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Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about the King's heart

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Speaker 1: and how it ended up where it did. So remember

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Speaker 1: that after Boris died in nineteen forty three, the official

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Speaker 1: cause of death was given as cardiac arrest, but a

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Speaker 1: few of the doctors tending the king on his sick

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Speaker 1: bed firmly believed he'd been poisoned. Now for religious and

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Speaker 1: emotional reasons, the Queen didn't want an autopsy performed, but

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Speaker 1: during the embalming process of the king's body, a mini

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Speaker 1: autopsy was performed on his heart, and somehow, when the

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Speaker 1: king was buried at the Realer monastery, his heart was

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Speaker 1: not replaced inside his chest. You'll probably recall that the

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Speaker 1: king was kicked out of his Realer resting place by

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Speaker 1: the new Soviet regime in nineteen forty six. They didn't

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Speaker 1: much care for all the nationalist fervor his tomb inspired,

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Speaker 1: and a new grave was dug for him at Rana,

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Speaker 1: But after the queen and the royal children Simeon and

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Speaker 1: Maria Louisa were sent into exile, the tomb was dug

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Speaker 1: up once more and the king's body went missing, never

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Speaker 1: to be found again. But in nineteen ninety one, his

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Speaker 1: heart suddenly turned up in a picklejar, allegedly in the

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Speaker 1: empty grave, but more probably on a dusty shelf of

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Speaker 1: a medical institute. Okay, now, in the last chapter, we

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Speaker 1: just received a cryptic voicemail from someone inviting us to

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Speaker 1: meet up with him to talk about the Butterfly King's

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Speaker 1: mysterious death. He was addressing his message to EJ my.

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Speaker 2: Producer, thank you for having so.

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Speaker 1: That voice belongs to a man called Dr Deutschenov. He's

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Speaker 1: well into his nineties and has Parkinson's. He remembers King

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Speaker 1: Boris's death. He was in his early teens when the

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Speaker 1: King died. But that's not really what he wants to

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Speaker 1: chat about.

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Speaker 3: He's so fascinating for me.

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Speaker 1: He's telling me he'd be fascinated to meet an English

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Speaker 1: journalist looking into the death of the king.

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Speaker 3: Thanks so yeah, and they hope to see you.

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Speaker 1: And why are we so happy to receive this message?

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Speaker 1: Because Dr Deutschenev is actually the one witness we thought

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Speaker 1: would never agree to speak out because that pickle jar

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Speaker 1: that showed up in the early nineteen nineties, the one

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Speaker 1: that turned out to contain King Boris's heart, well, the

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Speaker 1: doctor who examined that royal heart was doctor Deutschenoff from

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Speaker 1: Blanchard House and exactly right, media, this is the Butterfly King.

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Speaker 1: I'm Becky Milligan, chat to seven. The heart of the matter.

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Speaker 4: We have lots of treat that shouldn't be here really,

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Speaker 4: because the dying Turie is spreading disease and kill more trees.

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Speaker 1: We're taking a guided tour around the grounds of Rana

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Speaker 1: Palace with the King's suave and charming Aid Jarvil. He's

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Speaker 1: almost as knowledgeable about trees and plants as King Boris

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Speaker 1: himself was.

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Speaker 4: And now you see there is a fallen tree on

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Speaker 4: the road. I will call now the gardens to to

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Speaker 4: cut it. It's dangerous. Secondly, it's ugly and it's spread diseases.

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Speaker 1: Sickness and disease seem to be the order of the day.

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Speaker 1: We're really in Sofia to meet pathologist Dr Deutschenoff, but

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Speaker 1: unfortunately that meeting isn't to be just yet because poor

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Speaker 1: Dr Deutschenev goes down with COVID and as he's now

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Speaker 1: in his nineties, we can't push for an interview until

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Speaker 1: he's completely recovered. But we speak to the doctor's daughter

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Speaker 1: in law on the phone. She tells us. Dr Jeutschenev

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Speaker 1: is even more disappointed than we are. Apparently he has

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Speaker 1: so much he wants to tell us, so much he

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Speaker 1: needs to tell us. But all we can do is

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Speaker 1: be patient and wait. And of course spending time with

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Speaker 1: Yavor is always a lovely distraction.

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Speaker 4: It's a full of mushrooms in the garden. There is

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Speaker 4: animals as in the garden now they have yours, foxes, rabbits, elephants,

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Speaker 4: not anymore.

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Speaker 5: Foxy.

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Speaker 1: Ferdinand Boris his father used to keep a small zoo

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Speaker 1: in the grounds of Rana, buffaloes, exotic birds and elephants.

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Speaker 4: But after the accident with the elephant, they move it

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Speaker 4: in the center. What accidents and we are not sure,

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Speaker 4: but probably one of the people that take care about

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Speaker 4: the elephant beat him or something.

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Speaker 1: The man beat the elephant, Yes, right, My hunch is

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Speaker 1: this doesn't end too well for the elephant keeper.

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Speaker 4: And one morning, when this person go inside the cage

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Speaker 4: of the elephant, the elephant just without saying anything to

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Speaker 4: just push the men on the law trodden him. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: smash him like a stamp.

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Speaker 5: Oh.

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Speaker 1: So there we have the Royal Palace's first sort of murder.

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Speaker 1: But was it really the only murder. I mean, so

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Speaker 1: many people hated King Boris and wanted him dead. A

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Speaker 1: heart attack seems like a convenient excuse. Sometimes in an

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Speaker 1: investigation like this one, you get the most extraordinary strokes

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Speaker 1: of luck, like finding a document in some old, dusty library,

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Speaker 1: an overlooked paper that gives you a brand new lead,

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Speaker 1: or a new witness suddenly springs up from nowhere and

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Speaker 1: takes your case in a whole new direction. But sometimes

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Speaker 1: difficult things happen which completely throw you off course, and

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Speaker 1: today is one of those days. We've just received a

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Speaker 1: text message from Dr Deutschenev's daughter in law, Maya, and

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Speaker 1: it contains some devastating news. I'm going to read it

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Speaker 1: to you. Unfortunately, Dr Deutschenev passed away peacefully this morning.

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Speaker 1: He wanted to meet you so much. We're so sorry

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Speaker 1: for DoD Deutschenev's family. In the last few weeks, we've

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Speaker 1: been in regular contact with them, and they've quite often

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Speaker 1: mentioned that the prospect of talking to us and getting

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Speaker 1: the chance to tell his side of King Boris's story

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Speaker 1: was what was keeping Dodr Deutchenov alive. But now, of

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Speaker 1: course we'll never know exactly what he was burning to

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Speaker 1: tell us. He didn't share those details with his family,

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Speaker 1: and understandably they've declined to do an interview with us.

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Speaker 1: They're not only grieving. They don't want to second guess him.

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Speaker 1: They don't want to put words into his mouth. But

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Speaker 1: what we do know is this, cast yourself back in

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Speaker 1: time to a medical lab in Sofia, October nineteen ninety one,

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Speaker 1: and a man in his early sixties is hunched over

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Speaker 1: a microscope. He wears a white coat, and he's studying something.

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Speaker 1: Closely before him. On the table is a glass jar,

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Speaker 1: the sort of large jar you'd store jamming, maybe pickles.

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Speaker 1: There's no label on the jar, but you don't really

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Speaker 1: need a medical degree to recognize what's inside it, because

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Speaker 1: floating in the clear preserving liquid is a heart, a

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Speaker 1: human heart. On the workbench sits a smaller glass file.

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Speaker 1: There's a scrap of paper inside it. It reads the

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Speaker 1: Heart of His Majesty King Boris the Third, and it's

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Speaker 1: signed by the Bulgarian doctors who tended the monarch in

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Speaker 1: his final hours, who claim the cause of death was

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Speaker 1: a cardiac arrest. The pathologist in the lab coat has

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Speaker 1: spent hours examining and measuring the heart. There's no doubt

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Speaker 1: it's the royal heart. Its description perfectly matches the autopsy

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Speaker 1: report written in nineteen forty three. But it's almost fifty

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Speaker 1: years since that document was tight and in that time

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Speaker 1: science has moved on considerably. As the pathologist sits back

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Speaker 1: and begins to write up his notes, you can read

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Speaker 1: the name badge pinned to his lapel Dr Deutschen Deutschenoff.

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Speaker 1: He's smiling because Dr Deutschenev has carried out exhaustive tests

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Speaker 1: on the King's heart and he's made a huge discovery.

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Speaker 1: He now knows exactly what killed King Boris. He has

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Speaker 1: scientific proof and he can sum up his findings in

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Speaker 1: just two small words, heart attack. He can find no

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Speaker 1: trace of poison and no signs of foul play. Dr

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Speaker 1: Deutschenev concludes that King Boris the Third of Bulgaria died

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Speaker 1: a natural death. After all the decades of theories, speculation

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Speaker 1: and finger pointing, is it possible that this isn't a

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Speaker 1: case of murder?

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Speaker 5: After all?

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Speaker 1: We'll never know. If Dr Deutschenev had more specific in

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Speaker 1: he wanted to disclose to us. We just know he

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Speaker 1: believed the king died of a heart attack. So I've

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Speaker 1: decided to talk over his findings with another forensic pathologist

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Speaker 1: to try and understand what a pathologist really does, what

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Speaker 1: someone like Dr Deutscheneff would have been looking for. So

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Speaker 1: I want to introduce you to someone you met briefly

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Speaker 1: in our very first chapter, Dr Stuart Hamilton. He's fascinated

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Speaker 1: by how the body works and how it goes wrong.

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Speaker 1: He's not quite so bothered about his bedside manner though.

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Speaker 2: I am not particularly good with poorly people, which is

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Speaker 2: somewhat unfortunate. So my patients are very, very quiet.

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Speaker 1: As quiet as the grave. In fact, Dr Hamilton has

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Speaker 1: been working with the dead for the past twenty years,

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Speaker 1: or should I say on the dead.

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Speaker 2: So our main role is to examine bodies in cases

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Speaker 2: of suspicious deaths or homicides. We investigate as best we

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Speaker 2: can what the cause of death might be.

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Speaker 1: I mean, if I'm honest, it sounds a bit gruesome.

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Speaker 2: It is gruesome. It is examining and cutting into dead

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Speaker 2: human beings as a day job.

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Speaker 1: Gruesome for sure, but essentral so that the living get

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Speaker 1: answers and the dead can rest in peace. So let's

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Speaker 1: imagine King Boris had ended up on Dtor Hamilton's marble slab.

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Speaker 1: What proof would he need to confirm that the monarch

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Speaker 1: had indeed died of a simple cardiac arrest.

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Speaker 2: A heart attack to a doctor, to a pathologist, is

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Speaker 2: also known as a myocardial infact, and that means that

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Speaker 2: part of the muscle of your heart is not receiving

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Speaker 2: enough blood for it to stay alive. And that means

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Speaker 2: that the muscle will die, and if that is enough damage,

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Speaker 2: it can kill the person. It essentially stops the heart working,

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Speaker 2: stops the pump working.

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Speaker 1: So that's fairly clear. No pump, no pulse. But what

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Speaker 1: makes that heart muscle die?

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Speaker 2: You get fatty deposits building up in the arteries that

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Speaker 2: supply the heart itself. They become narrowed and they don't

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Speaker 2: let as much blood through as they should, and that

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Speaker 2: can produce symptoms such as angina, that chest pain on exertion.

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Speaker 1: Hang on a second, tell me a little more about angina.

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Speaker 2: Angina is a warning sign for a heart attack.

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Speaker 1: That's what I feared. Remember how King Boris went climbing

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Speaker 1: with his brother Kirol after that dreadful final meeting with Hitler.

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Speaker 1: We know he was in very low spirits that he

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Speaker 1: felt sick and he was suffering from bad chest pain. Well,

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Speaker 1: here's Dr Hamilton's description of how someone would feel in

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Speaker 1: the early stages of a heart attack.

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Speaker 2: You have crushing chest pain, as if there's a metal

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Speaker 2: band around your chest crushing it. That pain will often

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Speaker 2: go down your arm. It may go up into your jaw,

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Speaker 2: sweatin us, some nausea. Some people even describe a feeling

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Speaker 2: of impending doom.

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Speaker 1: Apparently, Boris had confided in his wife and in his

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Speaker 1: brother and sister that he feared he was suffering from

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Speaker 1: angina pectorus, and that he feared he'd die from it.

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Speaker 1: But how did the king guess this? I mean, it

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Speaker 1: was nineteen forty three, way before the Internet and doctor Google.

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Speaker 1: He must have consulted a specialist for the diagnosis. And

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Speaker 1: that unsettles me, because if he was suffering from manjoina

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Speaker 1: but then pushed himself to his physical limits climbing mountains,

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Speaker 1: a heart attack seems less surprising, less suspicious. Plus the

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Speaker 1: time frameworks.

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Speaker 2: Some people may die straight away, some people may survive

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Speaker 2: a day or so. Some people may survive two or

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Speaker 2: three weeks.

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Speaker 1: But hang on a sec Let's remember that Boris was

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Speaker 1: a bit of a health reak. I mean, okay, he

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Speaker 1: wasn't pumping iron in the gym every two minutes, but

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Speaker 1: he was extremely fit. And someone who takes regular exercise

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Speaker 1: and who eats healthily is fairly well insured against heart failure.

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Speaker 6: Right, that's sort of my point.

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Speaker 1: Remember Colonel Hamish, our chemical weapons expert who served for

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Speaker 1: twenty three years in the British Army. Well, to say

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Speaker 1: he is a fitness fanatic is a bit of an understatement.

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Speaker 1: As a younger man, he actually held the world push

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Speaker 1: ups record.

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Speaker 6: But well, I have sudden cardiac death syndrome is a

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Speaker 6: genetic heart condition. It's one of those things that if

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Speaker 6: you know about it, you can do things about it,

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Speaker 6: and if you date then that's very sadly when when

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Speaker 6: things can go wrong.

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Speaker 1: Thinking about Boris, he was very fit. He was a mountaineer,

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Speaker 1: He loved walking, he loved getting out in the wild, shooting, hunting.

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Speaker 1: He was that type of a king and in that

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Speaker 1: way he could have it could have been a natural

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Speaker 1: death if he'd had a condition that we just don't know.

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Speaker 6: About absolutely, and you know, if he had a condition

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Speaker 6: like mine, all the sort of things he did would

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Speaker 6: potentially you know lead to his demise, and in those

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Speaker 6: days people didn't know very much about the condition so

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Speaker 6: couldn't do very much about it.

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Speaker 1: Could the king have had some kind of heart defect,

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Speaker 1: a congenital problem from birth that was a ticking time

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Speaker 1: bomb waiting to explode. I can't help thinking about something

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Speaker 1: art learned, but rather in discreete historian Tessa Dunlop said

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Speaker 1: about the shallow genetic pool that European royal families shared

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Speaker 1: at the time, Loads of.

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Speaker 7: Them were in bred, and that can give you weird,

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Speaker 7: you know, dicky hearts and stuff like that, can't it.

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Speaker 7: I mean, we know that Boris with a nose like that,

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Speaker 7: probably had a few other malformations for want of for

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Speaker 7: better expression, including the left cavity of his heart or

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Speaker 7: is it a chamber?

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Speaker 1: It is a chamber. But there's no way I was

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Speaker 1: going to mention a subject like in breeding with King

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Speaker 1: Boris's son Simeon, but actually he brought it up.

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Speaker 3: All the royal families at one point were intermarried, related

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Speaker 3: among themselves, which in a way it was still the

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Speaker 3: generation of my parents. It really was.

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Speaker 1: Protocol means you really cannot ask a king, even a

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Speaker 1: sort of king like Simeon about the state of his health.

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Speaker 1: But here's what I'm thinking. If there was a heart

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Speaker 1: problem in Boris's family, it probably would have been passed

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Speaker 1: down the line to Maria Luisa or Simeon, who are

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Speaker 1: ninety and eighty six, respectively, and still going strong.

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Speaker 3: Did my father die from a massive heart attack? Of fine?

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Speaker 3: I mean, it happens, and this is still an open question.

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Speaker 3: I don't mention it because I have no rational improvement.

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Speaker 1: But did the doctors who performed Boris's autopsy in nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty three have proof? How did they or even Dr

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Speaker 1: Deutschenoff nearly fifty years later. No, they were making the

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Speaker 1: right call. Dr Stuart Hamilton are forensic pathologist.

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Speaker 2: It's one of those things that the naked eye examination

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Speaker 2: can identify straight away. There will be changes that you

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Speaker 2: can see down the microscope. So you will start with

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Speaker 2: inflammation in the heart, and then you will see the

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Speaker 2: dead muscle starting to be eaten away and replaced with

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Speaker 2: early scar tissu. So again, for a true heart attack,

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Speaker 2: the findings are quite specific and quite clear.

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Speaker 1: So was the official cause of death correct? All along?

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Speaker 1: The science now seems to be stacking up in its favor.

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Speaker 1: But Boris wasn't even fifty.

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Speaker 7: You're presuming that it's not possible for a man to

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Speaker 7: dive a weak heart in nineteen forty three, aged forty nine.

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Speaker 7: I would like to point out to you that at

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Speaker 7: the turn of the twentieth century, the average American male

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Speaker 7: lived to the age of forty nine. It's not such

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Speaker 7: a devastatingly awful age to live to in the middle

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Speaker 7: of a wall.

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Speaker 1: Tessa's not the only cynic. Dr Stuart Hamilton thinks Boris

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Speaker 1: could have just been unlucky in the genetic lottery.

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Speaker 2: As a pathologist, you can become very cynical, and you

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Speaker 2: deal with people who live to eighty five having drunken

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Speaker 2: smoked and lived on chips and crisps, and die happily

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Speaker 2: in their beds, and you deal with fifty year olds

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Speaker 2: who collapse on the treadmill at the gym. So we

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Speaker 2: can't rule out that it's just plain unlucky.

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Speaker 1: But Simeon can't rule it in.

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Speaker 3: All this is again it's just conjectures. I like facts.

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Speaker 1: Well, here are two undeniable facts. In the middle of

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Speaker 1: the Second World War, with Bulgaria's precarious future in his hands,

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Speaker 1: King Boris must have been stressed out of his brain.

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Speaker 1: And heart attacks and stress, well, everyone knows they go

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Speaker 1: hand in hand.

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Speaker 2: Stress is a very well recognized factor to precipitate a

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Speaker 2: heart attack.

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Speaker 1: And that awful meeting with Hitler could have been the

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Speaker 1: straw that broke the camel back. We know he couldn't

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Speaker 1: get it off his mind.

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Speaker 2: Remembering a stressful situation that stresses you again, that can.

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Speaker 1: Do it right. So it looks like the mystery is over.

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Speaker 1: There is no mystery. Dr Deutscheneff nailed it. King Boris

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Speaker 1: simply died of a cardiac arrest.

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Speaker 2: It would be an easy conclusion to draw a middle

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Speaker 2: aged man who dies suddenly. Look he's at a heart attack.

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Speaker 2: End of story. But it's context. We're talking about powerful

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Speaker 2: people in a very difficult point in history. When you're

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Speaker 2: talking about geopolitics, which is essentially what we are here,

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Speaker 2: there is a why. It leaves the whole situation unresolved

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Speaker 2: for me.

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Speaker 1: So it's a case of don't let sleeping kings lie.

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Speaker 1: Really no, let's just go over the brief of a

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Speaker 1: forensic pathologist. It's not just to examine dead bodies to

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Speaker 1: find out what caused them to fail mechanically. It's also

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Speaker 1: about putting those dead bodies into context, into historical context,

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Speaker 1: and asking was there anyone else around who wanted that

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Speaker 1: body to fail, who maybe caused it to fail.

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Speaker 2: One should look at the evidence, and the evidence in

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Speaker 2: this case as I see it is that we have

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Speaker 2: got somebody who would be a candidate for being bumped

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Speaker 2: off with good reason. So there is a mystery there.

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Speaker 1: I agree. I honestly don't think we can separate this

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Speaker 1: case from the background of war. There was just too

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Speaker 1: much of an agenda.

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Speaker 2: I would never stand up in a court and say,

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Speaker 2: beyond all reasonable doubt, this is a homicide. But there

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Speaker 2: is too much to it for me to comfortably say

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Speaker 2: write it off. No need to look at that again.

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Speaker 2: Job's done. In my profession. We don't like loose end

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Speaker 2: sort of hanging there going. You haven't got to the

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Speaker 2: bottom of me yet.

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Speaker 1: And Dr Hamilton's not the only one who thinks there's

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Speaker 1: more to this than meets the eye. King Boris's daughter,

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Speaker 1: Maria Louisa, is convinced her father was murdered, despite being

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Speaker 1: aware of Dr Deutschene's findings that it was just a

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Speaker 1: heart attack.

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Speaker 8: You can induce a heart attack.

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Speaker 2: You know, that's not.

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Speaker 8: An answer in many ways of bringing somebody to a

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Speaker 8: heart attack.

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Speaker 5: You know, so you still questioned it after that. It

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Speaker 5: wasn't the end of the story at that point.

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Speaker 1: No, what better way of taking stock of things than

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Speaker 1: over tea and biscuits in our hotel room. I want

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Speaker 1: to mull over what I'm now feeling about Boris's death.

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Speaker 1: At least that was the plan until EJ flows me

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Speaker 1: with a confession about our visit to Varana Palace.

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Speaker 5: Can I ask you a question about the royal toilet?

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Speaker 4: Oh?

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00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 5: Yeah, so we both went to the royal toilet. Did

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Speaker 5: you use the comb?

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Speaker 2: No?

352
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Speaker 5: What did you comb your hair with his comb?

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Speaker 2: Yes?

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Speaker 5: What was it made out of? Gold stick.

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Speaker 2: Plastic?

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Speaker 5: What color was it?

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Speaker 2: Gray?

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Speaker 5: You literally picked up his comb from the bait and

359
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Speaker 5: brushed your hair with it. I didn't really think that

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Speaker 5: it was his, so I just did it. Was there

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Speaker 5: with some pounder puffs, and I thought it was like you.

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Speaker 5: Did you use the powder puffs as well? I didn't

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Speaker 5: use the powder puffs?

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Speaker 2: No.

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Speaker 5: I just can't believe he used his comb. I just

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Speaker 5: I actually can't believe that.

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Speaker 1: Talk about making yourself at home in a royal palace I.

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Speaker 5: Went to know, I didn't. I just went in and

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Speaker 5: out for me because it was a bit of a rush.

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Speaker 5: I hit you, wash your hands. I did, thank you.

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Speaker 5: Of course I did in COVID and everything couldn't otherwise.

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Speaker 1: Actually, since we're getting all confessional here, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: let you in on another little secret. Well it's really

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Speaker 1: Yavel's little secret. You'll remember that Maria Louisa is celebrating

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Speaker 1: her ninetieth birthday. Well, Yarville has been working on a

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Speaker 1: little surprise for her, and I'm sure she's going to

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Speaker 1: love it.

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Speaker 8: I hate surprises because you know, you don't know what's.

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Speaker 5: Going to happen.

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Speaker 1: Oh well, let's not mention that to Yaville.

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Speaker 4: The surprise is a cake with pinguins with a T

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Speaker 4: shirt of Bulgarian football team Lefscue. Because princess very much

383
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Speaker 4: like pinguin's and this football team Lesque, which is from

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Speaker 4: the period of King Boris time.

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Speaker 5: She'll be so excited, won't she.

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Speaker 4: I mean, also, I hope so.

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Speaker 1: If I were a princess, I honestly couldn't imagine a

388
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Speaker 1: nicer ade than Yarvil. But how do royal families trust

389
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Speaker 1: their staff? I mean, how do they know that Javel

390
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:19,679
Speaker 1: hasn't slipped a little poison in that penguin cake. Simeon's

391
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 1: rather horrified when I ask him, can you trust him?

392
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Speaker 3: I hope you see, I can't possibly even visualize anything

393
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 3: like it, because if you don't trust someone you see

394
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Speaker 3: every day, finally you become insane.

395
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Speaker 1: I'm only teasing, of course, Yavel's a total star, but

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Speaker 1: I asked the royal siblings about him because I wanted

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Speaker 1: to make a serious point. When King Boris was here

398
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Speaker 1: in Varana Palace, in the gritty heart of the Second

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Speaker 1: World War, trust was not something one could take for granted,

400
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:03,240
Speaker 1: and even at the tender age of six, Simeon was

401
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:06,879
Speaker 1: made well aware that walls have ears.

402
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 3: What I remember is that my mother would tell us that, well,

403
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:16,160
Speaker 3: we just should know how to keep our mouths shut.

404
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:19,000
Speaker 3: But that was as far as we will go into

405
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:22,720
Speaker 3: anything sort of weird or secret or what have you.

406
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:28,640
Speaker 3: I think it was more for is anybody eavesdropping?

407
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:33,080
Speaker 1: Or I don't know, but interesting that the royal children

408
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 1: were taught to be careful about what they said. In

409
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 1: earshot of palace staff. Did the Queen suspect someone was

410
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:45,440
Speaker 1: listening out? For information information she feared they might use

411
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 1: to kill the king.

412
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:53,119
Speaker 3: It wasn't any spy phobia agent phobia. It's much later

413
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:56,439
Speaker 3: that you realized that somebody might betray you or not.

414
00:27:57,400 --> 00:28:01,600
Speaker 3: Things happened like in any war, like in any royal

415
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:07,360
Speaker 3: qulto or something. So he wasn't really specifically sinister or something.

416
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Speaker 1: Now, let's be clear about something. I'm not in any

417
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:19,399
Speaker 1: way ignoring Dr Deutschenef's scientific conclusions or overriding them. I

418
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:24,119
Speaker 1: absolutely acknowledge that as the pathologist who actually performed an

419
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:28,120
Speaker 1: autopsy on the King's heart in nineteen ninety one, Dr

420
00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 1: Deutschenef's testimony is unique. But I do still have to

421
00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 1: push forward with other lines of investigation, especially as Dr

422
00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 1: Stuart Hamilton, our own forensic pathologist, has cast doubt on

423
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 1: whether everything adds up quite so neatly, whether we really

424
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:50,640
Speaker 1: can just accept that the King's death was unfortunate but

425
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 1: completely natural. King Boris was pretty cautious about his health.

426
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 1: He wasn't a hypochondriac like his father Foxy Ferdinand, but

427
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 1: he did go in for cures and remedies. According to

428
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 1: Stefan Grueff in his book Crown of Thorns, King Boris

429
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 1: went everywhere with a substantial amount of pills and potions.

430
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: He owned a sort of traveling pharmacy.

431
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:22,959
Speaker 2: Certainly there are substances which can mimic a heart attack.

432
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 2: The one that immediately leaps to mind in normal everyday life,

433
00:29:29,040 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 2: to some extent, would be cocaine. Cocaine can cause the

434
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 2: arteries to your heart to spasm, to close down.

435
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:39,200
Speaker 1: Are you saying King Boris may have been on cocaine.

436
00:29:39,520 --> 00:29:44,080
Speaker 2: I'm not suggesting he was on cocaine, but I'm thinking

437
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 2: of things that can cause a similar outcome. Anything that

438
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:53,040
Speaker 2: causes your arteries to spasm will stop the blood flowing

439
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 2: through them, and that means the heart muscle can be damaged.

440
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 1: And it wouldn't have been difficult for someone, someone who

441
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:04,960
Speaker 1: had close access to Boris to substitute his vitamin kills

442
00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 1: and headache remedies for something more sinister. But who a

443
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: close aid the jarv ore of times past. The only

444
00:30:15,360 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 1: problem is it seems that Boris used his portable medicine

445
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: cabinet as a kind of comfort blanket. He liked to

446
00:30:23,080 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 1: know it was nearby, but he rarely actually used its contents.

447
00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 1: A close aid would have known that they'd have known.

448
00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 1: There were no guarantees that Boris would have swallowed any

449
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 1: poisonous pills. And here's the old sticking point, of course,

450
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 1: Dr Deutschenef was adamant that he found no traces of

451
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:46,520
Speaker 1: poison in the King's heart. When he re examined it

452
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:50,680
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties, he only found the proof that

453
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 1: Boris had had a cardiac arrest. But Dr Stuart Hamilton

454
00:30:55,760 --> 00:31:00,640
Speaker 1: still thinks it's perfectly possible that Deutschenef may have missed something,

455
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:04,280
Speaker 1: not because he thinks Deutscheneff wasn't doing his job properly,

456
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 1: but because he simply didn't test for the right poison.

457
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 1: Dr Hamilton's made the same mistake himself.

458
00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:17,959
Speaker 2: I dealt with one person who ate u seeds oh

459
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 2: to end their life, which was an interesting one.

460
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 1: Unsurprisingly, testing for plant seed poisoning is not standard procedure

461
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:30,320
Speaker 1: in the crime scene handbook. But luckily one of the

462
00:31:30,320 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 1: crime scene investigators was a horticultural fanatic, and he alerted

463
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 1: Dr Hamilton to the fact that the body was found

464
00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:44,000
Speaker 1: among you trees whose seeds he knew are deathly.

465
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 2: If one of the crime scene investigators hadn't been a

466
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 2: keen gardener. I'm not sure I would have picked that up.

467
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 1: So for all the certainty and expertise, there is an

468
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 1: element of luck.

469
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 2: There is an element of luck I would have missed

470
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 2: because we don't routine test for the poison that is

471
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:05,479
Speaker 2: in seeds from a U tree.

472
00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:09,800
Speaker 1: That story reminds me of something something Colonel Hamish, our

473
00:32:09,880 --> 00:32:13,600
Speaker 1: chemical weapons expert, once said, when we were wondering if

474
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 1: the Nazis poisoned Boris, that the lack of scientific know

475
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 1: how at the time was definitely advantageous to want to

476
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 1: be assassin.

477
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:25,280
Speaker 6: At that time, they hadn't developed the sort of detectors

478
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 6: that we have now that would signal that sort of

479
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 6: suff So technology was there or lack of it was

480
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 6: their friend in those days.

481
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And we know that the Soviets had established two

482
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 1: poison laboratories with the sole aim of poisoning people and

483
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 1: getting away with it. Remember, they were using a poison

484
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:49,480
Speaker 1: that could fool pathologists into thinking the victims had died

485
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 1: of a heart attack, one that couldn't be detected back then.

486
00:32:54,080 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 1: But that was nineteen forty three. The last examination of

487
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:01,680
Speaker 1: the heart was in nineteen ninety one. But doesn't it

488
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:04,880
Speaker 1: stand to reason that in the last thirty years, technology

489
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 1: and toxicology has moved on leaps and bounds again.

490
00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 6: When I was dealing with al Qaeder biological weapons attack

491
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 6: in her Art fifteen years ago, it was taking us

492
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:19,719
Speaker 6: thirty six hours to do DNA sequencing. It's moved so

493
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:20,560
Speaker 6: far forward.

494
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:20,840
Speaker 2: Now.

495
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 6: What you could do in thirty six hours fifteen years ago,

496
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 6: you could do it fifteen minutes now. And not only

497
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:31,800
Speaker 6: has the speed increased, but also the breadth of what

498
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:32,400
Speaker 6: you can do.

499
00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:41,160
Speaker 1: As I suspected, but as you know, the king's body

500
00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:44,760
Speaker 1: has gone missing. The Soviets dug it up from real

501
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 1: Monastery where it was laid to rest. In nineteen forty three,

502
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:52,680
Speaker 1: Boris was reburied at Varana. Then at some point during

503
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:57,600
Speaker 1: Simeon and Maria Louisa's exile, the Communists exhumed the body

504
00:33:57,640 --> 00:34:04,200
Speaker 1: again and disposed of it goodness knows where. So when

505
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:07,640
Speaker 1: the heart turned up in a picklejar in nineteen ninety one,

506
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 1: it was reburied again at the realer monastery. Could the

507
00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 1: heart still hold clues clues that today's forensic medicine might

508
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:21,840
Speaker 1: be able to detect that The forensic pathologists of the

509
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:23,840
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties simply couldn't.

510
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 2: Pickling is a good way to preserve tissue.

511
00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 1: Dr Stewart Hamilton, a forensic pathologist.

512
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:35,319
Speaker 2: You can't get perfect toxicology from it because obviously the

513
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:38,920
Speaker 2: tissue will be affected by the thing it's preserved in.

514
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:42,960
Speaker 2: But as I say to people many times, when it

515
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:46,440
Speaker 2: comes to investigations, if you don't look, you won't find.

516
00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 2: If you look, you may or may not, and you

517
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:50,759
Speaker 2: don't know till they've done it.

518
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:56,120
Speaker 1: Gosh, that's a tough call. Should the remains of King

519
00:34:56,200 --> 00:35:00,360
Speaker 1: Boris really be exhumed for a fourth time on the

520
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 1: off chance that some new trace of poison could be found.

521
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:07,640
Speaker 1: Simeon has already told me he still worries about his

522
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 1: father's body, that it's not resting peacefully at Varana.

523
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 3: I'm not the person who goes into any emotional moods

524
00:35:16,239 --> 00:35:20,919
Speaker 3: or things I simply regret. And now that you bring

525
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 3: it up, I think of it again, it's disturbing.

526
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:29,920
Speaker 1: It does seem almost sacrilegious to disturb the remains of

527
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 1: the king again, the remains of Simeon and Maria Louisa's

528
00:35:34,800 --> 00:35:35,840
Speaker 1: beloved papa.

529
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:40,360
Speaker 8: No one has to make one's peace with these things

530
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:42,279
Speaker 8: that won't bring him back.

531
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:46,839
Speaker 1: And that's Dr Hamilton's feeling too. There's no point in

532
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:48,440
Speaker 1: a further autopsy.

533
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:52,360
Speaker 2: Digging up the heart would not give us a definitive.

534
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:55,880
Speaker 1: Answer, because of course you just can't prove a negative.

535
00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 2: Even if we were to do tests, even if it

536
00:35:59,800 --> 00:36:04,200
Speaker 2: came back and said no substance as present, then the

537
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 2: counter argument would be a it could be something you

538
00:36:06,960 --> 00:36:09,719
Speaker 2: can't pick up. B If it was something he was

539
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 2: given several days before that set this in motion, it

540
00:36:14,239 --> 00:36:15,960
Speaker 2: could have got out of his system by the time

541
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 2: he died. So you'll never You'll never prove one way

542
00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:20,520
Speaker 2: or the other.

543
00:36:21,719 --> 00:36:26,040
Speaker 1: So I need to find new evidence elsewhere because my

544
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:31,040
Speaker 1: gut feeling is still that King Boris was murdered poisoned.

545
00:36:31,800 --> 00:36:34,279
Speaker 1: And although I agree that many of his symptoms, the

546
00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 1: chest pain, the sweating, etc. Do match the signs of

547
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:45,040
Speaker 1: a heart attack, there are still two unexplained signs. Those

548
00:36:45,080 --> 00:36:48,880
Speaker 1: brown spots that covered his skin and the fact that

549
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:53,920
Speaker 1: his red blood cells. As Simeon put it, exploded, it

550
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:57,040
Speaker 1: was those brown spots on the King's skin, remember that

551
00:36:57,200 --> 00:37:01,399
Speaker 1: first alerted the German doctors to a possible poisoning. They

552
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:05,480
Speaker 1: just couldn't explain them away, can dr Hamilton.

553
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 2: A rash or spots and breakdown of red blood cells

554
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:14,520
Speaker 2: does not sound like a typical consequence of a cardiac event.

555
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 1: That would set you off investigating, wouldn't it?

556
00:37:18,040 --> 00:37:24,160
Speaker 2: That would set my concern levels tingling. I think there

557
00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 2: may be something underhand gone on. I really do.

558
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 1: And remember our snake expert Mark O'Shea he rubbished my

559
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:36,960
Speaker 1: theory that snake venom killed the King. That he's been

560
00:37:37,080 --> 00:37:38,880
Speaker 1: back in touch about those spots.

561
00:37:39,520 --> 00:37:42,360
Speaker 9: The blotches do sound like a hypercentsitive reaction to me

562
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:46,440
Speaker 9: to something they do, maybe a poison.

563
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:48,400
Speaker 1: And Mark's been doing a bit of thinking.

564
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:52,160
Speaker 9: Maybe you have a hypersensitive reaction if you'd eaten something

565
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:57,719
Speaker 9: toxic like poisonous mushrooms. Maybe mushrooms, And there are plenty

566
00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:02,680
Speaker 9: of highly toxic mushrooms that toadstools that could have been

567
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:03,960
Speaker 9: put into his food.

568
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:09,440
Speaker 1: As it happens, King Boris had one favorite dish, a

569
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:16,279
Speaker 1: dish that he asked for again and again. Have you

570
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:22,600
Speaker 1: guessed yet? Next time? On the butterfly king. A chat

571
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:26,200
Speaker 1: with a Russian micologist leaves us with a bad taste

572
00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:27,239
Speaker 1: in our mouths.

573
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:31,400
Speaker 5: Some poisonous family they are known to have some bitter tastes,

574
00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:34,160
Speaker 5: but these ones that are really poisonous.

575
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 1: They had tasteless and a fairy tale ending for Princess

576
00:38:38,040 --> 00:38:42,560
Speaker 1: Maria Louisa and King Simeon when they're finally allowed home

577
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 1: from exile.

578
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:48,120
Speaker 8: It was an unbelievable dream that came through because for

579
00:38:48,320 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 8: almost fifty years, you know, the idea of Bulgaria was like,

580
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:55,239
Speaker 8: you know, the for the Jewish Jerusalem or something like that,

581
00:38:56,080 --> 00:38:58,439
Speaker 8: a dream that would never come true.

582
00:39:17,760 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 1: The Butterfly King is a production of Blanchard House and

583
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 1: Exactly Right Media, hosted by me Becky Milligan. It's written

584
00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:32,200
Speaker 1: and produced by Emma Jane Kirby. Original music is by

585
00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:37,880
Speaker 1: Daniel Lloyd Evans, Louis nank Manell and Toby Mattamong. Sound

586
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:42,440
Speaker 1: design and engineering by Toby Mattamong and Daniel Lloyd Evans.

587
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 1: Artwork by Vanessa Lilac. The Managing producer is a Mika

588
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:54,360
Speaker 1: Schortino Nolan. The creative director of Blanchard House is Rosie Pie.

589
00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:58,080
Speaker 1: The executive producer and head of content at Blanchard House

590
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:03,560
Speaker 1: is Lawrence Grisell. For Exactly Right Media, the executive producers

591
00:40:04,040 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: are Karen Kilgarreth Georgia Hardstark and Daniel Kramer, with consulting

592
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 1: producer Kyle Ryan. The Butterfly King is inspired by the

593
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:20,600
Speaker 1: book Hitler and the King by John hal Spencer