Thread by @MikeStuchbery_

Here's a real feel-bad story for you. A tale to make you feel a little chill, despite the sunshine, or the noise around you. It's the tale of the Gruber family, who lived in Bavaria in the 1920s.

As late as the 1920s, parts of Bavaria were fairly isolated, inaccessible, insular. Some joke it's still like that.

North of Munich, south of Ingolstadt stands the hamlet of Kaifeck. Outside the Hamlet once stood a farmstead known as Hinterkaifeck (or 'Out The Back of Kaifeck').

Living at Hinterkaifeck in March of 1922 were Andreas and Cazilia Gruber - both getting along in years - their daughter Viktoria & her children Cazilia & Josef.

As rural Bavarian farming folk, they were religious, conservative, very much tied to their land.

In late March of 1922, the family complained of strange noises around the farm.

Andreas complained of missing tools, and footsteps at night he couldn't trace.

Abruptly, their maid quit, saying the place was haunted - I don't blame her, rural Bavaria is... strange.

The last time anybody in Kaifeck could remember seeing anybody heading to Hinterkaifeck was the 31st of March, when Maria Baumgartner, the new maid, arrived to look after the children.

A couple of days later, folks in Kaifeck started to worry.

When you live in a small, rural hamlet, routines matter, and nobody had seen anybody from Hinterkaifeck for a while.

A group of locals headed out to see if all was well.

What the residents of Kaifeck found on the 4th of April was horrific.

In the barn of Hinterkaifeck lay the bodies of Andreas and Cazilia, Viktoria & the younger Cazilia.

A mattock had been used as the murder weapon.

There was evidence the younger Cazilia lingered for hours.

Inside the farmhouse lay the bodies of little Josef and Maria, the new maid.

They had similarly been done in with the mattock.

Autopsies indicated that the deaths had occured on the 31st, but horrifyingly, the farm seemed to have been maintained since - cows feed, etc.

Whoever had murdered the Grubers had continued to live among the bodies - eating, sleep and maintaing the farm - for days before leaving.

The police attempted to do a forensic sweep of the scene, but the horrifying nature of the crime caused a rash of onlookers.

So who did it? FIrst the police suspected that it may have bee n robbers, but here's the thing - nothing was stolen.

One lead was Viktoria's husband, lost in WW1. There was speculation that he was not dead.

This was scotched when friends testifed he was very definitely dead

Another lead pointed to a neighbour, who claimed to be Josef's father. Viktoria was considering suing him for more money in support of the child - could that have been a motive?

Is that why Josef was separate from the rest of the family? Some sort of warped affection?

Could guilt over the murders kept the Hinterkaifeck maintained by the neigbour for days after the carnage?

Hours of questioning, and searches of his property and Hinterkaifeck revealed nothing.

There was one more, rather disturbing lead...

Word round the campfire (or 'stammtisch' - pub table for locals) was that it wasn't the neighbour who was little Josef's father - it was Andreas.

Incest wasn't unknown in Bavaria, even by this time.

Could this be why the family had been lured out to the barn?

Did someone know, and was appalled by it?

Had Andreas somehow snapped and done them all in, before similarly trying to kill himself?

So what happened? We'll probably never know. Much of the forensic tech we have now simply didn't exist in 1922.

Much of the evidence was further polluted by those who first discovered the bodies.

Still more evidence was destroyed when the Munich Police HQ was bombed in WW2.

The story of Hinterkaifeck is still told with great relish in some parts of Germany.

Others, closer to where it happened, are a bit more tight-lipped. This is family they are talking about.

As if to draw a line under things, the family were quickly buried, the farm flattened.

The really horrifying thing is, I left out some of the worst details. I'm leaving them up to you to discover.

This really is one of those occasions where the darkness draws in, infusing everything.

It's probably one of the historic crimes that rattles me the worst.

If you're looking to do some 'dark tourism', the Grubers are buried in nearby Waidhofen Cemetery. .

There's also a shrine to the family, near where the farm once stood. I've included a Google Maps link.
goo.gl/maps/GQaWaaytf…

If you're looking to learn more, I recommend this book, that is remarkably even-handed when examining the case. amazon.co.uk/dp/B01B6GJJ3U/…

If you want something to listen to, the @SYSKPodcast guys did an episode about the case. stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/hinte…

So, there you go. A tale of isolation, darkness and secrets. Just the thing for an evening!

If you liked this tale, consider leaving a tip at bit.ly/mskofi - everything goes towards telling better and longer stories! FIN

PS. It was totally the neighbour. That's my call. Motive, means and opportunity.