The Hinterkaifeck murders occurred on the evening of March 31, 1922, in which six inhabitants of a small farmstead, located approximately 70 kilometres north of Munich, Germany, were murdered by an unknown assailant.
The six victims were: Andreas Gruber (63) and Cäzilia (72); their widowed daughter Viktoria Gabriel (35); Viktoria's children, Cäzilia (7) and Josef (2); & the maid, Maria Baumgartner (44). It is considered one of the most gruesome and puzzling unsolved crimes in German history.
About a week before before the murders Andreas noticed there were footsteps in the snow leading from the woods to his house, but none leading back into the woods. A neighbour offered to lend Andreas a gun but he declined. Several keys had also gone missing in that time.
The Grubers’ previous maid had quit six months before. She’d claimed the house was haunted because she often heard unexplained noises and voices in the attic. The day that the Grubers were murdered their new maid, Maria, had just begun her first day.
Four of the victims seemed to have been lured to their deaths. Andreas, Cazilia Sr., Viktoria, and Cazilia Jr. were all found butchered to death in the Hinterkaifeck barn. Maria however, was killed in her bed, and young Josef slaughtered in his crib.
Investigators believe the family to have been murdered with a farming implement called a mattock. This tool is a sort of pickaxe that has a blade on one side and a pick on the other.
It took about a week for other citizens to really take notice of the missing family. First, Cazilia Jr. didn’t show up to school for a few days. Then Sunday came and the Grubers missed church. Because neighbors saw chimney smoke from the farmhouse, no one was really worried. It wasn’t until the mailman noticed the mail was piling up that people paid a visit and discovered the gruesome scene.
The smoke wafting from the house indicates that whoever murdered the family remained in the house for about 3 days after the murders. Investigators even found that farm chores like feeding the animals and milking the cow had been taken care of.
With no clear motive from the crime scene, the police began to formulate a list of suspects. Despite repeated arrests, no murderer has ever been found and the files were closed in 1955. The last interrogations took place in 1986 before Kriminalhauptkommissar Konrad Müller retired.
Even after almost 100 years and 100 interviews, no one is sure about who is responsible for the Hinterkaifeck farm murders.
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