Timesuck with Dan Cummins - Short Suck #17 - Who Was In The Attic? The Hinterkaifeck Axe Murders

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

On March 31st, 1922, on a cold, snowy, and quiet night in Germany, at a small unassuming farm roughly an hour’s drive north of Munich, six gruesome axe murders were committed after various people in the home had been hearing strange noises coming from the attic for months. Who was in the attic? Who killed the entire Gruber family? For Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www.badmagicproductions.com

Welcome to another edition of Time Suck Short Sucks. I'm Dan Cummins and today I will be sharing the enduring and disturbing mystery of the Hinterkai Fek murders. On March 31st, 1922, a cold, snowy and quiet night in the Weimar Republic, now Germany, at a small, unassuming farm roughly an hour's drive north of Munich, six gruesome murders were committed. The Gruber family, 63-year-old Andreas, his 72-year-old wife, Cassilia, their 35-year-old widowed daughter, Victoria, Victoria's two young children, 7-year-old Cassilia and 2-year-old Joseph, along with the family's newly hired maid, 44-year-old Maria Baumgartner, who had only begun working for the family thanks to the previous maid quitting because she believed the Gruber home to be haunted,

were all brutally slaughtered with a Matic, a heavy handheld farm tool that looks a lot like an axe. What unusual events at the Hinterkaifeck farm preceded this slaughter and why has this case never been officially solved? Words and ideas can change the world. I hated her, but I wanted to love my mother. I have a dream! I plead not guilty right now. Your only chance is to leave with us. If you've ever lived in a home with an attic,

I bet you've heard some strange noises coming from it. Attics are inherently pretty creepy. In most cases, they're a place where someone theoretically could live, but not where anyone is supposed to be living or should live. So when you hear a noise coming from the attic, a noise that sounds like someone might be making it, that's naturally terrifying. Who the hell is up there? Why are they hiding? What do they want? Kind of like a crawl space beneath a home or a dingy old root cellar, attics are also often cramped dark places. Places that are often ignored, seldom investigated, which is naturally going to lend them a feeling of mystery. They're places

where you might store some boxes full of old keepsakes or furniture you no longer use but aren't really ready to part with. They're not typically places you regularly use. Thanks to heat rising and most attics not having a lot of airflow and ventilation, they're also hot in addition to being cramped with low slanted ceilings, they're uncomfortable. When you're up there, you don't feel right, you don't feel good.

They're also often unfinished. Nails from the roof and or siding are likely exposed as are random electrical cables, insulation, various other aspects of a building's guts. Things normally hidden from sight inside the walls. It's unsettling. The bones of the room are there, but they're usually unfinished. Like a person missing their skin. And in cold places, places like Germany, places where for months out of the year you get snow on the roof directly above the attic and then heat from the stove or a heater below warming the home and

overheating the attic, they're gonna be noisy. The hot and cold temperatures cause the wood to expand and contract. The house sounds alive as it groans and creaks. And with the weight of the roof pushing down on the frame of the house, a roof peaked directly above the attic. You'll hear the house settling. You'll hear the house's frame shifting with the wind. A leaky roof or a cracked window frame in the attic can easily go unnoticed for months, if not years, and open your home's attic up to water damage, mold and mildew, or sneaky pests, which add terrible smells and the sounds of scurrying and more to a place that already might make your skin crawl. It's no wonder attics are a popular setting for ghost stories.

I've told a number of what's in the attic type ghost stories over on scared to death over the years or heard Lindsay tell them to me. And I've seen plenty of horror movies where there might be something evil in the attic. The Gruber's attic is central to this story and something evil may have been truly lurking up there. I think something evil was certainly lurking up there. Just not necessarily something paranormal. About six months before the murders, Crescent Ryger, a maid, complained for weeks, if not months, to the Grubers that she kept hearing strange and unsettling noises coming from the attic. Like the sound of footsteps or someone otherwise moving around and she often felt like someone was watching her.

She was so upset by these sounds and this feeling that she became convinced that the house was truly haunted and dangerously so. She was so scared she actually quit working for the Grubers during one of the worst economic periods in German history. So worried that the home's dark spirits intended to harm her. Had the murders not been committed, I can see how her concerns could easily have been written off by most people as Rieger being overly superstitious, suspicious, you know, paranoid.

The victim of an overactive imagination of a person living back when such notions were entertained by more people than maybe entertain them now. But since the murders were committed, was she right? Was the house haunted in some sense? I alluded to the possibility of a supernatural haunting when I told a version of this story on a the third episode actually of Scared to Death, an episode titled A Killer in the Attic. But the killer hiding up there could have also very much been of this world.

Like the killer in the case of the Denver Spider-Man story, Theodore Edward Coney's. I talked about him on Scared to Death a long time ago as well. Episode 78, The School of Shadows, crazy story. In September of 1941, 59-year-old Theodore Coney's broke into the house of Philip Peters in Denver to steal some food and money. But then he decided to stay. In the ceiling of a closet, he found a small trap door that led up into the attic and being very, very skinny and thin-framed, he was just barely able to sneak up in there. And he'd stay living in a very small attic without

enough room to even stand for about nine months. And holy shit was that guy creepy. Like a living ghost. He did haunt that home. He'd sneak down at night to raid the kitchen. He'd use the bathroom when Philip was away from home visiting his wife in the hospital who'd broken a hip. And he'd sneak down at night and follow Philip around just for his own amusement, just watching him. He later said it was like a game, and when Philip finally saw him, Theodore snapped, beat him to death with a heavy iron stove shaker. And then that ghoul of a man snuck right back up into the attic.

Remained there, wasn't found when the police showed up, looked all over the house for evidence pointing them towards Philip's killer. The cops never even checked the attic because they thought the entrance was far too small for any adult to enter. Theodore continued hiding up in the attic for months. He continued when Philip's wife, now widow, returned from her hospital stay along with the live-in caretaker. And now Theodore would watch and follow them around at night as well. The pair then came to believe that the place was haunted so spooked they moved out. And still, Theodore stayed in the attic until a cop doing a routine check on the home heard him moving around, finally caught him before he could make it back up into the attic once

more. The officer said, He was the strangest looking human I'd ever seen. He was a tall man just under six feet, but thin as a wilted weed. His dirty hair hung low over his ears, and his skin was the ugly unwashed gray of an overcast sky. Like a real-life ghoul or monster. He'd been staying up in an attic, quote, but a few sizes larger than a coffin. With someone like Theodore, hiding in the Gruber's attic, in a coffin with someone like Theodore hiding in the Gruber's attic, watching them waiting for the right time to strike.

There's been a lots of cases of people living in attics and in the walls even over the years. It's crazy. German authorities came to believe that the killer lived in the house for several days after the murders and that the killer or killers could have been, there could have been more than one. Possibly were living in the house, hiding in the attic for weeks if not months beforehand. The family had noticed strange

things during this time in addition to strange noises coming from the attic, such as footprints in the snow leading from the local woods to their home, but no tracks leading back away from the house. Also a key to the place had gone missing in the days before the murders. Some of the groupers were worried, but apparently not the patriarch, Andreas, so they never talked to the police about it. And speaking of Andreas, let's meet him and the rest of the Gruber family. 72-year-old Cassilia was born November 27, 1849. Sources don't have a lot to say about her than she than that she was sadly a battered woman. She was nine years older than her abusive husband

Andreas who was born on November 9th 1858. Author Bill James one of the two authors who wrote the 2017 book The Man from the Train the Solving of a Century Old Serial Killer Mystery which is about numerous murders including the Hinterkaife killings described Andreas Gruber as a nasty old bastard who lived on a prosperous farm. James continued, Gruber was a wife-beater and it is written everywhere that he had forbidden Victoria from pursuing any other relationships after her husband died. No sources depict Andreas kindly. I'll share more details about this dirt bag in a bit,

such as the disturbing reason why he may have forbidden his daughter from romantically pursuing other men. This daughter was 35-year-old Victoria, born February 9th, 1887. Sources describe her as a generally well-liked, friendly person active in the local community and church, at least more active than the other family members. Victoria's young daughter, seven-year-old Casilia Gabriel, or Gabrielle, born January 9th, 1915.

And finally Victoria's two-year-old son, Joseph Gruber, born September 9th, 1919. The younger Casilia was the daughter of Carl Gabriel, Victoria's deceased husband. Although she was told he died fighting in World War I, Carl's name would still be brought up in the murder investigation, with some thinking that he had incorrectly been listed as having died and then he came back to kill his family. The identity of young Joseph's father is a mystery, since he was conceived well after the war had ended and Carl had supposedly died, but according to D.A. Chadwick, author of one of the best sources on this episode, The Hinterkaifeck Murders, Terror in the

German Countryside, said based on historic records, reports and letters a man named Lorenz Schlittenbauer had acknowledged paternity of Joseph on September 30th 1919. Like Carl Gabriel, Lorenz Schlittenbauer will become one of the primary suspects in the investigation and making Schlittenbauer, will become one of the primary suspects in the investigation. And making Schlittenbauer a more credible suspect, he was A, definitely alive, and B, lived next door. The Gruber family lived out on a farm called Hinterkaifeck, which translates to behind Kaifeck. Kaifeck being a very small village about 45 miles north of Munich. The farm was established around 1863 and was located in the hills near the tiny village. The Grubers were a private family, reclusive, known for

keeping to themselves. Perhaps mainly because Andreas was an abusive and lecherous dirtbag and he didn't want word of what he was doing to his family to get out any more than it already had. However, family members did mention some of the strange things happening around the farm to a few of their associates and acquaintances in town in the months leading up to their deaths. In mid-March of 1922, Andreas spotted footprints and some fresh virgin unblemished snow leading from the woods to his house, but he couldn't find another set of footprints indicating that someone had left his house.

The forest surrounding that grouper property was, possibly still is, known as the Witch's Woods. That name has undoubtedly only added to the fascination with this spooky case. It was normal the time for people to cut through those woods as a shortcut to get to another nearby village of Grobern. The Gruber family typically went into that forest to collect firewood and on the day Andreas found the prints he searched the house and outbuildings looked all around the property, but found nothing. On another occasion, Andreas found a Munich newspaper on his front porch, which he did not purchase or subscribe to. He assumed the postman had lost it, but then found out that no one in

his area subscribed to that particular paper. And at some point during the week before the killings, a house key went missing and could not be found. Some sources say the day before the killings. When Andreas searched for the key he found scratches on the lock of his toolshed as if someone had tried to pick it. But again he didn't seem that worried. And if you're like how is this dude not worried about all this shit? Fair. I should add though that 1922, real rough year for Germany, one of a stretch of very rough years, most of the years actually, from the end of World War I to the beginning of World War II, well actually throughout World War II, hard for most Germans, the interwar years.

In the wake of Germany's crushing defeat in World War I, the nation was on the hook for 132 billion gold marks to pay for war reparations and this massive debt Amongst other economic punishments combined with a war related shortage of able-bodied young men led to rampant unemployment hyperinflation and an epidemic of poverty and crimes associated with poverty like burglary So finding out that someone had tried to steal your your tools would not be shocking but not be that surprising It would be par for the course. Shit like that was happening all the time. And finally the family had been hearing noises in their attic that sounded eerily similar to human footsteps.

Noises they've been hearing for months and months, but the intensity and frequency of the noises seemed to pick up in the days before the murders. Someone or something was secretly living amongst them. someone or something was secretly living amongst them. Andreas ended up arming himself and searching the space after he'd held firm in his belief that his family was just being silly and superstitious and then he found no one, so he didn't to his his and his family's detriment keep on searching. March 31, 1922, the day of the murders, was a cold and snowy Friday. The day before, the younger a cold and snowy Friday. The day before, the younger Kasselia had told a school friend that her grandfather,

Andreas, hit her mother, who then ran out of the house screaming. Their fighting kept her up, she said. She was exhausted at school the next day, that day. Andreas also told his neighbor, Loren Schlittenbauer, about the footprints and the snow leading to his house from the woods that same day. By March 31st, Andreas and Victoria had perhaps reached some sort of truce over whatever they'd been fighting over, and they traveled to the larger town of Schrobenhausen to get some supplies. They split up one day to ride with Andreas going to a hardware store, Victoria to a general store.

Victoria had bruises on both her face and arms from their earlier fight. Her dad is a real piece of garbage. The hardware store Andreas mentioned that he had been hearing strange noises in the attic of his house and that one of his cows ended up untied and roaming loose in the yard and he didn't know why. He mentioned the missing house key during an earlier trip apparently to that same store. He said that he and Victoria had also seen a man standing at the edge of the woods near their farm just a few days earlier, just watching him. That this guy made him nervous, but they didn't know who he was, hadn't seen him again since. Victoria more or less expressed the same

sentiments, same concerns at the general store. She explained how her father Andreas took a shotgun up to the attic because they heard those noises. She added that he found no one, but that he had discovered two piles of hay with dents in them as if someone had been sleeping in those piles of hay. Someone working in the store urged Victoria to call the police, but she told him that she knew her father would not be happy about that and that he would not do it himself either. Victoria and Andreas finished running their errands, returned to the farm when the weather took a turn for the worst and a storm started rolling. A brand new family made, Maria Baumgartner and her sister walked to Hinterkaifeck together this same day,

arriving at the farm around 5 30 p.m. Maria's sister stayed for about an hour then left when Victoria returned home. She quickly introduced herself then said goodbye not knowing of course it was the last time she'd ever see her sister Maria was a brand new hire at the farm some sources say the day she was killed was her very first day on the job And she didn't know the family you know well at all Crescent's Rieger the family's previous maid as I mentioned had quit about six months earlier because she believed the farm was haunted How vindicated in a way she must have felt when news of the murders reached her as I mentioned, had quit about six months earlier because she believed the farm was haunted. How vindicated in a way she must have felt when news of the murders reached her. I just I told you I needed to get away from that house before something bad happened.

She had worked for the family from November of 1920 to September of 1921. When the police later asked why she believed the house was haunted, she said she regularly heard footsteps in the attic, other noises that could have been people breathing or talking. Always felt like she was being watched. When she complained, Andreas told her she was just being superstitious. The day after the murders, little Cassilia did not, of course, come to school. This was April 1st, 1922. The first clue to the outside world that something might be wrong. Later that day some coffee sellers came to the farm to take the family's usual order.

A standing order they would put in, but no one responded to their knocks. Another clue that something might be amiss. The family then missed church the next day, Sunday, April 2nd. This is a big red flag. It was highly unusual as Victoria participated in the church choir. Almost never missed church. And the whole family missing church was virtually unheard of.

Little Casselia then did not attend school on April 3rd or April 4th. The family's mail is now starting to pile up with the local post office. Then on April 4th, 1922, which is four days after the murders, 22-year-old mechanic Albert Hoffner arrived at Hinterkiveck after making his way to the village of

Grobern, which was just about 500 yards from the farm. He arrived before 9 a.m. Hofner was scheduled to repair a stationary engine for Andreas, but now it seemed like no one was home. The back door was locked and Hofner couldn't see anyone through the kitchen and barn windows. He waited an hour, then pride opened the padlock on the engine shed with the crowbar. It worked for about three hours. Said he didn't hear anything besides a dog barking and some cows mooing. Well, he maybe saw something important. Maybe not. At some point, Hofner said he dropped a nut while he was working and when he reached down to pick it up, he said he thought he saw someone dash past the shed behind him. But when he went outside to check, he couldn't find him.

Hofner continued working by this point feeling a bit disgruntled that no one was home to offer him lunch, which I find pretty amusing. I love that he actually mentioned that. Yeah, no, I was concerned for the family sure, but I was also pretty hungry. You know, I didn't think about how something bad may have happened to them. I couldn't think about that. I couldn't think about anything else I was too hungry. I was hangry You know, I probably would have looked around for them a lot harder if someone would have had the decency to give me a sandwich You know at least a bratwurst, but nah, I'm starving. Look, I'm sorry that they're dead. It's horrible

But I'm also pretty sad for myself I'll never be able to go back in time and not be super hangry that day, which is also a tragedy Is another unspoken aspect of this entire terrible situation Hoffner also said he was frustrated not knowing who was going to pay him and win which is fair Often finishes repairs by 2 30 p.m Started up the engine to see if it worked when it fired up noisily He was surprised allowed noise didn't attract any attention from someone in the family With nothing else to do Hoffner closed up the shed walked around the property one last time When it fired up noisily, he was surprised the loud noise didn't attract any attention from someone in the family.

With nothing else to do, Hofner closed up the shed, walked around the property one last time, hoping to get paid, maybe get a goddamn sandwich. Frustrated, Hofner left the farm, and on his way back he asked two of the family's neighbors, Maria and Victoria Schlittenbauer, to tell the residents of Hinterkiveck that the engine had been repaired, and that he needed to get his money, maybe some lunch meat or something, when they returned. The girls who were undoubtedly already wondering what the hell was going on with the Grubers, they knew the family hadn't showed up to church, they knew the little girl had been at school. Well, they relayed the message to their father, Lorenz Schlittenbauer, one of our suspects, remember, a widower who claimed paternity of little two-year-old Joseph who then sent his sons to the farm to take a look around at 3 30 p.m. They returned, said they walked around, couldn't

find anyone. Lorenz now spoke to some of his other neighbors, Michael Pohl, Jacob Siegel, or Jacob Siegel, about what was going on and now these three dudes and Schlittenbauer's two sons of this party of five They form an impromptu search party and decide to go to the farm again Lorenz Schlittenbauer Michael pole Jacob Ziegle entered a passageway to the barn to the unlocked door to the engine shed But then had to force their way inside of the barn itself Barn was attached to the house, by the way, all the same structure. The house was L-shaped and the residential area was connected to the barn through a covered passageway

and in the barn the animals were housed and there was also an equipment shop. Now in the barn portion of the building, the search party stumbles upon a truly horrific crime scene. Someone had left out a delicious looking ham and cheese sandwich, and that young mechanic Albert Hofner, he could have easily enjoyed and satiated his hunger had he found it, but alas, that was never going to happen now. For real now. The search party stumbled upon a truly horrific crime scene. So much blood and gore. And before I share the details of this terrible scene, time for today's mid-show sponsor break. If you don't want to hear these ads, you can sign up for our Patreon, become a space lizard for $5

a month and get the entire catalog ad free and more. And I'm back and it's time to discuss what Lorenz Schlittenbauer, Michael Pohl and Jacob Ziegel found when they broke into the Gruber's Hinterkaifeck barn. Four bodies had been stacked in the barn and covered in hay. And once uncovered, these men saw sights they would never forget. The Gruber family had been savagely beaten to death. The elder, Kasselia, had suffered multiple blows to her head, powerful enough to have literally cracked her skull open.

And it appeared that she'd been strangled as well. Andreas' face was not just bloody, it was described as quote shredded. Shredded to the point that his cheekbones were exposed. Victoria, their daughter, also suffered significant damage to her skull. She'd been beaten on the face with a blunt object. They had all been beaten with a blunt object, a Matic. And a Matic, to define it more clearly now now is a hand tool used for digging, prying and chopping. It's got a long handle typically wooden handle, a sturdy head that can be a combination of an adds and an axe blade or a pick and

an adds and an adds is an axe like tool used for roughly shaping carving and smoothing wood with a curved chisel like steel head mounted at a right angle to the wooden handle. It can also be used as a big heavy garden hoe basically. Essentially a Matic is a double-headed axe with smaller axe blades and one of the blades is vertical and the other is horizontal. And if someone is swinging one of these at your head they might as well be swinging an axe. I don't think anyone. If one was being swung in their direction, uh whatever thing anything along the lines of oh, oh, Lisa's not an axe. Oh, thank God I thought this psycho had an axe good news. It's just a medic. We'll all be fine

No, now you're gonna be dead either way the younger Casillas jaw had been shattered by this crew weapon her face and neck had multiple slashing wounds Interestingly her small seven-year-old body was found apart from the others. Pohl and Ziegel immediately ran outside, but Lorenz Schlittenbauer continued on, now alone, into the residential portion of the building, entering the living area. He seemed very calm, I guess, through the feeding corridor, seemingly unlocking the front door from the inside. A detail which will read suspicious suspicious as you'll soon see. Inside the house Schlittenbauer found two more dead bodies. The bodies of the new maid Maria Baumgartner and the body of the youngest child, his child very possibly little Joseph, both found in the house

covered with sheets and a dress on one of the bodies. Joseph was found in his now very bloody bassinet, Maria in her bedchamber. They'd both been hit in the face with the same weapon, it seemed, a blunt object had bashed them about the face and head. Joseph, again, only two. Did whoever did this really need to take a fucking ax

to the little guy, right? Apparently they just enjoyed killing people this way. Now following the discovery of six dead bodies, the search party of concerned neighbors talks to local authorities. And the lead investigator assigned to the case is Inspector Georg Reingruber. Reingruber, accompanied by some local police officers,

arrived at the home at 6 p.m. The mayor of a nearby village also came with them. By this point, the crime scene unfortunately had already been incredibly contaminated thanks to a number of neighbors walking around checking shit out all over the property. The bodies had been moved from their original positions by the neighbors. At 10pm, a three-person judicial commission from the Strobenhausen District Court arrived to the farm to further investigate the crime scene

and conduct a preliminary search of the house after the local police and the mayor had already walked around, touched all sorts of shit, in addition to neighbors also having been all over the crime scene, stomping on stuff, touching all sorts of shit. Additionally, thanks to them showing up at night, the vision was limited. Investigators had to use lamps to see so they're not gonna see nearly as well. The judicial commission returned the following day with a prosecutor from Neuburg, another town in the district, and some police from Munich also arrived on this day to offer their assistance. More and more bodies making a bigger and bigger mess of this crime scene. There were at least 17 investigators at Hunter Kaivac alone on April 5th

and a number of modern investigators have not surprisingly harshly criticized all of this. Crime scene not secured in the least. Again, incredibly contaminated. Only five photos ever taken of the crime scene. Fingerprint evidence not collected. Even though German police have been using fingerprints to help solve crimes since 1906. Police dogs not able to complete their tasks because of snowfall and rain. Wasn't until April 8th that any footprints on the scene were even examined at all. And now these footprints had largely been washed and stomped away thanks to heavy rain and farm work that had been performed since the bodies were found.

Yeah, apparently someone was like, look, there's no reason we should let these crops go unattended. Times are tough. And while, you know, they're not going to need these crops any longer, my family and I, we're still alive. We still need some sandwiches. Numerous onlookers who came to the scene out of sheer morbid curiosity also contaminated potential footprint and fingerprint evidence. April 5th, investigators spent around 10 hours gathering evidence at the crime scene.

They did not find the murder weapon though on this day or murder weapons possibly. A bloody manic was soon found hidden in the attic. Again the attic. Also a penknife which the killer may have used in addition to the mattock was later found, about a year later, hidden in some hay in the barn. So they didn't search real good. Curiously not only were the farm animals and the family dog unharmed, they had been in fact fed and cared for during the days the family went undiscovered. Which suggested the killer had been living on the farm following the murders or at least frequenting the farm Also appeared that the killer had eaten the family's food

Used their fireplace to stay warm Corner did determine that the family was almost certainly killed on the evening of March 31st or in the early hours of April 1st The main initial theory was that the entire thing was an April Fool's Day prank gone wrong. The killer had been waiting to play the prank on the family for months in the attic. They finally came down, act like they were going to kill them all with an axe. You know, they were about to yell, surprise, April Fool's, before killing anybody. But then they accidentally smashed somebody in the face and had to kill the rest, you

know, to cover their tracks. And that's, you know, to cover their tracks. And that's of course nonsense. No, the main theory was that there was more than one killer involved and the victims were lured to the barn one by one, most likely due to the noises that the animals were making in the barn. Huh. I have a problem with everyone heading to the barn one by one, right, due to animal noises. That's weird, right? Four people heading out there. Just one at a time. No duo is ever gonna head out there together. That's a strange dream The coroner who performed the autopsies in the barn the day after the bodies were found determined that all the victims died quickly except for the younger Casilia She was thought to have lived by the corner for several hours after she was attacked

Judging by how she apparently quote ripped out clumps of her own hair in a distressed state before eventually dying of shock. Uh, what? That detail is so disturbing. I've covered a lot of true crime by this point, like a lot, and I don't believe I have ever come across another detail like that, where someone after being savagely beaten about the face with essentially, again, a dull axe, beaten to the point that the murderer or murderers just as soon that they're dead starts ripping out clumps. Clumps of their own hair. And this is a seven-year-old girl supposedly doing this. How could they tell that she was the one who ripped her own hair out?

And not someone else? There's something especially disturbing about this detail. I don't believe that she did that. What the fuck really happened to her? On April 6th, the Judicial Commission from Shrobenhausen District Court discovered a rope reaching from the attic to the barn passage door. The rope was attached to a roof cross beam, was used for lifting heavy loads, and there were two handprints on the dusty beam. It was thought that the killer slid down the rope as one way to exit the attic. Also that attic with brownish red stains on the eyelets and a hoe blade found in the feeding room. Investigators assumed the substance was blood and that this was the murder weapon because it was close to the bodies.

The investigators discovered that the attic could be most easily accessed from the barn using a wall ladder attached to the west side of the building. most easily accessed from the barn using a wall ladder attached to the west side of the building. Depressions like the ones Andreas had found earlier were found in the hay and the hayloft above the barn. You know, depressions like somebody was sleeping. Also some stairs from the residential wing leading to the attic slash hayloft on the opposite side of the building. There were holes in the attic that would also allow someone to watch the family working in the fields or walking around the house. Treepy. Additionally, in the smokehouse, which was in another part of the attic above the kitchen, there were 19 pieces of smoked fish and it looked like some pieces were partially eaten. Investigators realized that it was entirely possible someone had been living in the attic,

perhaps for quite some time, without the family's knowledge, as there were numerous ways to get in and out and also monitor the family's movements. Mmm. Andreas should have gathered up some neighbors. Had dudes enter the attic from all the entrances slash exits at the same time. Easy for me to say in hindsight, though. I might have also been like, Yeah, get out of here! There's no one in the attic! Come on! Stop saying that! I'm tired!

I've been working in the farm all day. I just want to eat and relax! Now, who stole my smoked fish again? Getting pretty sick and tired of all my stuff constantly disappearing around here. The police interviewed a variety of locals asking if any of them had noticed any strange activity or signs of life in the farm in the days between the murders and the bodies being found between April 1st, April 4th. On April 1st an artisan named Michael Plockiel said he passed by the farm, saw that someone was using the fireplace. According to his statement, well, at noon on the previous Saturday, which was April 1st, I was at Hinterkaifeck, the door to their oven was almost closed all the way, I know

that, but when I went back in the evening, it was half open, just a jar. Also the fireplace was smoking slightly. It puzzled me and I turned around and there was a light at the edge of the forest. It could have been a flashlight. No efforts were ever made. It doesn't seem to determine what exactly was burned. 3 a.m. April 1st, a local farmer and butcher named Simon Reislander was on his way home when he saw two people at the edge of the forest where the forest met the farm.

Why the hell was he walking home at three o'clock in the morning? But whatever. Strangers turned so he couldn't see their faces and he came to suspect they were involved in the murders. Initially, the police thought vagrants most likely killed the family. But big problem with this theory, nothing valuable seemed to have been stolen from the home including what sources say were, quote, large sums of money. Despite nothing of value being stolen, officers spent a lot of time interrogating traveling craftsmen, vagrants, and inhabitants of some surrounding villages.

They would also interrogate the neighbor who found the bodies along with a few other neighbors, Lorenz Schlittenbauer, who again claimed to be Joseph's father. Lorenz was also the very first man from the search party to walk into the residential area of the building and find Joseph and the maid. Schlittenbauer's first wife had died four years earlier in 1918. The rumor was that he began a sexual relationship with his neighbor Victoria after his wife passed. Also became a suspect because of his actions and odd behavior immediately before and after the bodies were found. The search party he was a part of had to break a gate to enter the barn because all the doors were

locked but then he entered the house alone and according to one source had to have used a key to unlock the front door to get in. However according to author D.A. Chadwick, Schlittenbauer entered the living area through the feeding corridor and unlocked the front door from the inside. But as we know a key had gone missing in the days before the murders. Some sources say the key went missing the day before the murders, like the very day. So did he steal it? Did Victoria perhaps give it to him? When asked why he went into the house alone, Schlittenbauer said he went to look for his son Joseph. But then when he found his alleged son, small face, bloody and battered in his bassinet with thatmatic, he didn't seem to react with any emotion.

Who is that stoic? How do you not scream or at least you know break down in tears, sobbing in that situation? I mean I know the Germans are legendarily stoic, but this reaction reads as very weird to me and it read very weird to other Germans. Like when a monster or robot is just like, Oh no! My baby boy has been smashed in the face with the axe until death. This is quite a tragic event. Oh no! Why God, why did this happen? I am deeply saddened for my terrible loss.

Schlittenbauer was also the one who moved some bodies at the crime scene before investigators got there, which could read as very suspicious. Perhaps if Victoria had demanded financial support from him, that could be motive for him to kill her, but would he be so angry that he would murder the entire family including his own child? I mean, his son's body was found in the house, very likely the child never saw anyone, you know, being murdered in the barn. And also he was two. So even if he did see somebody else get killed, not exactly the best age to be a reliable eyewitness. Couldn't Schlittenbauer, if he did do this, you

know, commit these murders, couldn't he have left him alive? You know, couldn't he have just claimed he came over to the house because he heard his boy, the boy he thought was his child wailing and that's when he found the other bodies? I don't know. Police were unable to definitively place Schlittenbauer at the crime scene, but he remained a suspect for many years and allegedly knew details only the killer would know. A local teacher found him visiting the site in 1925 after the barn and home had been torn down.

When asked why he was there, he supposedly mentioned that the perpetrator's attempt to bury the family in the barn was hindered by the hard ground. Huh. Renner Schlittenbauer died in 1941 without ever being charged. He also would win several slander suits over the final years of his life against various people who called him the murderer of Hinterkaifeck. Another potential suspect was one of the victims, Andreas Gruber. It was rumored that Andreas had raped and impregnated his daughter Victoria and was Joseph's real father. A very believable rumor since Andreas really truly was an incestuous piece of shit. He'd already been caught raping Victoria previously and both of them had been convicted of incest. Andreas would spend a year in

prison for his crime. Andreas' procl convicted of incest. Andreas would spend a year in prison for his crime. Andreas' proclivities for incest and abuse, common knowledge in the area, frequently discussed in neighboring villages, big hot topic of gossip. And how can you sit next to a dude at church or wherever who had already gone to jail for incest? How could he sit near him and sit near the daughter he raped? Mm-hmm now fuck that guy forever supposed to shun people like that also. Why was Victoria charged with incest? I feel like in cases of incest between a parent and child only the parent should ever be charged no matter what the child's age is Unless their child actually like rapes literally rapes the parent like I don't care if the dad is 60 and the daughter is 40. If they get caught having sex and incest, you know, it's a crime, only the parent should be charged. Because what the fuck did they do to their kids to make them think this would ever be a healthy

okay option? And why if Victoria was literally raped, why was she ever charged with anything? Different time. Stupid time in many ways. So many questions. I'm not surprised incest shows up in this story. Sadly incest in rural Germany at this time was a big problem. Which is fucking disturbing. A lot of daughter humping going on in and around these Bavarian villages. Which makes me want to throw up. And also in addition to all the other disgusting morally reprehensible qualities someone has to have to sexually approach their own child. How fucking lazy do you have to be? Right? There's a great big world full of so many potential sexual partners out there and these dirtbags are like, ah, too much work. I'd have to put on my outside clothes, actually leave the house.

I'd have to meet and flirt with folks. Why head to a bar or nightclub and oh man spend all that money go through all that drama when I can just walk down the I'd have to meet and flirt with folks. Why head to a bar or nightclub and, oh man, spend all that money, go through all that drama, when I can just walk down the hall? If you've listened here for any length of time, you know I like to selectively, selectively advocate for suicide, occasionally, in instances where I feel like it would truly be best

for society at large. And I strongly think, if you are someone who fucks their own kids, or has ever fucked their kid or kids in the past How about you? How much kill yourself? Not kidding go full Nike. Just do it. There's no redemption for you in this life fucking none Leave the party before you ruin any more lives, please and thank you if you're the victim of incest However, don't you dare take yourself out?

Don't give whoever hurt you the satisfaction. Instead, live a great life. Prove to them and yourself that they could never ever break you. That you are better than them because you are. Back to Andreas. This murder-suicide theory is dismissed because of a small problem with it. None of the wounds appear to be self-inflicted. I mean, seriously, how does one repeatedly smash themselves in the head and face with an axe,

hard enough to shred their face? Pretty sure if you don't kill yourself with the first hard blow, you're going to be too messed up just to keep on swinging at your face. The murders were thought to be most likely committed by someone familiar with farm work, because the killer or killers maintained the farm for several days following the killings, or seemed to have. But who could possibly harbor so much hatred that they would slaughter an entire family? There was speculation, as I mentioned earlier, that the killer could be Carl Gabriel, Victoria's allegedly deceased husband. Officially, Carl was killed by being hit by artillery fire in December

of 1914 while fighting in World War I, but his body was never recovered. And many wondered if Karl actually died. Interestingly, over two decades later, at the end of World War II, some war prisoners from the Schrobenhausen region of Germany were released from Soviet captivity, and some of them reported they were sent home by a German-speaking Soviet officer who claimed to be the Hinterkaifeck killer. Few of these prisoners, not the officer, could have been Karl Gabriel. Some people who claimed they saw Karl after his death testified that he did talk about wanting to go to Russia to defect. Unfortunately, we'll never know if

this officer was Carl Gruber or not. And if so, what was his motive? To sneak home, to travel all these miles, just to go back home, kill everybody, not take any money, and sneak back to Russia. Doesn't make any sense to me. Another pair of suspects were the Gump brothers and no, one of them was not named Forrest. You fucking take his sweet name out of your mouth. Leave him out of this nightmare. A man named Adolf Gump became a suspect on April 9th, 1922 because he was connected to the Highlands Free Corps, a voluntary paramilitary organization in the early years of the Weimar Republic, an a suspect on April 9, 1922 because he was connected to the Highlands Free Corps, a voluntary

paramilitary organization in the early years of the Weimar Republic, an organization that fought against communism and Polish insurgents. And in 1951, Adolf and his brother Anton Gump were investigated in connection to the Hinterkai-Fek murders after their sister claimed on her deathbed that her brothers committed the murders. Adolf already died in 1944 but Anton was arrested and questioned. He was soon dismissed though. The case discontinued due to lack of any evidence. Two more brothers who were suspected of the murders, Carl and Andreas S. No full surname is listed, just the first letter of S. Nearly 50 years after the murder, 1971, a woman named

Therese T. wrote a letter about an event that occurred when she was 12 years old. She wrote that her mother was visited by the mother of two brothers named Carl and Andreas S. The mother claimed her sons were the Hinterkaifeck killers and said Andreas S. or Andreas regretted that he lost his penknife. Again a penknife was found in some hay in the barn after the murders. Wasn't found until about a year after the murders actually. And this all just seems ridiculous to me. How does that fucking come up in a conversation? Two moms talking?

What do your boys do? Ah, yeah, John is his son. Carl is an accountant. He's doing quite well with the accounting and making some good money. My other brother, son, Peter, he's doing very well for himself. He's a lawyer. He's doing great. However, what do your children do? My son's at the Hinterkijverkillets. Wouldn't you know it? Oh, they had a great time that day, but Andreas regretted that he lost his penknife. Get the fuck out of here!

Another suspect. Man named Peter Wiebe. Wiebe worked room with a man named Joseph Betz in the winter of 1919-1920. Betz reported that Viba spoke about a remote farm called Hintzer Kaifeck. Viba said that he knew that an older couple lived there with their daughter and her children and according to Betz, Viba suggested killing the elderly man for his money. Betz was not interested in committing this crime with Viba. Viba just stopped talking about it eventually. Was it possible he returned two years later to enact his plan?

Doubt it. Again, nothing of value. Thought to be stolen from the farm. Large amount of cash found untouched. So, nope. Former maid, Kresens Rieger, bringing her up again, the one who quit, because she felt the farm was haunted, she ended up suspecting that some other brothers,

Anton and Carl Beechler, they were the killers and she told the police such. She talked to the police a lot. Anton Beechler had helped with the potato harvest before on the farm, talked to a crescent often about the Gruber and Gabriel families apparently. He suggested according to the maid that the family ought to be dead, but doesn't give a lot of context really why. Okay. Made numerous advances apparently towards the maid but the family advised her not to have a relationship with him because they thought he was a quote chicken thief. Stay away from the chicken thief. He'll only bring you pain and misery with this chicken stealing. Anton blamed the family for the fact that he couldn't you know fucking get with get with the mate. Couldn't get in her panties.

Chrisence also emphasized in her interview that the farm dog barked at everyone but never at Anton and that this might have allowed him to sneak out of the property without the family noticing. She thought Anton and his brother Carl would have committed the murders with Georg Siegel, who also worked at the Hinterkaifeck farm briefly. He allegedly stole some meat, eggs, bread, clothing for the farm before he even started work and then abandoned the job after two days. Siegel, of course, denied his accusations. He did admit he carved the handle of the murder weapon during his brief time there and he knew where the tool was kept. Police never seemed to take him seriously as a suspect.

To add yet another bizarre detail to the story, Crescent, again the maid, claimed that she spoke to a stranger through her window at night on one occasion. The stranger said they were a farmhand from the nearby village of Groburn. This fella asked to come in. She refused because she had fucking never seen him before. He apparently asked whether young Victoria

would be with old Gruber. So he knew about the incest. As mentioned, it was known that Andreas and Victoria had an incestuous relationship. Crescens once walked in on them having sex, she would say, or they were about to have sex in the spring of 1921 in the barn. Victoria later told her that she would not have gone into the barn with her father if she knew Crescens would be there which what the fuck is going on here soon after Crescens claimed She heard that Andreas tell she heard Andreas

Tell Victoria that she did not need to marry as long as he was alive because he was there for quote this indicating sex with his own daughter This guy was a real piece of work. It was a fucking creepy ass farm. Maid Crescent Sreiger also named the Thaler brothers as possible suspects. I think she liked to talk to the police a lot. Uh, she said they had a record of minor burglaries in the area. She said that during her time with the family, Joseph Thaler once stood at a window at night asked questions about the family. But she did not respond another guy had a window

why are so many dudes showing up at her fucking window at night apparently this was a normal thing to do in the area at the time these dudes fucking walking up oh my gosh and you know people's windows hey what's going on in there you want to have sex no okay so walk on to the next fucking house hey do you have a sandwich no okay see you later. Reads to me is very strange. I guess people are walking up to Victoria's window all the time as well. Crescent said he claimed to know who was sleeping in which room and said the family had a lot of money. Crescent also

saw another person nearby during this incident and that Joseph and this stranger were looking at the machine house often while she was talking to Joseph through the window. But yet again a lot of money left in the home. I think I said money we're there. Money. A lot of money. A lot of money left in the home. So no matter who is being talked to about as a suspect if money is supposed to be their primary motivation I just don't buy that they committed these murders. Now for one more suspect. A bit of a stretch, but an interesting stretch. This suspect was only recently proposed by authors Bill James and Rachel McCarthy. James, father and daughter duo, doing something healthy together like writing a book, not having sex. In their 2017 book, The Man from the Train, the Solving of a Century Old Serial Killer,

they talked about the suspect Paul Mueller, a German immigrant. Mueller was a suspect in the 1897, I almost flipped that around in my brain, it's in 1987. He is a fucking Highlander. He's a suspect because A, he's immortal. B, he definitely kills a lot of people. No, he's a suspect in the 1897 murder of a Massachusetts family. So how can he be connected to the Hinterkaifeck murders? Well, the authors conducted extensive research, believed that Mueller killed dozens of victims,

was a very prolific serial killer, killed a lot of people in a lot of different locations. They studied 250 family murders from 1890 to 1920, attributed many of them to Mueller. Mueller traveled across the US in the late 19th early 20th centuries. An obscure figure, co-author Rachel McCarthy James told Mel magazine, a California-based men's magazine, pretty much every detail we learned about him we put in the book. We only knew probably 500 words of material about him, specifically his physical appearance, where he's from, his skills, and his family. Paul Mueller was the main suspect in the Newton family murder, where two women and an elderly

man were killed in Brookfield, Massachusetts. On January 1st, 1898, Mr. Newton, his wife and daughter were discovered by their neighbors, quote, in a mutilated state. Neighbors had not seen the family since the previous Friday. The neighbor who found the bodies were drawn to the house because of noises from the family's cattle. Mrs. Newton and her daughter were found in bed, quote, hacked up, their heads split open,

their abdomens slashed. Mr. Newton was found upstairs, mutilated in a similar fashion. The killer then attempted to burn the house down, but was unsuccessful. Paul Mueller worked as a farmhand in the area at that time, had been missing since the previous Sunday, was a suspect in the murders, last seen by the conductor of an eastbound midnight train leaving the area the next day.

Authors believed his motive was stealing $3,500 Mr. Newton was thought to have possessed, but the Jameses will suspect that money was not Mueller's primary motivation. Mueller often visited towns that had lumber camps or a thriving timber industry as he worked primarily as a lumberjack. Mueller started off in the East and South, then traveled to the Midwest and Pacific Northwest and Oregon and Washington. Also focused on German immigrant communities such as Ardenwald, Oregon, and Rainier, Washington. The authors feel certain that Mueller committed at least 14 family murders with 59 victims and possibly also was involved in another 25 murders with

lesser degrees of certainty. They've speculated that his primary motivation was sadistic sexual attraction to underage girls. Authors linked Mueller to incidents in Colorado Springs, Colorado in September of 1911 where six people were killed in one night. Victims were two families who lived across the street from one another. Damn. Authors also linked Mueller to two murders in Paola, Kansas in June of 1912 and they believe that four days later Mueller committed the infamous Veliska axe murders. There's an alleged haunting associated with these murders as well which probably doesn't

come as a surprise. I covered it in episode 19 of Scared to Death. Cover the mirrors. On June 9, 1912, a family of six and their two guests were all savagely bludgeoned to death in their home in Veliska, Iowa. 112 years later, the mystery remains unsolved. Josiah and Sarah Moore, their four children and two visiting girls all found dead in their home Josiah was a prominent businessman well-known church worker in town the children were 11 year

old Herman Moore 10 year old Katherine Moore 7 year old Boyd Moore 5 year old Paul Moore also 12 year old Lena stillinger 8 year old Ena stillinger daughters of a wealthy farmer named J.T. Stillinger. Their murder weapon was found in the family's backyard, is believed that the family and their guests were killed around or after midnight after they returned from a program at the Presbyterian Church around 10 p.m. Strangely, nearby neighbors did not hear anything unusual that night. The bodies were found after Josiah Moore did not answer a call from his clerk, and the family did not get up to do their normal morning routines.

Neighbors called their relatives. One person tried to open the doors and windows but was unsuccessful. They called the town marshal who had to break down the door. Town marshal Henry Morton told a relative as he walked out of the house somebody was murdered in every bed. There were several unusual details at the crime scene including a four pound slab of bacon leaning against the wall next to the axe. The killer had also used clothing to cover the mirrors

and entryway glass and left behind a plate of uneaten food and a bowl of bloody water in the kitchen. Bowl of bloody water. What the hell? Maybe he's trying to clean something. One suspect in the case was Reverend Lynn George Jacqueline Kelly, who left town on a train that morning after the murders and allegedly told passengers

about the aid victims before the bodies were found. Kelly later signed a confession claiming that God whispered to him, suffer the children to come unto me. Oh boy. He recanted this at his trial and the jury deadlocked 11 to one for an acquittal. Then a second jury acquitted him. He was the only one to ever go to trial for the murders.

After the murders in Kansas and Iowa, some Iowa investigators believe the killings were connected to the work of a serial killer and reporters from major papers in Chicago, Kansas City and New York all sent reporters to the Midwest to investigate the crimes further. The Jameses, the author, suspect that Mueller now feared he would be caught soon and so he returned to Germany where he was from that same year. And a series of axe murders suddenly stopped after he left the U.S. If the Jameses research is accurate, Paul Mueller may be one of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history. The Hintrkivac murders have similarities to Mueller's other suspected crimes, such

as killing an entire family in an isolated home, using an axe or similar farm tool as a weapon, moving and stacking the victims, and the absence of robbery. One excerpt from the James's book states, "...the use of the axe hitting people in the heads, the stacking of bodies, covering the bodies with hay, and the special attention to the body of the seven hitting people in the heads the stacking of bodies covering the bodies with hay and the special attention To the body of the seven-year-old girl or all elements familiar to us from the man from the train To the best of my knowledge the crime did occur within one mile of the railroad although I am unable to locate the farm precisely

The authors conclude in regard to the hinter kaifek murders It is ten years between Velyska and hinter kaifek to include this crime in the series changes a 14-year odyssey into a 24-year odyssey. Paul Mueller would have been close to 60 years old by 1922. And I will let you decide how improbable you think it is that he could have continued to murder people. There's no real reason to believe that it's not him. Back to the 1920s now, German investigators became so desperate to solve this case, they ended up turning to some psychics for help and that led nowhere. A real psychic could have told him that I guess. The family's heads were even removed, sent to clairvoyance in Munich, who had no luck doing whatever kind of fucking voodoo those German

clairvoyance were doing with a bunch of rotting bloody shredded heads It's a little weird. The Hinterkivac farm was demolished in 1923 which led to the discovery of the penknife mentioned earlier It was demolished about a year after the killings family buried in a nearby cemetery Sahn's heads Their heads ended up getting lost then during World War two Seriously almost every single detail this case is so fucking weird Which is why I wanted to share this story with you. Why were there heads still in Munich when World War II began? Also in May of 1927, just over five years after the killings, a stranger stopped a resident in a little village to the location of the former farm at midnight, like a ghoul, asked some

questions about the murder, then shouted, I'm the killer! And then just literally sprinted off into the woods. Mm-hmm. Never seen again. Never identified. What is happening? Locals were interviewed again about the case in later years such as the family's former maid, Kresens Rieger, again who loved to talk to authorities. She was interviewed over and over, interviewed for the last time in 1952. The investigative files on the case closed in 1955. The last interrogations regarding the case took place in Germany in 1986. In 2007, a German police academy took on the investigation as a cold case. They could not officially solve the murder, but did come up with a theory of who did

it, one I guess they all agreed on, but they won't name their suspect. They've kept the suspects name private out of respect for the descendants of this suspect. Damn it! It has been 102 years since the Gruber family was killed. Unfortunately, due to the passage of time, the deaths of suspects and witnesses, the loss of evidence in this case will most likely never ever be solved. But who do you think did it? Whoever was up in the attic? Who was up in the attic? If I had to pick someone, I would pick two someones. Andreas Gruber and the neighbor

Lorenz Schlittenbauer. Alright, here's my random theory. Let's say Lorenz was the true father of Joseph and that he knew that Victoria was still being raped by her terrible, abusive, wife and child-beating, molesting father Andreas. Or excuse me, Andreas. There are actually rumors that Victoria had siblings, but Andreas beat them all to death as children. Maybe just a bunch of fucking gossip, but even without those disturbing rumors. He was still an abusive piece of shit for sure There were also rumors that Lorenz and Victoria were still hooking up that she wanted to be with him But her dad forbid it her dad that wanted her all to himself Perhaps Andres found out that they were still hooking up and he flew into a rage not uncommon for him He was a violent man

This fight went further than previous ones and he ended up killing Victoria with that mattock and a moment of rage. Then to cover up his tracks and his rage and his panic, he keeps killing, his people keep seeing what he's done. He kills everyone else in the home. But then how does he die? What if Lorenz came over for a midnight tryst, found his son and lover dead,

and all the other dead bodies and confronted the hated Andreas, who he then overpowered and gave him a taste of his own medicine. Maybe that was why he didn't react to finding the bodies, he already knew, you know, what had happened. Maybe he was the one who kept sneaking over from the neighboring farm, hiding in the attic, watching the family, watching his lover, watching his son, wishing he could live with both of them,

waiting for the chance to be with Victoria again. Maybe he kept coming over to the house in the days after the murders. I don't know, but that doesn't help explain why there were two impressions in the hay and the loft, like two people were hiding in the attic. I don't know, maybe he liked to get up in the middle of the night, sleep in one pile of hay, and he's like, oh, this pile of hay is making my back hurt, and then he goes to another pile of hay. Or maybe no one was murdered. Maybe it was the strangest series of axe related accidents to ever happen in history. Maybe one by one each

member of the family picked up that mattock. Oh what's this? And then slipped bludgeoning themselves in the face. Oh god panicked and they just kept hitting themselves in the face. But that's absurd. But so is this case. That little girl supposedly ripped out clumps. Clumps of her own hair after being savagely bludgeoned. Man, that is gonna stick with me. Also, some sources allude to the investigators believing that the little girl, young Cassilia, had been sexually assaulted before she was killed, which would point towards the incestuous Andreas, her grandfather, killing his family after being caught raping his own granddaughter or it would point to the possibly sexually motivated by young girls supposed German serial killer Paul

Mueller. Last thing, why were so many families getting fucking chopped up with axes back then? Damn that seems like such an absolutely horrific way to go out. The mystery of the Hinterkaifeck murders. A terrible, creepy crime that will likely never be solved. And that is it for this edition of Time Sucks Short Sucks. If you enjoyed this story, check out the rest of the Bad Magic catalog. Beefier episodes of Time Suck every Monday at noon Pacific time. New episodes of the now long running Paranormal Podcast Scared to Death every Tuesday at midnight with two episodes of Nightmare Fuel, fictional horror written by me thrown into the mix each month. Thank you to Olivia Lee for her initial research on this one and thank you to Logan Keith polishing up the sound of today's episode. Please go to BadMagicProductions.com for all your bad magic needs and have yourself a great weekend.