of the meat is similar to its

human equivalent

and pigs are often used in forensic

comparisons

we know that they had between an hour

and a half and three hours to completely

consume two human bodies

three hours later the pig carcass is

charred

but still intact what we've demonstrated

here is it's not possible to consume a

body in a fire

certainly not one for three hours

relatively low temperatures

yarovsky's plan to incinerate the

corpses was more than a failure

it was a fiasco dawn was breaking

and there were still nine bodies in the

truck

a drastic change in tactics was in order

he claimed his men dug a second pit

further to the west

that they threw the remaining nine

bodies into the pit

poured acid on them and then covered

them with planks

and soil

what we know about history is being

reflected by the evidence

but circumstantial evidence will not be

enough to put the legend of anastasia's

escape to rest

to prove that the remains are not part

of some elaborate hoax

historical accounts must be corroborated

by the irrefutable

dna do

these new bodies belong to russia's

royal bloodline

by most accounts tsar nicholas ii and

his royal family were a close

tight-knit group frequently seen

together

filmed here on a cruise when the

children were still very young

[Music]

then playing tennis while on holiday a

few years later

[Music]

and parading together in this 1913

celebration of 300 years of romanov rule

starring the nine-year-old crown prince

alexei

and the four daughters about to bloom

into womanhood

but were the roman officers inseparable

in death as they were in life

dna evidence gathered from the second

and most recent grave attributed to them

will tell the story

five months after first selecting the

bone samples for analysis

dna expert mike coble is now ready to

share his findings

let's see what you've got the first

thing that we should look at

is here this is the marker that

determines sex

and sample 146 there's an x

y which means this is a male sample

right and then 147 has one x peak

and this is what we see with females

so far the dna only demonstrates that

there were two bodies in the grave

one male one female

mike coble's next step was to compare

the male sample with dna from tsar

nicholas and his wife alexandra

so what we have here on top this is a

profile from the tsar

and then this on the bottom is a profile

from the tsarina

and here is the male sample from the

second grave

we expect that this particular

profile is going to be a combination

of the tsar and the tsarina if this is

truly

a lexi this male got this 25

repeat peak from the tsar

and this 23 peak was passed

to him from the tsarina and here is

the male 7 that makes 17 out of 17

possible matches the evidence is

overwhelming yeah absolutely

that's their son exactly and they had

one son and

that's alexis exactly right finally

there's compelling forensic evidence

that thirteen-year-old crown prince

alexei was executed

along with the rest of his family though

not buried with them

but what about the female found in the

second grade

mike cobel compared alexey's dna with

hers

what's interesting though is that notice

they both

share 23. they both share

this marker which is a 33.2

repeat once again one genetic marker

after another

is shared 47 has 17 repeats

23 repeats leading to another

overwhelming statistical probability

it's over a million times more likely

that these remains are siblings than if

they were completely unrelated

very strong evidence here that we have a

brother and a sister

[Music]

that sister was either maria or

anastasia

but beyond that the dna evidence has

nothing else to suggest

of course there is a limitation here the

dna can't tell us exactly

which child is anastasia and which child

is maria the bottom line is it really

doesn't matter

anymore because they're all present in

accountability

after almost an entire century the final

chapter of the romanov dynasty can be

written at last

anastasia the youngest romanov daughter

did not escape the firing squad

like her mother

her father her baby brother

and her three older sisters anastasia

was shot to death in july 1918

one month after her 17th birthday

[Music]

she was buried along with the others

among the towering birch trees

[Music]

it was surely not the end any of them

expected

what is

but the dna evidence makes it clear

that's what really happened

on the night when russia's longest lived

dynasty came to its abrupt

and bloody end

you