King Ludwig Death Probed Anew

A Munich banker has added fuel to theories that Bavaria's "Mad" King Ludwig II, thought to have committed suicide by drowning, was assassinated in 1886, Der Spiegel reports. When Detlev Utermöhle was 10, a countess close to Ludwig's family showed him the coat Ludwig wore the night he died—complete with "two bullet holes in the back," according to a new deposition.

Three days before Ludwig's death, he was declared insane and dethroned by the Bavarian government, which many say drove him to suicide. But historians and conspiracy theorists pin the blame on a government tired of Ludwig's lavish spending on construction of fairytale castles. Alas, Utermöhle's story has holes: The coat was lost following the 1973 death of the countess. (More Mad King Ludwig stories.)