ROMANOFFS' END.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 August 1920, Page 5

ROMANOFFS' END.

LAST TRAGIC SCENE. fiAHE TO CAMOUFLAGE CRIME. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyrleht. Received August 30, 7.50 p.m. London, August 20. The Btory of the Romanoffs' end now reaches the final terrible scene of the disposal of their bodies, and the story that seldom in the history of csime has murder beeir accompanied by •ucjk .elaborate precautions. Rolled in old coats, and covered with takts, the bodies were taken in lorries, in the dead of night, to a remote corner of -& disused iron mine in the woods. A cordon of Red Guards surrounded the wood* for four days, sending prying whilst deep inside Yurovsky tarried out the devilish demolition. He wmmandeered 150 gallons of petrol tad 400 pounds of sulphuric acid. Then were conveyed to the mine in three motor lorries, with fifty eggs and Spm* thickens, which Yurovsky had obfrom nuns, ostensibly for the Romanoffs. Egg shells and bones still v P" 188 round a stump on which Yuroviky sat and delicately superins (ended the ghoulish work. Nearbv were also found the torn pages of a German hopk On anatomy. JEWELS STOLEN. Family jewels and other possessions wet# then lying in a heap on tables hj» Yurovsky's room in the city, the bulls heing ultimately distributed among the • Beds in Moscow. The Czar's (laughters -had, however, at the beginning of their travels, had priceless jewels sewn by confidential servitors into bodices, hats, and corsets. Some wotfderful diamonds were camouflaged As buttons. The three Crand Duchesses wore double-quilted bodices stuffed with jewels weighing several lbs. The Grand Olga parried a satchel round her neck with special gems of great worth, while ropes of pearls were concealed across her shoulders. The ghouls came upon these, for. immediately cutting Up the bodies, they began to tear the clpthes apart, and jewels spilled on the ground. Some rolled into the graw, and were trodden into the soil. Without troubling to denude the corpses completely, the Reds hacked them to pieees on. a clay mound surrounding the pit'# mouth, smiting and severing some valoables that still remained in the Under-clothing. Only one of the numerpus diamonds was found, and it was discovered on the pyres, indicating ♦hat the others mnst have been burnt br )«oted. The remnants of the Emjirek' emeralds were recovered. BURNT TO ASHES. pyres were used, and then the cinder* were thrown down the mine *haft, after the ice crust had been destroyed by hand grenades. The flooring wns then adjusted, and anchored. A dog's eofpse was found under the Boot, preserved by the ice. Sulphuric aoid was used to dissolve the larger bones. In addition to a diamond worth 20 000 gold roubles, a large number of broken jewels were discovered and identified as family ornaments during the heyday of the Empire. Hundreds of other identifications wjre found from the ghastly fragments, from chopped flesh and severed flhgers, declared by experts as belongtofe to a woman of middle age (long slender and well shaped, like the Em : press' hand) to remnants of seven paits of high-class boots, and a pocket cart in which the Czar always carried his wife's portrait. A collection of tinfoil copper coins puzzled the identiSeri, Until someone remembered that »e Iwy was very fond of collecting odds and ends, being of a saving disposition, like hik father. MURDERERS NOT TRIED. The correspondent gives a vivid pic,tur(j of the passage of the lorries through the woods. Peasants who mm Encountered were driven off wondering by "pistols and threats. The barks of wheels are still visible where the tragic burden was nearly upset, and r beam brought to jack up a canted lorry still lies there. Peasants saw Yurovsky and party returning, and they lay in the jolting lorries-as though tired to death. Tfee correspondent discounts the alieged trial and execution of the murlerajrs in September, 1919, at Perm, debating that the names mentioned in the Soviet's communique were imaginiry, and the trial was a mock one.— limes Service.