My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 295 - Twenty-Two To Go

Episode Date: October 7, 2021

On today's episode, Karen and Georgia cover the Hinterkaifeck murders and the history of the lie detector.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We at Wondery live, breathe and downright obsess over true crime and now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music, Exhibit C. It's truly criminal. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstar. That's Karen Kilgariff. We're here to do true crime comedy podcasting for you, hopefully exactly in the way you like. Exactly the way you like it. Nothing at all that upsets you or kind of irritates you. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. Nothing that's like, I don't know, but I'm gonna go ahead. No, none of that. None of it. It's gonna be executed in a Simone Biles perfection style.

Landing it. We're gonna stick the landing. Yes. And the middle and then not this beginning, but later. Yeah, and you're gonna go, wow, they've been practicing. Like what kind of stretching? What kind of uneven bars have they been working out on? The muscles that they must have to target? Is that a word? Yeah. It's out of this world. It's imagine the amounts of Tiger Bomb. Those two are using on these podcasting muscles. Going through every Monday. They must go through jars and jars. Jars and jars. How's your week since we haven't seen each other, Ben? We saw each other last night. Right, right, right, right. Week spin. Fine. Had the laziest weekend. Went to a two year old's birthday party, which is always hectic. Raging. Did you do so many lines

of code? Did all the code came? Two lines to celebrate my nephew's second birthday. You know? Why? It's cute. It's precious. That's right. That's an LA baby birthday. What about you? What do you do? What are you doing? I was also at that baby birthday. You just couldn't see me because I was wearing my camouflage sweatsuit. Just leaning against the bushes watching your family. God, that would be great if you did that. I have, well, the big story that you got pulled into is that now it was like about 48 hours ago. My internet went out entirely. My Wi-Fi, whatever. It's called cable modems. There's a bunch of words people started throwing at me where I was like, I don't know. All the things you suddenly don't realize use internet. Yes.

Like, like, oh, that doesn't work either. Yes. Where I was like, I guess I could make a couple old fashioned phone calls and I can read a book and other than that Netflix won't have me. Nothing, nothing that I, no way I normally watch TV was available. I ended up that night having to watch regular TV. Ew. Your microwave is digital too, so you couldn't hook up to the internet. Say goodbye to that popcorn dream. Yeah, I was on straight up regular TV. How was it? I'm a fan. Like, I like the idea of being like, here's what's on. Pick one. Yes. I think it's good for, I think it creates that feeling that you have stumbled upon something that's your personal favorite thing. Or like, hey, I forgot what kind of person I was 15 years ago. Yes. Yes. And I used to do this all

the time. Like, I've told you the story of when I lived in that horrible studio apartment with the cat. So it was like, we just lived in a cat box together, me and the cat. Oh my gosh. And I used to watch local news and the Jamie Foxx show. Oh, nice. Because that was basically what I could find because I couldn't afford one other thing to help me watch TV. The only time I ever watched like cable, like real paid for cable was when I had to always move back in with my grandma, because it was broke. Couldn't afford $300 a month rent on my thrift store employee salary. God, the magic of like the 90s, 2000s, we didn't know how very much we were living off the fat of the land. Yeah, you could get a $5 an hour job and have an apartment. Yes, you could. And you would,

your job, you could kind of get a job based on how cool you want it to seem. Totally. I'm going to work at this record store. Yes. Yes, I'll barely make any money, but I'll be at the record store. I'm the girl who works at the record store. And then yes, and then somehow find money to go to the bar later. Yeah. Everything sucked. And everything was dirty. You couldn't afford laundry, you know, no, and the laundromat was gross. Right. And you would that would have to be like one big day where you were going to go down and do it all at once. So you had to get, this was pre-fabris. So you had to get creative about how you were going to not smell. But then for me personally, in the mid 90s, like this was back when people still smoked in bars. Right. I would smoke when I

drank. So it was all covered up anyways. Just like pig pen with the little dirty lines all around me. Follow this little cloud following here. The 90s. The cloud of the 90s stink following your. Yeah, bad attitude. Real sarcastic for no reason. Aggressively, aggressively unfriendly. And you smell like Camelite. And also like your Mary Jane docks didn't look cute with socks. So your fucking shoes smelled so bad. So you get to someone's house. You're like, we're in a shoes house. And you're like, well, you fucking hate my guts. And you want everyone to know how about my feet smell? Dude, that's. Oh, no. Erin got so excited. She knocks multiple drinks over. Thank God this is indoor, outdoor car thing. Thank God this is your house. And so you don't

have to go. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. That was my in the 80s when ballet flats came in big time. That's when I discovered I can't wear shoes without socks because of my foot smell. And it was the first discovery of it was so embarrassing. It was just like, Oh my God, I'm going to die. I remember wine. Yeah. Like it was. And the first time I went to a place that I didn't understand was going to be a no shoes thing was a dance at a different high school. Oh, no. Well, at least there's enough people there that they don't. They're not going to point at you. No, no, no. But it was just the kind of thing of now I have to kick off my silver ballet flats filled with talcum powder. Okay, I got it. I told you that story, right? And it was just like, oh, wow.

There she is. She's not making out with anyone from this school tonight. No way. She's not going to say I'm dating a guy from a different school. No, the Cardinal Newman boys would not have me. They just wouldn't pick me. It was because I was a raver. So I would just dance in these cute, like, you know, tennis shoes all night, adidas or whatever without socks on because it didn't look cute. And they didn't have like, pads or like shoe, like little socks back then. No. Guys, you don't understand. You fucking 20 year olds don't know what you had to live without. Yeah. The the niches that have been filled since this time by the people who suffered because they didn't have them. Yeah. What do you need? Well, we created it for you. You're welcome.

You want a sock that doesn't show so you don't look like a weird nerd. You can wear your flats and still not have stinky feet. We got this. That's right. You want a perfect podcast that's a fucking 10. We just landed the intro to you got it now. Here we go. We couldn't have done it then. Oh, I have a correction speaking of perfect landings. Yes, I fucked up last week. Hey, that's how we do it. So it's perfect for us. That's how we do it. That's right. Correction's corner for Hillsborough. Hi, you huns. Oh, cute. I began listening to MFM in April 2020, just as the world had absolutely fallen apart and it has helped me through that time so much. Since then, I finished my undergraduate law degree, finished my master's in law and have just started

as a trainee solicitor. It's lawyer in British. Correct. And you guys have been with me supporting me every step of the way. So thank you. You're welcome. So starting with a nice compliment and we're proud of softening us up for the bad news. Brooke, we're proud of you. And here we go. I was listening to today's episode in which Georgia covered the Hillsborough disaster. Listening to this was the hardest episode I've ever experienced because it hit so close to home for me. My dad, Mark, is a Hillsborough survivor having escaped one of the pens onto the pitch. So one of the people had to climb the fence. He was 18 years old at the time and was attending the match with his 16-year-old brother, my uncle, Paul. He ended up becoming separated from Paul and had to get a

coach back to Liverpool, not knowing whether Paul was alive or dead. Luckily, he was okay and had come home on a separate coach, but we can never forget the families that were not so lucky. He is still unable to talk about his experiences to this day. I do have a slight corrections corner to do with the story. You stated that 96 people lost their lives on that day. However, this is not accurate. 94 victims lost their lives on the day. One, two days later, and Anthony Bland passed three years after the disaster. This was following his family's legal battle for him to be the first person in the UK to be allowed to die from withdrawing treatment. Recently, Andrew Devine was deemed by the coroner to be the 97th victim of the disaster,

following his death on the 27th of July, 2021. This was past summer due to the irreversible brain damage he suffered in the crush. I realized that this email is long, so even if you choose not to read it out, please recognize Andrew Devine and honor his memory as the 97th victim. Thank you for sharing the family's fight for justice. Despite the outcome of the trials, they have done our city proud. Then hashtag JFT97, which is justice for the 97, not 96, SSDGM, Brooke from Liverpool. Thank you, Brooke from Liverpool. That's a crucial correction. Absolutely. And I appreciate you letting me know. What's up with you? What do you have going on in your lifetime?

Well, I was going to ask you, have you watched any more Game of Thrones? I've watched a couple more episodes, so I'm on episode eight now. There's a lot of people and names, and I can't follow all of those things. Do you see why I sent you that thing? Okay, I get it now. You truly, it's like you need the family trees. Yeah. But I was going to ask you, have you gotten to the part where Peter Dinklage has to go to Mrs. Stark's sister? Yes, with that kid. He's like trying to go. Oh, my God. If you can.

Yeah. Oh, my God. The first time I saw that, I was like, they cannot be doing this on television. Like, this is insanity. It's the King Boy. It's the fucking shithead King Boy King, who's like a total little shit. I love it. He's a nursing 11-year-old. It is intensely disturbing. But also, you know, first of all, love a castle that's got a, we will get rid of you forever whole in the middle of the throne room. How do I remodel my house to have one of those? Because epic, so epic. Do you remember what the boy said? It was like, we're going to make him go away or something? I don't remember. But he got so excited when they were going to kill someone. Yes, they're so thrilled. Throwing down that pit. It was just like

everything. And what I love about that show is like, so then you're in that scenario, it's nuts, you're freaking out. And then Peter Dinklage is like, yeah, here's how we're going to handle this. Yeah, he's a boss. It just shows how that character is so smart and so political. Cunning. Gets away and survives. He's such a survivor. Is this a spoiler that I need to make clear? So the little Lang, what's the, what's the king's wife's family? You mean Ned Stark's wife? No, no, no. The king, Robert, his wife. Oh yeah, Baratheon? No.

Cersei, her family? No, no, no. Yeah, Cersei's family. Steve, take all of this out. I'm just really just trying. No, you leave Steve and you leave every word of it. The little fucking, the little page boy blonde king who becomes the king. Joffrey? Yes. So he's actually the inbred son of them. That's correct. Okay, that's what I thought. And he's very mad. He should be mad. I'd be mad at my fucking mom and dad if they were brother and sister. It's pretty intense. It is. It's like, uh, yeah, there's so, there's a lot of, and I mean, yeah, we, I don't think we have to worry about spoilers because people, everyone's seen it. Come on. Oh, for me. Right. And, um, and also it's just this kind of like uncomfortable reality

where you're like, oh, this isn't, this is this weird world where you have to kind of adapt to these creepy cultures. Cause that's not, what I noticed when I started rewatching is that's not the only family that has incest-y things going on. Absolutely not. So yeah, it's just, um, what a, what a show. You know what it's taught me is that I don't give a fuck about sword fights. Like I truly mute it and look away, scroll Instagram until the sword fight is over. It is the most boring kind of fight to me. Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang. Oh, duck and cover. Clang, clang, clang. Coming back. Have you gotten to the part with, um, shit, I'm not going to be able to remember her name off hand. The tall woman who is the sword,

who's the knight that's protecting Mrs. Stark. No. Oh, that, that it, it takes it in this whole, it actually changes that aspect of the show. Okay. Where if you are not, it medieval times oriented. Yes. You suddenly love it because there's a reveal. And I'd like to make something clear. The Princess Bride is one of my all-time favorite movies. I could watch that. I know every word to that sword fight, that epic sword fight. True and not comedic sword fights for the ever-loving shit out of me. Also, the swords are different because the swords that they use in Game of Throne are super heavy and the, what they're like, the ones in Brits is better like this real thin eppies or something. I didn't know you were a sword expert. These are the things I'm slowly

going to reveal to you over the next 22 years. It's six years down. 22 to go. Can you believe we were doing this for six fucking years? Can you believe we have to do it for 28 total? Shit. Can you believe we're contractually obligated by the government? What if the government, we're secret spies for the government. We're definitely like CIA moles for sure. I feel like saying a secret spy for the government is not, is a negating thing. It proves you're not. What if we call ourselves secret squirrels, like the cartoon? Do you think that show, or is that even deeper undercover? Yeah. Now I'm confused even. There's no way they could be spies. Yeah, that's what you thought because we swear. Well, you're fucking idiots. They laughed about it in

episode whatever this is, but it turns out they were actually telling us the true Easter egg. It's the truth right in your face. You just don't expect it. Yeah. Well, that's your Game of Thrones corner. Thank you. I'll keep going. I'll keep going. Now that my internet's back and my Wi-Fi, I'm going to go back to it because I paused it to kind of wait and see because I thought maybe she'll binge a whole thing and go crazy for it. Yeah. No, that's just HGTV. Yeah. If you want to binge, love it or list it with me. We can do that. Fucking love that show. I think you would like that show actually. Is that the open floor plan one where everyone wants an open floor plan so they can watch their kids do homework while they cook? That's actually HGTV. That's not a actual.

That's the motto of HGTV. Except for Cheap Old Houses, which is one of my, it's one of my favorite Instagrams and they got an, they got an HGTV show. Oh. That is just, they just go to old houses, like crazy old houses that are all under a hundred grand in the middle of fucking nowhere and show, they don't, they don't buy it. They don't show you how to change anything. They just point out the special parts of it and they go to people's houses who have bought Cheap Old Houses and show you what they've done and how they've kept it classic. Yes. It's just Cheap Old Houses. They're the loveliest people. Cheap Old Houses goes right on the list. Like it's shocking that they got a show because there's absolutely no open floor plan to be found.

Right. Those old houses having lived in one for a very long time. Where? Oh, in San Francisco? No, no, no. My old house in Burbank. Oh, we're talking like Victorians. No, no, I, not to say that I would ever be on Cheap Old Houses, but I'm saying the floor plan would make no sense. It's like, oh, here's a three foot hallway connecting the front bedroom to the back bedroom and a bathroom. But like, and you can't open both doors at the same time or you're blocked in. It was clearly people were just doing their best with the space they had and the materials given. That's right. I respect it. But that sounds amazing because those are the kind of things like

when I was looking for this house, looking on Zillow and just seeing houses that like, I mean, Ellie doesn't have as many of them because people, it's, If you go to San Francisco, for a minute, I was like, what if Finn said I moved to San Francisco? And so I was looking for houses and I'm just like, this is not fair. Why can't these be in Los Angeles? Because we ruined them because we put marble and beige and open floor plans on everything. On everything. People are like, here's what we're going to do. We're going to make this wall all copper, huh? And then we're going to put in some skylights. So every day at four o'clock, the wall catches on fire. And that's the look. That's going to be the look this season.

That's going to be it and in. And then we're going to put marble with deep veining on every surface. There was a house when I very first started looking that is basically what we're describing right now. And the marble looked like 1000 spilled cups of coffee. Exactly. Where I was like, this would stress me out. So it would never seem clean here. It's hideous. It's crazy. But I mean, but there's some people that are like, I'll pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for that. Hundreds of thousands. Also, man, people love a tacky chandelier. Oh, like chandelier. Totally. Your dog is looking in my palm right now. It's kind of adorable. These dogs are stressing. There is a lightning.

There was a thunder and lightning storm in Los Angeles. Out of nowhere. Of all places. I almost got my car washed today. That's how much I didn't expect it. I mean, I'm lazy, so I didn't. But yeah, like it was as if we were in like Kansas. It was the best. I love it. And these dogs are just like, sorry, we don't know what's going on. It was so cute when Cookie was like, I've never heard thunder before. What is happening? Was she like one ear up one ear down one ear turned to the side? She's like, mom, what are you doing? She's like, thinks probably that I'm doing something. Yeah, she is. She's like, please, please stop doing that. Yeah. Well, she's heard me fart before. So she's probably like, geez. Dang. What did you eat for

lunch? Landed it. 10 out of 10. Look at this. Olympic stone. Landing. Fart comedy. You missed it. We're back. Tell your sister. We're back. You missed it. Tell your cool mom and ask your grandma for her hometown story. Your grandma was a murderer in a long before anybody knew what a murdering it was. That's right. And we appreciate her. Yeah. High five. High five. Speaking of podcasting, should we do exactly right corner? Sure. Hey, we have a, we have a podcasting network because we thought we needed more jobs. Yeah. And we were right. And that's just what we needed. Turns out we needed more. So we just want to highlight a couple quick of the podcast episodes that are up this week

that we just are fucking obsessed with and love so much. All the podcasts on our network are just beautiful people doing gorgeous things. People we believe in, people that we're thrilled to be partners with. That's right. People who we invest in their talent because we know that they have a future in this biz. And we want to hitch our wagon to their star. We don't want to grab on and go for a ride. Come on. So Karen, do you want to announce? Oh yeah. One of our favorite podcasts on this network is, do you need a ride? Which is my brother podcast. Oh yeah. Your third job. You can push him off. No, it's okay. He's just, he just won't stop. He looks like a seal. He does. Lay down. Lay down. Frank is just kind of coming at Georgia in this way where he's

staring like she owes him $5. It's insanity. Lay down. So this week on, do you need a ride with Chris Fairbanks and Karen Kilgeriff? We have the guest, the great Dave Holmes, whose podcast Waiting for Impact is about to come out next week. And so he was a guest on, do you need a ride? He's the funniest. He's the man is just, he knows how to podcast. He's good at it. He's such a professional. So that's, do you need a ride? And what else we got? Check that out. And then the other one I want to highlight is cousin of the podcast. That's right. My actual, seriously, cousin, Dr. Dan Peters, his podcast, Parent Footprint with Dr. Dan that I just love so much. This episode is called Embracing Culture, Food, and Friendship with Karen Chan, who is this incredible

former food blogger, attorney, mom, and founder of this independent book publisher that creates children's books to increase representation of characters of color in the books children read. So it's a really important, wonderful, lovely episode. That's great. Parent Footprint. And then also you guys, it really helps the podcasts to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. It just really boosts their visibility, which is so important for these podcasts that are just starting out. So like if you're listening on the, for example, if you're on the Apple app, you just, as you're listening, go up and hit that little plus, then you're subscribed. It counts for something. It's that easy. And then you see all those stars

that don't, that are blank. You hit them. Hit five. I mean, hit five if you want. I'd say five. Obviously, we deserve five. Roger Ebers. Hit five. Are you hold, are you withholding your love? What if you, yeah, give it away. Give it away. Give it away now. Also, we have some beautiful merch, one of our newest designs. I don't know if you've seen it. It says, look, listen on it. And it truly is one of my favorite shirts that we've ever made. I love it. It's very camp. It looks like a camp shirt. Yeah. There's a ringer. There's, there's a couple different versions, but take a look at that because it's a, it's just a classic. Yeah. We have a lot of cute designs, a lot of cool ones coming out. And just so you know, we're not, because we want

a fourth job, Karen and I pick out every single design and every color of shirts and every type of, like we're, our hands are all over it. So I don't know. Yeah. Were you afraid people thought that we're, we're, we had some other people doing it for us. Yeah. So like, why would I care if you don't care? But like we care. Oh, we care. Yeah. We touch every single piece of merch. We fold it ourselves. They fold it. We ship it. Why am I yelling? That's our biz, right? Yeah. I don't know what, I don't know how to help you, Frank. Frank won't say, he won't leave Georgia's side in a way that is, it's like, um, she's an old farmer who died and he's sitting on her, on her grave. Yeah. That's kind of what made it come home. Except for he's panting and staring. And it's super creepy.

I'm on her. All you need is a slice of Swiss cheese. Little creeper. Swiss cheese pervert. I was, you just made it creepy. So thank you. I thought it was really sweet. And then you had to go and, all right. Should we get it started? Let's do it in here. Let's party on down. Okay. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping and prepping handled, HelloFresh has you covered. HelloFresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year. HelloFresh meals are convenient, seasonal and delicious. Stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly. Why stop with just dinner? Now you can enjoy HelloFresh's expanded menu of quick lunch solutions,

weekend brunch, simple side dishes and amazing desserts. Karen, January is going to be my month for HelloFresh. I am so sick of takeout. I miss cooking so much. I haven't lifted a knife or a pan since like early fall. So I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and HelloFresh makes it so easy and also makes it so that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own. It gives you everything, everything you need. So get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of

Wondery's podcast against the odds. In our next season, three masked men hijack a school bus full of children in the sleepy farm town of Chowchilla, California. They bury the children and their bus driver deep underground, planning to hold them for ransom. Local police and the FBI marshal a search effort, but the trail quickly runs dry. As the air supply for the trapped children dwindles, a pair of unlikely heroes emerges. Follow against the odds wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. All right, Georgia. I'm excited because this week I'm covering a story that's renowned that over the years, people have asked us to cover over and over and over again. And I don't know

why we haven't yet, but I'm doing it right now. Okay. And it is the Hinterkäifeck murders. I saw your paper before. I'm so bummed. I was trying really hard. This is the first time I ever have known your story before you told it to me. Should I pretend it? Sorry. Oh my god. No. Shit. Fuck. So let's see. Yeah, this is exciting. This is definitely one of those stories that people are always like, when are you going to do this? Yes, please talk about it. Totally. The cool thing is when we come late to the table for stories like this, of course, almost every true crime podcast has covered it. So there's so much research. Of course, there's one million theories on Reddit that are fascinating. You read something and then you're

like, ooh, and then somebody comes right in and I'm like, this sounds like an urban legend. And then you're like, ooh, it does. So you get to have the whole journey of a very old, cold case that is just probably never going to get solved. So some of the sources on this, case file podcast, it's case 124, Hinterkai FEC research and writing by Aaron Monroe. The Hinterkai FEC murders horror on a Bavarian farm by Arkham Rebel. That's darkideas.net. Hinterkai FEC murders on Wikipedia. Oh, I thought of a new segment for us, which is that I just hit random on Wikipedia and I'm going to read you the article. I love it. Okay. So much. We'll start that next week. And don't start it on your fucking podcast. I already, I'm sure there's a million people

are like, hey, we do that. I just forgot that there's you. If you're bored, it's so weird. I literally was thinking, we're like, we're thinking about this the other day. Really? Yes. Like that. That's a thing. It's such, I always get thing. I always get Wikipedia pages when I do it. And I'm like, oh, I have 10 minutes to kill. Let's see what I can learn. And it'll just be like, it's the flag of Finland or something where I'm like, okay, this is this is general trivia. Yeah. Someday you're going to take a trivial pursuit and need to know. Yeah, these things. Yeah, let's do it next, let's do it next week. Okay, great. Perfect. There was a timeline of events that was all in German

and Jay translated it using Google translate, which I absolutely love and Google translate. What a great pair. What a team. What a team. And that was compiled by a man named Hans Richter. And it's the murder case of Hintr Keifak. So that's a www.hintrkeifak.de where the hell? This is truly international. Don't don't send people to spam pages. Sorry. That's so you could, you could go and get my really high interest mortgage. Sorry. Mental Floss has an article called The Chilling Story of the Hintr Keifak Killings, Germany's most famous unsolved crime by Sonya Vytomsky. And all that's interesting.com, the gruesome tale of the unsolved Hintr Keifak murders by Katie Serena.

Gotta love all that's interesting. All right, I will tell you this, even though you know it. I don't. And so does everybody else. I haven't read about it in so long. So this will be like a like a brand new thing. Okay, we're going to visit it again for the first time. That's right. Let's go there. As I was reading Jay's research, it reminds me a lot of the man from the train, my book obsession that is the serial killer that was going around America on trains, killing families in their houses in rural America all around. During the dust bowl, right? I think it was like late. It was like turn of the century. My favorite time. Turn of the century. You love that time. Man on the train. No internet.

A doodoo, the book, the man from the train. For someone who loves this book so much, I fuck it up a lot. But that book is by the author Bill James and his daughter, Rachel McCarthy James. And if you are looking for a true crime book that is going to be factually dense and yet absolutely horrifying as a story where you think, oh my God, how do I never know about this? Read the man from the train. I will keep on recommending it until year 28. Please do. Okay. But anyway, let's talk about this actual case. Okay. So it's the 1920s and farmer Andreas Gruber, who's 63 years old, lives and works at the Bavarian Hintr Keifak farm located about 43 miles north of Munich, Germany. I'm going to totally go for it

in all of my German pronunciations in this episode. I was impressed that you even, the title was so well done. Well, it's called phonetic pronunciations. I mean, it's all there, but those Germans, the Germans, but also it's actually, it's not as, if you really look at the word, it's not as confusing as it seems. Okay. Yeah, go for it. Don't let the Umlauts fool you. The German language is very accessible. She said knowing no words in it. Okay. He shares this farm and home with his wife, Zazelia Gruber. She's 72. Oh, a little bit older. I like it. Their widowed daughter, Victoria Gabriel, who's 35 and Victoria's two children, Zazelia, who's named after her grandmother, but she goes by the name Sealy. So I'm going to call her

Sealy for the rest of this. And a little boy named Joseph, who's two. So Thursday, March 30th, 1922. Andreas is outside on the farm and he notices human footprints in the snow leading from the forest, which is called the witch's wood, which is right like basically next to their property. There's just this little forest sitting there called the witch's wood. Jay sent this to me earlier because I said, could you please write up a summary of the witch's wood and all the hideous things that have happened there? And he's like, I can't find any information on the witch's wood. Oh, he said, but I am seeing that the German name for witch's wood is Hexenholz, which objectively rules. Hexenholz is your death metal band. Hey. There's a gig tonight in witch's

wood. Bring all your white makeup. Okay. So these human footprints go along next to the property up to the farm's machine room where all their big, you know, machines are, but there's no footprints leading back to the woods. So Andreas follows those. He discovers the lock on the machine room's door has been broken, but he looks inside, he finds no one and there's nothing out of place. Later that night, while the family is sitting at home, Andreas and everybody hear what sounds like footsteps in their attic. He goes up there to investigate, looks around, finds nothing. The creepiest part about both of these incidents is that he's being watched. Like we know now that someone in the dark recesses of witch's wood is watching him walk around those places.

Yep. Yes. I mean, it's, could you move into a farm next to a place called witch's wood? Do you think? I mean, the first part, the farm part is a hell now. Oh, okay. Then it's, then it's off the table entirely. Not a problem here. Okay, got it. Though the footprints, the broken lock and the sounds from the attic are all odd. There's nothing missing. So Andreas isn't too concerned. And their small village is a very safe place where everyone knows everyone. So he tells a few neighbors that these weird things are happening, but he decides not to report it to the police, because he doesn't think there's really anything to report. A little less than two weeks later, on Saturday, April 1st, 1922, two coffee salesmen, Hans and Edward Sharofsky, show up at the Hinter

Keifeck Farm to take the Gruber's coffee order. That's a double duty. Two people need to do that. Yeah. Because they're like, okay, we need a pumpkin spice latte. Venti. There's so specific on their coffee orders. I love the idea. In 1922, they would come and make sure that you had coffee at your house, at your farm. Yeah. Okay. They knock on the door and the window. No one answers. They look around the property. There's no sign of anyone being at home. All they see is the gate to the machine house open. So they leave without investigating any further. They're just the two coffee salesmen. It's, you know, hey, ma'am, M-Y-O-B. Not in our business. Exactly. So another three days go by and the school teacher notices that Sealy is absent from school and not to mention the

entire Gruber family was absent from the usual Sunday services at their town church. Now Victoria actually is nicknamed the Lark because she has such a beautiful singing voice. And so she is especially missed by her church choir. Then on April 4th, 1922, a local machine assembler named Albert Hofner goes to Hinterkai Fak at 9am for a previously scheduled appointment to fix what is called the food chopper engine. Now. Sure. I text Jay and I'm like, this is, this has to be a translation issue. Please find out what a food chopper is because I, not that I'm a big farmer or anything, but I did grow up in a rural area. No one ever talked about fixing the food chopper unless they meant a Cuisinart. So what is happening? Or sharpen a knife to sharpen the knife. And he

basically said what they did was they took composty type stuff or stuff from what they had sown in the fields. And this was a machine where they could throw anything in there and it would basically become the feed for the animals. So it was like a giant, farmy Cuisinart. It's Animal Farm Cuisinart in Yoi. So Albert waits about an hour for Andreas or anyone from the Gruber family to greet him, but no one shows up. He only hears the farm animals and a sound of the dog barking, but there's no sign of the Gruber. So he finally decides he'll just go fix the food chopper by himself, get it started. He works for about four and a half hours. He doesn't see anyone from the family the entire time and he leaves at 2.30 p.m. But as he's leaving, he notices the barn which

had been closed when he got there is now open. And he also notices that the dog that had been inside the barn barking is now tied up by the front door. So he thinks one of the Grubers has come home and he's now confused as to why they wouldn't come and say hi to him because he had an appointment to come and fix the food chopper. So are you mad at me? Yeah. So now the whole town is wondering about where the Gruber family is. So around 3.30, one of the neighbors named Lawrence Schlittenbauer sends his son Johan and his steps on Joseph. So Johan 16, Joseph's 9. They go over to Hinterkai Fakt to see if they can find the Gruber family. They soon return to say the same thing everyone else has been saying, which is that farm is deserted. But this

makes no sense to Lawrence. So he grabs two other neighbors, Michael Paul and Jacob Siegel, and the three go back over to Hinterkai Fakt. And they try opening the front door of the house. It's locked. So they go around back to the barn. This is a big L-shaped building and their house, like the living quarters are on the front part. And then there's a connected area that connects them to all of the animal stalls and then the back barn area. So it smells great. It's all super cozy and everyone's all together. So they try opening the front door. It's locked. They go back around to the barn and they try to get into the house through the connecting door, through the barn. And as they walk through the animal stalls, they stumble over an old door that's laying on

top of a pile of hay. Then Michael sees a foot sticking out from under the door. So Lawrence pulls on it and reveals the lifeless body of Andreas Gruber. The men lift up the old door and they find three more bodies, Cecilia Victoria and the seven-year-old Celie. Horrible. The three men rush inside the main house through the connecting door, looking for two-year-old Joseph, hoping that he's still alive. They run into Victoria's bedroom only to find him dead in his bassinet with a terrible head wound and one of his mother's dresses laid across him. So they search the rest of the house and to their surprise, they find even another body, a woman lying on the floor in a pool of blood covered by a blanket in the second bedroom. And she's soon identified as 44-year-old Maria

Baumgartner. She had just been hired as the Gruber's new maid. She'd only arrived, I think, the day before. So she had truly just gotten there to start this job. After searching the entire house, Lorenz Schlittenbauer decides to stay and guard the property while Michael, Paul, and Jake Gibb Siegel run to get the police. So I'll tell you a little bit about this farm and the family. So the farm's situated between two towns. So it's southwest of a town called Grobern, and it's north of a town called Kyfak. So the name Hinter Kyfak literally translates to behind Kyfak. So that's why they call that farm that. Then Witcheswood, my favorite place in the entire world that I want to go to so badly, is right in the center of. It's a forest that sits between

Grobern and Kyfak right along the southeast corner of the farm. And so Cecilia Gruber, she inherited the farm when she was 35 after her first husband died on May 21st, 1885. And she soon after started a relationship with the Hinter Kyfak farmhand, Andreas Gruber, who was 27 at the time. They married a year later on April 14th, and they went on to have three daughters, but only their oldest, Victoria, survives into adulthood. So it's hard, hard living. Yeah. Andreas is a hard worker. He doesn't hesitate to help others with their neighboring farms, but he does have a very dark side, very disturbing what's found on this farm. He's very physically abusive to his wife and rumor has it that the other two daughters died young because of his abuse

and his end starvation that they suffered. Oh, shit. And to make matters worse, in 1903, when Victoria's 16, she tells a neighbor, Mrs. Schlittenbauer, that her father is raping her. Oh my God. She hates to be around him, but she has nowhere else to go. So she stays on the farm, and she basically works really hard on that farm. Yeah. She keeps herself busy by singing in the church choir, and she hangs out with friends as often as she can. In April of 1914, when she's 27, Victoria marries a man named Carl Gabriel. So Cecilia gives the newlyweds the deed to the Hinterkai Fak farm, but she and Andreas will continue to live there. It's clear that Andreas doesn't like Carl. Carl complains that Andreas constantly bullies him and denies him food.

It seems pretty, pretty rough. Yeah. In that household, it causes problems in Carl and Victoria's marriage. But ultimately, they work through it. They have a daughter together, Cecilia, but then Carl leaves to fight in World War One, and it's when Victoria is still pregnant, and he dies a month before Cecilia is born. Oh, man. So Victoria and Cecilia are the sole owners of the Hinterkai Fak farm. In 1915, six months after Carl's death, both Andreas and Victoria are convicted of incest taking place between 1907 and 1910. Yeah. And this is the most fucked up part about it. Victoria spends a month in prison. Wow. So she's arrested with her father as if she is somehow, you know what I mean? It's so, it's really fucked up and very upsetting. Twisted.

She's in prison for a month. Andreas goes for a year. And after they're released, they both go back to Hinterkai Fak. And yeah, that's tragic. So then three years later, Victoria gives birth to Joseph. And on the birth certificate under father, the initials LS are listed. But Victoria has no known official relationship with anyone at the time. Of course, it's, you know, the 20s. Rumors begin to circulate about Andreas being the father, but no one ever finds out the real identity of Joseph's father to this day. No one knows. Okay. So now we're back to the investigation. Okay. So word about the situation at Hinterkai Fak spreads through the town like wildfire. And by six o'clock, townspeople show up in droves,

which was the thing that used to happen back then. Yeah. And Lawrence is the one who stayed behind to protect the property. He starts walking people through the house and giving them a tour of the crime scene. Dude. Yeah. Look over here. Look over there. Touch this. Also, take that. There is a dead two year olds in a bassinet. Like what in the hell? It's, it's horrifying. So someone suggests to him that letting people in before the police get there is maybe a bad idea. Yeah. But strangely calm Lawrence just says it's too late. They're already here anyway. One visitor even goes into the kitchen and makes themselves a snack. I'm sorry. Pause on that. What the fuck? Right. Now, hey, I'm hungry after that tour.

I don't, I mean, the first thing that comes to mind, which is entirely made up by me, but it's like, you know, it's hard times. It's way back in the day. People are you, you know, when you work on a farm, you see death every day. Right. At least animal death. Yeah. So maybe they're a little bit like kind of just numb to it. Maybe, maybe a little more. Yeah. You don't want to snack after you fucking see a dead. A whole family murdered. A whole family slaughtered. Okay. Yeah. So we've both decided this, that was a bad thing that person did. When the local police do finally arrive, they quickly realize they're in over their heads, not only have all these town people walked through the crime scene, but Lawrence and Michael have moved the bodies

from their original positions so they can only piece together what the original crime scene looked like. Suspicious. Right. I don't like it. I don't like that at all. So they call in the Munich police for help who show the next morning on April 5th, 1922. An investigator from the Munich police named Georg Reingruber. Look at me doing it. Great. He leads the investigation. And here's how he does it. He takes a quick look around. He decides it was a robbery gone bad and he leaves. Goodbye. Give me a snack. Goodbye. I mean, so basically the other officers that are still there, they continue to dig for clues. Luckily, inside the main house, investigators find a large sum of money and lots of jewelry. So that quickly rules out this robbery gone wrong

theory. Plus the only room in the house that appears to have been ransacked is Victoria's. But with the entire family dead, no one can be sure if anything of value is missing. Right. When the investigators go up into the attic, they find a bunch of hay strewn around on the floor. This leads them to deduce two things, that one or possibly two people have been sleeping in the attic and that they put that hay down possibly to mute their footsteps on the floorboards. Creepy. Yes. So they spot a rope tied to a crossbeam that goes along the attic ceiling and it goes out a window. And then they notice outside the window that there are shingles that are broken indicating that someone or several people have accessed the attic by way of the roof.

Oh no. Lock all your windows. Even if you're like, it's the third floor, no one can get in. Also, if you're checking around and maybe it wasn't there when Andreas checked it the first time. Yeah. But like, if you hear footsteps anywhere, you know. They're footsteps. They're probably footsteps. Even if you don't see people, you look for things that would enable people to be there. Yeah. Straw. Rope. Yeah. Are those at least two weapons from the game clue? A pipe. Pipe. A pile of straw. A pile of straw. You know, a pair of knitting needles. So court physician Dr. Johan Baptist on IOMULAR conducts the autopsies on all these victims. So 72 year old Cecilia has been strangled

and her skull has been cracked. He counts seven blows to her head. Victoria's skull is also smashed and she has nine strange star shaped puncture wounds and signs of blunt force trauma on the right side of her head. Now this is really horrible. The skin on Andreas's face is shredded and bloody and his cheekbones are actually sticking out. Like his face has been mauled. Yeah. And Celie's jaw is smashed. She has opened circular wounds on her neck and face. And Dr. IOMULAR concludes that the older three victims in the barn died instantly, but they find tuffs of Celie's own hair in her hands, which they believe means that she suffered maybe even for hours in pain and duress, either seeing her family get murdered or

being tortured. They're not sure. Oh my God. And then inside the house, both Joseph and Maria had very similar wounds, both died by blows to the head that left their skulls shattered. So it's very up close, personal, horrifying emo. Brutal. Dr. IOMULAR also concludes that the killer or killers must have lured each of the four members of the family into the barn one at a time. So the theory is that after the first person was attacked, the second person came out hearing their screams followed by the third and then the fourth. But when police test out whether shouts in the barn can be heard from the living quarters, it turns out the sound doesn't travel that far. Another theory is that the killers may have let various animals out of the barn

to draw everybody out one at a time. But that's so sinister, that idea. And then the maid stays back with the baby. A search around the Hinterkine fact grounds proves fruitless. A recent rainstorm melted most of the snow. So even a canine team can't find any clues or sniff anything out. And with no murder weapon and no strong leads, police interview the groupers' neighbors and other people close to the groupers, including their previous maid, who was named Kreschens Rieger, trying to piece together the events that led up to this murder. So basically, Kreschens Rieger is 23 years old. She's hired as the groupers' live-in maid in November of 1920. But during her time with the groupers, she sees the worst of Andreas's

disgusting behavior. She witnesses him lock Victoria in the closet to prevent a suitor from proposing to her, stating Victoria will be his and his alone for as long as he lives. Another occasion, Kreschens accidentally walks in while Andreas is raping Victoria in the barn. She also hears strange sounds coming from the attic, and she has the persistent nagging feeling that she's being watched. Oh, dear. She soon becomes convinced that Hinterkaifak is haunted. But when she reports this to Andreas, he dismisses the whole thing. He doesn't believe her. In August of 1921, just 10 months after she starts working with the groupers, Kreschens quits six months before the Gruber family is murdered. So she kind of had just worked there.

Yeah. And then months later in March of 1922, various neighbors recall that Andreas mentioning some strange happenings on the farm. First, one of the two front door keys goes missing. And then secondly, a Munich based newspaper arrives on the front porch of the house. But the problem is Andreas doesn't subscribe to that newspaper. Creepy. When he asked the postman about it, postman says that he didn't deliver that newspaper, and no one else in the area subscribes to it. Then Andreas notices, notices scratches on the lock on one of the sheds indicating someone had tried to break in. He searches the property to see if he can find the intruder, doesn't find anybody, doesn't find any other clues. Soon after Andreas finds the footprints in the snow

leading from witches woods to his machine room on Thursday, March 30th, he spots his neighbor, Lorenz Schlittenbauer out in the fields. And so he decides to go tell Lorenz about these creepy things he keeps finding. Lorenz says that he hasn't seen anything suspicious, but he offers to call the police for Andreas. But of course, then Andreas turns him down saying he can protect himself, but probably doesn't want the police anywhere near his house. And then so here I wrote, here's me in that situation. If that's if I offered to call the police for someone there, I can do it myself. And it's like, okay, then shut up about it. Like why you bring it up to me. I'm trying to help you. I feel like I would call the police because them saying they

don't want me to call the police is suspicious. Yes. Let's turn all the neighbors against all the other neighbors. Okay, that same day, March 30th, Victoria meets with a woman named Francesca Schaefer. And so basically the groupers are trying to hire a new maid. Francesca says her sister Maria Baumgartner will take the job. Although Maria suffers from both mental and physical handicaps, they're minor. She needs the work and Victoria wants to hire her and lets her sister know that she would love to hire her. But when Victoria returns home with the good news, Sealy would later describe to a school friend that her mother got into a violent quarrel after that. And after that quarrel, Victoria disappears and is later found in Witcheswoods

school where there's a staircase underground. I made that up. Where does it go? The next day, March 31st, 1922, around five, Francesca arrives at Hinterkai Fek with Maria and drops her off. And as she's leaving, Maria runs back out to hug her sister one last time before saying goodbye and starting the job. So Francesca Schaefer is the last person to see Maria and the Gruber family alive. Wow. So when investigators put together a timeline of events, they suspect the murders must have taken place on Friday, March 31st, 1922, between 8 and 11 at night. But in the days between the murder and the discovery of bodies, it is apparent that someone was on the farm tending to the animals and keeping a fire going inside the house. Diabolical.

So around 1130 that night, a local named Michael Plackel reported seeing a stranger burning something foul smelling in Hinterkai Fek's outdoor oven. When Michael tried to get a better look at the man, the man shined a light toward Michael obscuring his view. So Michael fled the scene. Then in the early morning hours on Saturday, April 1st, a local farmer and butcher named Simon Rieslander is heading home when he sees two strangers at the edge of Witcheswood. And when they see Simon, they quickly turn away so he can't see their faces. And it isn't until days later when Simon suspects they could be the culprits. So Lawrence, Michael and Jacob were among the first people interviewed, right, because they're first on the scene,

and they discovered the bodies. But Lawrence is quickly singled out when Michael and Jacob report Lawrence's odd behavior. They both report that Lawrence was strangely stoic upon seeing the Gruber's dead bodies. Also one question by police, Lawrence Schlittenbauer swears up and down that he didn't let anyone into the house after he, Michael and Jacob discovered the bodies, but several other witness testimonies, along with obvious physical evidence prove otherwise. It's soon discovered that Lawrence's connection to the Gruber family goes beyond just being neighbors. In 1918, after his first wife passed away, Lawrence and Victoria begin, as the Germans like to say, hooking up. And then I looked up the translation for

Friends with Benefits. It's frunde mit Rotlin. Wow. I don't think it really sounds like that, but I'm impressed, though. Okay. I'm trying to make this feel legit. I'm trying as hard as I can. A year later in 1919, her son Joseph is born, Victoria's son Joseph is born, and the LS listed on the birth certificate could stand for, and probably stands for Lawrence Schlittenbauer. So Michael and Jacob also thought it was strange that Lawrence would run into the living quarters so quickly after finding the first four bodies, almost as if he knew there was no killer inside the house. Okay, right. In the moment, Lawrence explains that he wants to, quote, find his son, indicating that he believes he truly was Joseph's father. But with the rumors of Andreas's rape of

his daughter now confirmed to be true, there's a chance that Joseph was actually Andreas's biological son. Yeah. Not to mention Lawrence was the man who had proposed to Victoria when she got locked in the cupboard by her father. Okay. So given all this, Lawrence would have a clear motive to seek revenge against Andreas and his family. But why her? Yeah, right? And why his son? Yeah. Just the dad. Just the creep fucking piece of shit dad. Right. But here's a possible theory. Yeah. Lawrence had been under immense stress in his personal life because he had since married another woman, they had a baby who passed away only a few weeks after it was born. But you know. Yeah. That usually doesn't grief usually doesn't make people kill a family. So who knows. So police

can't find any hard evidence tying Lawrence to the crime. He says he's a happily remarried man. He has no reason to harm the groupers. And police chalk his odd behavior up to being in shock, which is very possible. Yeah. And his knowledge of the farm layout due to his relationship with Victoria. So he knew where to go. And Lawrence is cleared of the crime. But of course, as it will happen, towns people, some towns people maintain their suspicions about him. He files several civil suits for slander against towns people and he wins everyone. Wow. So he was like, yeah, you can zip it. Yeah, stop talking shit. So three years later in 1925, a neighbor reportedly sees Lawrence visiting the Hinterkaife grounds and they strike up a conversation and Lawrence

makes a comment about how the killer or killers couldn't bury the bodies at the time of the murder because the ground was frozen. Well, that could be true. Could be true. But it seems incredibly suspicious to the neighbor because Lawrence also farmed the same land. So the neighbor is incredibly suspicious about this. Yeah. But because Lawrence farms the same land, he would know exactly what the state if it was, it wasn't like he had no other experience with it. And then years later, Lawrence dies in 1941 and he is never officially tied to the murders. So investigators and their second and most short lived theory is that the murderer was actually a Victoria's husband, Carl Gabriel, who was reportedly killed in December 1914 in a shell attack in

France in World War One. But his body was never recovered. And so they theorize that because of Andreas's incestuous crimes, yeah, that Carl survived the war and came back to seek his revenge. No. But it doesn't make sense. Because first of all, there's many soldiers who report having seen him die in battle. Yeah. And just because they couldn't recover the body. Again, it's like just killed the dead. Like whoever would kill a young baby. No, it doesn't. That wouldn't make any sense at all unless, you know, he comes back and sees that she's had a baby with someone else. Then kills his own daughter too. Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't hold up really. Carl's body is never recovered, but he was officially confirmed deceased by the Central Prosecution Office

for war losses and war graves. Okay. So the third theory is that the murders were an act of murder suicide. So because of their horrible family secret of Andreas raping his daughter and the fact that it became so well known, that you could theorize that he wiped out his whole family before taking his own life out, you know, shame, deep seated guilt, the whole rage. Sounds like a rage issue. Maybe he killed everyone. Then I was like, well, to kill myself too. Right. Then people who have that theory are like, well, you could also say Victoria could have the same motive because she possibly mothered his child and was abused by her father for years. Maybe she reached a breaking point and decided to just end the family suffering

including her own. But the only problem with these theories is none of the wounds of any of the victims could have been self-inflicted. And on top of that, a year later in 1923, the Hinterkijfakt Farm Building is torn down and in the demolition, they find murder weapons. They find what's called a Matic, which is basically it's a pickaxe multi-tool. So it looks like an axe on one side and like a kind of a hoe thing on the other. So you could like use either side and then a pen knife. And they're found covered in blood and buried beneath the attic floorboards. Whoa. Yeah. So you couldn't, okay. So there's no way that either of those people could have gone and hidden the murder weapons in the attic. And it's interesting that they're hidden in the attic

where people were hiding or theorized or hiding because then it would make sense they would go back and put them in that place. Also, the Matic has a star-shaped bolt on it that matches the puncture rooms found on some of the victims. A neighbor confirmed that the Matic was Andreas's and he had actually made it himself. So after rolling out suspects that were close to the family, investigators look around for strangers who could have done it. And one of the notable suspects is Josef Bartle. In 1919, just a few years before the murders at Hinterkijfakt, Bartle had robbed a family 13 miles away in the village of Ebenhausen. He was captured, he was sent to a nearby insane asylum in Gunsberg, but he escaped in 1921. Given his mental

instability, investigators and witnesses find it plausible that Bartle would commit the crime and then stay at the farm for days afterwards, tending to the cattle and making himself at home. But they could never find any hard evidence against him. It's all circumstantial based on his record and proximity. And they also can't find him. So yeah. So they basically, he's clear to the crime. They also look at brothers Carl and Anton Bickler. According to the former maid, Anton worked on the Hinterkijfakt farm during the potato harvest of 1920. And his brother was also a farmhand, but he was lazy. Carl was lazy and Anton was not. So the maid says that Anton had a particular interest in the Gruber family. Other sources say that Carl had the idea to

scare the family into giving them their money by killing Andreas. So police go back to Simon Rieslander, the butcher and the farmer, to ask him about the two strangers he saw early that morning near the witches wood. They show him pictures of the Bickler brothers and say, could these be the men you saw? And he says they could be, but I can't know for sure. On May 2nd, 1922, a police report is made saying Carl purchased a drug to knock out the family dog. And that's enough to lead to his arrest on May 5th, 1922. But Carl has an alibi saying that he was working on another farm at the time of the murders. And he has witnessed testimony confirming that alibi. So he's released like six days later. And the dog never barked at Anton. So if they had

partnered up for a crime, Anton could have just calmed the dog down himself. They didn't need to drug it. Okay, so then 20 or so years later, a woman by the name of Cressancia Meyer, she's on her deathbed and she makes a final combat confession to her priest. She says brothers Adolf and Anton Gump are responsible for the murders at Hintakifak. She claims Adolf has been in a romantic relationship with Victoria. But when he found out about Andreas, he lost it. His brother allegedly helps him murder Victoria and Andreas for revenge, then murder the rest of the household to ensure there are no witnesses. Police don't investigate this lead for 11 years. And by then Adolf has already been dead for eight years. And Anton is arrested, but he denies any involvement and no

evidence is found connecting him or his brother to the murders. So he's held in custody for three weeks, and then he's released without charges ever being filed against him. So all in all, the police interview more than 100 suspects, they explore every conceivable possibility from, you know, close friends and family to complete strangers, vagrants and anyone in the vicinity with a criminal record. Shortly after their autopsies, each of the victim's heads were sent off to a medium in Munich to see if they could find any leads through the metaphysical realm, but that it provides no leads. The case runs cold. And it is officially closed in 1955. Um, it's been reopened a number of times between 1955 and 2007. But much of the original evidence

is either lost or like has been touched and held so much that they just can't help people anymore. Yeah. In 2007, however, the first in Feldbrück Police Academy decides to reopen the case. Um, some say it's like to actually relook at it and try to solve it. Another say it was just for this cold case is used as a sample case for for trainees to practice on. They have a theory, they look over everything, and they have a theory. But because the person that they believe is responsible for the murders has long been dead. And of course, the Gerber family has long been dead. But they decide not to release who they believe the everything all the evidence points to. Because they can't defend themselves. Right. And because it would the family

still lives in the area. Yeah. And so it would hurt their standing and reputation. And there's it would never be able to be prosecuted. So they decide to keep their theory a secret. But tell us, please. Right. I know. Quick text. It's out of respect for, you know, the family members that are people that are close to the crime. So basically, it is believed that we will never know for sure who killed the Gerber family at Hanked Henterkheifack Farm. And that is the legendary cold case of the Henterkheifack murders. Damn. I didn't know a lot of that. Me either. That is crazy. Good job. Thank you. I in researching this, I realized I have a true passion for a

Germanic forest areas named after witches in any way. Clearly. This is clearly your the direction your life is now going to go in. I mean, I'm happy for you. Thank you. It feels great to know when something really moves you. Yeah. That's a great feeling. Yeah. Go after your dreams. There is an overhead picture because so the farm's not there anymore. There is there's like a memorial. Oh, and there and then it's just kind of big open field. But there's you can see online. There's overhead photos will post one where the witches would is still right there. It's like a this weird little rectangle of forest just right there in the middle of fields. Who planted that? Why is it there? What's in the center?

It's weird because I'm listening to a book right now like a scary ghosty book. And in it, uh, in near the woods is this like rock formation called the devil's hand, which like fits that perfectly. Is it real? No, it's fiction, but it's scary. It's called Winter People. Okay, by Jennifer McMahon. Nice. Jennifer McMahon has a similar idea to my stairs that go underground, but just goes in a different direction. Up or down, pick one. Great job. Thank you. Needed to be told. Yeah, let's see. I have to admit right now, please, for a long time when people would tell us to do this case. There is another cold case that happened in Iceland that I would always get it confused with. Okay. So that'll never happen again.

I promise you. Well, now we all know. That's my podcasting partner and anyone else listening that this is what it's for me. This is what it's all about. I'm not one of those people with true crime that can or is interested in remembering dates or details in that kind of studied way that many people are. And God bless. Right. We just like hearing the stories. I like the story and I like to know what's possible. Yeah. And we like to tell a friend who's equally interested in the story about it. Yes. I don't need to know more than you about true crime. Not at all. I want to be told stories about it and I want to tell you the ones that fascinate and horrify me. Yeah. I want to watch your eyes fly open in surprise and shock

the way mine do. Yes. That's the fun part about doing podcasts like this. Yes. It's in all our years of paying attention to this. Do you know this one? Right. Yeah. Yes, I do. But I want to hear it from you. Yeah. It's like part of it also. But listen, speaking of, do you know things about other things? I'm going to tell you. I thought it'd be interesting to talk about the history of the lie detector test. Oh my. Why? That is interesting. Right? Yes, it is. It's adjacent. And it's controversial and it's been around. So I'm going to tell, I'm going to talk about how it was invented and all that stuff. And then I'm going to tell some stories proving just how unreliable and parable they are. Okay.

So the sources I used are the Science Museum in London, the American Psychological Association, a law info article written by Christina Majewski, the book Betrayal written by Tim Wiener, the anti-polygraph blog, the National Registry of Exonerations, and a Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology article written by Don Gruben and Lars Madsen. Nice. All right, Karen. First lie detector test, like technically lie detector test, can be traced back to China, circa 1000 BC. What? Yeah. Not the kind we know today, but the idea of detecting lies through a thing. Suspected liars are forced to put a handful of rice in their mouth and then spit it out after a specific amount of time. The test is based on the idea that fear and anxiety caused

decreased saliva. True. Which in turn causes dry mouth, right? You know, and you could tell someone's lying when they are high. So if they spit the rice out after a time and it's dry, then that person's found guilty of lying and is sentenced to death. Unfortunately, this is not a very good lie detector and pretty much everyone's just killed. Yeah. Right. So the search... But I like the intention. Yeah. I like that they're trying to figure it out. Yeah. It's like cause and effect. This happens when this happens. So if this doesn't happen, then that's what this means. Yeah. Burn the wedge. Right? Burder at the stake. The search for a way to detect lies continues. Many tests are created along the way. For example, with one test, a suspected liar sticks

their hand in boiling water and then removes it. And if their hand is injured in any way, they're a liar. Obviously, olden days. That's from whose theory? I don't know. So you... So unless you have mannequin arm. Yeah. What's the thing of like, if the witch drowns when we drown her, she's a witch. Yeah. It's like, well, you just killed a person. Yeah. Either way. That's... Those are... Those people in charge just want to kill people. That's exactly right. Yeah. In the 1950s and 60s, the CIA experiments with LSD as a true serum, which sounds like a fucking nightmare. Yeah. For real. But like the dry rice, none of these tests are accurate in any way. As time goes on, researchers question whether or not there are any actual physiological signs of lying that we

can't see with the naked eye, like increases or decreases in heart rate, respiration and blood pressure. And after multiple studies, researchers find out that, yes, lying does cause some changes that we can't see. So the next step is to figure out how to measure these changes. In 1921, a policeman and physiologist in Berkeley, California, John A. Larson, is tasked by his close friend, Berkeley police officer, August Volmer, to help find a scientific way to interrogate suspects, which you and I have both, of course, read about. Yeah. On the American Sherlock by Kate Winkler-Dawson. Exactly right. Podcasts tenfold more wicked and wicked words. She is one of the best true crime writers there is. If you haven't read American Sherlock, you really have to. It is...

It's mind-boggling. This guy was at the source and center of so much stuff. Yeah. Totally. It's really good. So we already knew about this because we read. Because we can read. Try it. So one of the reasons this police chief, August Volmer, wanted this new method to find out of, like, interrogation method is because his police officers can't stop using the barbaric technique known as the third degree. Over the third degree in, like, old-timey gumshoe stuff, sir, just basically means beating the shit out of someone you suspect until they admit to doing it, which obviously doesn't fucking work and essentially just gets you a lot of false confessions and lawsuits. Yeah. So Larson uses the work of previous researchers to create a

polygraph instrument, basing it on the systolic blood pressure test, pioneered by psychologist William Moulton Marston along with his wife, attorney, and psychologist Elizabeth Holloway Marston, which I want them to come to every dinner party of mine. Can you imagine the Marston's at your dinner party? The most fascinating couple in the fucking history of the world. Georgia, I love this gravy. Let me tell you about how I cracked the case by getting this fucking lying criminal to admit that he was doing it. That's right. Long cigarette. A real cigarette no-holder. A fucking just dry martini. Multiple dry martinis. I feel like she, what was her first name again? Her name's Elizabeth Holloway Marston.

Elizabeth Holloway Marston absolutely has cocktail onions in her martinis. Cocktail onions. You're tall. No twist. I want my breath to reek. Yeah. I'm not here to make friends. I'm Elizabeth Marston Hollis Winterfell. That's right. So they create this machine that monitors and records a suspect's blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration all at one time. So the suspect is hooked up to the polygraph and is then asked a series of questions. Of course, we've all seen fucking law and order. Yeah. Normal questions. Hi, is your name Karen? No. What is that? Yes. No. Right. And then questions like, hi, you know, did you kill people or whatever? You have to say hi. I have to only work. Hi, it's me again.

Just been sitting here this whole time anyway. Moving on. Hi. This is your dog, Sam George. Okay. Everyone's a big fan of Larson's lie detector and his protege, Leonard Keeler, starts helping further develop the instrument. Although a big part of his motivation is to make a shit ton of money off of it by like patenting it. Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. He's like lies. That's the biz that you want to be in. Yeah. Let's detect people. Yeah. So this dude, Leonard Keeler, helps set up the scientific crime detection laboratory at Northwestern, which is the first US forensics lab. Yep. So here's a little tidbit of information. One of the students in his class, cartoonist Chester Gould, it said that he based his

character named Dick Tracy on Leonard Keeler. Wow. Yeah. So that's the kind of guy he was, I guess. She. All right. At first, Keeler makes the lie detector portable, then adds a galvanic skin response channel, question mark, which measures sweat gland activity with some scientists. Okay. Eventually, the FBI buys his version of the polygraph instrument and that serves as the prototype for the modern polygraph that we all know and love and hate today. Right. So it has improved and gone digital today, but they still use the same technique and parameters as before. So, but it's still subjects heart rate and blood pressure are assessed with a cuff. Respiration is measured, all this stuff, but there's like a thing that wraps around

your chest to test that. Skin conductivity is measured through electrodes on fingertips, all that fun stuff. Examiner still asks the same questions. Some are controlled, some are like, are they relevant, whatever. And then when the question is over, the examiner goes over the responses and looks for patterns. According to the American Psychological Association, quote, a pattern of greater physiological response to relevant questions than to control questions leads to a diagnosis of deception, which is so silly. Like if someone asked me, did you kill someone? I feel like I'd panic and be like, no, I wouldn't be like, chill about it. Right. And then also the people who are chill about it, who are most often murderers, sociopaths

and psychopaths, they don't have those reactions ever. They don't have those feelings about it. No, they don't have consciences. Yeah. So according to the American Psychological Association, the main issue with polygraph testing is that there is, quote, no evidence to prove that any pattern of physiological reactions is unique to deception. So in the same way that everyone grieves differently, everyone fucking lies differently. You know that when I was like four years old, my mom told me she could tell when I was lying. Oh, right. It's the perfect trick. And then I just, I was always like, yeah, I know I should tell the truth. She knows. Yeah. But she probably didn't. She fucking didn't. How would she know? But I was like, well,

that's how I am. It's right there on my face. And then at like only year, like when I was in high school and I lied the first time I like went to a party or something, I was like, she was lying to me. Yeah, that just worked. Yeah. What the hell? Mom, basically everyone's reactions are different. Another reliability issue is that people can, quote, beat a polygraph with countermeasures like, quote, simple physical movements, manipulating yourself to believe what you're saying and the use of fun drugs. Yeah. There are lots of videos and articles as well as manuals and they're actual people whose job is to train someone how to beat a lie detector test. So they're like, Hey, I have this test come lie detection test coming up. Can you help me?

So now that people have figured out a way to make money on one side and then right there on the other. That's right. Put up your stand. Go right ahead. Sure. Even the Supreme Court has said, quote, there's no reliable scientific evidence about the accuracy of lie detector tests. However, they haven't banned polygraphs. It's up to the state to make their own rules about whether or not they're allowed in court. Most states just don't allow it to be admitted as evidence, but a handful of states do allow them, but only if both parties agree to let them be admitted and if the judge rules the results admissible, which really happens. So they also used to be used like in the job force. So like bank tellers, store employees and other workers

who'd handled cash, like if cash went missing, they could hook those fucking employees up to a lie detector and be like, did you steal that money? Yeah. So in 1988, the Employee Polygraph Protection Act was passed, which forbades testing in the private sector workplace, but it is still used in hiring by the CIA, the FBI and the DEA, and also before anyone can get a security clearance by the government, right? Yeah. You know what this made me think of is, if I could give anybody one piece of advice, don't steal. It's such a problem. I thought you were going to say, ask for a lawyer and never take a polygraph. No, just don't. That's better. It always like when you first start thinking about it, it's just

like, this would be easy and I would get this thing. What you open up is this world of doubt and people thinking you're a bad person. Even if you're like, I just remember I dabbled in this, taking money out of it till like, and I did it twice. I've told you this story a million times and immediately my boss at that coffee place was like, I think the janitor and his son are stealing and I was like, all of a sudden I was just like, oh my God, what am I doing? I was just justifying it to myself like, I want to buy beer and I'm barely being paid anything. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, it doesn't work that way. You can rationalize things all you want, but at the end of the day, you could be impacting somebody else's life horribly

just by being kind of selfish and or lazy or whatever. And the shame, the shame you feel, I think of yourself. I've stole a lot of stuff as a really teenager and I still look back and I'm like, that's not the kind of person I want to represent myself. Correct. And most of us deep down aren't really like that, but whether it's desperation or convenience, opportunity, whatever, just take a step back because I swear to God, the problems that come up after are a hundred times bigger than what you're taking. Totally. That's a hundred percent true. Okay. This is, you didn't think that you're going to get lectured in the middle of a lie detector

test thing, but I really just, I think of the young people and I just go, God, if you just like, just don't do it, just don't. It's all Karen thinks about as the young people and how to be a beacon of light. Because they give me so much on TikTok. I want to give something in return. Look at their dances and their lip syncs. Beautiful, inspiring. Okay. There are countless examples now of how unreliable polygraphs are. So we just talked about this on the last mini. Between 1982 and 1984, 43 women had gone missing and or fat were found dead in the Seattle and Tacoma, Washington area. Many of these women were found near the Green River. So naturally, the serial killer responsible for these murders is dubbed the Green River Killer.

In May 1984, Gary Ridgeway is brought in for questioning, having been arrested in the past for soliciting sex workers, which made up the majority of the Green River victims. A polygraph is administered and Gary is asked a series of nine questions, including, um, did you kill these women? And he totally passes the test completely. Shows no deception whatsoever. He's a fucking lizard. He has no conscience. That's right. As a human being. And because he passes the polygraph, simply because he passes the polygraph, he's cleared as a suspect completely. Police go back to focusing on a guy named Melvin Foster, who's innocent, but who failed a polygraph in 1982. So they go back to focusing on him.

Meanwhile, Gary keeps killing until he's caught by DNA in 2001. He's later found guilty of murdering 49 women in a sentenced prison for life. Had the police not relied on that polygraph test and just cleared him as a suspect, at least six women would not have been killed. Oh, horrifying. Yeah. So he basically got a free pass after that and was like, just, if there's one thing I want to teach you on this podcast besides not steal, you have to remember sociopaths and psychopaths are built totally different. Yeah. When they, when they are about to do something, you won't sense it. There's a, there's a million stories on a million different podcasts, but you hear about it all the time of a person's super nice chatting with you. Yeah. No one would have

walked you to your car. He was so unassuming. You'd never think you blah, blah. I'm so sick of hearing it. And then it's like, and then the second you go, oh no, I'm not going to go there with you. Their eyes turned to inky blackness and they become the devil in front of you. It is this, that it's every true crime story and people have to remember it. Yeah. Don't believe anyone. Don't believe anyone ever. Ever, ever. Okay. Sorry, I'm going to stop lecturing you during your own story. Oh, is this about me? I thought you were talking to the teenagers. Shit. I'm talking to teens and ourselves and they, I don't even know what I'm, you know what it is? I had seven o'clock coffee. I was just going to say that is a huge mug and it is empty now

and not because you spilled half of it on the carpet. If I could give you all one piece of advice, do not drink coffee after seven. It makes you lecture people. Karen turned into a lecture gremlin and here we are. It's called being a professor. Okay. Okay. Sometimes a truthful person will fail a polygraph. In 2006, Emmanuel Marvillis was arrested in New Jersey for armed robbery and aggravated assault. He offers to take a polygraph being like, dude, I'm totally innocent. Let me do this. Let me do a quick lecture. Never fucking do that. No. Always ask for a lawyer, even if you're innocent. Stay away from polygraphs. That's right. And he then agrees that whatever the results are, they can be used at trial. So that's the only way they're like admissible in court.

If there is a trial, he says. So, but he's like, well, I'm going to clearly be innocent. So, there won't be. He takes the polygraph, he fails, asks to take another one, but he's denied. So at his 2008 trial, Lieutenant John Kamenskas testifies that he's quote, never encountered a situation in which someone was showing signs of deception and that it later came out that they were truthful. So he's like, tells the jury, this is a, this is, he's lying. And there's no way. And there's no way. Yeah. So of course, the jury believes him because he is a lieutenant and so they say Emmanuel must be lying. And there's even witness testimony that Emmanuel was not involved in the robbery and assault, but he still found guilty and sentenced to 11 years.

Oh my God. In 2011, a New Jersey court reverses Emmanuel's conviction because the polygraph results were relied on too heavily. Two years later, he's retried and found not guilty. And there's a ton of stories out there that are similar when an innocent person fails a polygraph and is wrongfully convicted based on that evidence alone. On June 12th, 1997, John Arthur Ackroyd is giving a woman named Marilyn a ride home and during the drive, she falls asleep. And when she wakes up, John is dragging her from the truck, where he rapes her at ninth point. So as soon as she's able to, she reports the rape to the police. On June 28th, she's given a polygraph. What? Yeah. The 30 plus questions she's asked include,

do you actually feel you were raped as you described to me? And quote, is there something else you're afraid? I'll ask a question about even though I told you I would not, like just fucking trying to get her to show deception in some way. Right. And she does show deception on four questions and she fails the polygraph test. Why the fuck would she have to take a polygraph test? That is question number fucking one. So then John is questioned about the rape. He tells police that he did give her a ride home, but basically she initiated the sex and it wasn't rape. He passes the polygraph because no charges are filed. He's free to keep attacking women and he quickly escalates to murder. So in 1993, John Ackroyd is convicted of the 1978

murder of Kay Turner and a sentence to life in prison. He also pleads no contest to the murder of his stepdaughter. My God. Roshanda, John is also thought to be responsible for the 1992 murders of Sheila Swanson and Melissa Sanders, but he dies in prison before he can be charged. So the rape victim failed the polygraph. He passed and he is a fucking rapist and murderer. Oh my God. Yeah. Sometimes failing a polygraph can lead to an innocent person falsely confessing to a crime they didn't commit. On April 8, 1993, Motorcycle Shop owners Morris and Ruth Gager are murdered on their farm and the next day their son, Gary, discovers their body and calls 911. And since there isn't any evidence of forced entry, Gary's taken in for questioning and

interrogated for 18 hours. Oh my God. He's given a polygraph. The results are inconclusive, but the police lie to him and say that he failed it. So he starts to think that maybe he did kill his parents. I mean, after 18 hours, you're fucking delusional. Yeah. They get him to discuss a hypothetical situation saying that maybe he did kill them during an alcohol-induced blackout. None of this is tape recorded. And he doesn't sign a confession, but all these hypothetical statements are admitted in court as confessions. And he's found guilty and sentenced to death. And then basically, in 1995, federal authorities find out that two members of the Outlaws Motorcycle Gang could have been the real killers. And it isn't until March 1996 that the appellate court

rules that the hypothetical statements shouldn't have been admitted in a new trials order. And later, the two Outlaw Gang members are convicted and Gary receives a pardon based on innocence from the governor. Good God. Yeah. So yeah, it's fucked up. It's a terrible fucking thing that shouldn't be used anymore. To end on a high note, remember pioneering psychologist William Moulton Marston and his wife and our best friends that go to our dinner parties, attorney and psychologist Elizabeth Holloway Marston. Yes. So, and they were the ones who studied a connection between emotion and blood pressure and lying. Well, they go on to create Wonder Woman. Yeah. Yeah. So he got a job with like what's later DC Comics to help like, I don't know,

with scientific stuff with characters. And they were both just huge feminists and women-empowered people. And so they create this female superhero who debuted in 1941. And her magic lasso of truth is obviously a nod to the lie detector, which they helped create. Amazing. That rules. Right? I've never heard that connection before. That's so cool. Isn't that random? That's actually like the reason I got interested in the story is because I read that and I was like, what in the actual fun? So then I read more about it. And then also there's a book called The Truth Machine by Dr. Jeff Bunn. If anyone wants to read more about that, there's a lot of just crazy stories about how much it sucks and doesn't work. Yeah. Yeah. And that is the history and some stories

about the lie detector. Amazing. That was great. Thank you. Really, because also we've heard about that a ton. Yeah. But it comes up constantly. Yeah. And people are asked to take it or it comes into investigations, it seems like, that I read about all the time. Well, it seems like people nowadays, at least smart people, think that it's a really great tool to use as an interrogation tactic. So if you're interrogating someone and you threaten the lie detector for them to take a lie detector and they are like, they know they're not going to pass it, then they'll maybe confess like Chris Watts, that fucking horrible monster actually did that when they were like, you're going to take a, you know, he knew he was going to fail it. Yeah. So it's really like, if you're a

good investigator, you can utilize the threat or the deception that, you know, comes out of a lie detector as a tool to get a confession. Right. So that's ideal. But a lot of times, of course, it doesn't work that way. Wow, that's great. Thank you. I want to stick the mic out the window and see if we can hear California rain. I saw lightning through your blinds. Let's see if George might lose it, but let's see really quick if it's actually raining outside because this is the first rain in how long, like a serious rain in a year and a half. Yeah. It's pouring. Yeah. Everyone in fucking Idaho wherever is like, fuck you. Yeah, they're like, we don't care. But here's the thing. We have a serious drought water issue in California and we don't have seasons.

Let's just get one nice thunder and lightning strike. Oh, is this an ASMR podcast? I think so. I want to stick this out the window. Yeah, do it. Yank that whole thing. Let's just, you know what? I think it'd be nice to end this and this show with just a little sound effects of real California rain. Thanks, Georgia. Oh, it's just lightning. Do you hear my gas? Go, go, go. Ready? Wow. Wow. Good one. It did it. Thanks, you guys, for listening. We appreciate you, you know, rate, review, subscribe. And just, you know, we've been doing this for a long time. And the fact that you have been with us the whole time has been a surprising and beautiful fact of our lives. And we'll be here

for another 22. And men's 22. Max 28, baby. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton, associate producer Alejandra Keck, engineer and mixer Steven Ray Morris, researchers Jay Elias and Haley Gray, send us your hometowns and your fucking arrays at my favorite murder at gmail.com and follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my favorite murder and Twitter at my favorite murder. And for more information about this podcast, our live shows, merch, or to join the fan cult, go to my favorite murder.com rate, review and subscribe.