Rasputin

In the early years of the twentieth century, Russia was under the leadership of Emperor Nicholas II, the Last Tzar.  His wife Alexandra had born five children including the young Crown Prince Alexei, who suffered from hemophilia.  Around 1904, Rasputin turned up in St. Petersburg, and he came to the attention of the Empress Alexandra, when it was made known to her that he claimed to be a holy man and healer.  Alexandra invited Rasputin to the palace, and on several occasions, she wrote that he healed young Alexei from bleeding, thus saving his life.

Rasputin was creepy.  Not only was he supposedly healing the young Crown Prince, he was also preaching his doctrine that in order to be saved, one must sin as much as possible.  To that end, he managed to sleep with hundreds of women in the St. Petersburg area.  He also influenced decisions on who was hired and fired in the Russian government, mostly because of his influence with Alexandra who would do anything to keep her son healthy.    But there were individuals in the Tsar's government who decided that if the royal family would not remove Rasputin from the court, they would.

On December 16, 1916, two minor nobles, Felix Yusupov and Dmitry Pavlovich, lured Rasputin to the basement of an apartment for a supposed party.  Over an hour period, Rasputin ate 2-3 pastries and several glasses of wine, all laced with cyanide.  He did not die.  Frustrated and a little spooked, Yusupov shot Rasuptin twice with a revolver.  When Yusupov leaned over Rasputin to see if he were dead, Rasputin grabbed him around the neck, and attempted to strangle him while saying, "You bad boy."  The other conspirators entered and shot Rasputin a couple more times.  Then they stabbed him, beat him, and castrated him, only to realize he was still alive and struggling to get up.

Rasputin ran from the room chased by the followers.  Outside, they shot him again, this time in the head.  But when he still wouldn't die, they grabbed him, tied him up, and threw him into the icy Neva River.  Four days later his body was recovered from the river and an autopsy was ordered to determine the source of his mystical powers.  The autopsy revealed that the official cause of death was...

...drowning.