Hinterkaifeck murders
On the evening of 31 March 1922, six inhabitants of a small Bavarian farmstead ) were murdered by an unknown assailant. Occurring approximately north of Munich, the victims were Andreas Gruber, his wife Cäzilia, their widowed daughter Viktoria Gabriel, Viktoria's children Cäzilia and Josef and their maid, Maria Baumgartner. The murder weapon, a mattock, which was used on all six of the victims, was later recovered in the loft of the barn.
Immediately following the murders, the perpetrator lived with the six corpses for three days. During this time, they ate the food in the house, fed the animals on the property and used the fireplace. Four of the bodies were found stacked in the barn, the victims having likely been lured there one by one. Prior to the incident, other family members and a former maid had reported hearing strange noises coming from the attic, which led to said maid quitting the job. Considered one of the most gruesome and puzzling crimes in German history, the murders remain unsolved.
Location
The farm at Hinterkaifeck, approximately north of Munich in the German province of Bavaria, was built around 1863. The name Hinterkaifeck comes from its location: Hinter meaning "behind" in German, and Kaifeck being a small nearby hamlet of that name. Per its German name, the Hinterkaifeck farmstead was essentially located behind Kaifeck or, more precisely, about one mile north of it and bordered by dense woods.Less than a year after the murders, the farm was demolished to remove any reminder of the violence that had taken place there. During the demolition, additional evidence was revealed, including a mattock covered in dried blood hidden in the attic and a penknife in the hay in the barn. After the demolition, a small concrete monument known as the Hinterkaifeck Andachtsstätte was erected close to where the farm once stood, serving as a memorial to the victims.
Background
Andreas Gruber was born on 9 November 1858 in the Bavarian locality of Grainstetten. He married Cäzilia Sanhüter in 1886 and subsequently moved to Hinterkaifeck, ownership of which had been given to Cäzilia in 1877 as part of a divorce settlement with her first husband, Josef Asam. Cäzilia's earlier marriage had produced three children: Martin, Cäzilia and Andreas. Her marriage to the elder Andreas produced two more: Viktoria and Sophie.Viktoria married Karl Gabriel, a native of Waidhofen, on March 11, 1914; ownership of Hinterkaifeck was transferred to the couple by her parents on that date. Several months later, following the start of the First World War, Karl was called up into the military. He was reported killed at the Battle of Arras on December 12, 1914. The union had produced a sole daughter, Cäzilia Gabriel, born on 9 January 1915.
In 1915, Andreas Gruber and Viktoria were convicted in Neuberg district court of having engaged in an incestuous relationship between 1907 and 1910. Andreas was sentenced to one year in prison while Viktoria served one month. In 1919, Andreas was again reported to authorities after Viktoria admitted to her lover, a neighbour named Lorenz Schlittenbauer, that her newborn son, Josef Gruber, had been conceived through her father's continuing sexual abuse. Schlittenbauer withdrew his complaint against Andreas shortly after his arrest, only to reassert his claims while giving sworn testimony at Andreas's trial. The court did not consider Schlittenbauer's testimony to be a sufficient basis for conviction and allowed Andreas to be released. However, due to several incriminating statements made by Andreas during his own testimony, he did not receive compensation for his pre-trial detention. Schlittenbauer agreed to adopt Josef as his own son.
Murders
Prelude
In the months prior to the killings, strange occurrences were reported in and around Hinterkaifeck. Kreszenz Rieger, the Gruber family's original maid, had quit about six months before the murders; it has been widely claimed that Rieger's reason for leaving was that she had heard strange noises in the attic, believing the house to be haunted. In March 1922, Andreas found a strange newspaper from Munich on the property that he could not remember purchasing, initially believing that the postman had lost the paper. This was not the case, however, as no one in the vicinity subscribed to the newspaper.Just days before the murders, Andreas told neighbours he had discovered tracks in the fresh snow that led from the forest to a door with a broken lock that led to the farm's machine room. That same night, the Gruber family heard footsteps coming from the attic, but Andreas found no one upon conducting a search. Although he told several people about these alleged observations, he refused offers of help, and the incidents went unreported to police. According to a school friend of Viktoria's daughter Cäzilia Gabriel, the young girl reported that her mother had fled the farmstead the night before the murders after a violent row with Andreas, and only hours later had been found in the forest.
31 March to 1 April 1922
On the afternoon of Friday 31 March 1922, the new maid, Maria Baumgartner, arrived at the farmstead. Maria's sister had escorted her there and left the farm after a short stay. She was most likely the last person to see the inhabitants alive. Maria had only worked at Hinterkaifeck for one day before the murders. Late that evening, Viktoria, her seven-year-old daughter Cäzilia Gabriel and her parents were lured to the barn through the stable, where they were murdered one after the other. The perpetrator used a mattock belonging to the family and killed them with blows to the head. The perpetrator then moved into the living quarters, where—with the same murder weapon—they killed Josef, sleeping in his bassinet, and Maria in her bedchamber.Discovery
Four days passed between the murders and the discovery of the bodies. On 1 April, coffee sellers Hans and Eduard Schirovsky arrived in Hinterkaifeck to take an order. When no one responded to their knocks on the door or window, they walked around the yard but found no one present. The Schirovskys noticed that the gate to the machine room was open but decided to leave. Cäzilia Gabriel was absent from school without excuse for several days, and the Gruber family failed to appear for Sunday worship. On the morning of 4 April, local mechanic Albert Hofner visited Hinterkaifeck to repair an engine. After waiting for an hour without any sighting of the family, Hofner proceeded with his repair alone and left after roughly four and a half hours.Later on 4 April, at around 3:30 p.m., Schlittenbauer sent his son Johann and stepson Josef Dick to Hinterkaifeck to see whether they could make contact with the family. When they reported that they had not seen anyone, Schlittenbauer himself visited the farmstead later that day with neighbours Michael Pöll and Jakob Sigl. Upon entering the barn, they found the bodies of Andreas, his wife Cäzilia, his daughter Viktoria and his granddaughter Cäzilia. Shortly afterwards, they found the bodies of Maria and Josef inside the living quarters.
Investigation
An investigative team from Munich, led by Inspector Georg Reingruber, was assigned to solve the killings. However, initial investigations were hampered by the contamination of the crime scene by onlookers who had moved around the bodies and potential items of evidence, and had even cooked meals in the kitchen. On 5 April, the day after the discoveries, court physician Johann Baptist Aumüller performed autopsies inside the barn. It was established that a mattock was the most likely murder weapon, although the weapon itself was not initially found at the scene. Evidence showed that the younger Cäzilia had been alive for several hours after the assault—she had torn her hair out in tufts while lying in the straw. The skulls of the victims were removed and sent to Munich for further examination.First suspecting the motive to be robbery, investigators questioned travelling craftsmen, vagrants and several inhabitants from the surrounding villages. However, they abandoned this line of inquiry when a large amount of money was found at the house. It became apparent that the perpetrator had remained at the farm for several days following the murders; someone had recently fed the cattle, consumed the entire supply of bread from the kitchen and had recently cut meat from the pantry.
With no clear motive to be gleaned from the crime scene, police began to formulate a list of suspects. Despite repeated arrests, no murderer was ever found, and the case was officially closed in 1955. The last interrogations took place in 1986, before Detective Chief Superintendent Konrad Müller-Thumann retired.
Inconsistencies
In the inspection record of the court commission, it was noted that the victims were probably drawn to the barn by noises from the restless animals. This theory may not be plausible however, as investigators discovered that noise from the barn could not be heard from the house.At 3:00 a.m. on 1 April, on the night of the murders, a farmer named Simon Reißländer, travelling to his home near Brunnen, saw two mysterious figures standing at the edge of the forest near Hinterkaifeck. When the strangers saw him, they turned around so that their faces could not be seen. The following night, an artisan named Michael Plöckl happened to pass by Hinterkaifeck, where he observed smoke indicating that the oven was being heated. An unidentified occupant of the house approached Plöckl and blinded his vision with a lantern, whereupon he hastily continued on his way. Plöckl also noticed that the smoke had a revolting smell. This report was not investigated, and no examination of the oven was conducted to determine what might have been burned inside.
In May 1927, a stranger was said to have stopped a resident of Waidhofen at midnight, asked him questions about the murders, then loudly identified himself as the murderer before running into a forest. The stranger was never identified.