The Second Grave Beside the Road

Name: The Second Grave Beside the Road
Genre: Documentary

A new discovery only seventy meters from the first grave reopens the case of the two Romanov children who never came home.

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Transcript

Two children were missing from the Romanov grave.
In 1991, nine skeletal sets were excavated near Yekaterinburg.
DNA testing identified a family group, excluding Alexei and one sister.
Lack of official information produced survival stories, and a small, vocal group of scientists doubted the identification.
In summer 2007, three amateur Russian archaeologists found fragments near the Old Koptyaki Road.
The second discovery was about 230 feet (70 meters) from the larger grave. There is another layer here.
They uncovered 44 bone fragments and teeth, representing at least two people.
One individual was female, about 15 to 19 years old. The other was probably male, between 12 and 15 years old.
Three silver amalgam fillings suggested at least one had aristocratic status.
The 2007 discovery led to re-analysis of evidence tied to the Romanov identification.
The DNA results identified second-grave remains as Alexei and one of his sisters.
A family can vanish from history yet remain in the questions left behind.
The missing sister’s identity was disputed between Maria and Anastasia before testing.
Maria told an interviewer she would happily stay in Tobolsk forever.
Her attachment to Tobolsk gave the disputed sister’s identity a personal, historical frame.
That identification used three methods: mitochondrial DNA, autosomal STR, and Y-STR.
The comparison linked the fragments to the Romanov family group.
Testing fragile remains shifted the question from family ties to individual identity.

The 44 fragments would face three genetic tests—and all three would have to point to Alexei and his sister.

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