Polish woman may know the truth about the death of the 'Mad Monk'

The 1916 murder of the notorious healer is still wreathed in mystery - now a Polish woman believes she may know the truth about the death of the 'Mad Monk'.

It was another ordinary evening as 14-year-old schoolgirl Zosia Wierzbowicz and her parents settled down to watch a television documentary about Russia and the assassination of Rasputin. By the time the show was finished, the teenager’s world had been turned upside down and the seeds of a mystery that would fascinate her for the next five decades had been sown. Moments after the music from the closing credits faded her father said: “They’ve got that wrong.” He said the programme makers were mistaken about the poison used to kill the peasant mystic, claiming within minutes that he had helped kill the man known to his enemies as the Mad Monk in St Petersburg in December 1916. It was not quite what she had been expecting when the programme began.