It was midnight. Yakov Yurovsky knocked on the Romanov's doctor's door. Dr. Eugene Botkin answered. Then the lead executioner told the doctor the lie that would help him and the others kill Russia's royal family - the streets had become too dangerous, it was necessary for the family to be moved downstairs. If shots rung out in the street in front of the house where they were staying, someone could be hurt.

Yurovsky next asked the Romanovs to dress quickly. Forty minutes passed before Yurovsky lead to the outside door and down a staircase, then through a courtyard. The entire immediate Romanov family - Tsar Nicolas the Second, Empress Alexandra, Olga, Tatiana, Marie, Anastasia, and the tsarevich Alexis (carried by his father because he had hemophilia, a very serious and deadly disease). Anastasia brought with her the dog that was her pet, Jemmy, a King Charles Spaniel. Several...