Legal History
Royal Murder Mystery Ends: Last 2 Children of Russian Tsar ID’d
Posted Apr 30, 2008, 10:29 am CDT
By Martha Neil
Ending speculation that not all five of the children of Russia's last royal couple, Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra, were murdered along with the rest of the family nearly a century ago, DNA tests have confirmed the identity of bone shards found last year in the Ural Mountains.
Excavated from an area near the site where Bolsheviks executed the family in a basement on July 17, 1918, the shards are from the bodies of Crown Prince Alexei and his sister, Maria, recounts the Press Association. Tests confirming their identity reportedly were performed by a U.S. laboratory.
Although the tsar had abdicated in 1917, in the midst of a revolution, the family was subsequently held under house arrest and eventually shot to death.
"The remains of Nicholas, Alexandra and three of their daughters were unearthed in Yekaterinburg in 1991 as the Soviet Union was collapsing," the news agency reports. "After genetic tests convinced forensics experts of their authenticity, they were buried in 1998 in a cathedral in the imperial capital of St Petersburg."
Additional coverage:
Associated Press (April 30, 2008): "DNA Confirms Remains Of Czar's Children"
Associated Press (April 8, 2008): "DNA Tests May Solve Tsarist Mystery"
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