After over 100 years most folks still know the story of the murder of Rasputin, the Mad Monk! That he was fed enough poison to kill an elephant and showed no signs of sickness. That he was shot through the heart and still struggled with his assassins. That he was shot several more times, tied up and tossed in a river… and when his body was found his hands were free!
History books tell us that Prince Felix Yusupov and four co-conspirators planned and executed Rasputin. Yisupov took credit from the start…
… But Yusupov’s confession didn’t fit a single one of the facts. Every single detail in his story contradicted the autopsy and the evidence…
Mark Oliver and Listverse present 10 Strange Facts About The Mysterious Death Of Rasputin. Here are three of my favorites…
7. The Autopsy That Contradicts Everything Yusupov Said
Yusupov’s story certainly is exciting—but it doesn’t fit the facts. The autopsy report on Rasputin’s body, conducted by Professor Dmitry Kosorotov, contradicts every single word.In his memoirs, Yusupov claims that he shot Rasputin in the heart and even says that he had Dr. Lazovert check the body and confirm that was where the bullet had hit its mark. Kosorotov’s autopsy, though, found only three bullet wounds, and not a single one had even come close to the heart. Instead, the bullets went through his stomach, liver, kidney, and skull, with wounds that no physician could possibly mistake for a gunshot to the heart.[4]Likewise, Yusupov claimed that Rasputin was taken down by a long-range shot from Purishkevich that took him in the back of the head. The bullet in Rasputin’s skull, however, had entered from the front at point-blank range, while Rasputin was lying on the ground.It’s hard to reconcile Yusupov’s story with the facts. Some have suggested that he blew the murder up to make Rasputin more of a threat—but his account is nowhere near the truth. It’s almost as though Yusupov had no idea how Rasputin died.
3. The British Spy Who Might Have Killed Him
Every bullet in Rasputin’s body, according to the autopsy, came out of a different caliber gun. At least three people—or at least three guns—had to have been involved in his death.The bullet holes in his stomach and kidney could have been made by Yusupov and Purishkevich’s guns, but the one in his skull didn’t fit. It was made with a revolver, specifically, according to the most popular theory, a .455 Webley—a gun none of the conspirators carried.A British friend of Yusupov’s named Oswald Rayner, though, carried a .455 Webley on him at almost all times. And though Yusupov denies that he was ever there, a lot of people think that Rayner fired the shot that finished Rasputin off, all under the orders of British Intelligence.The British had a vested interest in seeing Rasputin dead. He was trying to broker peace between Russia and Germany, and his treaty would have turned the tide of World War I against the Allies. In Rasputin hadn’t died, it’s possible that the Germans would have won the war. And there’s a letter that seems to completely give it away. A man named Stephen Alley, stationed in Petrograd, sent a missive to England on January 7, 1917, that read: Our objective has clearly been achieved. Reaction to the demise of ‘Dark Forces’ has been well received by all, although a few awkward questions have already been asked about wider involvement. Rayner is attending to loose ends and will no doubt brief you on your return.
1. The Burning Body That Sat Up
The most popular explanation for Yusupov’s outrageous story is that he was trying to erase a guilty conscience. He’d killed a defenseless man in cold blood, but he still wanted the people to believe that he was a hero. And so he changed the truth, making himself look better by selling Rasputin as a demonic monster who couldn’t be killed.But one strange moment in March 1917 almost makes it tempting to believe that Yusupov was telling the truth: that Rasputin really a supernatural being.A group of soldiers exhumed Rasputin’s body, threw it onto a pile of logs, doused it in gasoline, and set it on fire. They destroyed his body, afraid his tomb would become a monument to the Tsarist regime.A whole crowd of villagers came out to watch Rasputin’s body burn—and almost every one of them insists that they saw his decomposing corpse rise up in the fire.[10]There are scientific explanations, of course. It’s been speculated that Rasputin’s tendons shrank in the fire, causing his body to bend at the waist. Or else the whole thing has been written off as a great mass delusion.But Rasputin, they say, predicted every bit of it. In a letter that Rasputin (supposedly) wrote to Tsarina Alexandra shortly before his death, he said: “I feel that I shall leave life before January 1. ”Even dead, the sorcerer predicted, he would not be left in peace. His body would be burned, his ashes scattered into the winds.
