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The Romanovs: Crown. Curse. Cellar.Episode 52:01
The Investigation That Began Too Late
Days after the killings, Admiral Kolchak orders investigators to reconstruct a crime whose bodies have disappeared.
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Transcript
After the imperial family's execution, Alexis's and one younger daughter's remains were missing.
An inquiry into the killings hinged on physical evidence and missing remains.
The imperial family was executed early on July 17th, 1918.
The first inquiry began weeks after the assassination in Ekaterinburg.
The first investigators' ineptness compromised the inquiry's forensic record.
Within days of the deaths, Kolchak's White Army entered Ekaterinburg.
By July 30th, Kolchak ordered an investigation into the murders.
The case involved physical evidence, missing remains, plus active investigation.
Two bodies missing, investigators reconstructed events from remaining evidence.
Kolchak removed forensic materials, citing original investigators' ineptness.
The missing bodies were believed to have been incinerated.
The available evidence could not confirm what happened to the missing bodies.
A crime scene can outlive its witnesses, but not the damage done to evidence.
On February 6th, 1919, Kolchak gave the murder case to Nikolai Sokolov.
Sokolov examined witnesses connected with the imperial family during exile.
On February 6th, 1919, Sokolov was Investigating Magistrate for Special Importance Cases.
He questioned servants, doctors, tutors, guards, soldiers, eyewitnesses.
Sidney Gibbes tutored the imperial family from 1908 to its evacuation from Tobolsk.
Gibbes supplied a statement to Sokolov's expanding record.
Sokolov gathered servants', doctors', tutors', guards', soldiers', eyewitnesses' photos and statements.
The file still could not answer one question: who ordered the killings?
Where it leaves off
Sokolov inherited a mishandled crime scene, missing bodies and one impossible assignment: prove what happened.
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