The secret of Hinterkaifeck house
The Hinterkaifeck house and the farmstead stood alone near the woods with very less neighbours in the town of Kaifeck. It was quite a very lonely place. There lived Andreas Gruber and Cäzilia Gruber, they were in their seventies. The house also hosted their 35-year-old, widowed daughter Viktoria Gabriel and her two children, seven-year-old young and beautiful Cäzilia and two-year-old charming baby, Josef.
It was a September morning, when their maid, stood in the doorway with her bags. “Are you going somewhere?”, Mr Gruber asked. To which she said, “Your house is haunted. I hear footsteps approaching me every night. Mr Gruber! I need to live, the ghosts shall kill everyone.”
Mr Gruber asked her to leave the house immediately, in anger.
After a few months, when Mr Gruber found a strange newspaper in front of his house. At first he thought the postman had left it there by mistake. However, no one around Hinterkaifeck subscribed to newspapers. This reminded him about what the old maid said. Well…a ghost who reads newspaper? A joke.
One morning, when Mr and Mrs Gruber goes out for a walk, they notices fresh footprints in the snow. They tracked the footprints, it started from the woods to the farm’s machine room. They asked the neighbours about it, but no one knew.
Later that night when everyone was sleeping peacefully in their rooms, seven-year-old Cäzilia woke up from her sleep and woke her mother up. “Momma, someone is up in the attic, I can hear the footsteps”, she said. Victoria heard the footsteps too. She went to Mr Gruber and Mrs Gruber’s room and woke them up. Everyone started searching the building but no one was found.
On a Friday morning on March 30, during the early 1920s, Maria Baumgartner opened the gate to the Hinterkaifeck farmstead carrying two heavy bags along with her sister. Andreas Gruber and his wife welcomed the new maid in and accompanied her to a bedroom. Maria’s sister kissed her goodbye and left.
Next day, when the primary school teacher called the names out, young Cäzilia was absent.
Viktoria was the leader of the choir at church. She failed to attend the church that Sunday, without informing. No one in the family came for the Holy Mass, they rarely missed a church gathering. This made the neighbours suspicious.
Cäzilia missed school again on Monday.
The very next day, Lorenz Schlittenbauer sent his son Johann and stepson Josef to call Mr Grubes.
Lorenz Schlittenbauer, Michael Pöll and Jakob Sigl announced the search in the entire neighbourhood.
But, everything they had to witness gave them years of sleepless nights.
While they were searching the farm, they found blood leaking out from hay, as they moved the hay slightly, they found four shattered skulls. Their heads were beaten with pickaxe, multiple times.
Talking about Mr and Mrs Gruber’s bodies, blood and parts of the brain were shattered in the ground, cheekbones were popping outside the face and their ribs were shown outside their chest. Viktoria’s head had nine star-shaped wounds, her brain was also scattered.
Young Cäzilia’s hair were pulled out and had scratches on her face. She had a smashed skull and circular injuries. Autopsy reports says that seven-year-old Cäzilia had been alive for several hours even after the incident and plucked her hair out due to the unbearable pain.
Schlittenbauer started searching the house. On opening a room, he saw a cradle. It was filled with blood. He approached the crib and saw disfigured face and broken skull of the two-year-old youngest family member, Josef.
The maid laid dead in her room. That was her first day in Hinterkaifeck house. She was the last one to see the family alive.
But who was the murderer? Was it the ghost?
Investigations began, all the skulls were removed and sent to Munich for researches.
Presenting the main suspects:
1. Husband of Viktoria — Karl Gabriel
Viktoria is a widow. Her husband Karl is said to be killed in the First world war. Although no reports are stating Karl was killed in the war. He was taken as one of the primary suspects because Viktoria had Josef, four years after she was declared a widow. Josef was believed to be the son of her father Mr Andreas Gruben.
2. The neighbour who led the search — Lorenz Schlittenbauer
The detective neighbour Lorenz Schlittenbauer was rumoured of having a secret relationship with Viktoria. He also agreed to raise Josef as his son. Schlittenbauer was a suspect because;
- Viktoria had a fight with Lorenz when she started demanding financial assistance for Josef and her family.
- At the onset of searches without even thinking where the bodies might be he went straight to the barn where they were found.
- While everyone tried to break the doors and gates open, Lorenz had the key to the front door. But, this could be because he was a visiting lover of Viktoria.
Lorenz was questioned a lot of times but evidences were not found.
3. Five kills and a suicide — Mr Gruben or Viktoria
Mr Andreas Gruben was an abusive father, he had abused all his children at a very young age and only Viktoria survived. She was anyway made pregnant by her father and almost everyone knew this. There is a chance that he killed everyone and committed suicide.
Or in another way, being a widow, having no money to raise her children, being abused by her father Viktoria killed everyone and committed a suicide.
But hitting oneself with a pickaxe until brain shatters is kind of ridiculous. That did not happen!
Surprising fact: The killer lived in the farmstead with dead bodies around him for three days. All the farm animals were properly fed for three days. Even the pet dog was given food. So, the killer is someone who knows the farm animals, farm supplies and every nooks and corner of the farm.
Even after 100 years of the murder, even after finding a lot of suspects, the secret of Hinterkaifeck house was never revealed!
The Case of Hinterkaifeck farm is one of the hardest riddles in the history of Germany.
Well, six people knew the answer though. Here they rests:
