Romanovs: The Missing Bodies | National Geographic

[♫]

Narrator: An international
team of forensic experts

is flying in to the scene
of a 90 year old crime

in a far-flung Siberian forest,

including a leading
forensic anthropologist

and veteran of the 9/11 investigation,

Anthony Falsetti.

Anthony Falsetti:
It's really vast out here.

So desolate and so
far away from civilization,

but that's where two
bodies are supposed to be.

Narrator: 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 Coble,

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,

20 kilometers outside the
Siberian city of Yekaterinburg.

[♫]

This far-flung industiral outpost

is where the fate of
Russia's royal family was written.

Five children,

born into royalty.

The grand duchesses Olga and Tatiana,

the flower of young womanhood.

Maria and Anastasia are
beguiling teenagers.

13 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 Czarist loyalists.

[explosions/gunshots]

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 Czar.

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 Falsetti

and the investigative team

have to complete their journey on foot,

to meet the man who may
have made a stunning historical find.

[indistinct greetings]

Falsetti: So, what did you find?

Where did you find it?

[speaking Russian]

How deep was the burial?

Narrator: The remains have been
moved to a morgue for safekeeping.

Falsetti: What else did
you find with it, any artifcats?

[translating into Russian]

[speaking Russian]

Falsetti: What I'm hearing
from these archeologists

is they have 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.

Narrator: 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 coverups 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 coverup failed,

forcing the Russian
government to change its story

and make a shocking admission.

All 11 members of the royal
household had been executed.

Then came reported
sightings of Prince Alexei

and Princess Anastasia.

Were the children dead or alive?

Sensational rumors kept emerging.

In Mosow, 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 Lacher

claimed he had been left to guard a truck

carrying the royal bodies.

When it got stuck in the
mud in the middle of a forest,

he said he helped a
wounded Anastasia escape.

[pained breathing]

The Romanov legend and
rumors of a surviving heir

were revived.

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991,

local academics armed with
shovels and vital information

ventured into the
Koptyaki Forest to dig.

Although the Romanovs
executioners were long dead,

papers handed down by
the commander, Yakov Yurovsky,

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.

Peter Sarandinaki: In 1991,
nine sets of remains were found.

There were 11 people that were killed

in Yekaterinburg that night.

Two sets of remains were still missing.

Narrator: The Czar and Czarina,

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 a
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 Czar
Nicholas's children survive?

Forensic anthropologist Anthony Falsetti

and DNA expert Michael Coble

are about to get their
first look at the bones

that may answer these intriuging questions

once and for all.

Under lock and key
in the Yekaterinburg 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.

Anthony Falsetti is on
stranger to these halls.

He was part of the original team

assembled in the 1990s

to investigate the first
set of Romanov bones.

The investigation and its findings
proved highly controversial,

sparking a very public row.

[indistinct speech]

Russian scientists used
facial reconstruction techniques

to claim that one of the
bodes was that of Anastasia,

but others were unconvinced.

Still more troubling was
the body count discrepancy.

Man: Two bodies are still missing

and it is a mystery.

Narrator: 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.

[♫]

Man: 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.

Narrator: The start of the latest
investigation makes the evening news.

[speaking Russian]

But once the cameras have gone,

a critical story emerges.

Falsetti: Once the cameras were gone,

we get down to work

and what I discover is that

these 44 fragments,

many we're not going to
be able to identify as being human.

Perhaps they're not.

There's just not enough material here.

Narrator: These shattered remains

look nothing like
the nearly complete skeletons

found in 1991.

Broken, almost unrecognizable.

But careful inspection by expert eyes

reveals the fragmentary remains are human.

Man: Two people.

Narrator: 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?

Falsetti: 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've two females

or a male and a female,

or whether these fragments

are part of the other bones
that were already recovered.

Narrator: 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.

Falsetti: It doesn't look like much.

It is a portion of the pelvis.

It is our os-cox.

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.

Narrator: A male and a female.

Body parts from two individuals.

But are they the missing Romanov children?

Anthony Falsetti and
the forensic anthropologists

will have to dig deeper.

For Mike Coble and the DNA team,

there's another problem.

These bones show evidence of burning.

Michael Coble: 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.

2.5, 3 centimeter cut.

Narrator: Michael Coble selects fragments

most likely to yield readable DNA.

Minute pieces will be cut off
and sent to his lab in America

and to other researchers around the world

for independent analysis.

Coble: These are the
fragments that we think...

Narrator: 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.

But, in the town where the
Romanov family met their end,

there are more leads to pursue.

[♫]

Local archeologist Sergei Prokofiev

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.

Falsetti: What kind of container...

[Grunt]

Narrator: The pottery shards are
perhaps the most compelling evidence.

They match similar fragments
found in the nearby grave

uncovered in 1991.

Falsetti: These are the ones from 1991?

Sergei Prokofiev:
Da [continues in Russian]

Narrator: 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.

[indistinct speech]

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.

[gunshot]

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 ball
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.

Tech [interpreted from Russian]:
We can determine that the bullets

were shot from the same weapon,
a browning pistol.

Narrator: The type of weapon may
have been identified,

but the results have exposed
yet another twist in the tale.

Tech [interpreted from Russian]:
These bullets are different in caliber

than the ones found in 1991.

Narrator: 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.

Falsetti: We know that this gun
is from the same time period,

but we don't have
a direct tie to the '91 finds.

Narrator: No link.

A new and previously unknown weapon.

If there's no hard evidence linking
the graves to the same crime,

then perhaps the remains in the
latest grave belong to nameless victims

and have nothing to do with the
slaughter of the Romanov family.

[♫]

So far, forensic investigations
haven't been able to link the graves

or the remains found inside them.

In Russia, the forensic investigator
Anthony Falsetti'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 Coble

selected back at the Yekaterinburg 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.

[♫]

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 Alexei,
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.

[♫]

The Romanov children,
like the British royal family,

were descended from Queen Victoria.

The DNA in this royal bloodline

bears unique identifying
genetic characteristics.

[♫]

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 a climate of extremes,
well below freezing in winter

and swelteringly hot in summer.

[♫]

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 Falsetti, 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.

Falsetti: Here I am, an American
scientist, two floors below ground,

a hundred years worth
of communist secrets.

Narrator: The keeper of those
secrets is Dr. Ludmila Levkova.

Giant blast doors designed to protect
the Kremlin's most precious records

from nuclear attacks swing open.

Falsetti: We're down here.

It's 30 feet, walls are two feet
thick, and this is Lenin's archive.

Narrator: If Soviet archives hold
the missing pieces to the Romanov puzzle,

this is where they'll be.

Falsetti: So, these are Lenin's
documents? These originals?

Ludmila Levkova: Telegrama.
[speaking indistinctly]

Falsetti: This one's
from Copenhagen, correct?

Ludmila Levkova: Yeah.

Falsetti: Okay.

Rumor here going that the Czar
has been murdered.

Kindly wire facts.

Narrator: This inquiry was
one of many sent to Lenin

in the weeks and days before the killing.

This was his reply.

Falsetti: "Rumor not true. Czar safe.

All rumors are
only lie of capitalist press."

And it's signed Lenin.

Narrator: 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 executioners knew,

and their statements are
on file in another basement.

The report filed by the head
executioner, Commander Yakov Yurovsky,

is regarded as the most accurate account,

and makes chilling reading.

Likova [interpreted from Russian]:
Yurovsky said this about

the execution
of the emperor's family.

They stood along the wall,

and here he said the
following words to them:

"The Reign of the Romanovs
has reached its end.

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."

[♫]

Gregg King: 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.

Likova [interpreted from Russian]:
The firing, Yurovsky 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.

Narrator: Incredibly,
eyewitness accounts agree

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.

[Recording] It appeared they'd
sewn diamonds into their bras,

a variety of necklaces, pearls, etc. etc.

Bullets were bouncing off.

There was somebody, well, so to say,

as if they are not finally killed.

This woman, Anastasia.

Narrator: A botched execution.

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?

Falsetti: 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?

Narrator: Co-conspirators
that could've helped her escape.

It's another unsubstantiated story.

[girl crying]

The forensic investigator decides
to stage an experiment,

to put the first part
of the story to the test.

Falsetti: Could jewels stop a bullet?

Narrator: 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 1,000 feet per second.

Will they be deflected?

Interior Ministry
Colonel Vladimir Solovyov,

is the leader of
the Romanov investigation.

He's got special permission

to handle the actual guns fired
by Yurovsky and his execution squad.

Col Solovyov [interpreted from Russian]:
Czar Nicholas II was killed with this pistol.

This second pistol was also
in the basement of the Ipatiev House

and it may have been used to kill
other members of the Czar's family.

This pistol was also used in
all the events in the Ipatiev House.

Falsetti: It's a grotesque feeling,

to be in the presence,
to hold the weapons,

that killed this family.

Narrator: The original guns
can't be used in the experiment,

but the investigation
has provided duplicates,

guns from the same era

but with less iconic value.

The reconstructed jewel corsets

are placed on a mannequin.

For safety, only the shooter
is allowed in the room.

[gunshot]

[gunshot]

Could a diamond corset
have shielded Anastasia

from a hail of bullets?

Falsetti: We had different
powered weapons.

They were fired sequentially,

and what we have on the first two

is clearly some fragmentation.

There was, 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.

Narrator: 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.

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 Sarandinaki

whose ancestors were part
of the Czar's inner circle.

[♫]

Peter Sarandinaki:
My mother-in-law, to her dying day,

to her last day believed
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

stubbed toe problem as Anastasia.

She had the same ear as Anastasia.

There were a lot of
similarities between the two.

Narrator: 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

are 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 D.C.,

DNA expert Michael Coble 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 Falsetti

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% 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 Falsetti 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.

He'll come 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 Yakov Yurovsky 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.

King: As they were lifting up
one of the bodies,

she sat up and screamed.

It was either Maria or Anastasia.

We know that two of the grand duchesses

left that room alive.

Ermakov grabbed a nearby rifle

and ended up smashing them
repeatedly in the face

until they stopped screaming.

Narrator: The bodies were then transported

a dozen miles outside Yekaterinburg,

to the Koptyaki Forest,

to an area of abandoned mineworks.

Falsetti: So here's what we know.

The bodies were taken into the forest.

They were thrown down a mineshaft.

Grenades were thrown after them

in an attempt to collapse the walls.

[explosion]

Narrator: The bodies were
only partially hidden.

As dawn approached,
Yurovsky returned to Yekaterinburg

to report to his superiors.

Misfortune struck again.

Yurovsky'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.

Falsetti: The next day,
the bodies were retrieved

and Yurovsky has his men

looking for a new location.

Narrator: But after the bodies
were exhumed,

summer rain turned
the ground to a gluey mud.

The truck got stuck.

The corpses had to be offloaded.

Commander Yurovsky 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 #147

supports the dismemberment story.

The royal remains were allegedly subject

to another indignity,

but the evidence wouldn't be visible.

Yurovsky claimed that his men
poured acid over the corpses,

to disfigure them beyond recognition.

Chemical composition tests
on the bones conducted in Russia

revealed faint traces of sulfuric acid.

According to Yurovsky,
it was then that his men

burned what was left of the two bodies.

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.

Falsetti: We know that they had

between and hour
and a half and three hours

to completely consume two human bodies.

Narrator: Three hours later,

the pig carcass is charred
but still intact.

Falsetti: 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.

Narrator: Yurovsky'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.

Falsetti: What we know about history

is being reflected by the evidence.

Narrator: 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, Czar 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.

Then, playing tennis while
on holiday a few years later.

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 Romanovs
as 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.

Falsetti: Let's see what you've got.

Coble: The first thing that
we should look at is here.

This is the marker that determines sex.

And, sample 146,

there's an XY,

which means this is a male sample.

Falsetti: Right.

Coble: And then 147 has one X peak

and this is what we see with females.

Narrator: 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 Czar Nicholas
and his wife, Alexandra.

Coble: So, what we have here on top,

this is a profile from the Czar.

And this on the bottom
is a profile from the Czarina.

And here is the male sample
from the second grave.

We expect that this particular profile

is going to be a combination
of the Czar and the Czarina

if this is truly Alexei.

This male, got this 25
repeat peak from the Czar

and this 23 peak was passed to him

from the Czarina.

And here is the male sample...

Narrator: That makes 17
out of 17 possible matches.

Coble: The evidence is overwhelming.

Falsetti: Yeah, absolutely.

That's their son.
Coble: Exactly.

Falsetti: And they had one son,

and that's Alexei.
Coble: Exactly.

Falsetti: Right.

Narrator: Finally there's compelling
forensic evidence

that 13 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 grave?

Mike Coble compared Alexei's
DNA with hers.

Coble: What's interesting though

is that notice, they both share 23.

They both share this marker,

which is a 33.2 repeat.

Narrator: Once again, one genetic marker
after another is shared.

Coble: ...147 has 17 repeats,

23 repeats...

Narrator: Leading to another
overwhelming statistical probability.

Coble: It's over a million times
more likely

that these remains are siblings

than if they were completely unrelated.
Falsetti: Okay.

Coble: Very strong evidence here

that we have a brother and a sister.

Yeah.

Narrator: That sister was either Maria

or Anastasia.

But beyond that, the DNA evidence
has nothing else to suggest.

Coble: Of course,
there is a limitation here.

The DNA can't tell us

exactly which child is Anastasia

and which child is Maria.

Falsetti: The bottom line is really
it doesn't matter anymore

because they're all
present and accounted for.

Coble: Yeah.

Narrator: 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.

She was buried along with the others

among the towering birch trees.

It was surely not the end
any of them expected

or des--

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.

[♫]