The Hinterkaifeck Murders

Zoinks. Six people killed on an isolated Bavarian farm in the middle of a snowbound March night -- and then, for four days, the killer didn't leave. He fed the cattle. He stoked the fire. He ate their food. He slept in their beds. And nobody knew.

The gang is heading to Bavaria.

In the early hours of April 1, 1922, the Gruber family farm at Hinterkaifeck -- a remote homestead about 70 kilometers north of Munich -- fell silent in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. Six people were dead: farmer Andreas Gruber, his wife Cazilia, their widowed daughter Viktoria Gabriel, Viktoria's two children, and the new maid Maria Baumgartner, who had arrived only hours before and was killed on her very first day. The weapon was a mattock -- a farm tool, one that was already there. The killer used what the farm provided.

What makes this case one of the most haunting unsolved murders in European history is not the killings themselves, but what came after. Witnesses in nearby villages noticed smoke rising from the Hinterkaifeck chimney for four days following the murders. Someone had collected the mail. Someone had fed the animals. When neighbors finally arrived and found the bodies, investigators discovered that whoever committed these killings had lingered -- living inside the crime scene, among the dead, for the better part of a week.

The warning signs had been there for weeks before. Andreas Gruber told neighbors he had found footprints in the snow leading toward the farmhouse -- but none leading away. He heard sounds in the attic. Newspaper pages appeared that no one in the household had purchased. A previous maid had quit the position months earlier, convinced the farm was haunted, and refused to return. Whatever was coming had been circling for a while.

Jinkies -- the investigation that followed became one of the most complex in Bavarian history. Over a hundred suspects were questioned. In a measure that would become one of the more chilling historical footnotes of the case, the victims' skulls were removed and sent to clairvoyants in the hope of generating leads. Those skulls were lost during World War II. A prime suspect, neighbor Lorenz Schlittenbauer, had documented motive and was notably the first person to enter the barn alone when the bodies were discovered. The case was reopened in 2007 by the Bavarian Police Academy. It has never been solved.

The gang will hear the full story: who these people were, the warning signs no one acted on, the evidence investigators pieced together, and the questions that have followed this case for over a hundred years.

What you'll hear in this episode:

The isolated Hinterkaifeck farm and the Gruber family's troubled history

The weeks of strange signs leading up to the night of March 31, 1922

Six killings, one weapon, and a killer who refused to leave

Seven-year-old Cazilia's final moments and what investigators found

Lorenz Schlittenbauer and why he remains the most studied suspect

The investigation's most disturbing choices -- and its unsolved legacy

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