Ballistics questions on dates:
Date 11 July 1991: The layers of the grave as the bones were being dug up and removed were:
1. Top-layer was 30 centimeters
2. Railroad ties with "redeposited soil" - southern wall of mass grave then stones, branches, rotten wood
3. First bone uncovered was left pelvic bone of human remains at depth of 50 centimeters
4. Found the box with three skulls, sacrum, glass ampoules and viles [human hair and frgments of skin], two lumbar vertebrae, kneecaps, two jaw fragments with teeth, a lower jaw, two loose teeth two vertebra from neck, a right rib bone, two metcarpal bones, a right hipbone, portion of a left shoulder bone, which had been placed in the pit in 1980 by Ryabov and Avdonin who had returned what they had found and taken out. The box was taken up and opened.
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12 July 1991
5. Determined the dig in 1979 had damaged the integrity of the 1918 grave
6. Pit was widen and deepen
7. More bones found as well as fragments of vessels which is assumed were what had held the acid used in 1918.... rope...
8. The laying of a cable was noticed on the western corner of the pit
9. See diagram of now the bones were found....
[unclear when the following was found]
10. firing mechanism from a hand grenade
11. bullets: fourteen bullets from the following:
a. one - 7.63 mm Mauser
b. four were from:
Browning
Colt
Smith & Wesson
c. nine were from:
Russian Nagant revolvers
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13 July 1991- Exhumation ended
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For more details see THE FATE OF THE ROMANOVS b y Wilson and King pps. 402-8
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23 July to 25 July 1991
Bones were taken from the grave and to the Upper Verkh-Isetsk Police Departemnt's shooting range which is on the edge of Sverdlovsk
On ten sheets of plain brown wrapping paper the bones were sorted [ the tenth were for the "we don't know" pile
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Days which followed.
Bones were cleaned and washed and it is said that some bones crumbled into dust during this process....
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8 Aug 1991
Moscow authorized the formal investigation of the bones under the leadship of Dr. Bladislav Plaskin
All bones were numbered with white paint
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End of Sept.
Remains were moved to the Department of Criminal Pathology morgue in Sverdlovsk, third floor and behind a gated and locked door.... Bones were placed on metal autopsy tables and arranged...
Total of 500 bone fragments were left [there are 206 individal bones in each human body]....
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Second dig of mass grave
Oct 1991
12. 300 bone fragments were found
13. 13 loose teeth
14. 11 bullets
15. 150 small pieces of fatty tissue
16. fragments of rope and ceramic
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Found: 25 bullets
Only 14 we know for certain came out of the mass grave. The other 11 were found while sifting dirt that was lefted by bulldozer shovels which included not just the grave but ground around the grave.
The Russians were not using the best of forensic methods in the first or second digging.
New graves found in 2007:
3 bullets that do not match any of the 25 bullets before 2007....
Added to numbers of bullets found are the 11 bullets found in the collection of Sokolov, the last White investigator in 1918 before the Reds reentered Ekaterinburg. The total is 39.
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s301/nemanja_dj/terrible.jpg
The books is the last diary of Alexei's found in the village of __?___ [On AP we're told it was found at Letemin]. Notice what looks like a bullet hole in the pages.
AGRBear