Who Killed Rasputin? Timewatch

It's one of the most infamous murders of the last century.

The killing of Grigorii Rasputin in St Petersburg in 1916.

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 monarchy.

Rasputin was supposedly poisoned,

shot,

and drowned

in a plot led by a jealous Russian prince.

What's really interesting is, the rigor mortis has 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 Cullen 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?

This battered and mutilated corpse

was dragged from a frozen river in Russia in the winter of 1916.

It's the body of Grigorii Efimovich Rasputin.

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 Timewatch's request, Cullen has agreed to reopen this case.

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 bloodied 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 Nevka.

The following day,

the blood and one of Rasputin's overboots

were actually discovered...

..but it still took a further day for the body to be found.

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 St Petersburg, and across the Russian Federation.

He's 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 on the days

following Rasputin's disappearance and subsequent finding of his body.

This is really, really essential to the investigation.

This is a start of the journey.

This is the evidence that will give us the clues

as to where else we should look

for further information and intelligence relating to the murder.

Every murder investigation follows a pattern.

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.

This is our victim, Grigorii Rasputin,

sadistically murdered aged 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, St Petersburg.

He finally made his entrance in 1903.

The enigmatic monk became a celebrity around St Petersburg.

He was a newsworthy character,

and was a favourite subject for the local press.

He began mixing in the highest circles of St 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 Tsar Nicholas

and his wife the Tsarina,

Rasputin became a regular visitor to the palace.

Alexei, their only son and heir to the throne,

suffered from haemophilia -

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.

Chto zhe delat'?! Poshli kogo-nibud'! Poshli kogo-nibud'!

Whenever the attacks occurred,

Rasputin would be instantly summoned to the child's side.

HE RECITES A RUSSIAN PRAYER

On several occasions, it appeared he saved the young boy's life.

So Rasputin was becoming increasingly powerful.

He was wired into Russian society

and was already starting to influence policy making.

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 St Petersburg,

he held this almost magnetic attraction for aristocratic women.

They flocked to be at his side.

It was a situation that he really revelled in.

Rasputin's interest in women was not confined to the upper classes.

Rumours 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.

He soon became infamous for his drunken debauchery.

But his behaviour began to turn the press against him.

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 Okhrana,

the Tsar's secret police.

The political situation in Russia was becoming critical.

By 1916, Russia was on the brink of revolution,

and WWI 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 1,000 miles from north to south.

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 Tsarina in charge.

With the Tsar out of the capital,

Rasputin now had the undivided attention of the Tsarina.

He claimed he was anxious

to end the senseless slaughter of ordinary Russians,

in contrast to the aristocracy's pro-war views.

Spasibo tebe, matyukha.

By this stage, Rasputin wasn't doing himself any favours 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 Tsarina.

Politically, he'd become so powerful,

he had 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.

The motive for an aristocratic plot seems clear enough.

The upstart monk was becoming too powerful.

The next task in the 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 Yusupov.

The Yusupov 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.

Today the scene of the crime is a major tourist attraction.

We're in Felix Yusupov's study.

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 Purishkevich, 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 Dmitri Pavlovich,

the favourite cousin of the Tsar and at one time engaged to Olga,

the Tsar's eldest daughter.

By the window we have Lieutenant Sukhotin.

We know very little about him,

except he was a good friend of Felix Yusupov.

And it's Prince Felix Yusupov's memoirs

that provide us with the accepted version of the murder of Rasputin.

'My head was a whirl of thoughts during my last drive to Rasputin's.

'My object was to keep Rasputin in good humour and to clear his mind of all suspicion.'

Otets Grigorii! Dozhdalis'.

THEY CHAT

Prince Yusupov had deliberately befriended Rasputin

so he could lure him to his home without his guards.

'I felt disgusted and ashamed at 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 my friends' voices.'

Upstairs, the conspirators waited.

Downstairs in the dining room,

cakes and wine for Rasputin had been laced with cyanide.

'Does he suspect anything, I wondered.

'But there and then, I decided that in any case he should not leave the house alive.'

'Rasputin stopped to listen.

' "What is going on ?"

' "My wife has friends with her, 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.'

' "They're too sweet", he said.

'I stood before him and followed each movement he made, expecting every moment to be his last.'

'He looked at me and I seemed 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,

Yusupov returned to the conspirators with the news.

' "The poison has had no effect", I said.

'We began to discuss what to do next.'

'Finally, I took the gun and went down to the dining room.'

Nakonets Skol'ko ya v podvale sidet' odin budu?!

'"God give me strength to end it all", I thought.

'A streak of lightning seemed to run through my body.'

BOOM ECHOES

Yusupov returned to the conspirators' room

satisfied that the job was done.

Oh, slava Bogu!

Slava Bogu!

But when they questioned him whether Rasputin was finally dead...

Yusupov began to have doubts

-as to whether the shot had in fact been fatal.

-V chem delo?

-'I was suddenly seized by a vague feeling of alarm.'

-V chem delo?!

'I was overwhelmed by the desire to go down to the dining room.

'Rasputin lay motionless.'

Up until this point, everything in Prince Yusupov's memoirs seems fine.

But from now on, things become increasingly complicated.

Yusupov tells us that one of the other principal conspirators,

Vladimir Purishkevich,

now becomes more heavily involved in the plot.

Ya vas sprashivayu - v chem delo?

'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 Purishkevich !'

'Rasputin made a final leap towards the door.

'He was like a wounded animal. Purishkevich rushed after him.'

So now we have two guns and two killers.

Vladimir Pureshkevich also wrote his account

of the events of that evening.

I compared the memoirs of these two men

and found a substantial number of major and important inconsistencies.

Two examples of this are -

Yusupov says he returned to the conspirators' room

where he was handed a pistol by one of his fellow conspirators.

Purishkevich says that Yusupov returned to the room,

went to his desk and took his own pistol from the desk drawer.

Later on, Purishkevich says that after he shot Rasputin in the yard,

he stood by the body for several minutes. He did not see Yusupov.

Yusupov said he was present in the yard.

The inconsistencies are such

that is impossible to reconcile the accounts of these two men.

With no body to examine, the next best thing for a murder detective

is access to the autopsy pictures.

A full record of them

is now held at St Petersburg's Museum of Political History.

Thank you very much.

Although selected prints have been published,

the full set has never been released.

What's really interesting is, the rigor mortis has gone.

I suppose this was 36 hours after he was taken from the water.

If you actually...

compare that with a photograph of him being taken from the Nevka,

his body is 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 post-mortem and scenes of crime.

The first photograph shows a bullet wound

to the left-hand side of the body, just below the chest.

This wound is consistent

with the wound that Yusupov 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 Purishkevich'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 a sooty deposit around the edges.

This means that this wound is inconsistent

with Purishkevich's story.

Purishkevich 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 Yusupov nor Purishkevich

mention a wound being inflicted to the forehead.

With neither Yusupov nor Purishkevich 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.

During his many years working with the Police Academy in St Petersburg,

Cullen has come across many promising young detectives.

One of the best is Ilya Gavrilov.

Ilya has been enlisted by Cullen to assist with his investigation.

Cullen now has reason to suspect that a third, unidentified gun

may have been used in the killing of Rasputin.

What Cullen needs is something more conclusive

that will help to confirm the theory.

'Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to express train number one,

'departing from platform five.'

Cullen and Ilya are bound for Moscow.

Ilya has uncovered a story

that leading pathologist Professor Vladimir Zharov

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 Ilya has learned that it confirmed the possibility

of a third gun, linked to a third killer.

-This way ?

-Yes.

Professor, I read a translation

that said you and two of your colleagues

carried out a re-investigation of Rasputin's death.

It suggests that a third person was actually involved in the murder.

How did you come to that conclusion?

ILYA TRANSLATES INTO RUSSIAN

My...ne daem otsenku...

Professor Zharov told Cullen

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 Yusupov and Purishkevich

did both shoot at Rasputin,

Professor Zharov concluded that a third person could be involved.

Which wound does he think is from the unknown gun ?

Is it the wound to the head ?

ILYA TRANSLATES

ZHAROV REPLIES

Yes, probably this one in the centre of the forehead.

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 centre of Rasputin's forehead,

had all the hallmarks of an assassin.

For Cullen, this was a pivotal moment.

He was now on the trail of a professional killer.

It's a trail that leads him back to St Petersburg.

At the time of Rasputin's murder,

St Petersburg was Russia's capital city.

As WWI raged, spies of all the great powers

came here to monitor events and attempts to influence them.

Among them, the British Secret Service had a base here.

Ilya is about to reveal to Cullen a crucial link

between the British Secret Service and Rasputin's murder.

Richard, do you see over there, that yellow building in front of us ?

This is Yusupov Palace.

And over there, there is Hotel Astoria,

where British Secret Service was based.

Ilya also tells Cullen that at the time of Rasputin's murder,

there were persistent rumours

that the British Secret Service was somehow involved in the plot.

Could the man that Cullen is looking for be British ?

He recalled that a certain Englishman

mysteriously appears on the scene late in Yusupov's memoirs.

A character by the name of Oswald Rayner

arrives at the time of the murder.

He's described as a friend

that Prince Yusupov had met at Oxford University.

Could this be the third man ?

Cullen returns to England on the trail of Oswald Rayner.

He soon discovers that Oswald has a surviving nephew - Gordon Rayner.

He was a very secretive,

distant person.

He never spoke, to my knowledge,

even to those of his generation, of his time in Russia.

It is now pretty clear that he was working for the SIS -

the Secret Intelligence Service,

the forerunner of MI6.

Unfortunately, he burnt his papers,

so there is nothing in the family records

to say exactly what he'd been up to.

When he died, we learned from his obituary, which had been written by,

I think, his mother's cousin,

that, um...Oswald had been in the Palace

the night Rasputin was murdered.

Gordon Rayner has really set the alarm bells ringing -

the fact that his uncle was a secret service officer in St Petersburg.

He was working for the SIS, the forerunner of MI6.

And that...he burnt all his records

of his time in Russia.

The big question is - why, and what was in them ?

'I think what I need to do now is make some enquiries to find out

'what the British Secret Service was doing in St Petersburg at the time of Rasputin's murder.'

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 Rayner and the other agents

would have been concerned about Rasputin.

They certainly would.

Principally why would be down to the influence

that they would have seen him having directly on the Tsar,

the Tsarina, the Russian court, the decision-making process in Russia.

We know as well,

through the papers of the St Petersburg secret service station,

that in their regular reports back to London,

they are referring to Rasputin in code or shorthand

as "Dark Forces".

From your extensive research, was there a particular key player

among 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 into the upper echelons

of Russian society

at court level, at government level, at diplomatic level.

He's very much into taking the bull by the horns,

going out into the field, running missions himself,

so, to me, he's 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.

I wondered if John Scale's daughter will have any recollections

of her father's time as an agent in the British Secret Service,

or whether she'll remember anything.

He went to Russia and learned Russian,

but I don't think he was on the 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 sure, from the way he talked,

that he lived in the palace, because he seemed to know them all well.

What were your father's feelings about Rasputin ?

That he had never met anyone with such an aura of evil.

He said it was quite extraordinary.

Wherever he was, you felt this...

Well, evil, I think it was.

And I know my father was with the people who planned his murder.

He wasn't actually there when it happened,

because he was away with the Tsar somewhere,

but he was among the ones who 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 a plot to kill Rasputin.

But she was so adamant about the involvement of her father.

He was...with people who...

planned his murder... ..planned his murder...

And the extent of the hatred that he felt for Rasputin...

He had never met anyone

with such an aura of evil. ..evil.

This 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 WWI.

There's a general feeling, a view 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 the Tsar.

The Tsar was now away constantly,

controlling his troops on the Eastern Front.

Back in St Petersburg, the Tsarina 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.

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 a simple solution.

The people on the ground like Scale and Rayner

would have had strong views of their own

in terms of Rasputin's influence,

and they certainly would have felt

that his influence is a very malign one and it comes across equally

that 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 St 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 is damning evidence

that the British were wrapped up in the plot to kill Rasputin.

"Our objective has been achieved."

"Reaction to the demise of "Dark Forces" has been well received by all."

And of the British agents who knew of the plot,

the one most closely associated with it is Oswald Rayner.

"Rayner is attending to loose ends and will no doubt brief you on your return."

Richard Cullen's journey was ending in the place were the plot began,

the Astoria Hotel - the former headquarters

of the British Secret Service in St Petersburg.

'This is almost certainly the place where the British would have hatched their plan to kill Rasputin.

'It was here that Oswald Rayner 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 Scale out of the city,

'I believe that Rayner was present on the night to make sure that Rasputin was eliminated.'

From the British Secret Service headquarters,

Cullen makes the short walk back to the scene of the crime.

With all the evidence he has uncovered,

he can now reveal what he believes really happened

in Rasputin's final hours.

There are elements of Prince Yusupov's memoirs

that Cullen doesn't contest.

I do believe that at some time Yusupov did go upstairs

to the conspirators' room and took a pistol.

He came back down to this study.

Yusupov fired the first bullet.

Nakonets! Skol'ko ya v podvale sidet' odin budu?!

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 close range into the back,

hitting the kidney.

In the accepted version of events,

the second shot is delivered by Purishkevich from a distance.

But the forensics now tell us that it was fired from close range.

CULLEN: I'm certain the second shot, due to its close range

and the fact that it came very quickly after the first,

was actually fired by Purishkevich in the cellar.

ARGH !

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 carried him towards the main gate of the courtyard,

where a car was waiting to take him to the Nevka River.

'He was barely alive. He was bleeding profusely from two wounds.

As they approach the gate,

he either groaned, or moved,

and they realised he was still alive.

At that point,

someone with a gun,

of a different calibre from 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 Rayner shot Rasputin through the head,

making certain that the murder was complete.

14 months after the murder of Grigorii 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.