The Truly Wicked Murders of Hinterkaifeck PT.2

 Hello, and Welcome Back My Fellow Fascinated Fans!

As promised, I'm back to give you all the details of the Hinterkaifeck Murders crime scene and investigation. 

On March 31st, 1922, which was the day of the murders, Andreas Gruber also started noticing strange things that made him very uneasy, so much so that he went to tell Shclittenbauer about his findings. Andreas had found a strange newspaper in the barn and upon asking all the family members and the mail man, he discovered that no one knew anything about it or how it got there. He had also found unknown footsteps in the snow leading in from the woods to inside the house, but with no signs of footsteps coming out. 

A pair of keys had also gone missing from the house and this had made the family suspect that there may have been a trespasser in Hinterkaifeck. Yet, even though the family had all started hearing strange noises and loud breathing coming from the attic on the day of the attack, they were all too afraid to look around. 

What really happened later on that night in Hinterkaifeck will probably forever remain unknown to all of us, but it is believed that the family had sat down for their last dinner together that night, before being brutally murdered. Since the bodies of Andreas, Cazilia, Victoria and her young daughter, were found in the barn, it is believed that they had been lured out later that night by the stray animals that police had found freely roaming the land.

Crime scene inside the barn
Source: Wikipedia 

The bodies of Victoria and her father, Andreas, were  found to be the most brutally battered with their skull severely smashed in, and while the other two bodies had also been ruthlessly battered, it is actually believed that little Cazilia had most likely died hours after the attack from shock and blood loss. This was later concluded after bits of her own hair had been found tightly knotted in her fist, which indicated that she had pulled her own hair out from the shock.

Crime scene inside the farmhouse 
Source: Wikipedia

These three bodies had been found in the barn with hay covering them, but the bodies of baby Joseph and the families new maid, Maria, had been found inside the farmhouse covered with sheets and a dress. It had been concluded they probably died quickly after suffering a number of blows to the head and face. The police later presumed that the tool used in the murders was likely a mattock, which is a tool used for digging.

                                                                                           Yet, despite the horrifying fate of the Grubers family,  the farm animals and the family dog hadn't been harmed at all, it was actually discovered that in the days between the murders and the discovery of the murders, the animals had been fed and tended to, which further supports the theory that the murderer may have been living in Hinterkaifeck in the days between the murders and the discovery. 

After Lorenz Shclittenbauer made the horrifying discovery of the bodies of the family, and informed the police, the police immediately zeroed in on him as a suspect due to his seemingly strange reaction to this horrifying scene. Shclittenbauer was said to be extremely calm and collected, and he was very eager to guide the police in the investigation and give them a tour of the farm. The police later discovered that Schlittenbauer had even ruined the crime scene before they had arrived, because he had been touching and even moving around objects that were part of the crime scene. 

Police theorized that Shclittenbauer may have wanted to kill the family due to their past grudges, but after extensive questioning and investigating around him, they were unable to place him at the crime scene. Another theory was that Karl Gabriel, Victoria's previous husband whom was said to have died in the war, had come back and killed the entire family. Yet that theory was quickly put to rest when many of his fellow soldiers had attested to seeing his dead body. Another theory was that of vagrants or thieves traveling stumbled upon the farm and killed the entire family for money or other valuable items, but that theory was very quickly dismissed, because it was concluded that nothing of value was actually taken from the farm.

Coffins of the Gruber family
Source: Pinterest

Upon further investigations and numerous interviews with many suspects, the police had come up with nothing and the case had eventually gone cold until it was ultimately closed. Though after the case was closed, the police had decided to send the bodies of the Gruber family to Munich for autopsies. The autopsies ended up revealing nothing new, but during the autopsy the family members heads were removed and they were lost during the disorder of World War II, resulting in the families bodies being buried without heads.

Over the years, the Hinterkaifeck case had been reopened and closed numerous times but with no avail. The case was one of truly unfortunate events, from the lack of evidence and the hindering of the crime scene to the loss of the bodies heads, this German mystery was one that would remain a unsolved to this day.

And this my fascinated fans brings us to the end of one of the most gruesome German cases of all time! Stay tuned for the next crime scene on Truly Wicked, and don't forget to share this post and leave a comment about a crime case you find truly wicked.