It is Tuesday, April 4, 1922. A mechanic arrives at the Gruber-Gabriel family’s isolated farm in Hinterkaifeck. He should repair a machine, but he finds himself in front of closed doors. It seems like nobody is home. In order to save himself another journey by bike, the mechanic makes a decision: he breaks open the door to the engine shed with the tools he has brought with him and begins the repairs. After hours of work, he gets back on his bike and meets two girls on the neighboring property. He tells them about a “ghostly emptiness” in Hinterkaifeck and asks them to tell Mr. Gruber that the machine is running again.
When the girls’ father, Lorenz Schiebebauer, found out about the family’s unusual absence, he pricked up his ears. So Schiebebauer, mayor of Gröbern in what is now the municipality of Waidhofen in Upper Bavaria, mobilized other neighbors. In the afternoon the men keep an eye on things. As soon as they arrive, there is a frightening silence in the air. The three gain access to the Stadl and make a horrifying discovery.
Localization: Hinterkaifeck is located south of Ingolstadt, around 300 kilometers from Linz
Traces of onlookers destroyed
Before her eyes lie four piled corpses. They are the bodies of the residents Andreas Gruber (64), his wife Cäzilia (72), the widowed daughter Viktoria Gabriel (35) and her child Cäzilia (7). Inside the house, the men find two more bodies, those of Viktoria’s two-year-old son Josef and the maid Maria Baumgartner (45). The six dead have severe head injuries. They were killed with a hoe. The first police officers arrive at the crime scene around 6 p.m., four hours later a three-person court commission arrives, after midnight six officers from the Munich Criminal Police Office arrive. However, the crime scene is only secured after many onlookers have already destroyed traces.
The police had almost 100 suspects in their sights, but the background remains a mystery. Incest, revenge or jealousy? To this day there is speculation about the motive. A perpetrator was never caught. What is certain is that the murderer struck in the night of April 1, 1922. The victims were last seen the day before. Father Andreas and daughter Viktoria went shopping, the maid Maria had just moved into her new place of work. After that, seven-year-old Zilli didn’t show up at school, and the postman noticed that the mailbox was full. Nobody in the village had questioned the fact that the family was absent from the Sunday service. It was only the mechanic’s observations on April 4 that got the case rolling.
Cows milked and meat sliced
The criminalists knew from the start that they were dealing with a spectacular murder case. In addition to the bestial approach, this was due to the mysterious circumstances. Four days after the crime, four cows had apparently been milked and freshly sliced meat lay in the kitchen. Reason to assume that the perpetrator was still in Hinterkaifeck shortly before the bodies were discovered. The suspicion of robbery and murder quickly disappeared when more than 2,200 gold and silver coins and real jewelry were found in a cupboard. Was it Andreas Gruber who wiped out the whole family? The police found no evidence for this either, the circumstances of the crime did not speak for it.
A perpetrator “from outside” seemed more plausible. This theory was confirmed by testimonies according to which Andreas Gruber had told of mysterious signs of a break-in a few days before the murders. He reported tracks in the snow that led to his farm, but not out. He claims to have heard footsteps in the attic. He wasn’t the only one making suspicious observations. The previous maid had left the yard because it would be haunted.
Wild theories
The family constellation also provided speculation. Even before the criminal case, the people from Hinterkaifeck were always a topic of conversation among the other villagers. Viktoria Gabriel, whose husband Karl died in the war in France in 1914, lived with her two children on her parents’ farm. Her love affair with the village chief, Lorenz Schiebebauer, is well known. The father of her son Josef (2) is said to have actually been her father. In 1919 he was sentenced to one year in prison for incest. The incest case and the fact that Viktoria’s husband had no clearly identifiable grave fueled a conspiracy theory. Accordingly, he is said not to have died in the war and, driven by jealousy, to have returned to court to take revenge. Why Viktoria left a large donation in the confessional shortly before her death also raised questions.
yard demolished
Or did the murderer have something to do with the “new” maid? Was she being followed by someone? With all the theories mentioned, the police are still groping in the dark. The murders in the Bavarian wasteland remain – even a century later – a “cold case”. None of the suspects – including right-wing extremists, displaced persons, peddlers and gangs – could be convicted. The case does not let (hobby) investigators go. Among other things, a separate website was set up with a discussion forum, photos and background reports (www.hinterkaifeck.net). Various crime podcasts, such as “Dunkle Heimat” by Antenne Bayern, also unravel the mystery.
By the way, not much is left of the place where it happened. The farm was demolished in 1922 because nobody wanted to live in it. Only a wayside shrine reminds us of the atrocity that took place in Hinterkaifeck on the night of April 1st and will probably remain a mystery forever.
Source: Nachrichten
