Who Killed Rasputin | BBC

it's one of the most infamous murders of the last century the killing of gregory rasputin in saint petersburg in 1916 [Music] known as a debauched sex mad monk rasputin believed sinning brought him closer to god his mystical healing powers brought him to the very heart of the russian [Music] monarchy rasputin was supposedly poisoned shot and drowned in a plot led by a jealous russian prince and what's really interesting is gone but former murder detective richard cullen is suspicious of the accepted version of rasputin's murder there is something completely wrong with the facts and the detail that leads me to think i need to look more closely into how rasputin actually died it's a trail that takes colin thousands of miles he uncovers startling new information linking the british secret service with the murder of rasputin this really is damning evidence that the british were totally wrapped up in the plot to kill rasputin now almost 90 years on timewatch reopens the case to ask who really killed rasputin [Music] so this battered and mutilated corpse was dragged from a frozen river in russia in the winter of nineteen sixteen it's the body of grigori ephimovic rasputin [Music] former commander richard cullen was one of scotland yard's most senior officers this one-time head of advanced criminal and forensic training has investigated some of london's most notorious and macabre killings at time watcher's request cullen has agreed he begins by returning to the bridge where rasputin's body was thrown into the river from the written evidence and photographs i think the blood must have been on the walkway of the bridge as well as a substantial amount of blood and blooded matting here on the bridge barrier i think the body of rasputin must have been rested here before being tipped over into the icy cold waters of the river the following day the blood and one of rasputin's over boots were actually discovered but it still took a further day for the body to be found [Music] richard cullen has strong links with the russian police force for the past seven years he's been part of a british government funded police initiative here in saint petersburg and across the russian federation he's been helping the russians to train detectives in advanced forensic techniques this is the russian state archive it's here that millions of valuable documents from centuries of russian history are kept under lock and key including rasputin's murder file cullen has been allowed total access to the archives with the original murder file he embarks on his journey to uncover the truth about the killing of rasputin it's absolutely fascinating these are the original documents that were made in the days following rasputin's disappearance and the subsequent finding of his body [Music] this is really really essential to the investigation this is the start of the journey this is the evidence that will give us the clues as to where else we should look for further information intelligence relating to the murder every murder investigation follows a pattern [Music] the aim is to establish the means motive and opportunity behind the killing the first task for cullen is to put together a profile of the victim [Applause] this is our victim grigori rasputin sadistically murdered age 47 in december 1916 so what do we know about rasputin and his life rasputin was born in a remote siberian village in 1869 into a family of illiterate peasant farmers he was a wild youth who was regularly drunk and often accused of theft but his life took an unexpected turn when he spent several months in a monastery it was the beginning of his life as a self-styled holy man among his powers he claimed to be able to heal the sick after more than a decade of preaching his reputation had spread to the capital saint petersburg he finally made his entrance in 1903 the enigmatic monk became a celebrity around st petersburg [Music] he was a newsworthy character and was a favorite subject for the local press he began mixing in the highest circles of saint petersburg society eventually it was this that was to secure his access to the heart of the russian royal family after his introduction to the ruling son nicholas and his wife the sarina rasputin became a regular visitor to the palace [Music] alexis their only son and heir to the throne suffered from hemophilia regular bleeding fits that could have killed him at any time in her despair the tsarina became dependent on rasputin she had total belief in his alleged powers whenever the attacks occurred rasputin would be instantly summoned to the child's side [Music] on foreign occasions it appeared he saved the young boy's life [Music] so rasputin was becoming increasingly powerful he was wired into russian society and was already starting to influence policymaking but what about his private life this famous photo fascinatingly gives us an insight into another side of rasputin's private life from the moment that he arrived in saint petersburg he held this almost magnetic attraction for aristocratic women they flocked to be at his side it was a situation that he really reveled in [Music] rasputin's interest in women was not confined to the upper classes rumors abounded of his frequent visits to the city's bath houses where he would enjoy the pleasures of local prostitutes women weren't his only vice rasputin also had a well-documented passion for drinking he was a frequent fixture in many of the city's drinking houses but his behavior began to turn the press against him [Music] they now lampooned rasputin in political cartoons he was seen as a crazed and malevolent manipulator of his patrons the russian royal family in the russian parliament those opposed to rasputin began to refer to him as dark forces the situation became so serious that rasputin was placed under 24-hour surveillance by the ocrana the tsar's secret police the political situation in russia was becoming critical by 1916 russia was on the brink of revolution and the first world war had been raging for two years hundreds of thousands of russian soldiers were fighting the germans in a bitter conflict russia was being attacked on the eastern front a line that stretched over a thousand miles from north to south [Music] the war was not going well for russia the situation became so serious that the tsar now took personal control of his armies in the field it took him away from st petersburg and effectively left the sarina in charge [Music] with the tsar out of the capital rasputin now had the undivided attention of the sarina he claimed he was anxious to end the senseless slaughter of ordinary russians in contrast to the aristocracy's pro-war views by this stage rasputin wasn't doing himself any favors at all and he wasn't winning any friends amongst the aristocracy here he was almost a member of the inner sanctum of the royal family with unfettered access to the tsar and zarina politically he had become so powerful he placed many of his friends in the highest positions in both the government and in the church the nobility were right to be afraid of him rasputin was effectively eroding their power base [Music] the motive for an aristocratic plot seems clear enough the upstart monk was becoming too powerful the next task investigation is to walk through the events of the murder night as told in the accepted version cullen visits the scene of the crime the yusupov palace in 1916 home to rasputin's self-confessed murderer prince felix yusuf the super family were one of the wealthiest in the whole of russia it was this amazing affluence that they felt was threatened by rasputin's increasingly powerful position [Music] today the scene of the crime is a major tourist attraction [Music] we're in felix yusuf's in the accepted version of events around rasputin's death this is known as the conspirators room in this room are the four other conspirators to the murder sitting on my left is purushkavich a member of the russian parliament on my right by the door is dr lazavert his role in the conspiracy was to grate the cyanide into the cakes that rasputin was allegedly to eat at the far end of the table is grand duke dimitri pavlovich the favorite cousin of the tsar and at one time engaged to olga the czar's eldest daughter by the window we have lieutenant chukotin we know very very little about him except that he was a good friend of felix yusuf and it is prince felix yasukov's memoirs that provide us with the accepted version of the murder of rasputin my head was a world of thoughts during my last drive to resputeans my object was to keep respecting and good humor and to clear his mind of all suspicion [Music] [Applause] is [Applause] so he could lure him to his home without his guards [Music] i felt disgusted and ashamed the thought of the vile means and appalling deception with which i was luring this man to my home on entering the house i heard [Music] [Applause] upstairs the conspirators waited downstairs in the dining room cakes and wine for rasputin had been laced with cyanide [Music] does he suspect anything i wondered but there and then i decided that in any case he should not leave the house alive [Music] they will go away soon i took the plate of poison cakes and passed them to him i had only one idea in my head to make him drink wine out of those poisoned glasses and eat the poisoned cakes [Music] they're too sweet he said i stood in front of him and followed each movement he made expecting every moment to be his last he looked at me and i seem to hear him say you see it doesn't matter how you try you can't do me any harm the poison didn't seem to be working panicked and fearful of what he believed were rasputin's mystical powers returned to the conspirators with the [Music] news [Music] we begin to discuss what to do next [Music] finally i took the gun and went down to the dining room [Music] god give me strength to end it all i thought a streak of lightning seemed to run through my body [Music] returned to the conspirators room satisfied that the job was done [Music] [Music] began to have doubts as to whether the shot had in fact been fatal i was suddenly seized by a vague feeling of alarm i was overwhelmed by the desire to go down to the dining room rasputin lay motionless up until this point everything in prince yusuf's memoirs seems fine but from now on things become increasingly complicated yusuf tells us that one of the other principal conspirators vladimir purific now becomes more heavily involved in the plot it was brushed with chomder the eyes of rasputin greenish and snake-like fixed themselves upon me i tried to tear myself away but his iron clutch held me with incredible strength i rushed upstairs calling on pure escapage presbuton made a final leap towards the door it was like a wounded animal but escaped rushed after him so now we have two guns and two killers vladimir putin also wrote his account of the events of that evening i've compared the memoirs of these two men and found a substantial number of major and important inconsistencies two examples of this are yusuf says he returns to the conspirators room where he was handed a pistol by one of his fellow conspirators purishkavich says that yusuf returned to the room went to his desk and took his own pistol from the desk drawer later on purific says that after he shot rasputin in the yard he stood by the body for several minutes he did not see yusuf yusupov said he was present in the yard the inconsistencies are such that it's impossible to reconcile the accounts of these two men [Music] with no body to examine the next best thing for a murder detective is access to the autopsy pictures [Music] a full record of them is now held at st petersburg's museum of political history although selected prints have been published the full set has never been released i mean what's really interesting is that rigor mortis has gone and i suppose this was 36 hours after he was taken from the water if you actually compare that with the photograph of him being taken from the nefka his body's deep frozen and he'd have had to have been thawed out in a relatively short period of time i've now obtained good copy photographs of the original postmortem and scenes of crime the first photograph shows the bullet wound to the left hand side of the body just below the chest this wound is consistent with the wound that yusuf says he caused in the basement the second photograph shows a bullet wound to the right hand side of rasputin's back now this could be consistent with kori skavich's story of having shot rasputin in the courtyard but on closer examination this bears all the hallmarks of a close contact wound starring around the edge of the wound and the [ __ ] deposit around the edges this means that this wound is inconsistent with pure skavish's story purushkovic has rasputin way across the courtyard at the point that he fires the gun but now cullen is confronted with evidence that seems to have no explanation at all the third wound is to rasputin's forehead now neither you soup off nor purific mention a wound being inflicted to the forehead [Music] with neither yusuf nor buddhist claiming credit for the shot to the head what is the truth behind the mysterious third wound it's time to bring in some russian assistance [Music] during his many years working with the police academy in st petersburg cullen has come across many promising young detectives [Music] one of the best is elia gavrielov ilia has been enlisted by cullen to assist with his investigation [Music] cullen now has reason to suspect that a third unidentified gun may have been used in the killing of rasputin what column needs is something more conclusive that will help to confirm the [Music] theory we're quite impressed moscow elia has uncovered a story that leading pathologist professor vladimir jaroff carried out a detailed study of rasputin's death 10 years ago as one of russia's principal investigators professor zharov had access to all relevant documents his report however was never published but elia has learned that it confirmed the possibility of a third gun linked to a third killer [Music] i read a translation that said you and two of your colleagues um carried out a reinvestigation of rasputin's death it suggests that a third person was actually involved in the murder how did you come to that conclusion that microscopic measurements of the entry wounds proved that the three bullet holes were different sizes it all pointed to a third gun believing that yusuf and polish kavitch did both shoot at rasputin professor yes probably this one in the center of the forehead [Music] the leading pathologist in russia had confirmed that a third gun fired the bullet in the head the precision of this third shot directly in the center of rasputin's forehead had all the hallmarks of an assassin [Music] for cullen this was a pivotal moment he was now on the trail of a professional killer [Music] it's a trail that leads him back to saint petersburg [Music] at the time of rasputin's murder st petersburg was russia's capital city [Music] as the first world war raged spies of all the great powers came here to monitor events and attempt to influence them among them the british secret service had a base here elia is about to reveal to cullen a crucial link between the british secret service and rasputin's murder [Music] you see over there that yellow building in front of us this is usual palace and over there there is hotel australia where british secret service was based [Music] elia also tells collins that at the time of rasputin's murder there were persistent rumors that the british secret service was somehow involved in the plot [Music] could the man that cullen is looking for be british [Music] he recalled that a certain englishman mysteriously appears on the scene late in yesoup's memoirs a character by the name of oswald rayner arrives at the time of the murder he is described as a friend that prince yusuf had met at oxford university could this be the third man cullen returns to england on the trail of oswald rayner [Music] he soon discovers that oswald has a surviving nephew gordon rayner he was a very secretive uh distant person he never spoke to my knowledge even to those of his generation of his time in russia it didn't now pretty clear that he was working for the sis the secret intelligence service the forerunner of mi6 unfortunately he burned his papers so there's nothing in the family records to say exactly what he'd been up to when he died we learned from his uh obituary which had been written by i think his mother's cousin that oswald had been in the palace the night rasputin was murdered gordon rainer has really set the alarm bells ringing the fact that his uncle was a secret service officer in saint petersburg he was working for the sis forerunner of mi6 and that he burned all his records of his time in russia the big question is why and what was in them [Music] i think what i need to do now is make some enquiries to find out what the british secret service was doing in saint petersburg at the time of rasputin's murder [Music] andrew cook is a leading expert on the history of the secret service he's been researching rasputin's death intensively cullen wants to know if oswald reiner and the other agents would have been concerned about rasputin they certainly would and principally why would would be down to the influence that they would have seen him having directly on the tsar the tsarina the russian court and the decision-making process in in russia we know as well through the papers of uh the saint petersburg secret service station that in their regular report back to london they are referring to rasputin uh in code or shorthand as dark forces from your extensive research was there a particular key player amongst the british agents in st petersburg at this time i think one key figure in particular is john scale he seems to have been intricately wired in to the upper echelons of russian society at court level uh government level at diplomatic level he's very much into taking the ball by the horns going out into the field running missions himself so to me he he is certainly one of the key players he died in 1947 and he has a surviving daughter who i believe is 91 years old and lives in scotland [Music] i wonder if john scale's daughter will have any recollections of her father's time as an agent in the british secret service or even whether she'll remember anything about it [Music] he went to russia and learned russian but i don't think he was on secret service when he went there but he certainly was later on and then i think became part of the household he was attached to the tsar i'm quite sure from the way talk that he lived in the palace because he seemed to know them all so well what were your father's feelings about rasputin but he had never met anyone with such an aura of evil he said it was quite extraordinary whatever he was you felt this well evil i think it was and i know my father was with the people who found his murder he wasn't actually there when it happened because he was away with the tsar somewhere but he was among ones carried it out i'm absolutely stunned by what muriel had to say i didn't ever think that british secret agents were actually involved in the plot to kill rasputin but she was so adamant about the involvement of her father he was with the people who planned his murder and the extent of the hatred that he felt for rasputin he has never met anyone with such an aura of evil really adds another dimension to the investigation and i need to look at the reasons now i think behind why the british wanted to kill rasputin what would have been in it for them as andrew cook explained the answer lay in the politics of the first world war there's a general feeling a general view um held by the british government that rasputin is an unhelpful influence his views advice was actually being taken seriously and not only being taken seriously but was actually being acted on very actively by by the tsar the tsar was now away constantly controlling his troops on the eastern front back in st petersburg with sarina was now effectively in charge rasputin took advantage of the situation he put pressure on her to get russia to pull out of the war a separate peace deal could mean only one thing for britain france and the allies and that would mean the germans would then have the potential to deliver a knockout punch by moving their troops from the eastern front to the western front [Music] if rasputin had succeeded it would have freed up over 350 000 german soldiers for the british it would have been a catastrophe with that possibility looming secret service agents in st petersburg had one simple solution the people on the ground like scale and rainer would have had strong views of their own in terms of rasputin's influence and they certainly would have felt that his his influence is a very malign one and uh it comes across equally that they they feel that it should be removed the british motive to kill rasputin was becoming clear and andrew cook had uncovered something even more compelling amongst his research papers was a startling piece of new evidence a top secret memo from 1916 that would lead cullen to the assassin this memo provides us with amazing evidence it is from one of the secret service agents in saint petersburg to john scale and it says although matters here have not proceeded entirely to plan our objective has clearly been achieved reaction to the demise of dark forces has been well received by all rayner is attending to loose ends and will no doubt brief you on your return this really is damning evidence that the british were totally wrapped up in the plot to kill rasputin our objective has clearly been achieved reaction to the demise of dark forces has been well received by all and on the british agents who knew of the plot the one most closely associated with it is oswald [Music] attending to loose ends and will no doubt brief you on your return richard cullen's journey was ending in the place where the plot began the astoria hotel the former headquarters of the british secret service in saint petersburg this is almost certainly the place where the british would have hatched their plan to kill rasputin it was here that oswald raynor worked as a secret agent along with his superior john scale it is my belief that it's highly likely that this was a rogue operation carried out without the official sanction of the british secret service with john scale out of the city i believe that reyna was present on the night to make sure that rasputin was eliminated [Music] from the british secret service headquarters cullen makes the short walk back to the scene of the crime with all the evidence he's uncovered he can now reveal what he believes really happened in rasputin's final hours [Music] there are elements of prince yusuf's memoirs that cullen doesn't contest [Music] i do believe that at some time you soup did go upstairs to the conspirators room and took a pistol he came back down to this study you soup off fired the first bullet the bullet passed through the stomach and into the liver causing massive damage the second shot so the original pathologist tells us in 1916 was fired very shortly afterwards and from a close range into the back hitting the kidney in the accepted version of events the second shot is delivered by puriskevich from a distance but the forensics now tell us that it was fired from close range i am certain that the second shot due to its close range and the fact that it came very quickly after the first was actually fired by puriskewicz in the cellar both of the bullet wounds individually would have been fatal within 10 to 20 minutes the shock of being hit by two bullets in quick succession would have meant that he would have fallen immediately to the floor in the accepted version we have rasputin weaving across the courtyard in his attempt to escape but the forensic photographs taken by the police at the time show a dead straight line of blood leading from the main door this almost certainly means that rasputin's body was carried across the courtyard he was wrapped up in linen and he was taken from here to the courtyard in the belief that he was dead the conspirators then carried him towards the main gate of the courtyard where a car was waiting to take him to the navca river he was barely alive he was bleeding profusely from two wounds as they approached the gate he either groaned or moved and they realized he was still alive at that point someone with a gun of a different caliber than those used before appears on the scene and delivers what was the fatal shot it is my belief that oswald rayner an officer with the british secret service murdered rasputin i believe this pool of blood marks the spot where reiner shot rasputin through the head making certain that the murder was complete [Music] fourteen months after the murder of gregory rasputin russia did make peace with germany but by then it was too late to prevent an allied victory on the western front the murder of rasputin had achieved its aim [Music] you

Channel: The Romanov Royal Martyrs

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Keywords: romanovs, Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia, Royal Family, Romanov execution, Romanov dynasty, Romanov trailer, Romanov family, Romanoffs, Helen Rappaport, Four sisters, Last Tsar, Ekaterinburg, Olga Shirnina, Anastasia Romanov, Alexandra Feodrovna, Royalty, British Royalty, romanov family today, romanov family death, romanov coronation, romanov sisters, romanov jewels, romanov book, National Geographic, rasputin, bbc, forensic, murder, unsolved mystery, conspiracy theory

Id: X6NhzpSg97o

Length: 48min 50sec (2930 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 16 2020