The Hinterkaifeck Murders Germany 1922: Footprints in Snow, Killer in the Attic, 6 Dead - Unsolved True Crime
Germany, 1922. Footprints in the snow leading to a farmhouse. None leading back. Someone walked out of the forest toward the Gruber family home and never left. Days later, all six people inside were murdered with their own farm tool. The killer stayed for days afterward, sleeping in their beds, eating their food, feeding their animals. This is the Hinterkaifeck murders, Germany's most disturbing unsolved case.
THE CASE
On March 31, 1922, six people were brutally killed at Hinterkaifeck, an isolated farm in Bavaria, Germany. Andreas Gruber (63), his wife Cäzilia (72), their daughter Viktoria (35), her children Cäzilia (7) and Josef (2), and the new maid Maria Baumgartner (44) were all murdered with a mattock. For weeks before the killings, the family reported strange occurrences: footprints in the snow with no return trail, missing keys, an unexplained newspaper, and footsteps in the attic. The previous maid had quit six months earlier, claiming the house was haunted. She was right about being watched, wrong about it being a ghost. Someone was living in their attic.
After the murders, the killer stayed at the farm for at least three days, keeping the fire going, tending to the livestock, and sleeping in the master bedroom. Neighbors saw smoke from the chimney and a figure at the property. When bodies were finally discovered on April 4, the crime scene had been hopelessly contaminated. Over 100 suspects were questioned. The case was officially closed in 1955 but remains unsolved. In 2007, German police academy students identified a prime suspect but refused to name them publicly out of respect for living descendants.
WHAT WE COVER
The Gruber family's dark secrets including documented incest and abuse, the weeks of terror leading up to March 31st as someone stalked them from the attic, the brutal murders and the killer's bizarre decision to stay at the farm afterward, the catastrophically botched investigation including sending victims' skulls to psychics, prime suspects Lorenz Schlittenbauer and the Bichler brothers, the wild theory about Viktoria's supposedly dead WWI veteran husband returning for revenge, and why this 100 year old case still haunts Germany today.
SOURCES
Andrea Maria Schenkel, "Tannöd" (2006) - Fictionalized account based on case files; "Hinterkaifeck: The Most Horrific Unsolved Murder in German History" documentary (2014); Bavarian State Archives case files; Munich Police Department historical records; 2007 Fürstenfeldbruck Police Academy cold case analysis; Contemporary newspaper coverage from Münchner Neueste Nachrichten (1922); Bill James, "Popular Crime" (2011); Court records from 1922 incest trial; Testimony of Lorenz Schlittenbauer, Michael Pöll, Jakob Sigl; Inspector Georg Reingruber investigation reports; Autopsy reports by Johann Baptist Aumüller; Witness statements from Michael Plöckl and neighbors; "Hinterkaifeck: Germany's Most Mysterious Murder Case" play (1991).
WARNING: This episode contains discussion of violence, murder, child victims, incest, and domestic abuse.
DISCLAIMER: The Hinterkaifeck murders represent a real tragedy. While we
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