Footsteps in the Attic: The Hinterkaifeck Murders

In late March of 1922, the Gruber family and their maid were living quiet, isolated lives on a remote Bavarian farm known as Hinterkaifeck. But unsettling events began to break the silence. Footprints appeared in the snow leading to the home—none leaving. Keys vanished. Footsteps echoed from the attic, though no one should have been there. Days later, six bodies—Andreas and Cäzilia Gruber, their daughter Viktoria, her two children, and their new maid—were discovered brutally murdered.

A century later, the questions remain: Who stalked the Grubers in those final days? What compelled them to stay despite the signs of danger? And how did a killer live undetected on their farm after the murders, feeding livestock and eating meals as the bodies lay just yards away?

Join Chillworthy as we unravel the eerie timeline, dissect the most compelling theories—from vengeful neighbors to secret lovers and wandering soldiers—and explore why the Hinterkaifeck murders still haunt true crime investigators and paranormal enthusiasts alike.



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DISCLAIMER The content presented on Chillworthy, including all episodes, transcripts, social media posts, and associated materials, is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The podcast does not offer legal, medical, psychological, or professional advice of any kind. While the hosts—Brent and Talia—make a good faith effort to ensure that the information shared is based on publicly available sources and is as accurate as possible at the time of recording, Chillworthy does not guarantee the completeness, timeliness, or reliability of any statements made. Listeners should be aware that cases may involve ongoing legal proceedings or developments that evolve over time. The hosts are not licensed attorneys, journalists, law enforcement professionals, or forensic experts. Opinions expressed in the podcast reflect the personal views of the hosts and do not represent factual determinations or official findings. All individuals named or discussed are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Any resemblance to real individuals or entities, outside of those explicitly named, is purely coincidental. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by any legal authority, news outlet, or investigative body. By listening to Chillworthy, you acknowledge and accept these terms and agree not to hold the hosts or producers liable for any inaccuracies, misstatements, or interpretations derived from the content.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're listening to Chillworthy.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
A podcast where two best friends discuss mysteries, murders, and
anything in between for your enjoyment.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
So if you're ready to hear some chilling and unsettling cases,
you're in the right place, happy listening. Hello, Hello, everyone,
Welcome back to another episode of Chillworthy with Brent and Talia.
Hi everybody, how you doing today? Very well?

Speaker 3 (00:41):
I'm very well.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Absolutely. I feel like I could just do the show
myself and just fill in the blanks.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Well, you did pretty damn well. Does that make sense
to say pretty damn well? Yeah, impersonating me, so I
think you could probably.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, I just sounded very yeah. Right, okay, just get this.
What do you have to say? You're hello? Hello everyone?
Well here we are. It did a very all right,

(01:19):
So I guess books first? You want to go there?

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Tell me about it?

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Hit me all right, I'm not many, I'm not many.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Sounds good?

Speaker 2 (01:32):
A right? So I finished Rare Birds after we met
last and it was very good. I did give it
four stars, okay, pretty much because of the very end,
I was leaning towards three. Essentially the whole time. There

(01:54):
were some things that I guessed, very heartwarming book. Definitely
sad things. That's the one where the boy and his
mother kind of bop around throughout.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
The Oh yeah, well I assumed it was sad. Yes, right,
that's all we read.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Right. The cast of characters were lovely, nice little character arcs.
It was nice. It was nice. So I do recommend it.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Okay, And what's next, Oh.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
My gosh, I finished. No, I loved that book and
not five.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Gave it four.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
That's fine.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yes, completely different experience than the drum Arc book situation.
And it was so different than the movie, Like it
was way way more different than I expected. Literally right
up until the end. Throughout it was excellent, so excellent.
And I think I had said this to you how
like that I said it on here that my mom

(02:54):
got me the fiftieth anniversary edition. Okay, so it had
a bunch of like notes from the author in it
at the end when he was writing the book as
to like how to come up with the name, like
the title.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
It had pictures it.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Was like just of some of the film. Okay, so amazing.
And then my mom also told me about a documentary
which I've now tried to watch like four times and
I still haven't finished it. It's only like an hour
and a half on Disney plus of like the fiftieth
anniversary of like the making of Jaws and explaining all
of that. And there's a lot of like, you know,

(03:29):
stuff that was in the book too, So it's a
little bit repetitive just because of you know that I
just read it, but amazing, so well done.

Speaker 4 (03:37):
I just I really really really liked it.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
I was very happy.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
I'm happy to hear it. Yeah, truly yes.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
And then lastly I started.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
We Could Be.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Rats Emily R. Austin. Okay, it's not what I was expecting.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
In a good or a bad way.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
It's very good. I'm getting through it very quickly. I'm
like approaching fifty percent. It's written in like a very funny,
sarcastic way, but it's like very heavy with the topic
of suicide, I'll say. And then speaking of that, I
started The Wedding People by Alison s poc s Patch.

(04:27):
I'm thinking it's s poc E spac H. I'm like
a little over thirty percent on that one, and also
deals with those themes. So you know, beware if you
venture not you but are listeners. I feel like you
would not be into either of these books, but enjoying
both of them. Like there are sarcastic tones as like

(04:51):
screwy as this is to say, they're both like funny,
Like they're both written in like a very funny tone
at times. So I think that sort of helped with
like that tone makes the topic a little bit easier
to you know, read, because they're very sad but really
enjoying them. Oh and then I was also going to
start I don't want to do it quite yet, but

(05:16):
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters. I've had that book now,
like as a book book, not on my kindle for
probably like two years, never read it, but it takes
place in July, so it's read in July. You know
what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 (05:28):
Absolutely yeah, so.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Sorry please Speaking of Jaws, do you know what today is?

Speaker 1 (05:38):
I don't know what eight pm?

Speaker 2 (05:40):
What Dark Week starts on Discovery and I am very excited.
I have a little alarm set. Oh and also speaking
of sharks, so I went and did a deep dive,
not literally, I wish figuratively on shark cage swims, Like
what's that look like? Cost time frame? What are we

(06:04):
talking now?

Speaker 1 (06:06):
What probability of survival.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
I didn't look that up, but I was thinking that
this would be like thousands of dollars.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
No.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Granted, when I looked it up, the locations it was
giving me were only in Hawaii, so you of course
would have to factor in getting yourself out to Hawaii
for this, like depending on where you live and the
flight and whatever, stay lodging. But it's one hundred and
fifty dollars. I was thinking that it was, like I said,
in the thousands, like this would no. Granted, what I

(06:35):
was looking at were like group not group rates, but
like you're not just going in yourself, like you're with
a group of like probably like I don't know, five
other people. Ow.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
Yeah, but it's.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Like open on the top.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
They have it like level with the boat absolutely not.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
And you can like go under the water and you
know what, I would hope, But then they also have
so Ocean Ramsey she's this like shark I don't know
if it's like a conservatory that she works for, what
foundation it is, but she's like very big into shark preservation.
She runs free shark dives, no no cage, You're just
you're out there.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Well, it's disgusting.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
I thought you might say that, but oh my god,
I want to do it back.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
You're out there. Well. But and not that this means
anything really, but they're also not great whites. She's what I.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Was going to say, too, exactly like in the pictures now,
in the pictures from her business, her foundation, organization, whatever,
there aren't a ton in the pictures. But in the
shark cage company, I mean we're talking like twelve to
twenty sharks are like flittering around this cage. You can
put your hand out.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
You can touch them.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
They're they're out So yeah, exactly. I mean they're big boys,
but they're not They're certainly.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
Not great whites.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
They're not to that size situation. I didn't see any
hammy heads though, which means, oh, no, I know, so
I don't know about that. You know that's a bummer.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
But no, Yeah, looks like you've got some more research today.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
I guess, right.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Unrelated to all things, I also just wanted to say, so,
Ashley and I were at a wedding last weekend, and
you know those Oh I should probably get them out
to show you. Well, I guess it shouldn't be doing
this right now, but here I go.

Speaker 4 (08:24):
You know those TikTok videos where you see like, oh,
we saw that. If you walk this way and have
someone take your picture, these come whatever.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Oh my god. So we did that and I was
like begging her to do this with me. I thought
they were going to come out so fabulously. And my
hair in these photos is so wild. It's hysterical. And
I mean we got some nice shots. Here's one.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
See my hair, I do.

Speaker 3 (08:58):
I think it's a lovely picture.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Ashley's a little stiff, she's mid gallop.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
We were galloping.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah, I know, I know what it is for sure.
My face, Oh yeah, yes it is.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
And this one I got some. I got some What
do you say air? No?

Speaker 3 (09:17):
What would you say?

Speaker 1 (09:20):
No?

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Look at my hair in that one.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
It's like, what do you call that?

Speaker 1 (09:25):
When I swept?

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah, but my hair, I mean it is like twelve
inches above my head straight.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Well it was a nice time. I enjoyed myself.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
That's all that matters.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
How have you been. How was your weekend? You just
got bick?

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah, fun weekend, you know, exhausting. I was just camping again.
You know, it's exhausting, exhausting hours, very odd hours, when
in romance, well, of course, I mean there are no
odd hours when you're at a campsite. I guess right,
you had whether Oh I.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Sent you a message and you responded to everything. But
this did it rain?

Speaker 3 (10:08):
I'm interested?

Speaker 1 (10:09):
I did rain for a little bit. Yeah, so yeah,
but yeah, nice, nice time overall. But so I haven't
been reading any books at all. But I just want
to make the announcement again because now I did, which
I mean you already know this. But if anyone wants

(10:29):
the fantastic experience of having their oracle cards read by
yours truly Brent of Chilworthy, do that this very own show,
Brent of Chilworthy, please let me know because I started
doing it. It's very fun and I ended up putting

(10:53):
like information up on the the TikTok that I have.
And you know, maybe I can get Ashley to put
the little thing up on our on our things so
that all of you lovely listeners can see it and
you know and and choose from what the experience will be.

(11:13):
Because they're tiered, you know.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
You on here give them your handle.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
I did, but I should probably do it again, mind you,
because I'm so bad at that.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Like giving the correct one or giving it at.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
All knowing what it is, right, it appears to be. Yeah,
this is easy at at Brent Aaron, Yeah, yeah, b
r E N T A A r O n A
N right. So and I mean, if anybody wants to

(11:49):
follow me, please that would be so fantastic because I
have such a small little channel. So anyway, I just
wanted to throw that out there because it's been a
lot of fun. And I ordered a bunch of them
and then they'll be for sale, but they haven't arrived
and they won't be here until September.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Oh wow, I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, that's what they told me. They have been sending
me pictures though they're very nice nice. The manufacturer is
keeping me updated. Yeah, So anyway, that is with that,
And I don't really know if there's anything else. Like
I said, I haven't been reading books, so I suppose though,

(12:30):
we'll go into our what we're happy about. And yeah,
and Tellia actually is this is the first time since
we've been doing this, so she's actually going to do
what my original idea was, which is just to say
a nice thing that's happened in the world, not that
she's grateful for cavities or molars or something.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
And on the cap as an example, because correct, if
we didn't have teeth, we wouldn't know a cavity. We wouldn't, you.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
Know, I mean I do. So it's a nice example.
Do you want to absolutely, do you want to go first?

Speaker 3 (13:09):
So there is this sweet dog.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
This news article came up. Her name is Maggie. She
started her life out in a shelter, like only knows
a shelter.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
And keep in mind, everyone, I'm not doing this out
of like, oh I'm bored. I this kind of stuff
makes me so sad.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Absolutely, So she finally got adopted at age four, so
she spent that much time in a freaking shelter.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
Terrible.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
So a family found her. This was all happening over
in the UK and Manchester and.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
Her first car ride.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Which I find odd vet wise, but I guess what,
let's just go to shelters and like.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
It have vets there the humane society, I.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
Mean right, yeah, good point. So she was super anxious,
not super anxious, but just like head was down in
the car, nervous, like you know, had never been in
a car before, and she, you know, only being four.
She has little white pieces on her a little whiskeys,
but she has her little toy. She's in her little

(14:21):
purple towel, and she got adopted and just is living
her best literally her best life, and she's adapting well
to the home. Just melts my heart.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
Same, what a beautiful story. Four years.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
I can't talk about this anymore.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
I don't want you to know on a slightly nicer
note like she did. I mean, it's a very nice note,
but on a note that doesn't have any sadness involved.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Right.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, I saw a little news article that this was
from July eighteen teenth, and so I guess it's been determined.
So there's this biological station in Peru that has a
bunch of night cameras out to watch the wildlife, and

(15:14):
it's been determined that there are two species of animals
out there that are very odd and unlikely friends. But
they and I don't just mean two animals. I'm saying
two species that have created friendships.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
And we're not just talking like two animals, like we're talking.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
Exactly what I just said, Right, That's why I said,
we're not talking two animals. We're talking this type of
animal has made friends with discs. This type of animal
has made friends with this type of animal in many scenarios,
not just animal A and B, but A through Z.

(15:59):
All right, of that, real quick?

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Do you think they're teaching the alphabet differently? And how
we were taught with element op basically sounding like its
own letter. It's broken up differently.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
You knew that I did make you know that stupid
and I shan't go into it, all right, So anyway,
the point is that they captured video footage of an oslot,
which is like a like a wild cat and a possum.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
They can be freaking cute.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
And they've captured on multiple different videos in multiple different areas,
but all in the same night, which means it couldn't
have been the same two animals. They see them walking
together like not you know, nobody's being chased or anything.
It's like the possum goes first, but like four or
five steps behind is the oslot, and then like five

(16:55):
minutes later they walk back the other way, just like
they're out having a night, nice time, enjoying the weather.
It's in the middle of the night, an evening stroke, right,
And so that's why they were making this distinction that
like there are multiple different relationships of these animals that
have been captured, because it couldn't all be the same
oslot and possum. So I just think that's adorable. And

(17:17):
it says that when they discovered that this wasn't just
like a once off event, they started to record four
separate cameras which which captured this behavior in all different areas.
Because oslots used to or are still known to eat possums.
This is why it's so weird.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
With like this cat rodent little dynamic.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
Right. So, but each of the four events that they
found took place in different regions of the Amazon, so
it was guaranteeing that these two animals that they kept
seeing pop up together were not the same two animals.
So they basically said, even though we still don't know,
like what is happening, they said they could be witnessing
the South American counterpart to a well known partnership that

(18:00):
happens in North America with coyotes and badgers who have
this same weird little relationship happening.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
Coyotes and badgers. I'm going to do a deep dive
on that later. So, Shami, do you have pictures of
this little coyotes?

Speaker 1 (18:17):
No, it's a yeah, it's a grainy picture, but their
surveillance you see them just be bopping around.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
Oh I see both of them. Yeah yeah yeah. Which
from that little quick picture, you know, snip shut in time,
I would think that the cat is going after the road, right,
like stalking it, right, but obviously not if they're gancing
together right.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
So well, that's beautiful. I believe so too. They just
think their hypothesis about this is that the ocelot gains
something from following the possum around, because the possum is
like like a scavenger and like always like you know,
like foraging and stuff, and so like they think that

(19:00):
there's something about that the ocelot gains an advantage by
just kind of like following him and letting letting him
do his thing, and then he gets like whatever, maybe
he leaves behind like so he doesn't have to do
a lot of the work, like the possum is kind
of doing the work, and then he's not killing the
possum because he's like, hey, respectful, right, Shami the dB

(19:22):
Cooper of the animal world, very respectful, trying to hurt anyone.
So anyway, I just thought that that.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Was cute I agree, nice one.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Okay, we're twenty minutes in Nice. I don't know if
that's the word, but I think it is. So it's
my turn today and I'm gonna, you know, start the case, right, okay.
So the case that I want to talk about today,
it is a true crime case and it's called the

(19:55):
hinter Chaifec case. And this was a group of murders
that happened in Bavaria, Germany in nineteen twenty two.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Got it.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
I'm not going to be able to pronounce the names.
That's fine, your best, so I apologize in advance.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
Don't be sorry, Well I will fine.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
Now, this farm got that name because it was literally
behind the tiny village of Kaifek. So they called it
hinter kai Tek, which I believe i'm surmising means behind Kiek.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
Which also makes sense. Your Heinie is behind you.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
I guess Heine and slip passed.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
You behind, you know, Heini, hinter whatever.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yeah, yeah, So all right, This little town's village, I guess,
is about seventy kilometers north of Munich, So, and it's
tucked near a very dense forest, which sounds a very
cozy and quaint so and I'm sorry, what times, what

(21:12):
time of year or is this all.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
Over because it's multiple murders.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
You said, no, it's the same, it's the same. It's yeah, sorry,
it's the same timeframe. I think it's April.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
Ah.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
Okay. So the people who lived there, right, their name
was not hinter Kaifek. They were a family. They they
were the Gruber family. Much easier to say, right. So
there was the patriarch of the family, Andrea Scruber. I
can say that his wife, on the other hand, Cazilla

(21:51):
sounds pretty. C a z I l i a Kaziliakazelia.
That's pretty, it's pretty. I don't know if that's true.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
When you first said it, it made me think of kazoo,
but not the spelling kazam.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
Then they had a daughter. She was a widow. Her
name was Victoria.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
Oh, so this is an older couple.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
Yes, he was. This is fascinating. Actually he was sixty
three and his wife was seventy two. Oh. Their daughter,
Victoria with a K, was thirty five and Victoria then
she had two younger children, seven year old Cazilia, named

(22:33):
after the grandmother, and a two year old Joseph. So
I can say that right. Yeah. So by early nineteen
twenty two, they had also hired a maid whose name
is Maria. Easy yeah, easy, peasy right. She was forty four.

(22:55):
So she arrives at the farm very very late March
nineteen twenty eight, so March thirty first. But fascinatingly, Maria
had no idea that it would be her first day
and her last day on that job.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
Poor Maria.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
So here is what happened, shaw me. So over that
weekend the in you know, the beginning of April, something
very terrible occurred. So the neighbors they hadn't seen the
groubers in days. The young daughter she missed school, the

(23:35):
family skipped church on Sunday, which was very very unlike them.
And I feel, especially for the time, like that wasn't
something that really happened, right, very unheard of. So on
April fourth, so four days from after the maids started,
the neighbor started to get concerned. So they were led

(23:56):
by a man named Lorenzo something I can't even say
it Schlittenbauer. I think that sounds great. So they went
to check on the people at this farm. So what
they discovered though would haunt them for life. So in

(24:17):
the barn. This is what they discovered. They discovered four
brutally battered bodies, and they were hidden under piles of hay,
which we all know how I feel about, Hey, right,
but not and you know, hay season is coming up
maybe and I've got hay fever. That's when maybe I
should call like looking forward to fall, like, hey, I

(24:37):
feel hay fever coming on.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
And I like that. It's like a unique meaning that
you would have, you know what I mean, like not
legit hay fever.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
I gotcha, right, right a toun right, Okay. So anyway,
the people who were found under these piles of hay
were Andreas, his wife, their daughter, and and their granddaughter.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
Okay, so where's wait and the granddaughter?

Speaker 3 (25:07):
You said, so little Joey.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Is not No, he's not in the barn. Then inside
the farmhouse they find two more corpses, Maria and little
Joseph Damn, who were apparently both murdered in their beds.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Oh so maybe the others tried to get away from
whatever this was. I don't know why were they in
the barn?

Speaker 3 (25:32):
Were they were?

Speaker 2 (25:33):
They like bound in the barn like under the hay
were what?

Speaker 1 (25:39):
We'll get there okay, okay, okay, okay, all right. So
it quickly became apparent that all of these six victims
had been slaughtered with a something called a maddoc, which
is a pick axe like tool. God, so like a
farming equipment something like that. I mean, I'm not a farmer,
but so they were essentially bludgeoned to death, like with

(26:00):
blows to the head.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
I'm imagining that scene in the original Twister when it's
at the end and they go into that barn and
they're like, oh.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
Who are these people?

Speaker 2 (26:09):
That's what Helen Hunks says, because of all the things
hanging up, I was the farming equipment.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
I was thinking about the uh the story that Jay
and Kai told us about those other peopleshment you know, bludgeoned,
bludget yes, good. And then and then what's it called
that the neighborhood took a tour through the house. Ridiculous? Ridiculous. Yeah,

(26:35):
So the details are obviously pretty gruesome, bright because it's
their skulls were smashed. Their faces had quite a lot
of blood on them, so very like horrific stuff. And kids, yes,
and kids. So in fact, the autopsy later revealed that
the youngest daughter, She sadly did not die right away way,

(27:01):
and she actually survived. Now how they know?

Speaker 3 (27:03):
This what I was.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
Gonna say, especially back in the freaking twenties.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
She survived for several hours in shock, and she was
pulling out tufts of her own hair as she lay
there injured next to her dead family members. So this
is I guess that's how they actually knew. But it's
very sad, yeah, and just not even sad, like just sick.

(27:30):
So all the bodies in the barn had been hastily
covered with hay, like I said, and the ones inside
they were covered with clothes and bedding, which gives that
appearance again of like are you regretting something? Is this
some type of like you're trying to give some type
of weird comfort.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
True in distance, because you can't bear to look at what.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
You did something right, So you know, it was like,
I don't know, could the killer just not look at them,
like you said, or maybe trying to hide it, but
like I mean, I don't know. Yeah, so now strange
but sort of nice. Actually, no, it is nice is
that the family's dog and all their animals were all

(28:12):
left unharmed. So and weird, almost Chilworthy. They'd actually been
fed and cared for for several days after the murders happened,
and four people right before people discovered what had happened.
So basically what what I'm saying here is that the
killer stayed on the farm with six corpses for like

(28:36):
a few days, and he did farm chores and hung
out like as if nothing happened.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
Also interesting, nobody saw him like no one saw.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
Well they weren't in a neighborhood.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Though, well right, but I would well true it was.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
I'm saying like they only they only came looking for
them because they didn't show up to school and church through.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Good call, good call, but still want to chance to
take by sticking around. I mean also, I was gonna say,
the fact that they care for the animals makes me
think it was someone who I don't know, either a
sociopath or someone who knew these animals. But then you
freaking had no problem killing the game.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
I don't. I think it's the first. I don't think
he's gonna say, oh, Bessie, I can't.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
But also I think even more interesting that the dog
survived because I always think in those situations, like if
someone is murdering someone or no less like an entire
house full of people, the cow is not gonna come,
or the goat trying to like defend these people ward
off the killer a dog would. So I feel like

(29:40):
when you hear about this all the time, situations that
I don't think Marmalade's coming to my defense. You don't
know that she may not be terribly effective because of
her size and that she's not an aggressive dog.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
But all right, well, I think you're giving her a
lot of credit. I think she's gonna say, what are
we doing? When we're doing? What's going on?

Speaker 2 (29:57):
Here?

Speaker 3 (29:59):
Are you here to play with?

Speaker 2 (30:01):
But like, I just always think when a dog dies
in a situation like that, it makes me wonder if
like the person didn't necessarily intend on killing the dog,
but because the dog tried to come to the owner's
defence and intervene.

Speaker 3 (30:15):
The dog ended up getting killed.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
So which then makes me wonder in.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
This case, like it's an assumption did.

Speaker 3 (30:21):
The dog know the person?

Speaker 2 (30:24):
A lot of questions.

Speaker 3 (30:25):
I know, I know, I'm very into this topic.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
I'm curious now the story is a little more unsettling
than just that, and this is more unsettling exactly.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
It's really unsettling.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
So what could you mean?

Speaker 1 (30:42):
So in the days leading up to these murders a
parent excuse me, Apparently the Gruber family had noticed some
bizarre occurrences happening.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
I don't want to hear it.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
So I just got the chills. Chillworthy. The father slash
grandfather in the story, he told the neighbors that he
had found a mysterious newspaper at the farm that no
one in the family had bought or subscribed to. Just

(31:21):
showed up there. Okay, you're already unimpressed. We'll give it
a second.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
Well, now wait up, and like someone got interrupted reading
it or rolled up like they purchased it, didn't undo it,
have it sitting there.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
I'm pretty sure the first, which is why he thought
it was odd, right creepier. Yet, he discovered footprints in
the fresh snow outside leading from the nearby woods straight
up to the farmhouse. But strangely, there were no footprints

(31:54):
ever going back out into the forest closing. Now that
is chilworthy. I was getting the always always thought footprints,
especially in the snow, something about that is creepy to me.
Not like you know, I'm not saying like the backyard
next to a snowman. I'm talking about like like you're

(32:16):
in a cabin, you know, and you wake up in
the morning, you look outside and like footprints from that
have come out of the forest, maybe like to the window.
So it's like, you know, you're seeing like this almost
a snapshot of something that happened, very unsettling.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
On you through the window.

Speaker 1 (32:34):
Right exactly. Highly recommend Stolen Tongues everyone. I mean, you
said you'd never read it.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
But that's that one about things that happen in the woods.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
Right, the voices, the knocking. Fantastic book. Anyway, So he
sees this, they never go back, like the footprints never
leave the house basically, so around the same time, the
family starts hearing strange noises and the attic at night.
But the grandfather did go up and he never found

(33:05):
anybody up there. So good for him for being brave,
extremely brave. Now, they did have a previous maid, and
she had quit a few months prior to that because
she was convinced that the place was haunted by these
attic noises. Now what's interesting I feel about that is
these these people must have been fairly well off if
they were having a maid. Good point. You don't necessarily

(33:26):
think of farmers having maids, I mean a milkmaid. I suppose.
Also the dog, What about the dog?

Speaker 2 (33:37):
What no mention of the dog wanting.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
To like a handler or anything.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
Sounds he didn't.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
Say anything to anybody that dog. All right? Now, to
make things stranger, yet one of the house keys went
missing missing, Yes, I don't like any shortly before this
attack happened, and the door, like the door lock on
the property, had been tampered with. So all of these

(34:08):
very odd clues footsteps, noises, missing keys suggest, I'd say
more than suggest, somebody was living in that freaking house,
probably the attic.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
And it sounds like it was a property large enough
where like when the grandfather went looking, for instance, couldn't
find anyone like this person's meandering all about getting the
lay of the land great well.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
And I would assume, especially like in that from that time,
I'm sure they had those really big I've always liked
being inside a barn, you know the hay, of course,
the smell of that hay, but not just that, but
like the loft, which oddos were they keep the hay
and you know all that stuff. I feel like back

(34:50):
then they probably had those huge, massive barns where people
could yes, scurry about and you know, okay, so you're
in the attic now, but you could get over to
that barn pretty quick.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
Absolutely, And like you said too, with the size of
the property, nobody else around, you know, like.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
Their neighbors were not say again.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
Their neighbors couldn't even have eyes on them. Oh yes,
so someone could like shoot out if the rest of
the family was inside and not worry about anyone seeing, right,
I am.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
Oh yeah, So, and we don't know how how often
the snow was happening that, like, maybe there there was
fresh snow that he saw these footprints, but otherwise maybe
that wasn't happening. I don't know, but.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
Yeah, in April, I mean, I don't know what the
weather's like in Germany and April, but if that was
like a fluke sort of snowstorm, or was it fleeting
by that point or sleeting?

Speaker 1 (35:44):
Was it fleeting or sleeping right anyway, So I'm just
saying I think it's pretty evident that somebody was most
likely living there. Agreed, The crime itself likely unfolded like this,
So it would have been the night of March thirty first,

(36:04):
which was the day that Maria started as the new
made It was a Friday. I don't know if it
was a Friday the thirteenth, No, it wasn't. It was
a Friday the thirty first backwards, So so we can
piece this together sort of like this. What investigators think
is that they believe that the killer or the killers

(36:28):
somehow lured the four adults one by one out to
the barn that evening. So perhaps one of them heard
a noise in the barn and went to check on
the animals. Then the next followed because the first one
wasn't coming back. I think after two people disappear, I'd say,
let's not go by ourselves. But whatever, right, and so

(36:49):
on and so on. Okay, fine. In the darkness, they
are thinking that each family member was basically ambushed and
bludgeoned and then covered up with hay and waited for
the next to happen. So then you got something to say.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
I was just gonna say. I think then it's like
no coincidence with that theory that Maria would have stayed
in with little Joey, like he's the youngest, she's the maid.
I assume a maid at that time helped care for
the children, you know what I mean, like a Mary Poppins.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
As kind of thing. And I don't know if it
was different.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
Eras right, fine, but I feel like that would make
sense why they remained inside the house no less like
still in bed, right But still I guess now that
I'm saying this odd that the granddaughter.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
I do think that too, but yeah, but maybe she
was just old or one of them took maybe one
of them brought her with true so but anyway, so
then afterward that, after that happened in the barn, the
killer most likely went into the house and then killed
two year old Joseph as he was in his crib

(37:56):
and murdered Maria.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
Which WHI also if there was basically like intel going
on in the weeks leading up to this or what
was it months, days, whatever, andreas.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
A few weeks weeks, I think.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
Like this person also was getting the lay of the
land in terms of who all are we deal? Well, no,
I guess not because the maid just started.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
That yay, so well the only one prize.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
Right, but knew obviously that there was a kid missing,
so maybe went in to look for this last kid
and then found her.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
Who knows, right, So that obviously, like I said, it's
it's it's a horrible situation that has happened. And then
the creepier aspect is that than the murderer slash murderers
make themselves at home and they eat the family's food.
They they kept the fire going in the hearth, and

(38:45):
they even milked the cows and they fed the live
stock over the next few days. Like I said, while
there's just these bodies. So I don't know, because neighbors
did report seeing smoke coming from the chimney at times
after the family was already dead, but of course no
one knew that, which.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
Probably took it as a good sign, like, oh there's
activity over there.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I was gonna say, well, I
don't know if it was a good sign. It was
just normal. But yeah, I know you're saying. So. Now,
there was a passerby on April first, and he did
notice something was a little off. This was a man
he was walking by late at night and he saw
that the oven in the Gruber's home was lit and

(39:29):
emitting a foul smelling smoke.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
First of all, why is the other late at night?
Second of all, how the hell did he see that
as he's walking by?

Speaker 3 (39:39):
How would you have seen that?

Speaker 1 (39:40):
I don't think he's the one on trial here too.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
Well, we don't know who he is.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
Maybe he should be fine. Then this man says that
he saw a stranger on the property walk over to
him with a lantern, so he said it kind of
made him hard to see because it was dark, and
then he's holding a bright lantern in his face, and

(40:05):
the witness, this witness man got kind of spooped, and
he kept on his way because he didn't know who
this guy was and why he was getting so close.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
So they didn't even speak.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
I don't think so. No, Now, that's very similar to
the way you peeled out of that's free you know.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
So when someone is blaring a flashlight in my face
as I'm trying to drive a car, you're.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
Correct, Well, but while you're trying to park a car, sure, and.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
Also trying to get into the car with us correct.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah, that didn't happen right anyway. Yeah, So that witness leads.
But the next day nobody realized anything was wrong yet
the farm just seemed unnaturally quiet. When the family didn't
show up to Sunday worship on April second, and then
male started piling up. People started to get suspicious by

(40:57):
April fourth. Like I said, they make this some discovery.
So when the investigators get there, right, this is a
scene out of a nightmare, now, believe it or not.
The handling of this crime was not great.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
Well, we never hear that.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
So the word of murders spread very fast, and before
long the farm was overrun by curious neighbors, just like
that other story. Absolutely and townsfolk people were trampling around

(41:40):
everywhere in this morbid fascination. Even some some of these
people even moved the bodies and messed around with the evidence.
This is so much like that other story.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
It is.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
One account claims that a nosy visitor literally started cooking
dinner for themselves in their kitchen while the police were
trying to investigate, Like, what the f is going on?
Pardon me, I'll throw another one on, Johnny.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
It's the strangest thing's.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
It really is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous, But anyway it does
it It just sounds so unbelievable. But anyway, so if
you can believe it, this chaos contaminated the scene a
little bit and made the tape. The taste made the
case even tougher. So the autopsies they were conducted on

(42:40):
site that day. And you know, after the bodies were found,
the skulls of the victims were sent to Munich for analysis,
and investigators hoped that maybe a psychic, yes could glean
something from them, meaning the skulls, which I'll talk about
a little bit. The skulls, sadly though, did not speak

(43:05):
to the psyche gick, and they were later lost during
World War two. Now that's accept We've heard a lot
worse than that. It was lost on the drive over,
that's what we normally hear.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
It was lost in the evidence locker.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
World War two, all right, so but this is sad.
The families then remains had to be buried without their heads.
Oh so like wow, you know, but now forensic science
was like not even I mean, not a thing. So
the police had to rely on just detective work and

(43:47):
whatever clues that the killer left behind. Not to mention
the thirty eight different people who came in to have
the hot dogs.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
Their sausages real quick. And I'm so ashamed of myself
that I didn't think to ask this, where is Victoria's
husband slash father.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
She's widowed. Yes, you did say that, you did say that.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Okay, so but don't.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
You be ashamed of yourself? Don't you dare be ashamed
of yourself? All right, So what clues they did have?
So they actually said that robbery was ruled out as
a motive because despite the brutality of the scene, there

(44:29):
was still a large amount of cash and valuables in
the house that were untouched.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
Yeah, they only took their food.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
Yeah. Well, and I'm just saying, like that seems very
violent for just a robbery.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
Agreed.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
And they also were in no hurry to get the
hell away, like they were just.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
Well right and out there. I don't think a two
year old was going to stop you from rob in
the place, Like you didn't have to do what you did.
So anyway, agreed, So they're thinking, Okay, this is not
just some random person looking for money. Whoever did this
seem to have a darker, more personal motive. There was
also no sign of fourth century but like I said,

(45:07):
the key was missing, oh yeah yeah, and the doors
were sort of like the locks yeah oh sorry, yeah, yeah,
So it's possible that the killer did have a key,
or potentially maybe he was just let in by one
of the family members. Maybe he needed help, they would say,
or something. I mean, who knows.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
Everybody's alive to tell any sort of story.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
Right, good call, you know. But he also could have
been hiding there the whole time, like or both. To
be honest, there could be a lot of different facets
to this hiding in there. But then he wants to
like up the ante and then he comes in the
front door because he needs help or something. Who knows.
So of course, the investigators also took notice to the
fact that this person who killed the family was very

(45:53):
comfortable with farm life because he took care of all
the animals. He milked the cows like he knew his
way around a farm and what he was doing. So
all of this pointed to the to the perpetrator possibly
being somebody from the grouverers like circle, like somebody that
they knew, or at least somebody who had been watching

(46:15):
them pretty damn closely. So this this has been a
case that's like haunted investigators and like the amateur sluice
for over a century at this point. So who could
have done it? Let's say, so the first earliest suspect
was actually Lorenz Schlittenbauer, the guy who yes, wow, the

(46:41):
very neighbor who led the surge party.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
Didn't I say something like that when this started, like
I suspected him, didn't I say that?

Speaker 1 (46:47):
No, you were talking about the random man who was
blinded by yeah, yeah, by the light.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
Well maybe yeah. So he had a personal connection to
the Groobers. He was a widow who had been romantically
involved with Victoria.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
He was a fling a past well, I guess I
don't know past.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
Well, Victoria's husband, as I said, he died in World
War One. So in fact, it was public knowledge that
Lorenz and Victoria had had a relationship. They even referred
to little Joseph as their child, and Lorenz at one
point paid alimony for him. So they did talk about

(47:34):
getting married. But andreas you know, the grandfather, reportedly interfered
in that in that relationship, and it fell apart. So
Lorenz did end up going on to marry somebody else,
and then tragically his new wife bore him a child
that then died in infancy. So if you think about it,

(47:55):
like this is nineteen twenty two, he's dealing with the
personal grief of his child just dying, and then rumor
has it that Victoria is pressuring him for child support
for little Joseph, even though he's not even with Victoria anymore,
because the father doesn't, I'm assuming like him, because why
else would he not let them get married. So one

(48:16):
theory is that the that the police had was that Lorenz,
unwilling to pay child support and perhaps upset over losing
his own baby, just kind of like snapped that he
came to the farm, he killed Victoria, he killed her
family in rage, and it was like a crime of
passion basically.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
People did also say that they found his behavior right
after the discovery a little bit suspicious because when they all,
like when he and the other neighbors arrived at the
farm on April fourth, all the doors were locked and
so they had to break into the barn to access
the bodies. Yet moments later, he somehow unlocked the front
door of the house with a key.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
I mean, wouldn't it be slightly normal for him to
maybe have a key?

Speaker 1 (49:02):
Though, all of a sudden, you're giving everybody the benefit
of the doubt. The man just walking past the place
is a shady son of a fish. But the guy
who has the key, that's reasonable.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
Kid's there, he's the ex of Victoria. He's still floating
around them the family circle.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
All right, well, fine, fine.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
I don't know. I mean, I clearly don't know, but
I just feel like it's not entirely also too, what
if he just never gave his key back and they
sort of it.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
All right, don't I don't think he ever lived there
to have a key in the first place. Whatever, Yeah, fine, yeah, fine, Okay,
So he also seemed unusually calm for viewing such a
grizzly scene. Now I can't necessarily hold that against him

(50:00):
if people are also making mac and cheese in the
kitchen during all this, so like that to me. I
don't know, because there were a lot of people acting
pretty casual.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
But it is his kid, and is.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
Except it really wasn't his kid, right, I thought it was.
I think they said that that Victoria was. They were
referring to Joseph as his kid, but I thought that
just meant maybe because he was such a little boy,
like a baby baby when they got together, right, yes, yes, okay,
I mean he was only two, so right, good call,

(50:33):
because if I don't I feel like it, like I
feel like this research would have said their kid, not
referring to him as their kid, because that wouldn't make
any sense.

Speaker 3 (50:44):
Well, the child support through me though, because I thought, how.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
Cup I agree, But you know what Germans are doing
in the nineteen twenties. I'm just saying, you know what
they were doing. Well, I'm just saying on this farm,
we don't know. Fine anyway, Fine, According to the witnesses,
he handled the corpses without much sign of disgust or emotion.
Later on, he made an offend comment about how the

(51:10):
bodies had been stacked, and even noted that the ground
in the barn was frozen solid, which might have prevented
the murderer from burying the bodies properly. That particular comment
struck people as odd because how would he know the
killer even attempted to bury the bodies in the first place,
or that the killer had trouble digging in the frozen ground. Now,

(51:34):
Lorenz always maintained he was just hypothesizing what happened, and
because he himself was a local farmer, but you know,
he would then know how to milk a cow, just
so everybody knows.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
And the sures.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
He also was asked about like, well, why aren't you
freaked out here? And he said he explained his lack
of horror as simply shock because his wartime experience numbed
him to gore. So fair is fair. So no concrete

(52:13):
evidence was ever really tied to him to the crime,
just you know a lot of like what's going on
here kind of feelings. So he endured years of villagers
suspicions and even basically he sued some of the villagers
for saying that he had something to do with it

(52:33):
and calling him a murderer. So this guy ends up
dying in nineteen forty one. Wow, So he was never
officially cleared, but he was never convicted of anything either,
So to this day some people still wonder if he
was the one that did this. So another theory pointed
to a different person, Carl Gabriel or, as Rick would say,

(52:58):
Coral from The Walking Dead. So Victoria's husband and the
father of her kids. Yeah, Carl was reported to have
been killed in World War One in nineteen fourteen, but
his body was never recovered, which is important because after

(53:19):
the murders, townfolks started saying or asking that what if
Carl never really died in that war, and what if
he came back, because the idea was that Carl could
have returned from war discovered the disgraceful situation at home,
like basically that your wife was now having an affair

(53:41):
with a neighbor man and referring to like a child
that's his quote unquote, and just was an avengeful fury
and wiped out the whole family. Now that sounds like
a tall tale.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
I agree, Like why did everyone not everyone? But like
that's such an odd thing to me for people to
jump to, Like what if he didn't really die in
the war, Like was that a common thing or there
were these.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
Well I don't know how. I don't know how easy
it was to keep track of people back then in
terms of like accuracy, right, I don't know. Yeah. The police, though,
did try their best to track down evidence of Carl's fate,
and fellow soldiers that they were talking to from his
unit did testify that Carl Gabriel was indeed killed in

(54:30):
nineteen fourteen by a shell explosion. So multiple people said
that they actually saw his dead body, So we're thinking
he's out well, And also when you.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
Think of the year that he died. That's a long
time to stay away, you would think anyone who like
escaped debt, like unless I suppose he wanted.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
To start over, certainly.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
Like otherwise, why stay away there? You know that you
have these kids and wife. You would think that you'd
want to get back.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
But yeah, okay, So now another theory. So Andreas the grandfather,
he had a bit of a reputation in town, and

(55:20):
not a very good one. Some of a gun.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
I imagine this little cutie pie, I don't think so okay.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
So it was widely known, apparently that Andreas had an
incestuous relationship with his daughter.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
Stop Victoria, that's the.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Only daughter he's got. Well technically, or he could have two.
I guess. Oh.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
I didn't get that at first, I thought, where are
you going with this? Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 1 (55:50):
They they even they had even been legally convicted of
this in nineteen fifteen.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
Incest.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
Yeah, so apparently both he and Victoria served short prison
terms back then for this unorthodox relationship, shall we say,
Many in the community believed that little Joseph was actually
the grandfather's oh boy child, So take that as you will.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
But now wait a minute. If he did it though
he's one.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
Of the deceased, You got that right.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
So what he bludgeoned himself to death?

Speaker 1 (56:36):
I doubt that. Right now, some people are saying that
either Andreas or Victoria finally snapped under just the shame
or the tension of what was going on, and people
were wondering did Victoria kill her abusive father and then

(56:58):
the rest of the family and then herself, because again
it seemed like somebody was whoever killed those people were
very sort of like regretful.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
I guess, oh with the different things afterward, Yes, yes, yes,
good call?

Speaker 1 (57:14):
Or did on? Basically did Andreas do all of that
and then end up killing himself? But I think I
don't think either of those because no, I just don't
think you're gonna you're gonna kill if it was either,
even if it was one of those two, that means
they had to lure somebody out to the barn, all
the other the other three people out to the barn,

(57:37):
kill them, go inside to murder the maid and the
little baby, then go back out to the barn because
that's where both of them were found under hay. Don't
forget who the hell put them under the hay you know.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
Madam, I go back to the bludgeoning, like that's they're
not going to the likelihood of someone killing themselves with
farming equipment.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
Right, I think that's another one of those like stretched right,
like a tall tale. Yeah, you know, so so and
after they did like look into it more, they were like,
none of these what's it called, none of these injuries
look self inflicted, so they basically rule that out also,
so then they were still like, you know, even though

(58:21):
we don't think one of them was the killer, the
fact that there was this incest angle was important because
they thought that it could have provided a motive for
outsiders to want to do it. More so, like if
if an enraged relative or a scorned lover, like the

(58:45):
neighbor knew what was going on and they thought it
was sinful and like whatever, they just they felt it
was completely wrong. They were like, you know, that might
have inspired somebody to go in and kind of like
put an end to everything going on there in a
pretty you know, drastic way, but you know end. The

(59:10):
community seemed to be very religious, because that's how they
noticed in the beginning that these people weren't even there
because they weren't right so so anyway, obviously that family
had some some internal drama happening turmoil, those poor kids.
So now, over the years there there have been many

(59:32):
other suspects and theories that have bubbled up. So the
police and later researchers considered everyone from like opportunistic robbers,
which of course no, because they didn't take anything to
I read that it's too crazed loaners. But I read
this as crazed loonies. I guess either would and would count,

(59:55):
but crazed loaners. So I have a couple of notable
ones that came up up. First off, the brothers Gump.
In nineteen fifty one, decades after the crime, an elderly
woman named Cresentia Mayor m A Y E R. Yeah,

(01:00:17):
like the hot dog people. Oh Meyer, I guess actually yeah, Meyer,
not Mayor. She made a dramatic deathbed statement accusing her
two brothers, Adolph and Anton Gump, of committing these murders.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
I always liked the name Anton.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
All right, just so you know, I do, thank you, and.

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
I'm sorry she that's all right. She was related to.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
Them, her brothers, these two men were her. Yes, I
don't know how to say that anymore clearly.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Apparently she wasn't a Gump, so it confused me.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
Go ahead. Apparently Adolph had been a soldier and was
implicated in other violent acts during that time, and the
theory was that the brothers had some type of connection
to the Grubers, or maybe somebody hired them to kill
the Grubers. So police did arrest one of the Gump brothers, Anton,

(01:01:23):
based on this tip, but they couldn't find any solid evidence,
so Anton was released and the case against him was
dropped in nineteen fifty four. It ended up as another
dead end and an unverified claim basically from the deathbed
of a dying woman. So if they actually didn't do it,

(01:01:44):
who knows what they did to piss that lady off.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
Agreed, So quite a thing, and like, I don't know,
she really threw them under a bus, possibly not even
a deserved bus.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Well possibly right exactly. We're trying not to judge here
because we have not idea. Yes, So then there was
another thing where there was a theory that one of
the Gruber's previous maids, the one before Maria, who thought
the house was haunted. So she says she thought that

(01:02:21):
two other local brothers two or three Anton, another Anton
and Carl Coral Bickler might be involved. So Anton Bickler
had worked on the farm and he knew the family.
He even remarked in the past that the family ought

(01:02:41):
to be dead.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
Because of the incest.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
It's quite a weird thing to say. And he and
it was also noted that their dog never barked at
him like he does strangers.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
So so the dog did not react potentially.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
Right, So that was suggesting like, could he have been
snooping around and the dog was like, hey.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Good to see you, Hey, nothing to see here, nakis.

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
So she just this made had suspected that the brothers,
those two brothers and potentially another man George Siegel, who
might have helped to like plot this revenge, you know,
might have might have been involved in that. But again,

(01:03:42):
as intriguing as those little tidbits are, nothing concrete ever
comes up about these people.

Speaker 3 (01:03:48):
So another family is right there.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
Now, there's a one more recent hypothesis that really, I
don't know, it sparks a lot of people's imaginations here
in twenty seventeen. In twenty seventeen, a true crime author
Bill James suggested a connection between what happened here on
this farm, and a series of family murders in the

(01:04:12):
United States. He pointed out that similarities to the cases
like the Velliska axe murders my Side nineteen twelve in
Iowa and several other unsolved family massacres in early twentieth
century America, like that they all had these things in common.

(01:04:35):
That these crimes involved an entire family bludgeoned to death
at night with a blunt edge of a farm tool
or axe. I have the chills to worthy, their bodies
were stacked or posed, and the killer potentially lived in
the house for a short period of time.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
Gross.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
So all of these things were very similar to what
happened on this farm, which I had said.

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
You did.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Hijane and Kai.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
You're saying hi to the bill, James, Hi James. Now.
So James theorized that a German immigrant named Paul Mueller
or Miller was the prime suspect in eighteen ninety in
the eighteen ninety eight murder of the Massachusetts family. That

(01:05:26):
he might have been like this roaming serial killer. Oh,
and he fled the United States when things got hot
for him. He went to Europe, and he just continued
on there doing what he does him. So that's that's
crazy though, a psychopath that's popping continents, you know. Yeah,

(01:05:48):
so and for that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
Time, you know, in terms of travel.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
Okay, sure, yeah, that's fine.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
Ease of travel.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
Maybe I should have said, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
So finally, there were a few random confessions, as we
usually have. Nothing ever panned out right, But for instance,
in nineteen twenty seven, a stranger allegedly stopped a mand
on a road at midnight, asked him about these murders,
and then he suddenly blurted out that he was the killer,

(01:06:26):
before darting off into the woods on foot. Yeah, that's
the weirdest part of that story to you, that he
ran away on foot. I think you're missing the bigger
picture here. So you know, that's a weird thing to
say to somebody. But they chalked it up to a

(01:06:46):
deranged drunk.

Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
Oh come on.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
So at the end of the day, with all these
suspects and these theories, the case does sadly remain unsolved. Wow.
The police officially closed the file in nineteen fifty five
after years of frustration and no conclusive evidence. So, I mean,
people are still super fascinated by it. The case has
been reopened or re examined many times over the decades

(01:07:13):
by detectives, authors, paranormal investigators. What did they have to say? So,
in one bizarre effort shortly after the murders, the authorities
actually decapitated the victims bodies and sent their skulls to Munich.
And they did this because, as I said, way way

(01:07:34):
back in the beginning, they wanted them to be examined
by psychics for psychic clues.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Yes, yes, I forgot that far.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
So this was basically at a time where law enforcement
was willing to try anything, including mystical methods, to crack
the case. But the psychics got nothing useful, and they
said that their skulls were quote unquote silent.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
Wow, that's chilling and moats around castles. Might I say,
how progressive and forward thinking for that time period that
they even put potential stock into what psychic's thought, or
like what they hypothesized, you know, very liberal, I think.

Speaker 1 (01:08:21):
Now, in two thousand and seven, a group of German
Police Academy students took on this case as a cold
case study and they used modern investigative techniques, so they
combed through the evidence that did survive, they applied criminal profiling,
but in the end they came up with a theory
and even identified who they believe it was. But this like,

(01:08:43):
they had a prime suspect, but they didn't publicly name
the suspect one out of respect for the living relatives
of the people involved and the fact that you can't
prosecute a case that old. So basically they think they
know who it was, but they ain't saying.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
They never released a name. No.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
Wow, Now people were reading between the lines and they
think it still was that neighbor. But you know, officially
it remains a mystery.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
How unsettling.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
So I mean, that's that's pretty much it. It's a
very sad though thing with those all the family members,
all the kids. I mean, who ended.

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
Up getting custody of the dog.

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
I'm just as No, you don't even know the dog's
name in this one.

Speaker 3 (01:09:42):
Well that's depressing.

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):
So who took the pig? Who took the cow? I
thought of that too, but you don't give a damn.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
I not that I don't give a damn. I'm just
generally more focused on the dogs.

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
Well I can't say fine, so.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
Well, good job, Yeah, very depressing. Yeah, very very sad one,
but very fascinating.

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
Quite mystery. I wonder what, like if the farm is
still standing, if it's supposed to be haunted now, like
if there's any type of you know, like weirdo's going there,
or if somebody just lives there.

Speaker 2 (01:10:26):
You know, true, because I mean, the show must go on.

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
I mean, that's what happened at the Veliska house. They're
still they're still doing tours, right, So I don't know,
it has to be haunted. It has to be, I gotcha. Yeah,
But okay, Well, closing anythings.

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
Now, just rest in peace to the group of family.

Speaker 1 (01:10:55):
Very well put.

Speaker 2 (01:10:56):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
So everyone on that note, thank you so much for
joining us. Yeah for another episode of Chillworthy, and we
hope you tune in again, but until then, stay safe

(01:11:19):
and stayed chill.

Speaker 2 (01:11:22):
Bye, everybody, goodbye, you've just listened to Chilworthy.

Speaker 1 (01:11:32):
Thank you for joining us on this latest episode. While
we strive to keep our discussions engaging and lighthearted, we
also wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the real
lives and events that are at the heart of these stories.

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):
We try to approach each topic with a sense of curiosity,
and respect fully. Aware of the impact these events have
had on the individuals and their loved ones, our goal
is to honor their memories by keeping their stories alive
and shedding light on the mysteries that surround them.

Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe, rate,
and leave a review, and don't forget to join us
on the next episode of Chilworthy.