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Seeking clues to Bolivar's death, Venezuela exhumes bones of independence hero's sisters

Venezuelan authorities exhumed the remains of Simon Bolivar's sisters Monday, seeking genetic clues to help them investigate President Hugo Chavez's theory that the South American independence hero may have been murdered.

Scientists and forensic experts extracted DNA samples from the bones of Juana and Maria Antonia Bolivar — the only siblings of the man known in Venezuela as "El Libertador" — after authorities opened their tombs inside a cathedral in downtown Caracas, Vice President Elias Jaua said.

Chavez ordered the exhumation of Bolivar's bones last month in hopes of using modern forensics to confirm his identity and investigate a theory that his idol was felled by a murder conspiracy. The president has gone so far as to raise concerns that the skeleton inside the National Pantheon may not be the remains of the 19th century independence icon.....
Read entire article at AP