WARNING: This post contains details of a violent crime that may be disturbing to some readers.
On the evening of March 31st, 1922, a chilling and complex story began to unfold on a remote Bavarian homestead in Germany. The location, known as Hinterkaifeck—which literally translates to "behind Kaifeck," a nearby village—was home to a family of five and their new maid. By the morning, all six would be dead in what remains one of the most gruesome and puzzling unsolved crimes in German history.
But the story of Hinterkaifeck isn't just a tale of murder. It’s a baffling account of a killer who seemed to have been living on the property for days, the bizarre clues left behind, and an investigation so flawed it led to more questions than answers.
A Family Living in Fear
The farm, surrounded on all sides by a dense woodland known as Hexenholtz, or the "Witch's Woods," was an isolated place. For the family living there—63-year-old Andreas Gruber, his 72-year-old wife Cäzilia, their widowed daughter Victoria Gabriel, and her two children, Cäzilia (7) and Josef (2)—life had become increasingly unsettling in the months leading up to the attack.
Just six months prior, their previous maid had quit, claiming the house was haunted. She reported hearing strange noises in the attic and having a constant feeling of being watched. While the maid’s claims were dismissed as superstition, other strange events began to occur:
Mysterious Footprints: Andreas Gruber reported finding fresh footprints in the snow leading from the forest to the house, but none leading back out.
A Lost Key: A house key had gone missing.
Unexplained Noises: Andreas himself told a store owner in town that he had been hearing strange noises in the attic and even found flattened hay, as if someone had been lying there.
An Eerie Presence: Both Andreas and his daughter Victoria had seen a man watching them from the woodland just a few days before the murders.
Despite these unsettling occurrences, Andreas, a notoriously reserved man, refused to report anything to the police, preferring to handle things on his own.
The Night of the Murders
On the day of the murders, a new maid, Maria Baumgartner, arrived at the farm. She had just started her first night of work when the unthinkable happened. It is believed the family was lured, one by one, into the barn, where they were killed. The new maid was later found in the house, a testament to the brutality of the attack.
The bodies were discovered on April 4th, when concerned neighbors went to investigate after the children failed to show up for school and the family missed church. The scene was horrifying:
The Barn: Four bodies—Andreas, his wife Cäzilia, their daughter Victoria, and seven-year-old Cäzilia—were found stacked in the barn, having suffered severe blows to the head.
The House: Two-year-old Josef and the new maid, Maria, were found in the living quarters. Josef’s skull had been cracked, and Maria’s head was brutally damaged.
Autopsies later revealed that the family had been killed with a blunt, pickaxe-like tool. Most disturbing of all was the discovery that seven-year-old Cäzilia Gabriel had survived for two to three hours after the attack and was found with clumps of her own hair clenched in her fists, a sign of her slow and agonizing death.
The Killer's Bizarre Afterlife
But the most disturbing revelation was that the killer had not immediately fled the scene. For several days after the murders, the perpetrator or perpetrators continued to live at Hinterkaifeck. Evidence suggests a new layer of horror:
Daily Life Continued: The killer fed the cattle, swept the barn, ate food from the smokehouse, and even baked bread in the kitchen.
A Revolting Smell: A man passing by the farm noted smoke coming from the chimney with a “revolting smell,” leading to speculation that the killer had burned the victims' blood-stained clothing.
The Dog: The family's dog, Spitz, was found wounded and terrified, cowering in fear.
A Botched Investigation
When the authorities finally arrived, the investigation was doomed from the start. Locals had already contaminated the crime scene, and investigators failed to properly secure the area, allowing dozens of people to trample through the farm.
Crime Scene Negligence: Fingerprint evidence, despite being available, was not secured. It took four days to even document footprints, which were by then a mix of the killer's and the many onlookers.
No Motive: The theory of a robbery was quickly dismissed when police found a significant amount of money in the house.
Clairvoyants and a Lost Skull: In a desperate attempt to find answers, the victims’ heads were separated from their bodies and sent to clairvoyants in Nuremberg, a bizarre move that proved fruitless. The heads were later lost in World War II.
A year later, the murder weapon—a mattock—was found hidden under the floorboards of the house. It was a tool that Andreas Gruber had made himself.
The Suspects and Theories
With a lack of concrete evidence, the case remains unsolved, but over the years, a few key suspects have emerged:
Carl Gabriel: Victoria’s husband, who was believed to have died in World War I, but whose body was never recovered. He was suspected of having faked his death and returned to seek revenge after learning about his wife's incestuous relationship with her father and the birth of their son, Josef.
Lorenz Schlittenbauer: A neighbor who had a previous relationship with Victoria and may have been Josef's father. He had a rivalry with Andreas, who had prevented him from marrying Victoria. His suspicious behavior at the crime scene—unlocking a door with a key that had been missing—made him a prime suspect for many.
Paul Muller: An American serial killer connected to a string of family murders in the U.S. that shared a similar modus operandi: victims killed with a pickaxe and their bodies stacked.
The case was officially closed in 1955, and the last interrogations took place in 1986. While some believe the authorities have since determined the murderer’s identity, they have chosen not to reveal it to the public, likely due to living descendants of the suspects.
The Hinterkaifeck murders are a chilling reminder that the darkest evils can lurk in the most unexpected places. It’s a story of a killer who wasn't a phantom in the woods, but a very real person who became an uninvited and horrifying guest, living for days among the dead.