Once upon a time I scoured the web for the highest quality scans I could find of the so-called disappearing commisar, and, while both pictures are edited—the canal was under construction and dry at the time—when you zoom in it's obvious the picture with Yezhov is more edited than the picture without him.
My conspiracy theory is that he was added, not removed.
Yeah, the original figure was clearly Yagoda.
Stalin really did have terrible taste in NKVD heads. Like Beria might actually be an improvement on Yezhov which is terrifying.