Free The Annals of Unsolved Crime by Edward Jay Epstein Page A

other than a gunshot several hours before the prince’s death. Dr. Holler, who became a relentless investigator of the incident, succeeded three decades later in getting the Vatican to open its archives.
    The mystery surrounding Vetseva’s death has led to a surfeit of speculative theories, the most romantic of which is the double suicide. According to this theory, the prince and baroness, unable to pursue their love affair because of intrigues of the court, killed themselves in a suicide pact. Presumably, she first killed herself, and then, after several hours, he followed suit. A second theory proposed in a number of books on the subject is that Prince Rudolf and Marie Vetseva were murdered together. The murder theory received support from Empress Zita, the widow of the last emperor. Shortly before her death, the empress claimed in an 1988 interview that the prince and his lover were killed as part of a political plot and that their murders were disguised as a double suicide. Finally, there is the theory that Prince Rudolf killed Marie Vetseva in a heated dispute and, several hours later, killed himself because he was unable to cope with the consequences of his crime.
    To borrow from Lord Acton, if political power corrupts a crime investigation, absolute power, such at that held by the Austro-Hungarian emperor, corrupts the evidence absolutely. The best evidence we have is the secret report of the Vatican discovered by Dr. Holler. It contains no suspicion of police perjuring themselves or forging reports. If true, this would rule out the double-murder theory since police, servants, and other witnesses told the papal nuncio that no one else broke into thehouse. The medical report would also rule out a double suicide because of the long gap between Marie Vetseva’s and Prince Rudolf’s deaths. Nor does it seem plausible that seventeen-year-old Marie, who came from a religious family, intended to commit suicide, which was a serious sin. As there was no suicide note, I believe that the simplest scenario that fits the evidence is that Prince Rudolf first killed his lover and then himself.
    Importantly, the Mayerling case shows that the possibility of solving a murder mystery does not perish with the death of the witnesses and destruction of evidence. So long as a body can be exhumed, forensic tools can be employed to cast a new light on a crime.

CHAPTER 8
WHO KILLED GOD’S BANKER?
    I.
    On June 11, 1982, Roberto Calvi, the chairman of the Banco Ambrosiano, left Italy. He had with him a black briefcase that an assistant had seen him stuff with documents from his safe. The disappearance of “God’s banker,” as he was known in the Italian media because of the massive investments he made for the Vatican, set in motion an international manhunt. One week later, his body was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London with an orange noose around his neck and his feet submerged in the swirling waters of the Thames. The black bag was gone. Also missing was $1.2 billion from Banco Ambrosiano’s subsidiaries in the Bahamas, Nicaragua, Peru, and Luxembourg. The Vatican bank was missing a half-billion dollars in the form of loans to anonymous corporations owned by unknown parties.
    Blackfriars Bridge, which had been built across the River Thames in 1769, had been undergoing extensive repairs, and scaffolding had been erected alongside it. To get up and down the scaffolding, iron ladders had been installed; Calvi’s body was found hanging from this abutting scaffolding. When the London river police cut down the body on the morning of June 19, 1982, they did not know immediately that it was the missing Italian banker. The Italian passport on the corpse identified himas “Gian Roberto Calvino.” It was a bogus passport, it turned out, that he had used to get into Britain. The police ruled out robbery, as “Calvino” still wore a very expensive Patek Philippe watch on his wrist and had about $14,000 in Swiss francs, British