Hinterkaifeck. March 31, 1922. Groebern, Germany. Unsettling events led to horrific murders. A farmer reported to neighbors that he had seen footprints in the snow leading up to the back of his farmhouse from the woods, but not leading back out. Strange noises could be heard in the attic later, but a search revealed no evidence of an intruder. A missing key and scratches on a door lock further raised the farmer's suspicions. On March 31, each of the five Gruber and Gabriel family members, as well as a maid who had started working just that day, were murdered with a mattock. Even more mysterious, whomever had committed the horrible crimes stayed on for days after to attend to the animals on the farm and to eat and sleep there. Who could have done this and why? Was it someone they knew? Or was it just a psychotic person who stumbled across the remote farmstead? A true crime episode.
