Stuff You Should Know - SYSK’s Fall True Crime Playlist: The Hinterkaifeck Axe Murders

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

In 1922, a little farm in the woods of Bavaria became the site of what would become Germany’s most famous unsolved murder, when six people were brutally killed with a pick axe. What led up to it and followed is nothing short of bizarre.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. In the 1980s, modeling wasn't just a dream. It was a battlefield. It's a freaking war zone. These people are animals. The Model Wars podcast peels back the glossy cover and reveals a high-stakes game where survival meant more than beauty.

Hosted by me, Vanessa Grigoriatis, this is the untold story of an industry built a ruthless ambition. Listen to Model Wars on the IHeart Radio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Bridget Armstrong, host of the new podcast, The Curse of America's Next Top Model. I've been investigating the real story behind that iconic show. I ended up having anorexia issues, bulimia issues,

by talking to the models, the producers, and the people who profited from it all. We basically sold our souls, and they got rich. If you were so rooting for her and saw her drowning, what did you help her? Listen to the curse of America's Next Top Model on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, everybody, and welcome to our new playlist for the fall, featuring some of our best episodes on True Crime. We've got so many that it was hard to choose, and we left a number of the all-time grates out because we've released them as Selects.

But if this floats your boat, then check out some of our other true crime episodes that didn't make the list, like the Yuba County Five. the body on Somerton Beach, the missing solder children, and ten dumb criminals, among many others. We're starting the playlist off with our episode on a grisly unsolved mystery from 1922 in Bavaria, where a family was found murdered on their farm. It has all sorts of weird twists and turns, and it's a genuinely mysterious unsolved case. Okay, here we go. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from How StuffWorks.com Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry.

Yep. This is stuff you should know. Yeah, I would say this is a bonus Halloween episode. in a way. You can all look forward to our regular ad-free Halloween show on Halloween. The real bonus episode. Yeah, exactly. Where we do our traditional reading, it's all gussied up by Jerry. But you were like, hey, since this is Hello Weekend, almost. Why don't we just

tell the story of an ex-murdered family? Yeah. I hope I didn't spoil it. I don't think so. I think we probably would have gotten to that point eventually. Until you're right? Yeah, so we decided just do a little creepy episode. This one, if you have your children, you may want to vet this one because it's definitely about an ex-murtered family. Yeah, don't be a sicko. It's up to you whether or not you want to expose them to this kind of treachery.

This is bad stuff. You ready for it? Have you got your German pronunciation down, by the way? Should we talk about... Hinterkhafeck. Tixie a Chang. Hinterkfeck. Yeah.

Disha Chang Disha Chang Disha Cheng More specifically Right The irony of all this Why should I ever get it right at all? The irony of all this is I was almost right

When I first said it Yeah And said I don't think Chinese pronounces the X Right But this one is just a little more Stings a little more Because we made such a big deal About it being correct

And the pronunciation was correct But we were misled on the internet Yeah and that happens happens still got everything else right so Dixia Chang is really Disha Chung sort of

Uh huh Okay And Hinter Kfeck Hinter Kafeck Yeah Right Yeah I looked over these My German is rusty

But I think I got them all Yeah most of them I bet you're gonna stumble on one But I'll just hold on to that I don't even know Which one you're talking about I know That's what's gonna make it exciting

Oh man Maybe we should have a sound effect when it happens, and I'll just... Like a boryo-y-or-y-or-ing? Sure. Okay. That'll disrupt the spookiness. Well, let's get spooky chuck, shall we? Yes.

Because there's a little town in Bavaria. That's correct. It's between the towns of Ingolstadt and Schrobenhausen. Is that either one of the ones you thought I was going to stumble on? No, I mean, technically you should say like Stott instead of Stott. Oh, well, I didn't realize we were getting technical. But, you know, you're not from Germany. That's how an American might say it.

Right. And by God, I'm an American. That's right. Although it's much closer to Weidhofen. Is that the one? I'm just going to ask every time I say something in German. You'll hear the sound effect. But there's a little, little tiny village, a town called Khefeck.

Inter-Khefecht. No, well, the town, the village, is called Kaifek. Yeah. There was a ranch, basically you'd call it in America, a dude ranch maybe even, but not really, it was just a farm called Hinterkafeck. It was located a little bit outside of this village. In the hinterland, you might call it.

Right. So the name of this farm was Hinterkhafeck. And on this farm lived a man, a woman, another woman, some little kids. Yeah. This is going terrible. isn't it no i think it's great so the the family who made up this uh the tenancy of this farm they were uh the gruber's yes andreas gruber was the father his wife um is this the one okay all right let me do this then you ready yeah uh the wife's name was

Cazilia Cigilia Frank No, if I'm not mistaken if you begin a word with C in German and it's pronounced like a T.S. Tzilea. Tzilea.

Tzilea. What? That's not fair. I know, right? Come on, Germany. Tetzelia. Okay, well, let me ask you this. So Tatsilia?

Yeah. Am I saying it right now? I think Tatsilia. Well, that's Italian. It does sound Italian. So Tazilia is his wife. Uh-huh. That's to be determined.

Their daughter, Victoria, so if there's a K instead of a C, is it something else entirely, or is it Victoria? Victoria. Okay. And then there's two grandchildren. And the oldest was a granddaughter. Mm-hmm. Now, she has an umla over her name, even though it's spelled otherwise the exact same as her grandmother, Tadzealia. Yeah.

So how would you say that? It would be a tertzilia. Tutsilia? Certzielia. Tertzilia. Tertzilia. And Tatsilia. Tatsilia and Certzilia.

So it wouldn't be like Tatsilia and Tadzilia Jr? I don't know. I mean, I've never seen anyone name their... It just seemed unusual to me. I didn't know if the first name was missing the umlout or if they really named her after her grandmother but added the umlout. Maybe there's a story there. Well, you know, Chuck, as we'll find, a lot of the details and facts of this case have been lost to time.

That's right. Lastly, there was a little boy, a two-year-old named Yosef, that was Victoria's son. And Victoria was widowed. She was 35, I believe, at the time that we come into Hinter Kafeck. And they all lived together, relatively isolated, actually. because the grubers, although they were wealthy, and from what I saw, held in somewhat high esteem or at least treated with respect to their station,

they were very, very much disliked as a family. Yeah, and there's quite a few reasons for this. One is that the paterfamilius, Andreas, he was not friendly, like to keep to himself, and apparently he was very abusive. to his wife and children. Yeah. Children, he only had one living child still at this point,

which is Victoria. And we're in the Wayback Machine, by the way, and it's 1922. Oh, we didn't say that. I don't think so. So he was abusive. I don't know the story of the passing of his other children. Lost the time.

Lost the time. My immediate reaction was like, well, if he was abusive and they're no longer around, maybe he had something to do with it. Maybe, but this is a leap, a total leap. Also the time when, like, people routinely died from the flu. Sure. You know?

That's a good point. So he was a loner. He was abusive. There was the matter of Yosef, the two-year-old daughter of Victoria. Son. Yeah. She's daughter? I don't know where I was going with that.

And he was rumored to have been born from an incestuous relationship with her father. Yeah. Andreas. Right. That was the rumor in town. Which smacks up to. me of small town 1920s stuff. I'm not sure if I bought that. No, but that was definitely the rumor in town. Yeah. There was a significant number of people in town who either believe that

or were very much aware that other people believe that. Yeah, because he apparently was very controlling of Victoria. Kind of to the level of being characterized as obsessed with her. Yeah. So it could very well be true. Could. Lost a time. Could also have not been true. And there's other reports that Joseph was the son of another man in town who will meet later on who at one point claimed paternity but later on said no way. Right. Especially I think when the concept of alimony payments was brought up. That's right. He's like, no, the kid was a product of incest instead. So Victoria was the only one supposedly that kind of spent a lot of time in town and that people seem to care for much because she sang in the choir. Apparently was a very good singer.

in the church choir. And so this is the scene here in semi-rural Bavaria. Yeah, and we want to give a shout-out. We've given, we found some other articles about the case itself, but the main one that we started with was from mysteriousuniverse.org. Not a normal place where we would get our stuff, but it's a good article. Yeah, and we, everything else I read about it, it sort of all checked out as being the same.

Way to go, mysterious universe.org. Good job. Thanks for it. So things start to get a little weird on the farm when the maid at the farm, whose name may or may not be Maria. We don't know. She said, I'm out of here, I quit because this house is haunted.

Yeah. I'm hearing weird noises in the attic. Hearing weird sounds all around the place. I'm hearing footsteps. I'm out of here. Yeah, and apparently she left pretty quickly and suddenly, and the family so much so was like, I think she was mentally disturbed.

Sure, that's an easy way to quiet the townspeople. She's cuckoo. Yeah, you don't want people thinking like, A, I'm abusive, and B, I also live in a haunted house. Right, yeah, you don't want that. That's where you draw the line. Incest, abuse, sure, that's allowable, but you don't want people to think you got ghosts, you know?

Right. So the maid leaves, and that kind of sets the tone. Like, that kicks off this season of dread that settles over Hinter-Khefeck. That'd be a good name for the movie version of this. Yeah. Season of Dread. Yeah. Yeah.

I can't believe there's not a number of, like, blockbuster movies about this. Yeah, I looked it up. Apparently, there were a couple that weren't very big. But nothing that ever starred Ray Fines. Well, if it doesn't have any... him, who cares? He would clearly be one of the dudes in this. Sure.

You know? Maybe even Andreas Gruber, who I keep wanting to call Hans, I'm going to go ahead and admit. Yeah. You see the name Gruber, and that's what jumps to mind. Yeah. So the maid leaves, and like I said, the weird things start happening. A few months later, Andreas is wandering around his property around J. Kaifek. wandering around.

Right. Yeah. Just looking aimlessly for something to do. A family member to punch. There was a snowstorm, and he was looking around to see, you know, if there had been any damage, anything that need repairing. And he noticed that there was a set of tracks in the snow, human tracks, footprints, I guess,

is a better way to call them, leading to the house. And they went right up to the house. Yeah. But he looked around, and he could not find any tracks leading. away from the house. Creepy. Super creepy. Just a single set though, right?

Yeah. It wasn't like the footsteps like God carried him from that point out. Well, that would be a single step set. Well, you know, that old adage. Sure. There were two sets of footprints and then when there were only one. It wasn't that God left you. It was when he was carrying you.

That's right. You're sorry ass. That's a great story, even if you're not religious. You got to see that and be like, man, that makes me feel good. Yeah. Because any time you get to that point, Jesus goes, zing, doubt me, will you? So footprints leading to the house, not leading away, creepy, creepy, creepy.

Right. He was a little creeped out. So he said, let me wander around more and see if I can find. Well, at this point he wasn't wandering. He had purpose. Okay. So let me not wander aimlessly, but let me go from room to room and barn to barn room

and barn room to barn room and find out this person that is clearly on my property somewhere. Yeah, he did like a hard target search looking for somebody either somebody hiding out on his property or evidence that whoever left that track, those tracks leading to his house,

had left, looking for other tracks away from the house and he didn't find anything. He found nothing. No evidence of anybody. He certainly didn't find anybody. There was just nothing. One thing, though that he did find that was kind of

off-putting to him enough so that he mentioned it to neighbors was that on his tool shed which is separate from the barn the tool shed had a lock on it and the lock had scratches or evidence that somebody had been trying to either break it or

pick it. Correct. And they were trying to get into the tool shed and he did not like that. So this is again this is following on the heels of their their maid leaving. Yeah. Citing ghosts is the reason she left.

Yeah. Somebody has come to their farm and not left. They tried to get into the tool shed. The things are getting a little creepy. So in that case, it was a ghost sighting, C-I-T-I. Right? Sure. Another accidental pun.

Yeah. Was that accidental? Sure. Okay. You didn't mean that, did you? Did I say that? Yeah, you said that she saw a ghost sighting. Oh, wow.

Yeah, I guess so. Nice. See how that happens? Yeah. I wondered, by the way, really quickly if these footprints, if whoever did that did the old Shining trick, I remember Little Danny was so smart, he doubled back in his footprints.

Right. And it worked. Oh, it worked big time. Anyone who's seen the end of this shining can tell you. It sounds a lot like I've been drinking today. I haven't at all. I believe you. I've seen what you're drinking. You're drinking water.

And that's not the only weird thing that happened on, so that was in March. I'm sorry, two more weird things happened. Okay. So a set of keys go missing in March. Yeah. And I don't know. That one, to me, people lose keys.

Yeah, but if you're suddenly like, is there somebody like hanging around our property trying to get into the tool shed, now there's keys missing? Yeah, yeah, I could see that. The scratchy lock. And then the other final weird thing in that month in 1922. they found a strange newspaper on the porch. Man.

And I looked up because I didn't know what strange newspaper meant. So I tried to find out what the deal was, and everywhere I went just said it was a newspaper that I couldn't get if it was like, was it from Russia or was it? From 1989? Yeah, that would be super creepy. And all I found was that I could gather was that it was a newspaper that they did not expect.

to be there for some reason or another. Either they didn't subscribe to it, wasn't in their town, or just some random newspaper being on their porch. Yeah. What matters. Yeah. I couldn't find anything beyond that as well.

Yeah. There was one other last thing, and all of this is now starting to take place over just the course of a couple of dates. Things are getting, like, weirder at a much faster pace. Andreas himself, who I've not taken to be a very superstitious person, um, started to notice sounds coming from the asses.

the same kind of like disembodied footfalls that the maid had cited as a ghost sighting. So he's sitting there like, okay, keys are missing. Somebody's tried to get in a tool shed. Those tracks are really messing with me. And now I'm hearing things.

I'm hearing people in my own house. And there's a Chicago Tribune from 1989. Right, exactly. Things have gotten weird. All right. Should we take a break? Yeah. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down.

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Lenovo, Lenovo. Hey, I'm Jay Chetty, and I'm the host of the on-purpose podcast. Today, I'm joined by Emma Watson. Emma Watson. Emma Watson has apparently quit acting. Emma Watson has announced she's retiring from acting. Has anyone else noticed that we haven't seen Emma Watson in anything in several years? Emma Watson is opening up the truth.

behind her five-year break from acting. Watson said she wasn't very happy. Was acting always something you were going to do? I was using acting as a way of escaping to feel free. My parents, it wasn't just the divorce, it was just like the continuing situation of living between two different houses and two different lives and two different sets of values,

the career and the life that looks like the dream. But are you really happy? Fame has given me this extraordinary power. also giving me a lot of responsibility. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Samihante, it's Anna Ortiz. And I'm Mark and Delicado.

Might know us as Hilda and Justin from Ugly Betty. We played mother and son on the show, but in real life, we're best friends. And I'm all grown up now. Welcome to our new podcast, Viva Betty! Yay! Woo-hoo! Can you believe it has been almost 20 years? That's not even possible. You're the only one that looks that much different.

I look exactly the same. We're re-watching the series from start to finish and getting into all the fashions, the drama, and the behind-the-scenes moments that you've never heard before. You're going to hear from guests like America Ferreira, Vanessa Williams, Michael Yuri, Becky Newton, Tony Plana, and so many more. Icons, each and every one.

The sudden, like, someone, like, comes running up me and it's Selma Hayek and she's like you are my ugly Betty and I was like what is she even talking about? Listen to Viva Betty starting October 2nd as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network available on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts All right. Things are weird. This is in March 1922. The last day of March 1922, the 31st. All right. A new maid comes on the scene named Maria, for sure. Yeah, this one's confirmed. Okay. Maria Baumgartner. She, on her first day, on the job, it proved to not be a very good first day at work. No. For one really good reason.

that we'll get to in a minute. Oh, okay. We'll tease it out a little bit more. Okay. So she comes to work. She's working, everything's totally normal. As far as anyone around the Hintr Kifek farm is concerned, like the neighbors and all that, it was just a totally normal day.

Yeah. But in a few days, they would realize that this day, March 31st, 1922, was the last day anyone could say for certain that they had seen any of the gruber's alive. Correct. So flash forward a few days, April 4. People were a little weird. They were like, you know what? Certilia was not in school.

Which is unusual. No one's been to church. We missed that sweet voice of Victoria up there. Yeah, that was highly unusual as well. Like, Victoria did not miss church. Did not miss choir. I'm assuming not only did she love to sing, but this is like her one weekly excuse to get out of the house.

I could see that. You know? For sure. And so they said, and also the mail had been piling up supposedly at the post office because they didn't use stamps.com. Right. They would have if they'd had the technology, believe me. That's right.

That was free. So the neighbors say, well, let's go check on them. Apparently they went. I bet other neighbors were like, really? Yeah. I don't like them that much. Yeah, and finally someone was like, yeah, we really should. Let's just let's go.

It's a neighborly thing to do. We're Bavarian, so that's what we do. So this little search party goes to the house to go check on things. And the house is just, the whole farm is just eerily quiet. Everything's just kind of, there's not a sign of life. Yeah. There's a dog barking. The gruber dog was a Pomeranian, actually.

Yeah. And this was the time of Pomeranians were a little bigger and stockier. And, uh, but barked nonetheless just as, just like any other Pomeranian. Oh, were they bigger back then? Mm-hmm. And stockier. Yeah, German stock. Sure.

And the Pomeranian was barking its head off. It was well known to be pretty, just kind of a jerky little watchdog, but it was good for that. Okay. But what was odd was that it was tied up in the far, in the barn. This is a house dog that the gruber's kept. Yeah. That was a little weird. but otherwise it seemed okay.

The horses and the other livestock seemed okay and well-fed or whatever. And then somebody looked a little further into the barn and they made what would be the first of a couple really, really gruesome discoveries. They found some of the gruber's bludgeoned to death. That's right. Andreas, the Papa, daughter of Victoria,

and dear old Tseilia, the granddaughter in the barn stacked one on top of the other bled to death bludgeon to death only in the head area largely in the head area like the attacks were the attacks were definitely concentrated on their head and faces okay yeah uh and they were covered with hay um not completely covered there are pictures of this by the way did you look at the crime scene creepy oh yeah you can see them in the barn with the hay. Right. Very graphic, so beware, if you're Googling that right now.

So they were dead and had been dead for a little while, which we'll get to. They go inside and they find poor little Yosef, just horrific, two-year-old, was found dead, also bludgeon to death in his cot in mom's bedroom, and then the maid on her first day on the job was killed in her bed. as well. And Andreas's wife said Zelia, she was in the barn as well. Oh, did I miss that? Yeah.

Okay. So four of them in the barn, two in the house. Yeah. All killed in the same manner and all covered up in some way. Yeah. Whether it was hay or sheets or clothing. Yeah. Which is a weird thing to do.

Yeah. It's very weird. Although it would become evident why in a little bit once they started questioning the neighbors. Sure. So the day after the bodies were found, Dr. Johann Armuler performed the autopsies in the barn,

and he decided that what had been used as a murder weapon was a type of pickaxe called a mattock. Yeah. Although the murder weapon wasn't found for another year, actually, after that. The doctor concluded quite rightly that it was a mattock that had been used. And if you've ever seen, you know, like a pickaxe, but the other end is like blunt and wide, that's a matic.

Yeah. And whoever killed the grubers and the maid did it with that. Right. Which is horrific. It is. Even worse than that, though, they found in Tizelia's hands clenched in her fists, tufts of her own hair. Yeah. So there was evidence that she had survived for, I think, several hours after she was attacked

and watched her other family members attacked and had pulled out her own hair for whatever reason. I'd say that was a good enough reason. Sure. Victoria showed signs of strangulation, but they determined that was not the cause of death. And by all accounts, everyone else died pretty much immediately upon receiving that pickaxe to the head. Right. Most of the victims were in bed clothes, except for Victoria and Tertzilia.

They were in their regular clothes, which seemed to indicate that it probably happened in the evening. Some people were already getting ready for bed. Some people had not yet. Right. And they also think that the groupers were lured one by one out to the barn, kind of Scooby-Doo fashion. Yeah, because clearly it wasn't all of them killed at once

because there was no signs of struggle. Right. Like, yeah, maybe one person. went out and died and then the other person was like it hadn't been back for a while right and then they died and then yeah again and again horrific so there were some other um there was weirdness beyond that beyond these the just the horrificness of the crime and the fact that the bodies were covered up um this was April 4th right they figured out that the bodies had been killed or the people had been killed on March 31st that was the last time anybody had seen them

alive but the neighbors said well wait a minute that's really weird because like we saw signs of life coming from the farm all weekend yeah there was smoke coming out of the chimney the whole weekend the the livestock has been fed the dogs clearly eaten like if if they hadn't been fed or cared for in four or five days they'd be showing signs of it by now but you can tell that they've they were they were tended to yeah like this whole time so what is that yeah even the house it's It showed evidence that someone had eaten a meal there recently, or more recently than four or five days ago. The bed looked like it had been slept in since that time.

And like we mentioned earlier, that Pomeranian was tied up. I saw differing accounts on whether the dog was somewhat injured or not. I did too. So let's just say the dog might have been hurt some, but ultimately was fine. Right. And, like, you know, wasn't killed or anything. Yeah, yeah. It was not injured, I think.

Right. So with all signs point to the fact that someone killed this family and then hung out there for a few days. But even more stirring is the idea that the person who killed them may have been the one who left the footprints and stayed in their house waiting to kill them. Perhaps. Killed them and then stayed in the house for a few days after.

Taking care of everything. Yeah, just living the life. Very strange. Yeah. So the police started looking around pretty quickly for suspects and realizing, well, first we got to go with motive, I think, is what they said to themselves. Sure. Like, occasionally it happens that there's a vagrant that comes through and kills for money and robs.

And the thing they found out was that there was a little bit of folding money taken from the bodies. But there was a lot of valuable jewelry and gold coins and other money in the house that was not taking. So things weren't quite adding up on the robbery front. Yeah, and especially if somebody, the person who killed them, if they were planning on robbing them, they had four days to look around and amuse themselves by robbing the whole house blind. They certainly wouldn't leave this stuff behind. No. They also found out in the investigation that Victoria had emptied her bank account and had left a donation to the church. but there was also a substantial amount

that just wasn't accounted for. Yeah. Who knows what that was? Never turned up. Lost to time. So robbery was kind of discarded as a motive. But another one would come to light soon. We'll talk about that after a break.

In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit. And push your gameplay beyond limits with Intel Core Ultra processors. That's the power of Lenovo with Intel inside. Maximize your edge by shopping at Lenovo.com during their back-to-school sale.

That's Lenovo.com. Hey, I'm Jay Chetty, and I'm the host of the on-purpose podcast. Today, I'm joined by Emma Watson. Emma Watson has apparently quit acting. Emma Watson has announced she's retiring from acting. Has anyone else noticed that we haven't seen Emma Watson in anything in several years? Emma Watson is opening up the truth behind her five-year break from acting. Watson said she wasn't very happy.

Was acting always something you were going to do? I was using acting as a way of escaping to feel free. My parents, it wasn't just the divorce, it was just like the continuing situation of living between two different houses and two different lives and two different sets of values, the career and the life that looks like the dream. But are you really happy? Fame has given me this extraordinary power.

It's also given me a lot of responsibility. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Samihante, it's Anna Ortiz. And I'm Mark and Delicado. Might know us as Hilda and Justin from Ugly Betty. We played mother and son on the show, but in real life, we're best friends. And I'm all grown up now. Welcome to our new podcast, Viva Betty!

Yay! Woo-hoo! Can you believe it has been almost 20 years? That's not even possible. Well, you're the only one that looks that much different. I look exactly the same. We're re-watching the series from start to finish and getting into all the fashions, the drama,

and the behind-the-scenes moments that you've never heard before. You're going to hear from guests like America Ferreira, Vanessa Williams, Michael Yuri, Becky Newton, Tony Plana, and so many more. Icons, each and every one. The sudden, like, someone, like, comes running up to me, and it's Salma Hayek. And she's like, you are my ugly bitchy. And I was like, what is she even talking about?

Listen to Viva Betty, starting October 2nd as part of the MyCultura Podcast Network, available on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so to me, it's this guy for sure. Is it? Yeah. I think so. We'll go ahead and talk about this, dude. There was a neighboring man, a neighbor, as you might call it.

Or a neighboring man. If you're a normal human. Hello, neighboring man. How are you today? If you're, by all means, if you're a professional broadcaster, you should say neighboring man. All right. So his name is Lorenz Schlittenbauer. And he was a, like I said, live nearby.

He was a suitor for Victoria. and she had always said, this guy's who knocked me up, this is Joseph's father. Right. And like you said earlier, he was like, for a little while, I think he claimed paternity, but then when he found out what that meant,

which he had to pay for that? He's like, that's an English word. I didn't understand. Exactly. What is his paternity? So he backed off of that claim and later it was emerged that she was about to

sue him for paternity before this murder took place. Right. So some people say, oh, well, that probably set him off. Yeah, because he was remarried and had a kid that had died sadly by that point. Right. So he didn't want this kind of scandal on his household. Sure, and he didn't want to make the payments, right? Yeah, especially if he wasn't 100% sure it was his kid.

Right. So if you look at this Schlittenbauer guy, some really weird stuff starts to emerge. In addition to that motive of not wanting to pay alimony for little Yosef, the way he behaved in the immediate wake of the discovery of these murders was very bizarre. He was part of the original search party that searched the house. Suspicious? First thing, yeah, because a lot of criminals like to do that. They like to go to the scene of the crime as part of the search party, right? At least on TV they do.

Sure. Everything I learned from the Flintstones points to this guy being suspicious. He also immediately started disturbing the crime scene, right? Like he unstacked the stacked bodies. And when he did it, apparently there were a couple of other guys there, and the other guys were real shaken up by just being in the presence of these horribly mangled bodies. Apparently Schlittendbauer was totally fine handling them. Yeah, he's like, I got the head, you get the legs.

One of the men was quoted as saying he disturbed everything there was to disturb. Yeah. So he had no qualms about going in there and just having his way with that crime scene. Apparently, he was super familiar with the house itself. Which isn't necessarily a, it doesn't necessarily, yeah, especially if he was, you know, dating Victoria. Yeah, well, true. I would call this part of the body of evidence, though. Okay.

So he apparently went into the house from the barn, which meant he knew they were connected. He unlocked the front door from the inside, which was like, did he have a key? Or did he know where the key was? Remember the missing keys. And then he also apparently knew the maid's room handle was unusual, and he had to lift it up to enter and not press it down.

And apparently he just went right to it and lifted it up. Again, maybe he spent some time over there with Victoria and knew these things. Like a lot of this can be explained away. in some ways. They also said that the dog went nuts when he was around. Yeah, like, it's him.

Roof, right, exactly. There's the murderer. Which you take or leave that. That seems like local folklore to me. Yeah. The dog called out the murderer. Yeah. And he said it was because he had blood all over his shoes

from disrupting the crime scene and the dog was like barking at that. Which, by the way, the two other searchers who were with him while he was disturbing the crime. scene asked him what he was doing and he said he's looking for his son yeah joseph a couple of things weird about all this right so if he's disturbing the crime scene to cover his tracks if he was the killer and the killer stayed behind for several days he had all the time in the world to cover up his tracks why would he do it in the presence of a couple of fellow searchers weird yeah and then secondly

if he was the killer and he was not trying to act um unaware, why would he be looking for his son in the stack of bodies when he knew full well his son was in his room in the house? Misdirection. I guess, this guy seemed like he was not very good at misdirection. He had no alibi for the night, apparently his family said,

and this is where it gets, I wanna say obvious, maybe to obvious, it gets really suspicious to me. His family said, oh no, he's, the night they were murdered, he spent the night in the barn, because he knew that there was weirdness going on over there and he was looking out for burglars, so he spent the night in the barn that night.

Okay, so he spent the night in the Gruber's barn, is what they're saying? No, no, no, their own barn. Oh, okay, I gotcha. So he apparently, though, had asthma, so people were like, why would he spend the night in a barn if he had asthma, Marty? Right.

But that was his alibi, which is pretty weak. He only lived 350 meters away, which I think that's like 19 miles. I'm just kidding. What is it? It's like three football fields, right? Yeah, I looked up the conversions. Three and a half?

It's not too far. Yeah. So he could have been the one coming back and forth. Like the fact that there were footprints leading one way doesn't to me signify that someone spent six months hiding there. It could have been, he could have come and gone as he pleased. and not been like away from his house too long that anyone noticed.

Sure. And maybe he walked in those same footprints. Maybe he did do the Danny. Maybe. You know? He was the one who originated the Danny. He was Danny before Danny was even born. That's true.

Or maybe he was Danny. Oh man, this case keeps getting weirder and weirder. Yeah. The more we make up about it. That's true. The other thing that he said that I thought was, I mean, this is just, I don't even know if I believe, this apparently many years later when the murder was talked about in like the

bars and the beer gardens he would talk about it in the first person when he speculated about the killings I don't buy that necessarily I don't either that sounds like something that people would make up in a pub yeah he used to say I killed them right no one ever cared sure I guess yeah so that was a he was the main living suspect there was another suspect who was brought back from the dead to be paraded around as a suspect in this case. Yeah, not literally. In some ways.

Yeah. But no, not literally. Right. This guy's name was Carl Gabriel. And he used to be married to Victoria. Yeah. But he died in World War I in the trenches. And the reason that he was brought back as a possible suspect is that people said,

well, his body was never shipped back home. We don't actually know that he really did die. Maybe, maybe, follow me on this is what they said. Maybe he came back to reclaim his wife, found out that she'd had an incestuous relationship with his father. He snaps, he kills everybody. Yeah, I don't buy this at all. Well, no.

They started the police, I think, and the Munich Police Department really apparently went to town trying to get to the bottom of his murder over the years. Yeah, and one of the other things that pointed to him supposedly was that in World War II another whole war later supposedly some people came forward and said

you know what we met this Russian German speaking Russian soldier that used to claim to be the Hinta-Kifect killer and we think that that's Carl Right I guess Okay Yeah

The thing is the Munich police apparently spoke to some of the men who were there when he died and they described him being died People witnessed his death. Okay. Even though his body didn't make it back, it wasn't recovered, people saw him die. All right.

So it was verified that he was died, I guess, at least to the satisfaction of the police. And that was a pretty weak link anyway, because supposedly the reason that he fled for the war was to fake his death, not why he fled for the war, but that he faked his death to get out of the marriage. Right. So why would he fake his death, get out of the marriage, come back years later, and kill them all? Great. I think the answer that is he wouldn't. Or maybe it's the perfect crime. Yeah.

It's so nonsensical. He's listening right now laughing. It's the perfect crime. What else? Of course, whenever they're going to the other and they're talking of ghosts, and I have some tinfoil hat wearing people on the internet talking about paranormal, you know, that it was ghosts

and these strange noises and this mysterious newspaper and all these footprints is because there was some supernatural force out to get the family. Well, that would account for the ghost. You could say that accounts for everything. Sure. That's why it's bunk.

Yeah. No, that one's not a big one. Although the Munich police very early on, decapitated, had the family decapitated, and their skulls were sent for forensic analysis and were handled by Clairvoyne. who apparently was not able to come to any conclusions about their fate or the killer. Yeah, and those bodies were buried headless because those heads eventually went missing.

Yeah, apparently they kept them in the Nuremberg, I guess in their, one of their city government buildings, and it was leveled in World War II. They think that's where the skulls were lost. They think... That was mixed in with the other skulls. It was either that or the ghost that did it. So for the cops part, they interviewed over a hundred suspects over the years,

including the clear killer to me, the neighboring man. Lawrence Schlittenbauer? I just think it all points to him. Apparently years later too was like, God did the right thing with his family, like they were awful people. And he didn't say, except for my possible son,

the two-year-old, he just said all of them, they deserved it. Yeah. So it just kind of seems obvious to me that it was him because it was, someone stayed there, someone knew the house, someone took great care covering the bodies. Yeah. It just doesn't seem like a random burglary. No, that is a very bizarre thing to do to stick around afterward unless you feel like you're within your own safe zone.

And if you lived 350 meters away, maybe you would feel safe there. Safe enough that you could retreat very quickly. Yeah, or know that like, I know no one comes by here. Yeah. Whereas if it was a burglar, they probably wouldn't feel so comfy hanging out for days on end. Right. So, yeah, you're right. It probably was him.

No one will ever be able to prove it one way or another. No, they didn't have any hard evidence. No, and the evidence they did take, a lot of it was lost. This is 1922, so a lot of, a lot of forensic techniques hadn't been invented yet. Sure. were still being developed elsewhere in the world. So in 2007, a police academy in Munich got their hands on the case some students did. The Gutenberg Police Academy?

The first infeldbrook. They just threw in Brooke after, you know. Yeah, why not? Let's throw in another syllable. Students from that police academy investigated this crime. And in Germany, like, it's pretty, this is an enormously famous. crime in Germany. It's huge there. It's there Jack the Ripper for sure. It'll never be solved. It's not possible being solved. And this is the conclusion from the students at the

First Enfeldbrook Police Academy. They said, we think we know who it is. We're not, since this is unsolvable and it will never be able to be proven, we're not going to name the person because they still have relatives alive, but you can guess. It's the one living suspect that anyone's ever really raised it was probably him yeah they didn't say that that was my conclusion of their conclusions and then they said thank you police academy for your findings and uh where's the guy that makes all the funny noises with his mouth you know Steve Gutenberg follows us on Twitter no way yeah really yeah at Steve gutbuck really yeah and he um is in like a sharknadoesk movie. I'm not sure

what the name of it is, but he's in it with the guy who does the voices. Oh, really? Boy, you know his name Michael something, maybe? Yeah, Michael something. I will say that, and I think I mentioned this on the show, maybe that's why he follows this. Steve Gutenberg was

in one of the very best episodes of one of my favorite TV shows, Party Down. And did you ever see that show? No. Boy, it was good. Yeah. It was really, really funny. Had the great Adam Scott and Lizzie Kaplan and one of my heroes,

Ken Marino from the state and Martin Starr, Megan Malalley, it was great. Good episode, huh? Well, they were caterers, like cater waiters, all actors and writers and stuff in Hollywood, and each episode was its own thing, own catering event, and they had one where they showed up to Steve Gutenberg's house

for his birthday party, and he pulled up and he was like, oh man, like I forgot to cancel. I really had the party a couple of days ago with my friends he's like but since you're all here why don't we just have a party and so the waiters end up having a party with Gutenberg and he like does some scene acting with them and gives them great wine and he has great art and he's just really really funny in it yeah I can imagine he seems like an awesome dude he seems so awesome after watching this episode I was like man Goots is the best yeah

and I think they call them Goots in the show even sure yeah anyway or good boot shout out to party down great great show and Steve Goobeman Yeah. Do you have a listener mail? Or is this too spooky for one? He did great work on that Bible. Yeah, I got a listener mail. Okay, well, if you want to know more about Hinter-Kifek,

you can go listen to stuff you missed in history class. I think they did an episode that covered it as well. You can search mysterious universe.org and all sorts of other places for it. And since I said Hintr-Kifek, it's time for listener mail. Before we do listener mail, we want to give a very special thank you to Margaret and Mike in Jacksonville, Florida. Yeah, thanks guys. Yeah, they step forward and helped Jerry out in a big way, as the stuff you should know, Army, as often does. Sure.

And it's all we're going to say other than big, big thanks to you guys for helping out. For real. How about that? All right, I'm going to call this listener mail Squirrel shooting. Hey, guys, been listening for about a year, love the show. I was listening to the polar bears episode, and I stopped dead in my tracks when Chuck told the story about shooting a squirrel. When I was about 13, I too thought I was a tough guy and wanted to hunt animals. My grandparents lived on some land and agreed to let my cousin and I shoot a squirrel as long as we agreed to skin it and eat it.

They're like, they'll never do it. Yeah. You've got to love those depression-era grandparents. Like, sure. Skin it and eat it. It's all yours. I envision them as hippies, like, passing a joint, like joking about how stupid their grandkids. kids were. Wow. Depressioner, sure. I see that one too. All right. So we were very excited. We dressed

up in camo, walked the property, because, you know, you got to dress in camo if you're hunting squirrel. Sure. Eventually found a squirrel in a tree. I should note that we were using a pellet gun, not like a real bullet gun. I took the first shot and hit the squirrel, fell from the tree, and much to my chagrin, he did not die. He made a noise. I hoped to never hear again. It was that awful. Oh, man. I had to hand the gun to my cousin. I just could not do it. and take the other shot. We ended up skinning it and eating it, though. Alive?

No. He said it tastes like chicken, so why bother? Like we promised that we would do, that was the last time I considered killing an animal for sport. I've always loved animals, so I'm not sure where this urge came from to begin with. I actually run a small online candle company now that sells dog-themed candles.

Made from dogs. He donates. We skin them alive. No. They donate 10% of all profits to animal shelters and rescue. And so, Stephen, I am going to plug your company Over my wife's candle company even Which is Mama Bath and Body

And you can go to W-W-W-W-N-O-X-Favit, K-N-O-X-S Nox's Favorite.com And Knox was their dog They named the company after. That's sweet. These are soy candles, I looked it up, they're good. Made from dogs.

No, made from soy. Don't. Thanks again for everything you do. You're a daily listen for me. I hope to I hope you continue for years to come. That is Stephen. Way to go, Stephen. Thank you for that. We appreciate you letting us share your horrible story with everybody.

If you have a horrible story you want to share, oh man, I'm going to regret saying that. You can tweet to us at SYSK Podcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at How Stuff Works. And as always, join us at our home on the web, Stuff You Should Know.com.

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