June 9, 2025 • 53 mins
In The Crease (ITC) is where history, mystery, and the human condition collide. Hosted by J E DOUBLE F, each episode blends storytelling, analysis, and dark humor to explore the strange, the forgotten, and the unsettlingly relevant.
🎧 New episodes release bi-weekly.
📅 Current Season: ITC Season 4 (Episodes 61–80).
🎧 New episodes release bi-weekly.
📅 Current Season: ITC Season 4 (Episodes 61–80).
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
The streshold commands step through passive, impressive future. We are
not time.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
To think the time think, so.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Decrease.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Warning what you are about to hear tonight contains disturbing material.
This episode is based on true events that took place
in nineteen twenty two and includes descriptions of extreme violence,
including the harming and death of children. Listener discretion is
strongly advised. Good evening, friends, You've tuned in once again
(02:57):
to in the Crease, where we deep dive into the eerie,
the unexplained, the cold corners of history that refuse to
give up their dead, And Tonight, tonight we are going
to go to a very lonely place, far from the
roaring cities and war torn capitals. In nineteen twenty Europe.
Nestled deep within the fields and forests of Bavaria, there
(03:20):
sat a farmstead known simply as hinter Kaifak inter meaning
behind in Kaithak, meaning the tiny nearby village is sat
hidden from as it was deliberately tucked away from the light, isolated,
for gotten, vulnerable. It was a simple farm, one house,
(03:42):
one barn, a few outbuildings, surrounded by dense trees and
open fields. No close neighbors, no busy roads to reach it.
You had to walk half a mile of rough track
to call for help from there. Oh, you'd need the
strongest set of lungs and a bit of luck as well.
(04:03):
And in March of nineteen twenty two, something inside ter
Kaithak turned very, very wrong. Let's meet the occupants of
the farm. Andreas Groover sixty three years old, the patriarch,
known in the village as the carntankerous, violent and domineering person.
He was a kind of man who could ruin a
(04:26):
Sunday just by walking into a room. Rumors swirled around
him like flies around an outhouse. And some of those
rumors well, as we'll find out, had teeth. Glisia Gruver
seventy two, his long suffering wife, tough, no nonsense, but
cowed by decades under Andreas Victoria Gabriel, their thirty five
(04:54):
year old daughter. Widowed during the Great War, she had
returned to hinter Kaithak with her children, craft once again
under her father's roof and his iron hand. Little Kazilia,
Victoria's daughter seven, cheerful, lively and beloved by her school teachers,
were her sweet voice in the church choir Joseph just
(05:15):
two years old. The official story was he was Victoria's son,
but who son he truly was is a shadow. Will
also delve into and Maria Baumgartner, forty four year old,
a newly hired maid who came to the hormone March
thirty first, her first day of work, and it would
(05:36):
end up being her last day of life. Six souls,
three generations under one roof, tied together by blood, secrets
and now fate. It's er Kaiak in nineteen twenty two
wasn't just isolated by geography. It was isolated by reputation.
The Groovers were not loved by the villagers of govern
(05:59):
and Kythak. Andreas especially was a pariah. There were whispers
of violence in the home, of incestuous abuse between him
and his daughter Victoria, whispers backed by disturbing court records
from nineteen fifteen, when both father and daughter were convicted
of incest. Andrea served a short prison sentence and Victoria
(06:21):
served a longer one. And when they returned to hinter Kaifik,
the shutters closed a little tighter. Neighbors would rarely visit.
Trade deliveries were left at the gate. Children were told
not to go near the farm, and yet in their isolation,
life on the farm continued. The cows, well they needed milking,
(06:44):
the pigs they needed feeding. In the fields, well they
need it tilling. It was the rhythms of farm life, brutal, endless,
mast kind of the rot underneath, at least until the
winter of nineteen twenty one, when the strange happenings all began.
(07:05):
The first sign came in the form of footprints. In
the deep snows of February, Andreas discovered tracks leading from
the edge of the woods straight up to the back
door of the farmhouse, not necessarily unusual in itself, except
there were no tracks leading away, just a single set
of prints appearing out of the forest and stopping at
(07:26):
the door. Then inside the house, things witnessing, keys, small tools,
it's a food. A copy of a Munich newspaper appeared
on the doorstep one morning, and nobody on the farm
subscribed to the Munich papers. Andreas would accuse the postman.
The postman, of course, denied it. At night, the family
(07:51):
began hearing footsteps above them in the attic, heavy steps
pacing back and forth across the beams, as if someone
was trapped up there or living up there. Andreas, practical
to the point of absurdity, grabbed the lantern one night
(08:13):
and climbed the rickety ladder to the attic himself. He
found nothing, No sleeping bag, no vagrant, no raccoon plotting
a hostile takeover, just the dark and the smell of dust.
He dismissed it, at least outwardly, but privately he started
(08:35):
locking the doors more carefully, bolting windows he never would
bolt before, and carrying a skythe when checking the livestock
after dark. Old habits die hard, so do old men,
but Andreas didn't know that yet. March thirty first, nineteen
(08:59):
twenty two, Friday, the sky over Bavaria was probably a
bruised purple clouds slat sagging low over the fields. Spring
was making a valiant attempt to break through, but the
air still carried a knife edge of winter chill. In
(09:19):
the morning, Maria Baumgatner arrived. She had been hired only
a few days before, after the previous made quit sighting
and I quote para normal disturbances. And Maria, who walked
with a limp and was considered slow witted by some,
was met at the front door by little Casilia and Victoria.
(09:42):
She settled her things upstairs and began her first day's work, cleaning,
feeding the animals, preparing supper. The day would pass quietly.
Dinner was eaten, Joseph was tucked away into his crib.
They probably prayed, maybe even sang. Maybe they listened to
(10:03):
the wind moan against the raptors and told themselves it
was nothing. Somewhere after nightfall, something lord Andreas out of
the barn, or out to the barn. Maybe it was
a noise, a strange scraping and rustling among the animals.
Maybe just maybe it was delivered. Maybe it was a trap.
(10:27):
What we know is Andreas Groover left the house and
entered the barn, and one by one the rest of
the adults followed, Cazilia, Victoria, little Kazilia. Maybe they heard
Andreas call for help. Maybe they too went to check
on a sound. Maybe they just moved through the motions
(10:49):
of farm life, stepping into the barn. Like countless nights before,
none of them came back out alive. Inside the barn,
in that cold, dark, hay strewn space, the killer waited
with a manneq in hand, which is a heavy pickaxe
like tool someone was lying in wait, and as each
(11:12):
family member entered the barn, they were struck down, passed brutally,
but they forced meant to kill instantly. Blow to the skull,
collapsed into the hay. Wait, next one, blow to the skull,
collapse into the hay, and so on so on. The
slaughter was very methodical, almost mechanical. When it was done,
(11:37):
the killer dragged their bodies into the corner of the barn,
stacking them like firewood, and covered them with hay. The
killer then turned toward the house. Inside too remained Maria,
the maid likely already in better getting ready for it,
and Joseph asleep and is caught. They didn't stand the chance.
(12:02):
Maria was bludgeoned in her bedroom so fiercely that her
face was described as split open by the corner. Little
Joseph was murdered in his crib a blow to the
head with the same blood stained mattic. And then and
(12:23):
then the killer had something more unsettling. They stayed. They
stayed in the house, tending the animals, keeping the fire stoked,
eating the food. For days. Avers reported seeing smoke rising
(12:44):
from the farmhouse chimney. The cattle were still fed. The
little watchdog was heard barking frantic at first, and then
quieter and quieter from March thirty first until the bodies
were discovered on April fourth. The killer lived among the dead.
(13:06):
Imagine that. Imagine walking through your house, stepping over the
bodies of people you murdered, ladling stew into a bowl,
then going out milk the cows, chopping some wood to
the fireplace, just you know, to keeping up appearance like
it was just another normal Sunday on the farm.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Now.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Laura and special guest Aggie over at Frenchport Forensics first
episode called it the most chilling part of the case,
not just the murderers themselves, but the coldness afterward and.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
The right.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Anyone can kill and rage. It takes a special breed
of monster to stay after and live there. And so
the farm in hitter Kaifek stood silent until the gray
skies windows shuttered, chimney smoking, animals being fed, but the
(14:05):
children were missing. School fire seats are now empty. They
all left undelivered. Then the villagers start to notice, but
no one went up that path, not yet, not until
it was far, far too late. When you approach farm
(14:38):
at henter Kaifek today if you could find it, there's
nothing left but a few scattered stones any modest shrine.
There's no house, no barn, and no walls to hold
on to the memory of what happened there. But if
you could step back in time in the morning of
April fourth, nineteen twenty two, you'd see a very different picture.
(15:05):
Barn roof sagging under years of harsh winters, the muddied
farm yard, choked with half melted snow. Milk, though, was
curling from the chimney like everything was fine. Maybe maybe
he would hear you're a cow impatient for a milking.
(15:26):
Maybe you'd hear the faint barking of the farm dog
tied outside, whispering at strangers. It all looks normal, but
nothing inside the house was normal anymore. Six people were dead,
and for four days the killer or killers had kept
(15:47):
the fires burning. Now let's rewind a little bit. In
those four days after the murders, neighbors had started to
notice things well, weren't just quite right. The mail carriers
found letters piling up the local groceries, boy dropping off
(16:11):
in order at the gate notice no one came out
to pay. Church friends were surprised when little Kazilia missed school.
The choir director noted Victoria missed Sunday mask, which was
unusual for her, even if her parents skipped it often.
(16:33):
It wasn't immediate panic. This was after all, rural Germany.
People they got sick, especially you know, this time of year,
or you know, maybe they got stubborn. By Tuesday, April fourth,
Lorenz Schlittenbauer decided something was off enough to warrant checking
(16:54):
it out now. Should be noted Lawrens or Lorenz Well.
He was a neighbor farmer. He was a former suitor
to Victoria. He was possibly the biological father of Yoso.
Depending on who you asked. He was either a concerned
(17:14):
citizen or a man with very complicated feelings about the
family in general. He rounded up two friends, Michael Fole
and Jacob Siegel, threemends, boots heavy in the muddy field,
trudged up the winding track toward nter Kaifek. They called
(17:37):
out no answer. The dog barked wildly at them, straining
against its rope. Barn door sagged open on its hinge
to his mouth, yawning wide, Lorenz led the way inside.
(17:57):
In the dim, dusty barn the sours then hit them first, rots, blood,
the metallic bite of death. The hay underfoot shifted weirdly,
didn't feel right, And then they found it, a rough
heap of limbs tangled under a mound of straw. Four bodies, Andreas, Cazilia,
(18:24):
the elder Victoria, and Little Cazilia, stacked stacked like cord wood.
Their skulls had been shattered, faces caved in, hands twisted
up as if in defense. They split second reflex against
blows they never saw coming. Little Cazilia face was torn,
(18:47):
her jaw was broken. She still clutched wads of her
own hair in her hands, hair ripped from her scalp
in terror. Whatever happened in the barn hadn't been a
quick execution, It had been a slaughter. Now, Lorenz, to
(19:11):
his credit or eternal suspicion, didn't faint or vomit. He
just kept moving. The three men crossed into the house.
There upstairs, in their beds, they found two more bodies, Maria,
the maid, still in her work clothes, smashed across the skull, Yosaph,
the two year old toddler, killed in his crib with
(19:34):
a heavy blow to the head. Both were covered Aria
with her bedclothes, Yosap with one of Victoria's dresses, as
if the killer had paused just for a second to
show some grotesque mockery of mercy. But there was no
(19:56):
blood trail leading outside, no signs of hurried escape, everything
terribly still. The police were called. Chief Inspector is yours?
Ryan Groover and his team arrived later that afternoon, and
what they found only deepened the horror. Get your the
(20:19):
scene if you will. Basically villagers wandering through the bloodstained
barn like it's a Sunday picnic, neighbors touching bodies, moving objects,
even making a sandwich in the Grover's kitchen at children
possibly peeking through windows, and curious wives dragging their husbands
(20:41):
to the murder house the gaulk. There was more chaos
than was needed. There was no crime scene tape, no
secure perimeter, just the old Chief Inspector standing in the mud,
hands on hips, muttering to himself about how he's going
to rate the worst after reaction report in the history
of the area. Any forensic evidence that might have existed
(21:06):
was trampled, smudged, eaten, maybe even pocketed by nosy neighbors.
What little they could piece together. Was this The killer
likely lured the adult grubers in Victoria one by one
of the barn, striking each down individually. Then after killing
(21:27):
the adults, they returned to the house dispatched Marie and Joseph.
There were no defensive wounds, indicating a struggle. The weapon,
a mattic, essentially a farming pickaxe, was used with vicious,
precise strikes aimed at the skulls. No valuables were really missing.
(21:53):
In other words, it was not a robbery. It was
not a random vagrant murder necessarily or not a spur
of the moment rage killing. This was someone the plan,
someone for whatever reason, one of these people dead and
then struck around for days afterward to play Little House
(22:14):
on the Prairie. The autopsy would confirm the worst. Andrea's
face ripped apart, cheekbones exposed, Kazilia the elder seven blunt
force blows to the head with the possibility of being strangled.
(22:35):
First Victoria nine massive strikes, star shaped fractures across her skull.
Little Kazilia face broken neck, mangled hands, clutched the hair
that she ripped from her own head. Maria crushed head
(22:55):
wounds that was probably happening while she was sleeping, and
the little baby where he was lying.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
Ball caved in.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
But it gets worse. Court physician Johann A. Mueller noted
that little Cazilia had not died immediately, she had suffered
horribly or expiring. Once again. One of the best true
crime podcasts out there from Fort Forensics, pointed out how
(23:32):
truly terrifying this is. Barr would say, this wasn't just
a murder, this was a terror campaign inside the barn.
And she's right. This wasn't just someone who wanted them dead.
This was someone who wanted them broken. The chilling details
don't stop there. The chimney showed signs of use days
(24:00):
after their deaths. Animals proved that they had been fed
and even watered, and fresh cut wood was stacked by
the door. Someone presumably the killer, had moved into the
farm afterward and played the role of caretaker. The full
horror of hinter Kaifik isn't just in the murders themselves.
(24:22):
It's the slow, everyday normalacy that followed it. Hals still loaded,
chickens still clucked, and the hearth still glowed as six
souls lay cold and broken under the hay upstairs and
(24:42):
beneath thirty sheets. When Chief Inspector Ryan Groover finally filed
his initial report, it read almost like a confession of defeat.
No clear suspects, no fingerprints, no mode of no witness,
and the clock was ticking. Evidence was deteriorating, Memories became
(25:06):
a blur, and unfortunately, suspicions would multiply. The investigators could
feel it slipping away between their fingers. Already the local
tongues were wagging. Maybe maybe, maybe, just maybe Lorenz did it.
(25:27):
Maybe it was Carl Gabriel, Victoria's husband, returned from the dead.
Maybe he was just a wandering madman. Perhaps scariest of all,
if it was someone still living among them, because let's
face it, Andreas Grub hadn't made a crap ton of enemies.
(25:49):
But if you thought anyone hated him enough to murder
him and his whole family and their maid and then
linger to milk his cows afterwards, it's kind of crazy
to think about as we head into our intermission to
catch our breast, maybe grab another drink. Gets weirder because
(26:13):
the shadows on the growth thicker.
Speaker 6 (26:34):
When I's my name and the frost a gas, the
bond dopes.
Speaker 5 (26:41):
It's like lungs of wood. Six foot steps soft and gone.
No stars to night.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
No, God's too Look.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
I can't in the field, sry through.
Speaker 6 (27:18):
The orchard sign foe answered and tremble like the age behind.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
The brow.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Love lash and watch.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
The out.
Speaker 6 (27:40):
Scene accounted down and.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Threshing time, steady down, dreams.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
Chockston of yourvest with the where you left, Bring me
the crap was answer Lord for God. The bell stand backwards,
(28:36):
the chack stone stall, the old names you thought were
your design. Carl dress in side, chute tree through the
(29:01):
bell where gossl.
Speaker 7 (29:05):
As I go on side, take goll go, I snow.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
That space sa ste I am the breath that.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Kill.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
I am not gone cold with way I am the
signs you kept cold s.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Freshing size, Take me one breath to hide.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
The sword.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
Sh break wads sky stood still, but the frost.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Still forms around my tread. The house is quiet but
never empty. You buried the.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Bodies, but not the tread. I never.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
And welcome back. So far we walked through the cold
fog of hinter kitheks last days. We've seen the footprints,
the attic footsteps, the terrible, methodical killings. We stood at
the edge of the barn door and stared down at
the ghastly pile under the hay. Now it's time to
(31:35):
ask the question every detective, every neighbor, every historian has
asked for more than a century, who the hell did
this and why? Because one thing is clear. Whoever butchered
the Gruver family and Maria Baumgartner. Sorry was some random
(32:00):
passing through the woods. This was someone with intent, someone
who knew the farm, knew the people, and perhaps even
more scarily, someone who wasn't in a hurry, and someone
whose footprints led to the farm but never led away.
(32:30):
So let's do what we do. Let's start where every
good investigator begins. Let's go to the people closest to
the victims. Because any as any veteran detective will tell you,
most murders aren't committed by strangers. They were usually committed
by people you know, often people you trust, people who
(32:51):
smile at you over a cup of coffee while plotting
your demise. And here, my friends, we have a short
but I think juicy suspect list. Suspects number one Lorenz, Oh, yeah,
you knew he was going to be number one on
(33:12):
the list. He was, after all, the Groover's neighbor. He
owned a farm about three hundred and fifty meters from
hunter Kaithek, and more importantly, he led a how should
we put this, a very complicated relationship with Victoria. For
you see, after her husband Karl died in World War One,
(33:33):
Victoria struck up a relationship with Lorenz. They even had
talked marriage. Maybe maybe they even even had planned it.
Some say Lorenz agreed to recognize little Joseph as his own,
but Andreas Grueber, being that delightful ray of sunshine that
he always was objected, and probably not just in a
(33:57):
you know, I really don't kind of approve of this
kind of way, more like I'll freaking destroy your life,
you know, Italian mob kind of way. There were actually lawsuits,
property disputes, angry letters, and depending on which gossip you
listened to, Andreas may have even blackmailed Lorenz over the
paternity issue. Now I know those aren't really necessarily facts
(34:25):
of the murder, So let's fast forward to the murders themselves.
When Lorenz and his buddy showed up at hinter Kaipik
on April fourth, Lorenz did the following, went straight into
the house without hesitation, unlocked the front doors despite no
one giving him a key, and found the bodies with
(34:47):
what witnesses later described as an unnatural calm. In fact,
some of the villagers said Lorenz was so comfortable at
the scene it was almost like he already knew what
he would find. He even released the foreign animals, fed
the cattle pet at the family dog, all before calling
the authorities. I'm sorry if that doesn't raise at least
(35:11):
a little red flag to you that you were way
way more trusting than I am. But here's the thing.
Investigators growed Lorenz thoroughly. He explained that he had a
spare key because of his past relationship with Victoria. He said,
he went to the house looking for you, so hoping
(35:32):
the boy might have survived. He said, his calm demeanor
was just shock. They couldn't prove anything otherwise. There were
no blood on his clothes, no clear motive. They couldn't
really hang over his head that would justify wiping out
(35:53):
the entire family. Call him suspicious, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
No.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
In fact, Lorenz would later sue people for accusing him
of the crime, and would win for the court's ruled
there was no evidence tying him to the murders, So
if he asked any true crime fans out there today,
most still point to him as suspect number one. But
(36:30):
maybe he didn't act alone. Maybe he had snapped up
through years of resentment and frustration. Maybe he came to
the farm to confront Victoria, and things well, maybe they
just spiraled horribly out of control. Or maybe just maybe
he knew something darker was at play, and his odd
behavior was survival instinct in a crime this twisted nothing simple?
(37:00):
What could be Suspects number two? A name we've only
touched on a little bit, Carl Gabriel. I know you're
probably asking who.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
You know?
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Just Victoria's dead husband. The man officially was recorded as
dead in World War One, killed by a shell blast
in December nineteen fourteen, except nobody was ever recovered. There
was no battlefield grave, just a telegram and a cross
(37:33):
next to his name in a ledger. Now imagine you're Victoria.
You're basically raising two kids alone on a miserable farm
with your abusive father. You start seeing another man and
maybe having a baby with them, and then one night,
a husband you thought dead walks out of the shadows. Now,
(37:55):
admittedly it sounds like a bad soap opera, but people
at the time legitimately wondered. After all, there were rumors
German pow Is captured by the Russian said they met
a Carl Gabriel who bragged about killing his unfaithful wife
upon returning home. Some thought Karl survived the war, found
(38:15):
out about Victoria's sin and took brutal revenge, and of
course others have thrown out ideas like maybe he was
too ashamed to come home after losing everything and decided
to start fresh, as you know, a killer. Now what
really gets a little bit of the soap opera feel
(38:35):
even more so is when you realize Victoria had tried
to declare him dead before she had Joseph baptized. And
this made it a little complicated because Churchill all at
the time basically said no corpse, no closure. Well, the
problem with this one, of course, is most modern historians
(38:56):
do think Carl did actually.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Die in the war.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Other soldiers remember him getting blown apart. You know, there
was no secret survival, no bloody homecoming. Still, in the case,
with no easy answers, you can't even possibly rule out
a dead man remaining as a suspect. As weird as
it may sound, Suspect three A and three B the
(39:28):
Gump brothers Anton an Adolf Gump. Now I know, there's
a name that just screams nothing good ever happens here now.
According to their sister, Kresencia Meyer, the Gumps were involved
in the Hunter Kaifik murders. On her deathbed, she claimed
(39:49):
Adolf had confessed to her that he and Anton committed
the killings in the nineteen fifties. Police took her statements
seriously enough to reopen parts of the case. They even
arrested Anton, but they had no evidence. They had no
physical proof, no witnesses, no forensic trial. The sister story
(40:11):
was basically all hearsay, and come to find out, Anton
apparently had a solid alibi for the night of the murders.
So we kind of had maybe another theory, kind of
collapsing into the farm mud here. Let me have a
fourth possible suspect, a stranger. Maybe it wasn't anyone local,
(40:38):
maybe it wasn't personal. Now, some have theorized the killer
was a wandering vagrant, a homeless drifter who camped out
in the attic until he could strike. They point to
the attic footsteps, the missing key, the fact that nothing
was stolen except food. There's a problem with this theory.
(41:00):
What ever killed the groups knew their habits, knew when
to strike, and knew the farm layout. A stranger squad
in the attic wouldn't know that Andreas Gruver always checked
the barn lasting before bed, or that the dog was
tied outside instead of inside, or that the family trusted
the creek of the barn dorn enough to investigate without fear. Now,
(41:22):
if it was a stranger, it was a stranger who
had studied them for a fair bit of time. And frankly,
that kind of feels even worse. And we have some
other wild theories to throw out here. Some whispered that
(41:44):
there were cult killing, that maybe it was a ritualistic murder,
and Dreas rumored sins bringing down some wrath of a
secret sect, But no signs of a ritual were ever found.
There's even one wild theory out there. It was a
serial killer. Bill James, in his book The Man from
the Train, suggested that the same person responsible for a
(42:07):
string of American axe murders. One Paul Mueller fled to
Germany and committed the hunter Kaifik murders that the motive
was unknown. The motive uh the operation to kill him
was the axe murders of families, and the timing does
actually sort of line up and makes sense. But let's
(42:30):
face it, that likelihood is probably the lowest of all
of these in the theories. But the truth is, no
one theory completely ties up every loose end. If it
was Lorenz, why kill the whole family and not just
yoseup in Victoria. If it was Carl, why leave the
(42:53):
money untouched. If it was the strangers like ten the
animals and light fires afterwards. Hinter Kaifek sits at the
uncomfortable intersection of too much evidence and not enough. You
(43:14):
have just enough blood, just enough motives, just enough madness,
but never really enough proof. And that is probably why
it haunts us today. Because the killer, whoever they were,
got away. They might have just walked back through those fields,
just appeared into another life. Maybe they even lived in
(43:35):
the same village afterward. Not they put lightning at all
the people passing them by. They just became part of
the story, and not as the villain, not even as
necessarily the primary suspect, but just as another name of
the long list of those who knew something but said nothing.
(44:03):
So here we are but dusk, having finally settled over
hinter Taifik, Bavaria, was left with nothing but questions. The
farmhouse and barns, soaked with blood, thick with a heavy
stink of death, didn't stand long. Within a year of
the murders. They were torn down by order of the court,
(44:26):
not renovated, not sold off, not blessed by priests in
some grand attempt to drive out any evil, just destroyed,
wipes clean from the landscape. As if erasing the walls
could somehow erased the memory, they burned it down in
nineteen twenty three, planks, ruth foundation gone, Even the well
(44:51):
was filled in with rubble. But as we all know,
memory doesn't burn as easily today. If you track out
to that lonely stretch of farmland behind Kaifik, you'll find
nothing resembling a house or a home. The woods have
inched and crept closer. The fields, though maybe a little rougher,
(45:14):
look basically the same, maybe though a little broken. A
small shrine marks the place. Six stone crosses, weather beaten
and worn. They lean together like old conspirators. One for Andreas,
one for Cassella, one for Victoria, one for little Kaselia,
(45:35):
one for Maria Bomgartner, and one Frios up the smallest
grave of the mall. Locals will sometimes leaf flowers, candles
flicker there on misty evenings, but there are no tour buses,
no signs, no gift shop, just a heavy presence of
something left unfinished. So what what truly happened here? We've
(46:04):
sipped it through the facts as we know them, the
eerie footprints, the attic noises, the strange newspaper on the doorstep,
the systematic, almost surgical slaughter, the chilling days afterward, with
fires burning and animals fed by unseen hands. And we've
chased the theories of Lorenz, the spurned lover, escapegoat Carl
(46:27):
has a ghost return from the trenches, are just a
sad memory twisted by grief. The Gump brothers who were
whispered in confession but never proven, and a stranger hiding
in the raptors like a phantom. No theories tie up
into a perfect little bill, And maybe, just maybe that
(46:48):
is why hinter Kithek sticks with us. It's not just
the brutality of the murders. It really is the sense
that someone got away with it. Someone stepped through the
falling snow, someone stood in the barn with a mattic
raised high. Someone watched the hearth fire crackle while six
(47:11):
bodies were dead, and then someone simply walked away. And
maybe maybe they were never even suspected of having done it.
Maybe maybe they lived a quiet life, maybe a few
miles down the road, attending church, marrying, raising children of
(47:34):
their own. Or maybe they just vanished, swallowed by history,
like so many murders before and after. Hinter Kaiviek is
different from most true crime stories. Most hails, well, let's
face it, they have some sort of a solution, probably
a trial, confession, a set of handcuffs, clicking clothes. Kaithik
(48:00):
has none of that. It has footprints and blood, and
they silence so loud it deafens across the decades. And
then there's those little things that haunt the story. The
(48:21):
newspaper nobody ordered, pulled it neatly on the porch, the
unlocked attic hatch swinging open at midnight, the missing house
key that never turned up, and why did the young
girl Little Kazilia, tear out her own hair in horror,
(48:46):
and once again, Laura and Aggie on their episode of
Front Porch Forensics pointed out best when they said the following,
These were ordinary people living ordinary lives until they weren't.
Then what haunts us most isn't just the death, is
the way life tried to go on afterwards in that house,
even as death sat right beside it. And that's what
(49:13):
gets under your skin, the idea that someone something kept
living inside that house, sleeping in those beds, tending that fire,
pretending everything was normal when it was anything but. And
(49:36):
maybe this is why the story refuses to die. Enter
Kaipek reminds us that evil doesn't always announce itself with fanfare.
Sometimes it wears the muddy boots of a neighbor. Sometimes
it's the old creaking sound above your head at night.
Sometimes it's footprints that appear without warning and disappear into nothing.
It reminds us that monsters aren't always shadows in the woods.
(50:00):
Sometimes they're the person milking your cows while you sleep.
The Brovers and Maria baum Gottner are gone, with no
family left to carry their name. The farm destroyed, the
story almost forgotten, and yet here we are, one hundred
years later, telling their story again, trying to keep their
(50:21):
memory alive, not because it's chilling, not just because it's unsolved,
but because remembering them is probably the only justice they
will ever get. And remembering them, we honor them. We
refuse to let them vanish in the silence. So if
(50:43):
you ever find yourself wandering through the Bavarian countryside, if
you ever see a lone shrine leaning against a field
of wheat, stop for a moment. Say a prayer or
a curse to the one who got away, or just
a simple question whispered into the wind, Because somewhere out there,
(51:04):
in those quiet fields, the question still lingers, who killed
these six people and why? And until that answer comes,
hinter Kaipik remains a scar across the fabric of history.
(51:33):
I am jeble F. This has been in the crease,
bringing you the stories where the shadows grow longest. Thank
you for joining me tonight. I hope you drive safe,
keep your doors locked, and remember sometimes the real monsters
are already inside the house. Good Night, everyone, people to people,
(53:02):
tooba kooball
The streshold commands step through passive, impressive future. We are
not time.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
To think the time think, so.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Decrease.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Warning what you are about to hear tonight contains disturbing material.
This episode is based on true events that took place
in nineteen twenty two and includes descriptions of extreme violence,
including the harming and death of children. Listener discretion is
strongly advised. Good evening, friends, You've tuned in once again
(02:57):
to in the Crease, where we deep dive into the eerie,
the unexplained, the cold corners of history that refuse to
give up their dead, And Tonight, tonight we are going
to go to a very lonely place, far from the
roaring cities and war torn capitals. In nineteen twenty Europe.
Nestled deep within the fields and forests of Bavaria, there
(03:20):
sat a farmstead known simply as hinter Kaifak inter meaning
behind in Kaithak, meaning the tiny nearby village is sat
hidden from as it was deliberately tucked away from the light, isolated,
for gotten, vulnerable. It was a simple farm, one house,
(03:42):
one barn, a few outbuildings, surrounded by dense trees and
open fields. No close neighbors, no busy roads to reach it.
You had to walk half a mile of rough track
to call for help from there. Oh, you'd need the
strongest set of lungs and a bit of luck as well.
(04:03):
And in March of nineteen twenty two, something inside ter
Kaithak turned very, very wrong. Let's meet the occupants of
the farm. Andreas Groover sixty three years old, the patriarch,
known in the village as the carntankerous, violent and domineering person.
He was a kind of man who could ruin a
(04:26):
Sunday just by walking into a room. Rumors swirled around
him like flies around an outhouse. And some of those
rumors well, as we'll find out, had teeth. Glisia Gruver
seventy two, his long suffering wife, tough, no nonsense, but
cowed by decades under Andreas Victoria Gabriel, their thirty five
(04:54):
year old daughter. Widowed during the Great War, she had
returned to hinter Kaithak with her children, craft once again
under her father's roof and his iron hand. Little Kazilia,
Victoria's daughter seven, cheerful, lively and beloved by her school teachers,
were her sweet voice in the church choir Joseph just
(05:15):
two years old. The official story was he was Victoria's son,
but who son he truly was is a shadow. Will
also delve into and Maria Baumgartner, forty four year old,
a newly hired maid who came to the hormone March
thirty first, her first day of work, and it would
(05:36):
end up being her last day of life. Six souls,
three generations under one roof, tied together by blood, secrets
and now fate. It's er Kaiak in nineteen twenty two
wasn't just isolated by geography. It was isolated by reputation.
The Groovers were not loved by the villagers of govern
(05:59):
and Kythak. Andreas especially was a pariah. There were whispers
of violence in the home, of incestuous abuse between him
and his daughter Victoria, whispers backed by disturbing court records
from nineteen fifteen, when both father and daughter were convicted
of incest. Andrea served a short prison sentence and Victoria
(06:21):
served a longer one. And when they returned to hinter Kaifik,
the shutters closed a little tighter. Neighbors would rarely visit.
Trade deliveries were left at the gate. Children were told
not to go near the farm, and yet in their isolation,
life on the farm continued. The cows, well they needed milking,
(06:44):
the pigs they needed feeding. In the fields, well they
need it tilling. It was the rhythms of farm life, brutal, endless,
mast kind of the rot underneath, at least until the
winter of nineteen twenty one, when the strange happenings all began.
(07:05):
The first sign came in the form of footprints. In
the deep snows of February, Andreas discovered tracks leading from
the edge of the woods straight up to the back
door of the farmhouse, not necessarily unusual in itself, except
there were no tracks leading away, just a single set
of prints appearing out of the forest and stopping at
(07:26):
the door. Then inside the house, things witnessing, keys, small tools,
it's a food. A copy of a Munich newspaper appeared
on the doorstep one morning, and nobody on the farm
subscribed to the Munich papers. Andreas would accuse the postman.
The postman, of course, denied it. At night, the family
(07:51):
began hearing footsteps above them in the attic, heavy steps
pacing back and forth across the beams, as if someone
was trapped up there or living up there. Andreas, practical
to the point of absurdity, grabbed the lantern one night
(08:13):
and climbed the rickety ladder to the attic himself. He
found nothing, No sleeping bag, no vagrant, no raccoon plotting
a hostile takeover, just the dark and the smell of dust.
He dismissed it, at least outwardly, but privately he started
(08:35):
locking the doors more carefully, bolting windows he never would
bolt before, and carrying a skythe when checking the livestock
after dark. Old habits die hard, so do old men,
but Andreas didn't know that yet. March thirty first, nineteen
(08:59):
twenty two, Friday, the sky over Bavaria was probably a
bruised purple clouds slat sagging low over the fields. Spring
was making a valiant attempt to break through, but the
air still carried a knife edge of winter chill. In
(09:19):
the morning, Maria Baumgatner arrived. She had been hired only
a few days before, after the previous made quit sighting
and I quote para normal disturbances. And Maria, who walked
with a limp and was considered slow witted by some,
was met at the front door by little Casilia and Victoria.
(09:42):
She settled her things upstairs and began her first day's work, cleaning,
feeding the animals, preparing supper. The day would pass quietly.
Dinner was eaten, Joseph was tucked away into his crib.
They probably prayed, maybe even sang. Maybe they listened to
(10:03):
the wind moan against the raptors and told themselves it
was nothing. Somewhere after nightfall, something lord Andreas out of
the barn, or out to the barn. Maybe it was
a noise, a strange scraping and rustling among the animals.
Maybe just maybe it was delivered. Maybe it was a trap.
(10:27):
What we know is Andreas Groover left the house and
entered the barn, and one by one the rest of
the adults followed, Cazilia, Victoria, little Kazilia. Maybe they heard
Andreas call for help. Maybe they too went to check
on a sound. Maybe they just moved through the motions
(10:49):
of farm life, stepping into the barn. Like countless nights before,
none of them came back out alive. Inside the barn,
in that cold, dark, hay strewn space, the killer waited
with a manneq in hand, which is a heavy pickaxe
like tool someone was lying in wait, and as each
(11:12):
family member entered the barn, they were struck down, passed brutally,
but they forced meant to kill instantly. Blow to the skull,
collapsed into the hay. Wait, next one, blow to the skull,
collapse into the hay, and so on so on. The
slaughter was very methodical, almost mechanical. When it was done,
(11:37):
the killer dragged their bodies into the corner of the barn,
stacking them like firewood, and covered them with hay. The
killer then turned toward the house. Inside too remained Maria,
the maid likely already in better getting ready for it,
and Joseph asleep and is caught. They didn't stand the chance.
(12:02):
Maria was bludgeoned in her bedroom so fiercely that her
face was described as split open by the corner. Little
Joseph was murdered in his crib a blow to the
head with the same blood stained mattic. And then and
(12:23):
then the killer had something more unsettling. They stayed. They
stayed in the house, tending the animals, keeping the fire stoked,
eating the food. For days. Avers reported seeing smoke rising
(12:44):
from the farmhouse chimney. The cattle were still fed. The
little watchdog was heard barking frantic at first, and then
quieter and quieter from March thirty first until the bodies
were discovered on April fourth. The killer lived among the dead.
(13:06):
Imagine that. Imagine walking through your house, stepping over the
bodies of people you murdered, ladling stew into a bowl,
then going out milk the cows, chopping some wood to
the fireplace, just you know, to keeping up appearance like
it was just another normal Sunday on the farm.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Now.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Laura and special guest Aggie over at Frenchport Forensics first
episode called it the most chilling part of the case,
not just the murderers themselves, but the coldness afterward and.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
The right.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Anyone can kill and rage. It takes a special breed
of monster to stay after and live there. And so
the farm in hitter Kaifek stood silent until the gray
skies windows shuttered, chimney smoking, animals being fed, but the
(14:05):
children were missing. School fire seats are now empty. They
all left undelivered. Then the villagers start to notice, but
no one went up that path, not yet, not until
it was far, far too late. When you approach farm
(14:38):
at henter Kaifek today if you could find it, there's
nothing left but a few scattered stones any modest shrine.
There's no house, no barn, and no walls to hold
on to the memory of what happened there. But if
you could step back in time in the morning of
April fourth, nineteen twenty two, you'd see a very different picture.
(15:05):
Barn roof sagging under years of harsh winters, the muddied
farm yard, choked with half melted snow. Milk, though, was
curling from the chimney like everything was fine. Maybe maybe
he would hear you're a cow impatient for a milking.
(15:26):
Maybe you'd hear the faint barking of the farm dog
tied outside, whispering at strangers. It all looks normal, but
nothing inside the house was normal anymore. Six people were dead,
and for four days the killer or killers had kept
(15:47):
the fires burning. Now let's rewind a little bit. In
those four days after the murders, neighbors had started to
notice things well, weren't just quite right. The mail carriers
found letters piling up the local groceries, boy dropping off
(16:11):
in order at the gate notice no one came out
to pay. Church friends were surprised when little Kazilia missed school.
The choir director noted Victoria missed Sunday mask, which was
unusual for her, even if her parents skipped it often.
(16:33):
It wasn't immediate panic. This was after all, rural Germany.
People they got sick, especially you know, this time of year,
or you know, maybe they got stubborn. By Tuesday, April fourth,
Lorenz Schlittenbauer decided something was off enough to warrant checking
(16:54):
it out now. Should be noted Lawrens or Lorenz Well.
He was a neighbor farmer. He was a former suitor
to Victoria. He was possibly the biological father of Yoso.
Depending on who you asked. He was either a concerned
(17:14):
citizen or a man with very complicated feelings about the
family in general. He rounded up two friends, Michael Fole
and Jacob Siegel, threemends, boots heavy in the muddy field,
trudged up the winding track toward nter Kaifek. They called
(17:37):
out no answer. The dog barked wildly at them, straining
against its rope. Barn door sagged open on its hinge
to his mouth, yawning wide, Lorenz led the way inside.
(17:57):
In the dim, dusty barn the sours then hit them first, rots, blood,
the metallic bite of death. The hay underfoot shifted weirdly,
didn't feel right, And then they found it, a rough
heap of limbs tangled under a mound of straw. Four bodies, Andreas, Cazilia,
(18:24):
the elder Victoria, and Little Cazilia, stacked stacked like cord wood.
Their skulls had been shattered, faces caved in, hands twisted
up as if in defense. They split second reflex against
blows they never saw coming. Little Cazilia face was torn,
(18:47):
her jaw was broken. She still clutched wads of her
own hair in her hands, hair ripped from her scalp
in terror. Whatever happened in the barn hadn't been a
quick execution, It had been a slaughter. Now, Lorenz, to
(19:11):
his credit or eternal suspicion, didn't faint or vomit. He
just kept moving. The three men crossed into the house.
There upstairs, in their beds, they found two more bodies, Maria,
the maid, still in her work clothes, smashed across the skull, Yosaph,
the two year old toddler, killed in his crib with
(19:34):
a heavy blow to the head. Both were covered Aria
with her bedclothes, Yosap with one of Victoria's dresses, as
if the killer had paused just for a second to
show some grotesque mockery of mercy. But there was no
(19:56):
blood trail leading outside, no signs of hurried escape, everything
terribly still. The police were called. Chief Inspector is yours?
Ryan Groover and his team arrived later that afternoon, and
what they found only deepened the horror. Get your the
(20:19):
scene if you will. Basically villagers wandering through the bloodstained
barn like it's a Sunday picnic, neighbors touching bodies, moving objects,
even making a sandwich in the Grover's kitchen at children
possibly peeking through windows, and curious wives dragging their husbands
(20:41):
to the murder house the gaulk. There was more chaos
than was needed. There was no crime scene tape, no
secure perimeter, just the old Chief Inspector standing in the mud,
hands on hips, muttering to himself about how he's going
to rate the worst after reaction report in the history
of the area. Any forensic evidence that might have existed
(21:06):
was trampled, smudged, eaten, maybe even pocketed by nosy neighbors.
What little they could piece together. Was this The killer
likely lured the adult grubers in Victoria one by one
of the barn, striking each down individually. Then after killing
(21:27):
the adults, they returned to the house dispatched Marie and Joseph.
There were no defensive wounds, indicating a struggle. The weapon,
a mattic, essentially a farming pickaxe, was used with vicious,
precise strikes aimed at the skulls. No valuables were really missing.
(21:53):
In other words, it was not a robbery. It was
not a random vagrant murder necessarily or not a spur
of the moment rage killing. This was someone the plan,
someone for whatever reason, one of these people dead and
then struck around for days afterward to play Little House
(22:14):
on the Prairie. The autopsy would confirm the worst. Andrea's
face ripped apart, cheekbones exposed, Kazilia the elder seven blunt
force blows to the head with the possibility of being strangled.
(22:35):
First Victoria nine massive strikes, star shaped fractures across her skull.
Little Kazilia face broken neck, mangled hands, clutched the hair
that she ripped from her own head. Maria crushed head
(22:55):
wounds that was probably happening while she was sleeping, and
the little baby where he was lying.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
Ball caved in.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
But it gets worse. Court physician Johann A. Mueller noted
that little Cazilia had not died immediately, she had suffered
horribly or expiring. Once again. One of the best true
crime podcasts out there from Fort Forensics, pointed out how
(23:32):
truly terrifying this is. Barr would say, this wasn't just
a murder, this was a terror campaign inside the barn.
And she's right. This wasn't just someone who wanted them dead.
This was someone who wanted them broken. The chilling details
don't stop there. The chimney showed signs of use days
(24:00):
after their deaths. Animals proved that they had been fed
and even watered, and fresh cut wood was stacked by
the door. Someone presumably the killer, had moved into the
farm afterward and played the role of caretaker. The full
horror of hinter Kaifik isn't just in the murders themselves.
(24:22):
It's the slow, everyday normalacy that followed it. Hals still loaded,
chickens still clucked, and the hearth still glowed as six
souls lay cold and broken under the hay upstairs and
(24:42):
beneath thirty sheets. When Chief Inspector Ryan Groover finally filed
his initial report, it read almost like a confession of defeat.
No clear suspects, no fingerprints, no mode of no witness,
and the clock was ticking. Evidence was deteriorating, Memories became
(25:06):
a blur, and unfortunately, suspicions would multiply. The investigators could
feel it slipping away between their fingers. Already the local
tongues were wagging. Maybe maybe, maybe, just maybe Lorenz did it.
(25:27):
Maybe it was Carl Gabriel, Victoria's husband, returned from the dead.
Maybe he was just a wandering madman. Perhaps scariest of all,
if it was someone still living among them, because let's
face it, Andreas Grub hadn't made a crap ton of enemies.
(25:49):
But if you thought anyone hated him enough to murder
him and his whole family and their maid and then
linger to milk his cows afterwards, it's kind of crazy
to think about as we head into our intermission to
catch our breast, maybe grab another drink. Gets weirder because
(26:13):
the shadows on the growth thicker.
Speaker 6 (26:34):
When I's my name and the frost a gas, the
bond dopes.
Speaker 5 (26:41):
It's like lungs of wood. Six foot steps soft and gone.
No stars to night.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
No, God's too Look.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
I can't in the field, sry through.
Speaker 6 (27:18):
The orchard sign foe answered and tremble like the age behind.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
The brow.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Love lash and watch.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
The out.
Speaker 6 (27:40):
Scene accounted down and.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Threshing time, steady down, dreams.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
Chockston of yourvest with the where you left, Bring me
the crap was answer Lord for God. The bell stand backwards,
(28:36):
the chack stone stall, the old names you thought were
your design. Carl dress in side, chute tree through the
(29:01):
bell where gossl.
Speaker 7 (29:05):
As I go on side, take goll go, I snow.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
That space sa ste I am the breath that.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Kill.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
I am not gone cold with way I am the
signs you kept cold s.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Freshing size, Take me one breath to hide.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
The sword.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
Sh break wads sky stood still, but the frost.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Still forms around my tread. The house is quiet but
never empty. You buried the.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Bodies, but not the tread. I never.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
And welcome back. So far we walked through the cold
fog of hinter kitheks last days. We've seen the footprints,
the attic footsteps, the terrible, methodical killings. We stood at
the edge of the barn door and stared down at
the ghastly pile under the hay. Now it's time to
(31:35):
ask the question every detective, every neighbor, every historian has
asked for more than a century, who the hell did
this and why? Because one thing is clear. Whoever butchered
the Gruver family and Maria Baumgartner. Sorry was some random
(32:00):
passing through the woods. This was someone with intent, someone
who knew the farm, knew the people, and perhaps even
more scarily, someone who wasn't in a hurry, and someone
whose footprints led to the farm but never led away.
(32:30):
So let's do what we do. Let's start where every
good investigator begins. Let's go to the people closest to
the victims. Because any as any veteran detective will tell you,
most murders aren't committed by strangers. They were usually committed
by people you know, often people you trust, people who
(32:51):
smile at you over a cup of coffee while plotting
your demise. And here, my friends, we have a short
but I think juicy suspect list. Suspects number one Lorenz, Oh, yeah,
you knew he was going to be number one on
(33:12):
the list. He was, after all, the Groover's neighbor. He
owned a farm about three hundred and fifty meters from
hunter Kaithek, and more importantly, he led a how should
we put this, a very complicated relationship with Victoria. For
you see, after her husband Karl died in World War One,
(33:33):
Victoria struck up a relationship with Lorenz. They even had
talked marriage. Maybe maybe they even even had planned it.
Some say Lorenz agreed to recognize little Joseph as his own,
but Andreas Grueber, being that delightful ray of sunshine that
he always was objected, and probably not just in a
(33:57):
you know, I really don't kind of approve of this
kind of way, more like I'll freaking destroy your life,
you know, Italian mob kind of way. There were actually lawsuits,
property disputes, angry letters, and depending on which gossip you
listened to, Andreas may have even blackmailed Lorenz over the
paternity issue. Now I know those aren't really necessarily facts
(34:25):
of the murder, So let's fast forward to the murders themselves.
When Lorenz and his buddy showed up at hinter Kaipik
on April fourth, Lorenz did the following, went straight into
the house without hesitation, unlocked the front doors despite no
one giving him a key, and found the bodies with
(34:47):
what witnesses later described as an unnatural calm. In fact,
some of the villagers said Lorenz was so comfortable at
the scene it was almost like he already knew what
he would find. He even released the foreign animals, fed
the cattle pet at the family dog, all before calling
the authorities. I'm sorry if that doesn't raise at least
(35:11):
a little red flag to you that you were way
way more trusting than I am. But here's the thing.
Investigators growed Lorenz thoroughly. He explained that he had a
spare key because of his past relationship with Victoria. He said,
he went to the house looking for you, so hoping
(35:32):
the boy might have survived. He said, his calm demeanor
was just shock. They couldn't prove anything otherwise. There were
no blood on his clothes, no clear motive. They couldn't
really hang over his head that would justify wiping out
(35:53):
the entire family. Call him suspicious, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
No.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
In fact, Lorenz would later sue people for accusing him
of the crime, and would win for the court's ruled
there was no evidence tying him to the murders, So
if he asked any true crime fans out there today,
most still point to him as suspect number one. But
(36:30):
maybe he didn't act alone. Maybe he had snapped up
through years of resentment and frustration. Maybe he came to
the farm to confront Victoria, and things well, maybe they
just spiraled horribly out of control. Or maybe just maybe
he knew something darker was at play, and his odd
behavior was survival instinct in a crime this twisted nothing simple?
(37:00):
What could be Suspects number two? A name we've only
touched on a little bit, Carl Gabriel. I know you're
probably asking who.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
You know?
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Just Victoria's dead husband. The man officially was recorded as
dead in World War One, killed by a shell blast
in December nineteen fourteen, except nobody was ever recovered. There
was no battlefield grave, just a telegram and a cross
(37:33):
next to his name in a ledger. Now imagine you're Victoria.
You're basically raising two kids alone on a miserable farm
with your abusive father. You start seeing another man and
maybe having a baby with them, and then one night,
a husband you thought dead walks out of the shadows. Now,
(37:55):
admittedly it sounds like a bad soap opera, but people
at the time legitimately wondered. After all, there were rumors
German pow Is captured by the Russian said they met
a Carl Gabriel who bragged about killing his unfaithful wife
upon returning home. Some thought Karl survived the war, found
(38:15):
out about Victoria's sin and took brutal revenge, and of
course others have thrown out ideas like maybe he was
too ashamed to come home after losing everything and decided
to start fresh, as you know, a killer. Now what
really gets a little bit of the soap opera feel
(38:35):
even more so is when you realize Victoria had tried
to declare him dead before she had Joseph baptized. And
this made it a little complicated because Churchill all at
the time basically said no corpse, no closure. Well, the
problem with this one, of course, is most modern historians
(38:56):
do think Carl did actually.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Die in the war.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Other soldiers remember him getting blown apart. You know, there
was no secret survival, no bloody homecoming. Still, in the case,
with no easy answers, you can't even possibly rule out
a dead man remaining as a suspect. As weird as
it may sound, Suspect three A and three B the
(39:28):
Gump brothers Anton an Adolf Gump. Now I know, there's
a name that just screams nothing good ever happens here now.
According to their sister, Kresencia Meyer, the Gumps were involved
in the Hunter Kaifik murders. On her deathbed, she claimed
(39:49):
Adolf had confessed to her that he and Anton committed
the killings in the nineteen fifties. Police took her statements
seriously enough to reopen parts of the case. They even
arrested Anton, but they had no evidence. They had no
physical proof, no witnesses, no forensic trial. The sister story
(40:11):
was basically all hearsay, and come to find out, Anton
apparently had a solid alibi for the night of the murders.
So we kind of had maybe another theory, kind of
collapsing into the farm mud here. Let me have a
fourth possible suspect, a stranger. Maybe it wasn't anyone local,
(40:38):
maybe it wasn't personal. Now, some have theorized the killer
was a wandering vagrant, a homeless drifter who camped out
in the attic until he could strike. They point to
the attic footsteps, the missing key, the fact that nothing
was stolen except food. There's a problem with this theory.
(41:00):
What ever killed the groups knew their habits, knew when
to strike, and knew the farm layout. A stranger squad
in the attic wouldn't know that Andreas Gruver always checked
the barn lasting before bed, or that the dog was
tied outside instead of inside, or that the family trusted
the creek of the barn dorn enough to investigate without fear. Now,
(41:22):
if it was a stranger, it was a stranger who
had studied them for a fair bit of time. And frankly,
that kind of feels even worse. And we have some
other wild theories to throw out here. Some whispered that
(41:44):
there were cult killing, that maybe it was a ritualistic murder,
and Dreas rumored sins bringing down some wrath of a
secret sect, But no signs of a ritual were ever found.
There's even one wild theory out there. It was a
serial killer. Bill James, in his book The Man from
the Train, suggested that the same person responsible for a
(42:07):
string of American axe murders. One Paul Mueller fled to
Germany and committed the hunter Kaifik murders that the motive
was unknown. The motive uh the operation to kill him
was the axe murders of families, and the timing does
actually sort of line up and makes sense. But let's
(42:30):
face it, that likelihood is probably the lowest of all
of these in the theories. But the truth is, no
one theory completely ties up every loose end. If it
was Lorenz, why kill the whole family and not just
yoseup in Victoria. If it was Carl, why leave the
(42:53):
money untouched. If it was the strangers like ten the
animals and light fires afterwards. Hinter Kaifek sits at the
uncomfortable intersection of too much evidence and not enough. You
(43:14):
have just enough blood, just enough motives, just enough madness,
but never really enough proof. And that is probably why
it haunts us today. Because the killer, whoever they were,
got away. They might have just walked back through those fields,
just appeared into another life. Maybe they even lived in
(43:35):
the same village afterward. Not they put lightning at all
the people passing them by. They just became part of
the story, and not as the villain, not even as
necessarily the primary suspect, but just as another name of
the long list of those who knew something but said nothing.
(44:03):
So here we are but dusk, having finally settled over
hinter Taifik, Bavaria, was left with nothing but questions. The
farmhouse and barns, soaked with blood, thick with a heavy
stink of death, didn't stand long. Within a year of
the murders. They were torn down by order of the court,
(44:26):
not renovated, not sold off, not blessed by priests in
some grand attempt to drive out any evil, just destroyed,
wipes clean from the landscape. As if erasing the walls
could somehow erased the memory, they burned it down in
nineteen twenty three, planks, ruth foundation gone, Even the well
(44:51):
was filled in with rubble. But as we all know,
memory doesn't burn as easily today. If you track out
to that lonely stretch of farmland behind Kaifik, you'll find
nothing resembling a house or a home. The woods have
inched and crept closer. The fields, though maybe a little rougher,
(45:14):
look basically the same, maybe though a little broken. A
small shrine marks the place. Six stone crosses, weather beaten
and worn. They lean together like old conspirators. One for Andreas,
one for Cassella, one for Victoria, one for little Kaselia,
(45:35):
one for Maria Bomgartner, and one Frios up the smallest
grave of the mall. Locals will sometimes leaf flowers, candles
flicker there on misty evenings, but there are no tour buses,
no signs, no gift shop, just a heavy presence of
something left unfinished. So what what truly happened here? We've
(46:04):
sipped it through the facts as we know them, the
eerie footprints, the attic noises, the strange newspaper on the doorstep,
the systematic, almost surgical slaughter, the chilling days afterward, with
fires burning and animals fed by unseen hands. And we've
chased the theories of Lorenz, the spurned lover, escapegoat Carl
(46:27):
has a ghost return from the trenches, are just a
sad memory twisted by grief. The Gump brothers who were
whispered in confession but never proven, and a stranger hiding
in the raptors like a phantom. No theories tie up
into a perfect little bill, And maybe, just maybe that
(46:48):
is why hinter Kithek sticks with us. It's not just
the brutality of the murders. It really is the sense
that someone got away with it. Someone stepped through the
falling snow, someone stood in the barn with a mattic
raised high. Someone watched the hearth fire crackle while six
(47:11):
bodies were dead, and then someone simply walked away. And
maybe maybe they were never even suspected of having done it.
Maybe maybe they lived a quiet life, maybe a few
miles down the road, attending church, marrying, raising children of
(47:34):
their own. Or maybe they just vanished, swallowed by history,
like so many murders before and after. Hinter Kaiviek is
different from most true crime stories. Most hails, well, let's
face it, they have some sort of a solution, probably
a trial, confession, a set of handcuffs, clicking clothes. Kaithik
(48:00):
has none of that. It has footprints and blood, and
they silence so loud it deafens across the decades. And
then there's those little things that haunt the story. The
(48:21):
newspaper nobody ordered, pulled it neatly on the porch, the
unlocked attic hatch swinging open at midnight, the missing house
key that never turned up, and why did the young
girl Little Kazilia, tear out her own hair in horror,
(48:46):
and once again, Laura and Aggie on their episode of
Front Porch Forensics pointed out best when they said the following,
These were ordinary people living ordinary lives until they weren't.
Then what haunts us most isn't just the death, is
the way life tried to go on afterwards in that house,
even as death sat right beside it. And that's what
(49:13):
gets under your skin, the idea that someone something kept
living inside that house, sleeping in those beds, tending that fire,
pretending everything was normal when it was anything but. And
(49:36):
maybe this is why the story refuses to die. Enter
Kaipek reminds us that evil doesn't always announce itself with fanfare.
Sometimes it wears the muddy boots of a neighbor. Sometimes
it's the old creaking sound above your head at night.
Sometimes it's footprints that appear without warning and disappear into nothing.
It reminds us that monsters aren't always shadows in the woods.
(50:00):
Sometimes they're the person milking your cows while you sleep.
The Brovers and Maria baum Gottner are gone, with no
family left to carry their name. The farm destroyed, the
story almost forgotten, and yet here we are, one hundred
years later, telling their story again, trying to keep their
(50:21):
memory alive, not because it's chilling, not just because it's unsolved,
but because remembering them is probably the only justice they
will ever get. And remembering them, we honor them. We
refuse to let them vanish in the silence. So if
(50:43):
you ever find yourself wandering through the Bavarian countryside, if
you ever see a lone shrine leaning against a field
of wheat, stop for a moment. Say a prayer or
a curse to the one who got away, or just
a simple question whispered into the wind, Because somewhere out there,
(51:04):
in those quiet fields, the question still lingers, who killed
these six people and why? And until that answer comes,
hinter Kaipik remains a scar across the fabric of history.
(51:33):
I am jeble F. This has been in the crease,
bringing you the stories where the shadows grow longest. Thank
you for joining me tonight. I hope you drive safe,
keep your doors locked, and remember sometimes the real monsters
are already inside the house. Good Night, everyone, people to people,
(53:02):
tooba kooball
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