The Hinterkaifeck Murders

For weeks before the killings, farmer Andreas Gruber told neighbors strange things were happening at Hinterkaifeck. Footprints appeared in the snow leading from the woods to the farm — but none leading back. A newspaper he'd never bought turned up in the kitchen. A set of house keys vanished. He heard footsteps in the attic. He told no one but a few friends. He called no police.

On March 31, the family — Andreas, his wife Cäzilia, their widowed daughter Viktoria, her two young children, and a newly-arrived maid — were lured one by one into the barn and killed with a mattock. The children were murdered later. The maid, Maria Baumgartner, was killed on her very first night at the farm.

For four days, no one raised alarm. Neighbors saw smoke rising from the chimney. Cattle were being tended. The postman noticed nothing wrong. When concerned villagers finally investigated on April 4, they found the bodies stacked in the barn and the two toddlers in the house.

The killer had eaten meals. Slept in the bed. Left. Despite dozens of suspects and decades of Bavarian police work, the case remains open. In 2007, a Munich police academy re-analyzed the file with modern forensic methods. They identified a most-likely suspect but declined to name him publicly out of respect for surviving relatives.