He was taken to a nearby inn and interrogated, tortured, and killed in a forest near Mirna. Three hours earlier the seminarian Janez Hočevar, who wanted to visit his relatives in nearby Šentrupert, had been also shot. The communists suspected Lojze Grozde of being an informant. Soon, rumors spread about Grozde's grisly death. The Tone Tomšič Partisan Brigade, which had occupied Mirna, carried out the murder. However, others claimed that Grozde was not tortured. Partisan General Lado Kocijan stated that:   "for the partisan tribunal, Grozde was a White Guard courier, and so he was condemned to death. It is not true that they tortured him, that they cut the skin from the soles of his feet, cut out his tongue and cut off his fingers. Because the Partisans buried his body in a shallow grave, these injuries were caused by the animals in the woods, which gnawed on the body. There was no torture ...", this veteran of the Gubec Brigade stated. Other sources state that he was tortured:  During the Christmas holidays of 1942 Grozde was traveling in Lower Carniola to visit his mother and relatives, but did not come home. In the village of Mirna he was seized by the communists, fearfully tortured for two hours, and then killed. It is said that he patiently endured this torment. On February 23, 1943 the fate of Lojze Grozde was partly revealed, indicating that he had been tortured. Schoolchildren picking snowdrops found his corpse. Although there were traces of torture on his body, the corpse itself was uncorrupted. His body was taken to nearby Šentrupert, where a committee made a report. The body of Lojze Grozde was buried at the cemetery in Šentrupert because it was impossible to take it to his home parish of Tržišče under the difficult circumstances of those days. The news of the violent torture and death of this innocent student struck fear among people and shocked the students in Ljubljana. On the 50th anniversary of Grozde's death, the Archdiocese of Ljubljana started a process to recognize his martyrdom and also his beatification and canonization. When Pope John Paul II visited Slovenia for the first time in 1996, he mentioned Grozde twice. He said, "The servant of God Lojze Grozde is just one of innumerable innocent victims of Communism that raise the palm of martyrdom as an indelible memory and admonition.