The Myth of Mayerling

Have been fishing around for a subject worthy of the blogsphere and the tragedy of Mayerling kind of hove into view. Lots of conspiracy blogs on the subject and quite a few video compilations on YouTube. Mayerling refers to the joint murder/suicide in 1889 of Mary Vetsera and Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria at Mayerling, a royal hunting lodge a few miles from Vienna and Rudolf's favourite bolt-hole. It is also the subject of a superb three-act dramatic ballet by Kenneth Macmillan for the Royal Ballet (1978) as well as various screen versions.
The facts of the case can all be found on Wiki in some shape or form. Poor Mary Vetsera had an unexpected resurrection c1992 when an eccentric antique furniture dealer, a Herr Flatzelsteiner from Linz, extracted her corpse from the tomb (with some articles of clothing that she had been buried in) and sent it to various forensic experts to be analysed (claiming the remains to be that of his great grandmother.) 
During the resulting investigation and court case there were some fascinating forensic photos taken (including one of a long, fairly thick and rather curly hank of her dark hair and another of a pair of witchy-black/dilapilated shoes that she was buried in.) These photos are rarely shown (or published for that matter) and may be subject to publishing restrictions as they are probably copyright of the federal police dept. However they were on show recently in a display case at the Kronprinz Rudolf Lebensspuren exhibition at the Hofmobiliendepot Museum in Vienna in 2008/9 in the section near the end, which is dedicated to the incident at Mayerling in 1889.
Rudolf was a very troubled Crown Prince and was probably going through a mid-life crisis when he met Mary Vetsera. He was actually just 30 yrs old when he died but the last few portraits of him make him look about 40 at least. There is one last portrait study by a Hungarian artist where Rudolf's eyes are almost obscured in shadow under the brim of a kepi style helmet and he actually looks a lot like the actor Edward Fox (at 40-ish).
Mary was about 17 when they met. He was apparently very taken with her 'oriental eyes' which some gentlemen admirers claimed to be 'hypnotic'. The couple was introduced by an old lover of Rudolf's, Marie Larisch and you get the idea that Larisch was a bit of a 'procuress by appointment'. However, one also gets the impression that Mary was 'stalking' Rudolf and that she really 'set her cap at him'. She really wanted to get his attention and kind of revelled in her notoriety in the upper echelons of Viennese society.  Unfortunately, Rudolf had been seeking a willing partner in death for some time and when Mary came along he didn't have to look further.