One of the most gruesome cold cases in history involved an attacker hiding in a families roof for months before brutally murdering all of them and living in their home and eating their food for four more days
One of the most chilling unsolved cases the world has ever seen saw a farmer and his family brutally killed inside their own barn, with chilling evidence the murderer could have been hiding in the roof above their home for weeks or even months before the attack.
The Hinterkaifeck Murders have gone down in history as one of the most spine-shivering cases in history, and despite happening more than a hundred years ago, it is still being investigated by the true crime community.
On a cold Friday night in March 1922, Andreas Gruber, 63, his wife Cäzilia, 72, their widowed daughter Viktoria Gabriel, 35, Viktoria’s children Cäzilia, seven, and Josef, two, and their maid, Maria Baumgartnerwere, 44, were killed at their farmstead in the small Bavarian village of Kaifeck.
Murdered in a savage attack using a mattock – similar to a pickaxe – after being lured over to the barn one by one, the perpetrator stacked many of their bodies up before living in their home at least three times.
During this time, they ate the food in the house, fed their animals, and even lit their fireplace. Their mutilated bodies were only found by a neighbour four days later, when Cazilia didn’t show up for school.
But before the dreaded March evening, the family had long suspected that something was wrong, believing their home may even be haunted. In reality, police believe the attacker may have been hiding above the family in the house’s rafters for weeks and even months before the murders.
A few clues, but the family was on edge in the days leading to their deaths. The dad Andreas found a newspaper he was certain nobody had bought, while he also raised his concerns to his neighbours after seeing fresh tracks in the snow that weaved towards his home, but only went one way.
In another strange twist, the family’s maid had also just quit claiming the house to have been haunted after hearing what she thought were voices coming from the ceiling, but now seems to have been their violent squatter.
Initially, the police investigation believed it was a robbery gone wrong, but when they discovered large amounts of cash untouched in the home, this theory became less likely.
Nobody was ever arrested for the murders, but rumours and suspect names have circulated over the past century and produced a range of theories.
One idea was that Viktoria’s husband, Karl, who is thought to have died in WW1 but whose body was never found, came back to Germany to commit the attack, while another thought that the neighbour who discovered the bodies, Lorenz Schlittenbauer, was involved.
He is thought to have been having a relationship with Viktoria, and both claimed he was Josef’s father. He had planned to marry Viktoria, but when Andreas stepped in, he put an end to the couple.
He also had broken into the locked barn to find the bodies and somehow had a key to the house itself, as one had gone missing just days before the attack.
Other rumoured suspects include the Gump brothers, local far-right activists who were wanted for a murder in Poland, a farm worker, Peter Weber and a German serial killer who had committed a similar crime in the US before returning home, Paul Mueller.
The investigation took another disturbing turn when it was believed that Andreas and his daughter had committed incest. The two were found guilty in 1915, and there were local rumours that Josef could have actually been Andreas’s son.