Jan Masaryk, the Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia in the 1940s of Czechoslovakian descent, died on March 10, 1948, in the courtyard of the Černín Palace in Prague.
He fell to his death and was found outside, his corpse laid below his bathroom window.
The case of Masaryk’s death has remained unsolved until now, with authorities failing to reach a conclusion. Unfortunately, police have decided to shelf the case, meaning it will remain a cold case for an indefinite amount of time.
Masaryk’s death according to official ruling states that he committed suicide, but his case has been reopened several times, and each time three possible scenarios have been hypothesized and considered: murder, accident, or suicide. All previous investigations concluded that the first investigation was ‘sloppy’ and poorly executed and wrapped up. The first investigation ruled our Masaryk’s case as death by suicide.
March 10 2021, just yesterday, was the 73rd anniversary of Masaryk’s death, and Michal Muravský, Prague Public Prosecutor and supervisor of the Masaryk case, sheds insight on the updates of the investigations in an interview with Czech news reporters.
“Even the supplementary investigation failed to establish such facts that would allow a clear conclusion to be drawn on the circumstances of Jan Masaryk’s death,” states Muravský.
The technical question of the cause behind the fall was dealt with by an expert in forensic biomechanics, according to Muravský.
“The conclusion of the expert is that possible variants of accidental fall due to loss of stability and active participation of another person or persons are permissible by pushing into the torso of Jan Masaryk facing the wall of the Černín Palace,” states Muravský.
The expert also commented that the possibility that Masaryk was already dead when he was thrown out his bathroom window, therefore someone had to throw out his corpse, is unrealistic.
An investigation of Masaryk’s death in 2001-2003 concluded that he had been murdered, but the current investigation’s findings are not so decisive, so the possibility of reasons besides murder as a cause of death are not completely disregarded.
Muravský states the investigation is over for now and that they have reportedly exhausted all available options.
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