Baroness Mary Vetsera - Aftermath

Aftermath

Without judicial inquiry, Vetsera's uncles were summoned to remove their niece's body from Mayerling as secretly as possible, and to bury it just as secretly. Her mother was forbidden to attend. One version is, that this was accomplished that night, with the body of their niece sitting in the carriage between them, propped up by a broomstick down the back of her jacket. Vetsera's body was taken to a cemetery at the Cistercian monastery a few miles away at Heiligenkreuz, but because her death was thought at that time to be a suicide, her uncles had to persuade the Abbot to gave his permission for Christian burial on the grounds, that she "had committed suicide because of a temporary loss of her senses". It was only later, that the official version of the story surfaced, in which Rudolf had shot Vetsera and then himself.

On May 16, 1889 Baroness Vetsera had her daughter's grave opened and reburied her a few yards away in a more permanent site. The wooden coffin was replaced by a copper one and a simple monument was erected by the family.

The official story of murder-suicide was unchallenged until just after the World War II. In 1946 occupying Soviet troops, perhaps hoping to loot it of jewels, dislodged the granite plate covering the grave and broke into Vetsera's coffin at the Heiligenkreuz Abbey. This was not discovered until 1955 when the Red Army withdrew from Austria. When the fathers of the monastery repaired the grave they saw a small skeleton inside the damaged copper coffin; they observed the skull seemed to have no bullet holes in it.

In 1959, a young physician named Gerd Holler, who was stationed in the area, accompanied by a member of the Vetsera family and specialists in funereal preservation, inspected her remains. The bones were in total disarray; but Vetsera's shoes and a quantity of long black hair were found in the coffin. Dr. Holler carefully examined the skull and other bones for traces of a bullet hole, but stated that he found no such evidence. The skull cavity showed an area of trauma, which could have been inflicted by Red Army soldiers, but also could indicate Vetsera had died from a blow to her skull, which would support the version, that she had not been murdered by the Archduke.

Intrigued, Holler claimed he petitioned the Holy See to inspect their 1889 archives of the affair, in which the Papal Nuncio's investigation had found, that only one bullet was fired. Lacking forensic evidence of a second bullet, Holler advanced the theory, that Vetsera died accidentally, probably as the result of an abortion, and it was Rudolf, who consequently shot himself.

Holler witnessed the body's re-interment in a new coffin in 1959.

In 1991, Vetsera's remains were disturbed again, this time by Helmut Flatzelsteiner, a Linz furniture dealer, who was obsessed with the Mayerling affair. It was initially reported, that her bones were strewn round the churchyard for the authorities to retrieve, but Flatzelsteiner actually removed them at night for a private forensic examination at his expense, which finally took place in February 1993. Flatzelsteiner told the examiners, that the remains were those of a relative killed some one hundred years ago, who had possibly been shot in the head or stabbed. One expert thought this might be possible, but since the skull was in a state of disintegration it could not be confirmed.

When Flatzelsteiner approached a journalist at the Kronen Zeitung to sell both the story and Vetsera's skeleton, the police became involved. Flatzelsteiner confessed and surrendered Vetsera's remains, which were sent to the Legal Medical Institute in Vienna for further examination. Forensic experts found the bones were indeed a hundred years old and those of a young woman around twenty, but since part of the skull was missing, it could not be determined if there had ever been a bullet hole present or not.

Vetsera's bones were re-interred on the morning of October 28, 1993, under the supervision of Abbot Gerhard Hradil. After a court case Flatzelsteiner paid the abbey some 2000 Euros by way of damages.