The Hinterkaifeck Axe Murders - podcast episode cover

The Hinterkaifeck Axe Murders

Oct 27, 201647 min
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Episode description

In 1922, a little farm in the woods of Bavaria became the site of what would become Germany’s most famous unsolved murder, when six people were brutally killed with a pick axe. What led up to it and followed is nothing short of bizarre.

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Transcript

Speaker 1

Welcome to stuff you should know Friendhouse Stuff Works dot Com. Hay, and welcome to the podcast on Josh Clark, Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry Ye should know. Yeah. I would say this is a bonus Halloween episode in a way you can all look forward to our regular um add free Halloween show on Halloween, the real bonus episode. Yeah, exactly where we do our traditional reading. It's all gussied up by Jerry. But you were like, hey, since this is Hallo weekend, almost right, why don't we just tell

the story of an X murdered family. Yeah? I hope it didn't spoil it. I don't think so. I think we probably would have gotten to that point eventually, right, Yeah, So we decided to just do a little creepy episode this one. If you have your children, you may want to vet this one because it's definitely about an X murdered family. Don't be a sick Oh, it's up to you whether or not you want to expose them to this kind of treachery. This is bad stuff. Are you

ready for it? If you get your German pronunciation down. By the way, should we talk about Ki Chang hintet? Yeah, chung. More specifically, the irony of all this, why should I ever get it right at all? The irony of all this is I was almost right when I first said it and said I don't think Chinese pronounces the X. But um, this one is just a little more. Stings a little more because we made such a big deal about it being correct and the pronunciation wasn't correct, but

we were misled on the internet. Yeah, and now that happens, it happens. Still got averything else, right, A dixia chang is really chung sort of okay, And hinter kfec hinter kaifek yeah right, Yeah, I looked over these. My German is rusty, but I think I got them all. Yeah, most of them. I bet you're gonna stumble on one. But under that I don't even know which when you're talking, you know, this is what's gonna make it exciting. Man.

Maybe we should have a sound effect when it happens, and I'll just like a boring Sure, okay, that'll disrupt the spookiness. Well, let's get spooky, chuck, shall we. Because there's a little town Um in Bavaria. That's correct, it's Um between the towns of Ingle and Schrobenhausen, is that either one of the ones he thought was gonna stumble on? No, I mean technically used to say like stot instead of stott. Oh well, I didn't realize we're getting technical. But you

know you're you're not in Germany. That's how an American might say it, right, and by god, I'm an American. Um, although it's much closer to vad Hoffen, is that the one I'm just gonna ask every time I said something in German? Don't hear the sound effect. But there's a little little tiny village, a town called Kafek and um no, well, the town, the village is called Kaifek. There was a ranch basically you'd call it in America a dude ranch maybe even, but not really. It's just a farm um

called hinter Kaifek. It was located a little bit outside of this village, in the hinter land, you might call it. So this the name of this farm was hinter Kfek Kaifek. And on this farm lived a man, a woman, another woman, some little kids. This is going terribly, isn't it. No? I think it's great. So the family who made up this uh, the tendency of this farm. They were the groupers. Andreas Grouper was the father his wife. Um is this one? Okay? All right, let me do this then you're ready. H

m hmmmmmm Uh. The wife's name was Cazelia Jelia Frank. No, if I'm not mistaken, If you begin a word with C in German and it's pronounced like a like a T s, yes for me, I think that would be cet Celia. What that's not fair, Come on Germany. Um, tet Celia. Okay, Well let me ask you this. So tet Celia? Yeah? Am I saying it right now? I think cet Celia. Well that's Italian. It does sound so te Celia is his wife. That's to be determined. Uh. Their daughter Victoria. So if there's a K instead of

a C, is it something else entirely? Or is it Victoria Victoria? Okay? And there's two grandchildren. The oldest was a granddaughter. Now she has an umlaut over her name, even though it's spelled otherwise, the exact same as her grandmother, Todd Celia. How would you say that? It would be? Uh Celia to Celia? Yeah, Celia Celia and Todd Celia, Todd Celia, and cert Celia, so it would be like toad Celia and tad Celia Jr. I don't know. I mean, I've never seen anyone name there. It just seemed unusual

to me. I didn't know if the first name was missing, the um out, or if they really named her after her grandmother but added the um out. Maybe there's a story there. Well, you know, Chuck as we'll find a lot of the the details and facts of this case have been lost to time. That's right. Lastly, there was a little boy, two year old named Josef that was Victoria's son, and Victoria Um was widowed. She was thirty five.

I believe at the time that we come into hinter Kaifek and Um, they all lived together relatively isolated actually because they the groupers. Although they were wealthy and from what I saw, held in somewhat high esteem or at least treated Um with respect to their station, they were very very much disliked as a family. Yeah, and there's quite a few reasons for this. One is that, uh, the patter Familius Andreas was Um. He was not friendly, like to keep to himself, and apparently he was very

abusive to his wife and children children. He only had one living child still at this point, was Victoria, And we're in the way back machine, by the way, and it's nineteen two. Oh, we didn't say that. I don't think so. So he was abusive. I don't know the story of the passing of his other children, lost the time, lost the time. My immediate reaction was like, well, if he was abusive and they're no longer round, maybe he had something to do with it. Maybe, but totally Also

the time when like people routinely died from the flu. Sure, you know, that's a good point. Uh, so he was a loner, he was abusive. Uh. There was the matter of Yosef, the two year old daughter of Victoria. Uh, yeah, she's daughter. I don't know where else going with that, um And he was rumored to have been born from an incestuous relationship with her father Andreas Right, that was the rumor in town, which smacks it to me of small town nineteen twenties stuff. I'm not sure if I

bought that. No, but that was definitely the rumor in town. Yeah, but there was a significant number of people in town who either believed that or we're very much aware that other people believed that, Yeah, because he apparently was very controlling of Victoria, kind of to the level of being characterized as obsessed with her. Yeah, so it could very well be true. Could loss of time could also have

not been true. And there's other reports that Joseph was the son of another man in town who will meet later on. Um, who at one point claimed paternity but later on said no way. Especially I think when the concept of alimony payments was brought up, he's like, no, it was a product of incests instead. So Victoria was the only one supposedly that kind of spent a lot of time in town and that people seem to care for much because she sang in the choir apparently was

a very good singer, uh, in the church choir. And um, so this is the scene here in semi rule Bavaria. Yeah, and we we want to give a shout out. We've given um. We We've found some other articles about the case itself, but the main one that we started with was from Mysterious Universe dot org, not a normal place where we would get our stuff, but it's a good article. Yeah, and we everything else I read about it, it's sort of all checked out as being the same. So way

to go, Mysterious Universe dot Org. Good job, thanks for it. So things start to get a little weird on the farm when the maid at the farm, whose name may or may not be Maria, we don't know. Uh, she said, I'm out of here. I quit because this house is uh haunted. Yeah, I'm hearing weird noises in the attic, hearing weird sounds all around the place. I'm hearing footsteps. Uh, I'm out of here. Yeah. And apparently she left pretty quickly and suddenly, and the family so much so was like, yeah,

I think she was mentally disturbed. Sure, that's an easy way to quiet the townspeople if you don't want to. Yeah, you don't what people thinking, like a, I'm abusive and be also living a haunted house, right, Yeah, you don't want that. That's where you endow the line incest abuse. Sure that's allowable, but you don't want people to think you've got ghosts, you know. Right. So the maid leaves and that kind of sets the tone like that kicks

off this season of dread. Oh that settles over. Hinterkiek would be a good name for the movie version of this season of Dread. Yeah, I can't believe there's not a number of like blockbuster movies about this. Yeah, I looked it up. Apparently there were a couple that weren't very big, um, but nothing, nothing that ever started rape fines. Well, if it doesn't have him, who care? He would clearly be one of the dudes in this, you know, maybe even Andreas Gruber, who I keep wanting to call Hans.

I'm gonna go ahead and nit, mate. You see the name Drewber, and that's what jumps to mind. So the maid leaves, and like I said, this, weird things start happening. Um. A few months later, Andreas is um wandering around his property around, wandering around right, just looking aimlessly for something

to do. I think there was a snowstorm and he was looking around to see, you know, if there had been any damage, anything that need repairing, And he noticed that there was a set of tracks in the snow, human tracks, footprints, I guess it's a better way to call him, leading to the house. And they went right up to the house. But he looked around and he could not find any tracks leading away from the house. Super creepy, Just a single set though, Right, Yeah, it

wasn't like the footsteps like God carried him from there point. Well, that would be a single step set. Uh. Well, you know the adage there were two sets of footprints and then when there were only one. It wasn't that God left you. It was when he was carrying you. Right, You're sorry. That's a great story. Whether even if you're not religious, you got to see that and be like, man, that makes me feel good because anytime you get to that point, Jesus goes zing. Doubt me, will you? Uh,

it's the footprints leading to the house, not leading away. Creepy, creepy, creepy. Right, He was a little creeped out, so he said, let me wander around more and see if I can find Well, at this point he wasn't wandering. He had purpose, So let me not wander aimlessly, but let me go from room to room and barn to barn room, barn room to barn room, and find out this person that is

clearly on my property somewhere. Yeah, he did like a hard target search, looking for somebody, either somebody hiding out on his property or evidence that whoever left that track, those tracks leading to his house had left looking for other tracks away from that, and he didn't find anything. He found nothing, no evidence of anybody, certainly didn't find anybody,

didn't There was just nothing. Um. One thing though that he did find that was kind of off putting to him enough so that he mentioned it to neighbors was that on his tool shed, which is separate from the barn, the tool shed had a lock on it, and the lock had scratches or evidence that somebody had been trying to either break it or pick it, and they were trying to get into the tool shed, and he did

not like that. So this is this is again, this is following on the heels of their they're made leaving citing ghosts is the reason she left. Somebody has come to their farm and not left. They tried to get into the tool shed. The things are getting a little creepy. So in that case, it was a ghost sighting. See I t I right, another accidental pun? Yeah was that accidental? Sure? Okay, you didn't mean that, did you? Did I say that? Yeah? He said that she saw a ghost sighting. Oh wow, yeah,

I guess that happens. Yeah. Um, I wondered, by the way, really quickly, if these footprints. If whoever did that did the old shining trick, a little Danny was so smart he doubled back in his footprints and it worked. Oh, it worked big time. Anyonce you've seen the end of the Shining, can tell you. It sounds a lot like I've been drinking today. I haven't at all of you. I've seen what you're drinking. You're drinking water. Uh. And that's not the only weird thing that happened on Um,

so that was in March. I'm sorry. Two more weird things happened. So a set of keys go missing in March, and um, I don't know that one to me. People lose keys, yeah, but if you're suddenly like there's is there somebody like bringing around a property trying to get into the tool shed? Now there's keys missing? Yeah, yeah, I could see that, the scratchy lock. And then the other final weird thing in that month, they found a strange newspaper on the porch and I looked up because

I didn't know what strange newspaper meant. So I tried to find out what the deal was, and everywhere I went just said it was it was a newspaper that I couldn't get if it was like, was it from Russia or was it super greety um? And all I found was that it was. That I could gather was that it was a newspaper that they did not expect to be there for some reason or another. Either they didn't subscribe to, it wasn't in their town, or just

some just random newspaper being on their porch with what matters. Yeah, I couldn't find anything beyond that as well. Yeah, there was one other last thing. And all of this is now starting to take place over just the of a couple of dates. Things are getting like weirder at a much faster pace. Uh. Andreas himself, who I've not taken to be a very superstitious person um started to notice sounds coming from the attic, the same kind of like disembodied footfalls that the maid had sighted um as a

ghost sighting. So he's sitting there like, okay, keys are missing, somebody's trying to get into tools shed. Those tracks are really messing with me. And now I'm hearing things. I'm hearing people in my own house and there's a Chicago Tribune from Things have gotten weird. Al Right, Should we take a break. Yeah, alright, things are weird. This is in March, the last day of March nine. All right, Uh, a new maid comes on the scene named Maria for sure. Yeah,

this one's confirmed. Okay. She on her first day on the job. It proved to not be a very good first day at work for one really good reason. Ah that we'll get to in a minute. Okay, we'll tease it out a little bit more. Okay, So she comes to work, she's working. Everything's totally normal. Uh, as far as anyone around the hinter Kaifek Farm is concerned, like the neighbors and all, that is just a totally normal day.

But in a few days they would realize that this day, March thirty one, was the last day anyone could say for sir and that they had seen any of the groupers alive. Correct. So flash forward a few days April four. Uh, people were a little weird. They were like, you know what, uh, st Celia, it's not in school, which is unusual. Um, no one's been to church. We missed that sweet sweet voice of Victoria up there. Yeah that was highly unusual as well, Like Victoria did not miss church, did not

miss squire. I'm assuming not only did she love to sing, but this is like her one weekly excuse to get out of the house. I could see that. Uh, and so they said. And also the male had been piling up supposedly right at the post office because they didn't use stamps dot com. Right, they would have if they'd had the technology. Believe me, that's right. That was free. So the neighbors say, no, let's go check on them. Um, apparently they went at that other neighbors, right, really they do.

You should like him that much and just lets it go. It's a neighborly thing to do. We're Bavarians. So what we do so that this little search party goes to the house to go check on things. And the house is just the The whole farm is just eerily quiet. Everything's just kind of there's not a sign of life. There's a dog barking that the grouper dog was a Pomeranian actually, and this is the time of Pomeranians were a little bigger and stockier and uh, but barked nonetheless

just as just like any other pomeranian then. And stock here, yeah, German stock. And the Pomeranian was barking its head off. It was well known to be pretty just kind of a jerky little watchdog, but it was good for that. But what was odd was that it was tied up in the far in the barn. This is a house dog that the groupers caps. That was a little weird, but otherwise it seemed okay. The horses in the other

livestock seemed okay and well fed or whatever. And then somebody looked a little further into the barn and they made what would be the first of a couple really really gruesome discoveries. They found some of the groupers bludgeoned to death. That's right, Andreas, the papa, daughter of Victoria, and dear old set Celia the granddaughter in the barn, stacked one on top of the other, bled to death, bludgeoned to death only in the head area, largely in

the head area, like the the attacks were. The attacks were definitely concentrated on their head and face. Yeah uh. And they were covered with hay um, not completely covered. There are pictures of this, by the way, did you look at the crime scene creepy? Oh yeah, and see them in the barn with the hay very graphic, So be aware if you're googling that right now. Uh, so they were they were dead and had been dead for

a little while, which we'll get to. Uh. They go inside and they find poor little Joseph, just horrific two year old was found dead, also bludge into death in his cot in mom's bedroom. And then the maid on her first day on the job, was killed in her bed as well. And um, andreas his wife said, Zelia, she was in the barn as well. Oh did I miss that? Okay, So four of them in the barn, two in the house, all killed in the same manner, and all covered up in some way, whether it was

hay or sheets or clothing. Um, which is a weird thing to do. Yeah, it's very weird. Although it would, um, it would become evident why in a little bit once they started questioning the neighbors. So the day after the bodies were found, uh, doctor Dr Johann Ar Mueller performed the autopsies in the barn, and he decided that what had been used as a murder weapon was a type

of pick axe called the matic um. Although the murder weapon wasn't found for another year actually after that, um, the doctor concluded quite rightly that it was a magic that had been used. And if you've ever seen you know, like a pick axe, but the other end is like blunt and wide, that's a matic. And whoever killed the groupers and the maid did it with that, which is horrific.

Even worse than that, though, they found um in Zelia's hands clenched in her fists tufts of her own hair, so there was evidence that she had survived, for they think several hours after she was attacked and watched her other family members attacked in and pulled out her own hair for whatever reason, I let'ld say that was a

good enough reason. Victoria showed signs of strangulation, but they determined that was not the cause of death, and by all accounts, everyone else died pretty much immediately upon receiving that pick axe to the head. Um Most of the victims were in bed clothes, except for Victoria and to Celia there were in the regular clothes, which seemed to indicate that its probably happened in the evening. Some people were already getting ready for bed, some people had not yet.

And they also think that the the groupers were lured one by one out to the barn kind of Scooby Doo fashion. Yeah, because clearly when't all them killed at once, because there was no signs of struggle, like uh yeah, maybe one person went out and died and then then the other person was like it hadn't been back for a while, and then they died, and then again and again. Horrific, So there was some other, Um, there was weirdness beyond that, beyond these the just the horrific nous of the crime

and the fact that the bodies were covered up. Um, this was April fourth, right, they figured out that the bodies had been killed or the people have been killed on March thirty one, that was the last time anybody had seen them alive. But the neighbors said, well, wait a minute, that's really weird because like we saw signs of life coming from the farm all weekend. There was smoke coming out of the chimney the whole weekend. The

the live stock has been fed. The dogs clearly eaten, Like if if they hadn't been fed or cared for in four or five days, they'd be showing signs of it by now. But you can tell that they they were. They were tended to like this whole time. So what is that even the house itself, it showed evidence that someone had eaten a meal there recently, were more recently than four or five days ago. Uh, the bed looked like it had been slept in since that time. Uh.

And like we mentioned earlier that Pomeranian was tied up. Um, I saw different accounts on whether the dog was somewhat injured or not. Um, so let's just say the dog might have been hurt some but ultimately was fine and like you know, wasn't killed or anything. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was not injured, I think, right. So what this all signs point to the fact that someone killed this family and then hung out there for a few days.

But even even more stirring is the idea that the person who killed them may have been the one who left the footprints and stayed in their house waiting to kill them, perhaps killed them and then stayed in the house for a few days after taking care of everything. Yeah, just living the living the life. Very strange. Yeah, So the police started looking around pretty quickly for suspects and realizing, um, well first we got to go with motive, I think

is what they said to themselves. Sure, like occasionally it happens that there's a vagrant that comes through and kills for money and robs and uh. The thing they found out was that there was a little bit of fold and money taken from the bodies, but there was a lot of valuable jewelry and gold coins and other money in the house that was not taken. So things weren't

quite adding up on the robbery front. Yeah, and especially if somebody the person who killed them, if they were planning on robbing them, they had four days to look around and amuse themselves by robbing the whole house blind. They certainly wouldn't leave this this stuff behind. Um. They also found out in the investigation that Victoria Um had emptied her bank account and had left a donation to the church, But there was also a substantial amount that

just wasn't accounted for. Who knows what that was never turned up lost of time, So robbery was kind of discarded as a as a um A motive. But another one would come to light soon. We'll talk about that after break. You know, starting your own business can be a difficult thing, especially small business, but developing your online

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we'll go ahead and talk about this dude. There was a neighboring man, a neighbor as you might call it, for a neighboring man. You're a normal human, Hello, neighboring man, how are you today? If you're all means, if you're a professional broadcaster, you should say neighboring man? Right. Uh So his name is laurenz Schlittenbauer and he was a like I said, lived nearby. He was a suitor for Victoria and she had always said, Uh, this guy's who

knocked me up, you know Yo's father. And like you said earlier, he was like, for a little while, I think he claimed paternity. But then when it's when he found out what that meant he had to pay for that, he's like, that's an English way. I didn't understand exactly what is what is his paternity? So he backed off of that claim, and later it was emerged emerged that Um, she was about to sue him for a paternity when

before this murder took place. Right, So some people say, oh, well, that probably set him off because he was remarried and had a kid that had died sadly by that point, so he didn't want this kind of scandal on his household. Sure, and he didn't want to make the payments, right, especially if he wasn't an under percent Sure it was his kid. So if you look at the Schlittenbauer guy, some really

weird stuff starts to emerge. In addition to that motive of not wanting to pay alimony for a little yosef, the way he behaved um in the immediate wake of the discovery of these murders was very bizarre. He was part of the original search party that searched the house. Suspicious first thing, Yeah, because a lot of criminals like to do that. They like to go to the scene of the crime as part of the search party. Right, based on TV they did. Everything I learned from the

Flintstones points to this guy being suspicious. Uh. He also um immediately started disturbing the crime scene, right, Like he unstacked the stacked bodies. And when he did it, apparently there were a couple of other guys there, and the other guys were real shaken up by just being in the presence of these horribly mangled bodies. Apparently, Schlittenbauer was totally fine handling them. He's like, I got the head,

you get the legs. Uh. One of the men was quoted as saying he disturbed everything there was to disturb, so he had no qualms about going in there and just having his way with that crime scene. Apparently he was super familiar with the house itself. Um, which isn't necessarily a It doesn't necessarily Yeah, if if, especially if he was you know, dating Victoria, Yeah, well true, I would call this part of the body of evidence though, so he apparently went into the house from the barns,

which meant he knew they were connected. He unlocked the front door from the inside, which is like did he have a key or did he know where the key was? Uh? Remember the missing keys? Uh. And then he also apparently knew the maid's room handle was unusual and he had to lift it up to enter and not press it down, And apparently he just went right to it and lifted it up. Um. Again, maybe he spent some time over

there with Victoria and knew these things. Like a lot of this can be explained away, um in some ways. They also said that the dog went nuts when he was around. Yeah, Like that's him exactly, the wild You take, take or leave that. That seems like local folklore to me.

The dog and he said it was because he had blood all over issues from uh, disrupting the crime scene, and the dog was like barking at that, which, by the way, the two other searchers who were with him while he was disturbing the crime scene asked him what he was doing, and he said, he's looking for his son. YEA. A couple of things weird about all this right. So, if he's disturbing the crime scene to cover his tracks.

If he was the killer and the killer stayed behind for several days, he had all the time in the world to cover up his tracks. Why would he do it in the presence of a couple of fellow searchers. Weird? And then secondly, if he was the killer and he was not trying to act um unaware, why would he be looking for his son and the stack of bodies when he knew full well his son was in his room in the house. I guess this guy seemed like

he was not very good at misdirection. Uh, he had no alibi for the night, apparently, his family said, And this is where it gets I don't want I want to say obvious. Maybe the obvious, it gets really suspicious to me. His family said, Oh, no, he's the night they were murdered. He's spent the night in the barn because he knew that there was weirdness going on over there and he was looking out for burglars. So he

spent the night in the barn that night. Okay, so he spent the night in the grouper's barn, is what what they're saying? No, no, no, their own barn. So um. He apparently though had asthma, so that people were like, why would he spend the night in the barn if he had asthma? Smarty right, but that was his alibi, which is pretty weak. Uh. He only lived fifty meters away, which I think that's like nineteen miles. I'm just kidding, what is it. It's like three football fields, right, Yeah,

I looked up the conversis it's not too far. Yeah. Um, So he could have he could have been the one coming back and forth. Like the fact that that there were footprints leading one way doesn't to me signified that someone spent six months hiding there. It could have been he. He could have come and gone as he pleased and then not been like away from his house too long that anyone noticed. Sure, and maybe he walked in the same footprints. Maybe he did do the Danny. Maybe you know,

he was the one who originated the Danny. He was Danny before Danny was even born, that's true. Or maybe he was Danny. Oh man, this this keeps getting and the more we make up about it. That's true. The other thing that he said that I thought was, I mean, this is just I don't even know if I believe this. Apparently, many years later, uh, when the murder was talked about in like the bars and the beer gardens, he would talk about it in the first person. When he speculated

about the killings. I don't buy that necessarily, don't either. That sounds like something that people would make up in a pub. He used to say, I killed them. No one ever cared. Sure, I guess, so that was he was the main living suspect. There was another suspect who was brought back from the dead to be paraded around as a suspect in this case. Yeah, not literally in some ways, but no, not literally. This guy's name was Carl Gabriel and he used to be married to Victoria.

But he died in World War One in the trenches. Um. And the reason that he was brought back as a possible suspect is that people said, well, his body was never shipped back home. We don't actually know that he really did die. Maybe maybe follow me on, this is what they said. Maybe he came back to reclaim his wife found out that she had had an incestuous relationship. He snaps, he kills everybody. Yeah, I don't buy this

at all. Well, no, they started the police, I think in the Munich police department really apparently went to town trying to get to the bottom of his murder over the years. Yeah. And one of the other things that pointed to him, supposedly was that in World War two, another whole war later, uh, supposedly some people came forward and said, uh, you know what, we met this Russian German speaking Russian soldier that used to claim to be the Hinokifet killer, and we think that that's Carl, right,

I guess, Okay, Yeah. The thing is the Munich police apparently spoke to some of the men who were there when he died and they described me and died. People witnessed his his death. Even though his body didn't make it back, it wasn't recovered, people saw him die, so it was verified that he was died to I guess

at least the satisfaction of the police. And that was a pretty weak link anyway, because supposedly the reason that he fled for the war was to h it was to fake his death, not why he fled for the war, but that he faked his death to get out of the marriage. So why would he get fake his death, get out of the marriage, come back years later and killed them all. Great, great question, Chuck. Yeah. I think they answer that is he wouldn't or maybe it's the

perfect crime. Yeah, it's so nonsensical. He's listening right now. Last it's the perfect crime. Uh? What else people talking about? Paranormal? You know that it was ghosts and these strange noises in this mysterious newspaper and all these footprints. Is because there was some supernatural force out to get the family. Well, that would account for the ghost say that you could say that accounts for everything. That's why it's bunk. Yeah. Um No, that one's not not a not a big one.

Although the Munich police very early on decapitated, had the family decapitated, and their schools were sent for friends analysis, and we're handled by clairvoyant who apparently was not able to come to any conclusions about their faith or the killer. Yeah, and those bodies were buried headless, because those heads eventually went missing. Apparently they kept them in the Nuremberg I guess in there one of their city government buildings, and it was leveled in World War two. I think that's

where the skulls were lost. They think that was mixed them with the other skulls. Is either that or the ghost they did it. So for the cops part, they interviewed over a hundred suspects over the years, including the clear killer. To me um the neighboring man, Lawrence Schlittenbauer. I just think it all points to him. He apparently years later two was like God did the right thing with his family, like they were awful people. And he didn't say except for my possible son, the two year old.

He said, all of them they deserved it. So it just kind of seems obvious to me that it was him, because there was someone stayed there, someone knew the house, someone took great care covering the bodies. It just doesn't seem like a random burglary. No, that is a very bizarre thing to do to stick around afterward unless you

feel like you're within your own safe zone. And if you lived three and fifty meters away, yeah, maybe you would feel safe there, Yeah, that you could retreat very quickly, yeah, or know that, like I know, no one comes by here, whereas if it was a burglary, they probably wouldn't feel so comfy hanging out for days on end. So, yeah, you're right, it probably was him, but no one will ever be able to prove it one way or another. No, they didn't have any hard evidence. No, and and the

evidence they did take, a lot of it was lost. Um. This is nineteen twenty two, so a lot of they a lot of forensic techniques hadn't been invented yet. It was still being developed swear in the world. So in two thousand seven, UM a police academy in Munich got their hands on the case. Some students did the Gutenberg Police Academy, the first in feld Brooke. I'm just throwing Brooke after you know, why not let's throw in another syllable.

Um that students from that police academy investigated this crime and in Germany like it's pretty this is an enormously famous crime. Huge there, it's there, Jack the Ripper. For sure. It will never be solved, it's not possible being solved. And this is the conclusion from those students at the first in feld Brook police Academy. They said, we think

we know who it is, we're not. Since this is unsolvable and it will never be able to be proven, we're not going to name the person because they still have relatives alive, but you can't guess it's the one living suspect that anyone's ever really raised. It was helping him. Yeah, they didn't say that. That was my conclusion of their conclusions. And then they said, thank you Police Academy for your findings. And where's the guy that makes all the funny noises

in his mouth? You know? Steve Guttenberg follows us on Twitter? No way, yeah? Really yeah at Steve gut buck really yeah, and he um is in like a Sharknado esque movie. I'm not sure what what the name of it is, but he's in it with the guy who does the voices. Oh really, uh poison. His name Michael Something makes Michael something. I will say that, And I think I mentioned this

on the show. Maybe that's why he follows us. Steve Guttenberg was in one of the very best episodes of one of my favorite TV shows, Party Down and Uh did you ever see that? Joe Boy? It was good. Yeah, it was really really funny. Had the great Adam Scott and Lizzie Kaplan and one of my hero os, Ken Marino from the State and Martin star Mega. Mallally was great. Well, they were caterers, like cater waiters all actors and writers and stuff in Hollywood, and each episode was its own

thing on catering event. And they had one where they showed up to Steve Guttenberg's house for his birthday party and he pulled up and he's like, oh, Man, like I forgot to cancel. I really had the party a couple of days ago with my friends. He's like, but since you're all here, why don't we just have a party. And so the waiters end up having a party with Guttenberg and he like does some scene acting with them and give them great wine, and he has great art

and he's just really really funny in it. Yeah, I can imagine a dude. He seems so awesome. After watching this episode, I was like, man, Goods is the best. And I think they called them goots in the show even this. Yeah, anyway, good shout shout out to party down, great great show and Steve Gutenberg. Yeah, uh, do you have a listener? Meal? Was this too spooky? For one? He did great work on that bibleh Yeah, I gotta listener to mail. Okay, Well, if you want to know

more about hinter kaifek um. You can go listen to stuff you missed in history class. I think they did an episode that covered it as well. Uh you can search Mysterious universe dot org and all sorts of other places for it. And since I said, uh, hinter kaifek, it's time for listening mail. Before we do listener mail, we want to give a very special thank you to

uh Margaret and Mike in Jacksonville, Florida. Yeah, thanks guy. Yeah, they stepped forward and helped Jerry out in a big way as the stuff you should know Army is uh often does. And uh, it's all we're gonna say other than big, big thanks to you guys for helping out for real? How about that? Yeah? All right, I'm gonna call this listener mail squirrel shooting. Hey, guys, been listening

for about a year. I love the show. I was listening to the Polar Bears episode and I stopped dead in my tracks when Chuck told the story about shooting a squirrel. When I was about thirteen, I too, thought I was a tough guy and wanted to hunt animals. My grandparents lived on some land and agreed to let my cousin I shoot a squirrel as long as we agreed to skin it and eat it. They're like building that redo it. Yeah, you gotta love those depression eary grandparents, like, sure,

skin and need it. It's all yours. I have envisioned him as hippies, like passing a joint, like joking about how stupid their grandkids were. Wow, depression eary, Sure, I see that one too, all right, So we were very excited. We dressed up in camo, walked to property and because uh, you know, I got a dress in camout squirrels. H eventually found a squirrel in a tree. I should know that we were using a pellet gun, not like a

real bullet gun. I took the first shot and hit the squirrel fell from the tree, and much to my chagrin, he did not die. He made a noise I hope to never hear again. It was that awful. I had to hand the gun to my cousin. I just could not do it and take the other shot. We ended up skinning it and needing it, though he said it tastes like sick and so why bother? Uh, like we promised that we would do. Uh. That was the last

time I considered killing an animal for sport. I've always loved animals, so I'm not sure where this urge came from to begin with. Actually run a small online candle company now that sells dog fame candles. Uh. They donate ten percent of all profits to animal shelters and rescues. And so, Stephen, I am going to plug your company over my wife's candle company even which is Mama Back

and Body. Uh. And you can go to www. Dot Knox Favorite k n o x s Knox's favorite dot com and Knox was their dog in the company after that's sweet. These are soy candles. I looked it up there. Good from dog. Uh No, Nathan Dog. Thanks again for everything you do your daily listen for me. I hope to can hope you continue for years to come. That is Stephen, Stephen, way to go, Stephen, Thank you for that.

We appreciate you learning us share your horrible story with everybody. Uh. If you have a horrible story you want to share. Oh man, I mean I regret saying that. You can tweet to us that that's y SK podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff. You should know. You can send us an email. The Stuff podcast that how Stuff Works dot Com and has always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff You Should Know dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics.

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