Hinterkaifeck?

[ArmchairsLeuth]

Hi all, this is my first post here. Still trying to find my way around the forum so I apologise in advance for any inadvertent faux pas.

So, to this case. It's one of my 'pets' too, having only discovered it at the back end of last year. I can read and understand a fair bit of German (used to live and study in Aachen) and I'd like to help out so if you'd like any web pages, documents etc translated I'll have a go. My German skills may be a bit rusty but will improve with time and renewed use.

Just a couple of confirmations too:

Würgespuren literally translates as 'choke tracks' so yes, evidence of choking or strangulation.

Ausgirl, you've done some incredible research here. Nicely done! Just to clarify that in your post #15:

'On 06/04/1922 Dr. Aumüller obduzierte the bodies of Cäzilia Gruber, Viktoria Gabriel and Gabriel Cäzilia'

Obduzieren means 'to perform an autopsy'. Which everyone probably got anyway but I thought I'd just confirm it.

[Ausgirl]

Armchairsleuth -- this is very awesome. YES, I would love some help with the original documents. There's some passages that google just mangled beyond recognition.

Bless this person from Germany, who's collected original documents and has a lot of good info on their site, for this link:

http://hinterkaifeck.net/index.php?menuid=23#19

What I'm interested in right now is the witness testimony from the people who discovered the bodies, and the part about the hay in the attic as it just gets utterly mangled in G-translate.

Also, does 'Auffindezeuge' mean 'witness'?

Thanks so much!

[ArmchairsLeuth]

Hi Ausgirl,

Yeah, Google translate comes up with some.....er, 'interesting' interpretations at times, that's for sure!!

HINTERKAIFECK.net was the first site I started reading about this on! Small interweb, eh?? it's a cracking wee site and seems quite detailed too. i'm just about to head to sleep now but will work on that link tomorrow evening.

I'm just so overwhelmed that there are others out there who have taken this case into their hearts just as much as I have. It's a really fascinating case.

Edit to add: Auffindenzeuge I think would indeed be a witness, but in the context of 'finding out'. So I'd guess, just by going on the word alone, that it does indeed mean 'witness who discovered the bodies'.

[GUT]

Welcome to Casebook

Hi all, this is my first post here. Still trying to find my way around the forum so I apologise in advance for any inadvertent faux pas.

So, to this case. It's one of my 'pets' too, having only discovered it at the back end of last year. I can read and understand a fair bit of German (used to live and study in Aachen) and I'd like to help out so if you'd like any web pages, documents etc translated I'll have a go. My German skills may be a bit rusty but will improve with time and renewed use.

Just a couple of confirmations too:

Würgespuren literally translates as 'choke tracks' so yes, evidence of choking or strangulation.

Ausgirl, you've done some incredible research here. Nicely done! Just to clarify that in your post #15:



Obduzieren means 'to perform an autopsy'. Which everyone probably got anyway but I thought I'd just confirm it.

Enjoy your stay.

[Rosella]

All the victims seem to be covered in some way, by hay, bedsheet, a skirt. I believe that does point to an emotional connection between the killer and his victim(s.)

The poor maid had such bad luck. Didn't the former maid leave because she believed the farmhouse was haunted? Don't believe that by the way, though LS may have indulged in stalking behaviour in that attic. Perhaps he hoped he would hear something during the night that would prove Andreas and Viktoria were indulging in incest, thereby solving in his own mind, josef's parentage?

What are we to make of young Cazilia's account for her sleepiness at school, the result of a family quarrel after which either Viktoria or Cazilia Snr flee weeping into the woods? Viktoria withdrew a large amount of money too, which was later found at the local church. Some very strange family behaviour.

[GUT]

All the victims seem to be covered in some way, by hay, bedsheet, a skirt. I believe that does point to an emotional connection between the killer and his victim(s.)

The poor maid had such bad luck. Didn't the former maid leave because she believed the farmhouse was haunted? Don't believe that by the way, though LS may have indulged in stalking behaviour in that attic. Perhaps he hoped he would hear something during the night that would prove Andreas and Viktoria were indulging in incest, thereby solving in his own mind, josef's parentage?

What are we to make of young Cazilia's account for her sleepiness at school, the result of a family quarrel after which either Viktoria or Cazilia Snr flee weeping into the woods? Viktoria withdrew a large amount of money too, which was later found at the local church. Some very strange family behaviour.

The whole family Dynamic seems a little "Off".

[Rosella]

Yes, the sort of family who didn't like others knowing about their business. They kept themselves to themselves.

[GUT]

Yes, the sort of family who didn't like others knowing about their business. They kept themselves to themselves.

Yeah but I see it more than just that, keeping to yourself is one thing, this seems just slightly different again, and it is more than just the cultural differences.

[Pcdunn]

Interesting details. I found this at an English-language site called Historic Mysteries.

http://www.historicmysteries.com/hinterkaifeck-murders/

It is in the category "Unsolved Crimes", which also includes JTR, other victims of JTR, and torso murders. Hope you enjoy it.

[Ausgirl]

Interesting details. I found this at an English-language site called Historic Mysteries.

http://www.historicmysteries.com/hinterkaifeck-murders/

It is in the category "Unsolved Crimes", which also includes JTR, other victims of JTR, and torso murders. Hope you enjoy it.

Thanks, Pcdunn! I've read the HK info there, but haven't perused the rest, good to hear it's worth the effort


I think there might have been something of an odd family dynamic, even for the time and location -- and again I am strongly reminded of the Gatton murders here in Aus.

But then, curmudgeonly farmers who inspire both envy for their affluence and bitter feeling via their lack of social graces might just tend to attract a lot of local gossip, especially if that's compounded by a neighbour with a serious grudge.. which was so in both cases.

I guess I'm saying, the strangeness of the family might have been amplified by the above factors somewhat, though there was definitely something odd going on around the time of the murders.

How much news of all the various "oddnesses" actually originated from the mouth of LS, is something I'm currently tallying (when I can spare time, busy season around here!).

I think this bothers me the most: little Cazilia took possibly many hours to die. She might have witnessed the murder of her mother and grandparents in the barn before she died. That hair - her own - clenched in her hands is profoundly, terribly sad.

Seeing as she was not stacked up with the rest of the bodies, I wonder what prompted LS to move her body against the wheel of the (threshing-machine??? something machine-y) rather than leaving her where she was.

I too think the bodies were all covered up like that as a sign of familiarity, "remorse" (I prefer "shame"). The house was locked (until LS opened it - with the 'missing' key) and I'm not sure about the barn.. but I think it may have been, also.

Anyway, I think it's also possible the motive was also to simply to prolong the illusion that everyone was alive and well.

Of all the bodies, little Josef's gets the most care. He's the only one not struck multiple times, and he's covered up with his mother's skirt, over the top of the crushed pram hood. Why hide the new maid under the bed? Because she too was an innocent? Or in case someone looked through the window... ?

Interesting, quick aside: LS mentions, some years after the murders, that the killers tried to dig graves but the ground was too hard....

[ArmchairsLeuth]

Of all the bodies, little Josef's gets the most care. He's the only one not struck multiple times, and he's covered up with his mother's skirt, over the top of the crushed pram hood. Why hide the new maid under the bed? Because she too was an innocent? Or in case someone looked through the window... ?

Interesting, quick aside: LS mentions, some years after the murders, that the killers tried to dig graves but the ground was too hard....

Yeah, that gets me too. Why would someone who took such 'care' over the bodies hen be so cruel as to leave little Cäzilla in such a horrific way, to die alone after tearing her own hair out in distress?

Also, going with the LS = culprit thing, which I agree would appear to be the most likely conclusion, that would help to explain Josef's treatment. If LS is going to, for heaven knows what reason, kill the entire family including the little ones, he feels a bit guilty about killing Josef. I mean, the kid might well be his.

Pcdunn, thanks for the link to that other site! It's now on my reading list.

Ausgirl, I've not had a chance to really start reading yet. I'm about to start now.

[ArmchairsLeuth]

Hang on, am I reading this right? The crime scene was basically allowed to be disturbed beyond belief by LS and whoever went in with him?! So even though the police were there, LS was pretty much allowed to do what he wanted, move bodies around etc etc?!

I'm really hoping I've got this wrong.

[Ausgirl]

Hang on, am I reading this right? The crime scene was basically allowed to be disturbed beyond belief by LS and whoever went in with him?! So even though the police were there, LS was pretty much allowed to do what he wanted, move bodies around etc etc?!

I'm really hoping I've got this wrong.

If I have this right... yes. The local cops, at least. I know he moved stuff around the time the bodies were discovered by himself and a couple of other neighbours, as the others made statements to that regard (and thought it suspicious).

Will have to go back and check the docs to be sure, but it wouldn't surprise me. LS was something of a bigwig in the community.. not the mayor, but someone with some kind of local authority (not sure exactly what, but I get the feeling he was like the representative of the farming community?). So maybe the local police deferred to him somewhat.

[Ausgirl]

Hi guys, I've been pondering these posts.

Hi,

Another thought that comes to me is why kill the little boy?

It could have been, and I only say could have been, if it was LSs son, it would have looked incriminating if he had been unharmed.

That is a terrible thought, I know. But it is a terrible case.

Best wishes.

Was the boy just turned 2?

I could see the murderer killing him in some perverted act of humanity, that is, he did not want to leave the child alone to possibly starve or die of thirst or perish in the elements after the fires went out or if he got outside somehow.

Hatchett & Stan, I think these are both good possibilities. I can't see any reason to argue that either is unfeasible.

One thing I am fairly sure of is, LS didn't give much of a crap about this child while alive, but did care about the money the boy was costing him.

At the same time, LS made a big noise about claiming the boy as his own, posthumously, but also asked if his child support might be refunded, now the kid was dead.

Draw from that your own conclusions..

But whoever the killer was, they clearly wanted to *annihilate* everyone on the property. Wipe them all, even the maid, out of existence. Even the poor dog.

Robbery was not the motive.

And that 'peculiar' things were happening around the farm at least six months, probably longer, prior to the murders suggests to me that someone quite possibly had been 'creeping' the property, and if so, therefore was probably local.

Gruber was cranky, suspicious old so-and-so, the dog was a nasty wee beast, and there were several adults living there. Seems unlikely a tramp would make the attic his secret home for half a year or more while evading active searches for evidence of his existence, and wait six months to go about slaughtering everyone there.

Seems to me the whole Gruber family was the target, from the eldest to the youngest. Like an extermination. The crime to me, overall, seems quite methodical,

So why the pretense of the family being alive, the fed livestock, the fire in the hearth, etc, carrying on for days after the murders? I have expressed my present opinion, but I'd like to hear some others.

[Hatchett]

Hi,

My opinion of that is it could have been for the person to stage an alibi.

Something else I wonder about .... did the killer know that the new maid had just arrived, or did she take him by surprise when he went into the house. If so could the little boy have seen him kill her.

Something else.Is it possible that all of the stories of the strange goings on could have come from LS inspired by the previous maid's fear about the haunting?

All in order to deflect?

What doyou think?

Best wishes.