Hinterkaifeck

On 31 March 1922 six people were killed with the family’s own mattock at a small Bavarian farmstead: Andreas and Cäzilia Gruber, their daughter Viktoria Gabriel, her children Cäzilia and Josef, and the maid Maria Baumgartner, who had arrived that day. What makes it sit in the memory is the week before. The previous maid had left saying she heard someone moving in the attic. Andreas found footprints in fresh snow leading out of the forest to a door with a broken lock, and none leading back. The family heard footsteps above them and searched and found nobody. The case was officially closed in 1955, interrogations were still happening in 1986, and no one was ever charged. The farm was pulled down within a year. There is a memorial; the buildings are gone.