In Moscow, Natalia continued to badger Bolshevik Commissars, including Lenin, Trotsky and Sverdlov, for Michael's release, but to no avail. In June 1918, her husband and Johnson were shot by their captors on the outskirts of Perm. To cover their tracks, the Perm authorities distributed a concocted story that Michael was abducted by unidentified men and had disappeared. Natalia went to Uritsky in a quest for an explanation, but Uritsky ordered her arrest and incarceration. The Soviet disinformation about Michael's disappearance led to unfounded rumours that he had escaped and was leading a successful counter-revolution. Natalia heard the rumours in prison, and chose to believe them. Ten weeks after her imprisonment, in early September, Natalia pretended that she had developed tuberculosis, and was moved to a nursing home. Once there, she escaped and took refuge in the apartment above her brother-in-law's with family friend Princess Vyazemskaya. Uritsky had been murdered in late August, and the Bolsheviks were terrorising Petrograd in what was later called the Red Terror. Natalia's daughter, "Tata", was arrested and imprisoned, but released after a few days when it became apparent she had no knowledge of her mother's whereabouts. With no money or food, "Tata" made her way to her uncle's apartment, and so was fortuitously re-united with her mother.