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Blood of King Albert I identified, conspiracy theories quashed

"The authenticity of the trails of blood confirms the official account of the death of Albert I," researcher Maarten Larmuseau said.

By Brooks Hays
DNA analysis confirmed that leaves collected from the site of a climbing accident are indeed stained with the blood of King Albert I of Belgium. Photo by Maarten Larmuseau/KU Leuven
DNA analysis confirmed that leaves collected from the site of a climbing accident are indeed stained with the blood of King Albert I of Belgium. Photo by Maarten Larmuseau/KU Leuven

LEUVEN, Belgium, July 22 (UPI) -- In 1934, King Albert I of Belgium died in a mountaineering accident while solo-climbing Marche-les-Dames. Despite the fact that King Albert was a long-time alpinist, conspiracy theories swirled in the wake of his death.

New forensic evidence undermines several of the theories, chiefly that King Albert was murdered elsewhere, the fall staged later as a coverup. But 80 years after the accident, researchers at the University of Leuven in Belgium have confirmed the presence of King Albert's blood at the scene of the accident on Marche-les-Dames.

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The king's death was mourned far and wide, and in the days following the accident, thousands gathered at Marche-les-Dames to pay tribute. Visitors collected artifacts from the scene of the accident -- rocks and twigs -- some stained with the king's blood.

Recently, scientists compared the DNA from a blood sample found on a leaves collected from the scene of the accident to the DNA of two distant relatives of King Albert.

"King Simeon II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the last tsar and former prime minister of Bulgaria who is related to Albert I on his father's side, and Anna Maria Freifrau von Haxthausen, a German baroness who is related to Albert I on her mother's side, were willing to cooperate," researcher Maarten Larmuseau, a forensic geneticist at KU Leuven, confirmed in a news release. "They gave up DNA samples that we compared with the DNA of the trails of blood. We found that the blood is indeed that of Albert I."

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Larmuseau acknowledged the finding, published this week in the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics, is unlikely to completely extinguish speculation and doubt, but said it serves the project of history.

"The authenticity of the trails of blood confirms the official account of the death of Albert I," Larmuseau said. "The story that the dead body of the king has never been in Marche-les-Dames or was only placed there at night has now become very improbable."

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