The Dead Man Who Wouldn't Stay Dead

Name: The Dead Man Who Wouldn't Stay Dead
Genre: Documentary

The legendary murder of Rasputin collapses under one disturbing piece of forensic evidence.

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Transcript

A forensic review concludes Rasputin may have been executed by a contact gunshot wound.
On December 30th, 1916, Rasputin accepted an invitation to Moika Palace.
On Russia's calendar, it was December 17th, 1916.
The social function was held in Prince Felix Yussupov's palace cellar.
Yussupov believed Rasputin represented a danger to the monarchy.
He feared Rasputin's growing influence could bring down the throne.
The traditional account begins with cakes and wine allegedly laced with cyanide.
Next came gunfire, followed by a beating as the killing escalated.
Finally, the story says he drowned after his body reached the river.
That astonishing sequence came largely from Yussupov's own published memoirs.
Sometimes a death becomes less powerful than the story built around it.
But the autopsy reportedly found no poison, undercutting the cyanide story.
A forensic review argues Rasputin was already dead before the river.
Police apparently discovered a post-mortem photograph two months after the murder.
The image appears to show a contact gunshot wound in his forehead.
In his memoir, Yussupov claimed Rasputin survived a gunshot to the chest.
If true, the forehead wound points to a deliberate execution, not a river death.

But if the contact wound killed Rasputin before the river, who created the story of the indestructible mystic—and why?

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