S05 Episode 9: Tenebrous (Pt. 2 of 2)

the closer they got. And on they continued toward the light that seemed to be luring them in like a silent, haunting beacon, toward an unfathomable horror. Inside the cars, a team of investigators from Eunich, led by fifty five year old George Rheinruber, as well as Mayor Gregor of Vangen, the next village east of Gruben, prepared themselves for the worst. The local district police, having been first to arrive on the scene at hinter Kaifek, had quickly realized they were

woefully out of their depth. They had called in the Munich Force in a desperate plea for help. Rheinruber's team hadn't arrived in the area until after one am, prompting them to spend the night at the mayor's residence in Vangen before making their way to the farm first thing in the morning. It had just gone six am when the cars finally pulled into the courtyard on Wednesday, April fifth.

As the seven officers, two police dogs, and the mayor stepped out into the chilly morning air, Lourene Schlittenbauer appeared at the front door of the main house, his footsteps echoing about the courtyard as he approached. Lorenz quickly introduced himself as one of the men who had first found the bodies, and that he'd been there all night guarding

the scene for them. Ryan Gruber was struck immediately by the man's odd, nervous energy, a natural consequence perhaps of the fact he hadn't slept since the night before, But as to why he'd taken it on himself to stay at the property, he was less sure. As Lorenz continued to babble about everything he knew of the family and

how he discovered the bodies, Ryan Gruber eventually interrupted. Perhaps he said, we should take a look for ourselves, and so, as the first light of dawn began to break, Lorenz turned and led the investigator and his team into the barn. The bodies of Andreas and the young Cecilia had been placed against the far wall, a small pool of blood on the hay, in the spot where they'd first been found.

The other two bodies, those of Victoria and the elder Cecilia, had been pulled through a doorway into a stable corridor linking the barn to the main house. When asked why the bodies had been moved, Lorenz explained that he was looking for his son, who at first he thought might be there too. Rhine Gruber made a quick inspection of their injuries, then turned his attention to the door between

the two areas. It was covered in blood splatter. There was something else, said Lawrence, leading the inspector through to the stable corridor. That he said, pointing to a pickaxe leaning up against a feeding trough in the corner. He'd found it the day before, he said. The inspector took a closer look, noticing a few dark spots on the handle, but little else. Perhaps the cattle had licked it clean, suggested Lorenz, Perhaps, said rhine Gruber in reply. Lorenz then

led the team into the kitchen. While two of the officers made their way into the attic, rhine Gruber took note of the now moldy food that had been left out in a pan and blood spots on the stone floor as they continued through, Arriving at the doorway to maria the maid's room. Running his hand over the door frame, the inspector spotted a few splatters and some more on the ground, but no bloody hand or footprints. Looking through, he saw Maria's body partially obscured by a mattress, lying

in a fetal position. Evidently she had been attacked while preparing for bed, perhaps crouching down for cover in a vain attempt to protect herself. Next was Victoria's room. The place appeared to have been ransacked, with cupboards flung open and the bed unmade. A watch and an empty purse had been left out on top of it, prompting rhine

Gruber to wonder if theft had been the motive. Lorens informed him that the family was said to have kept around a hundred thousand marks at the property, close to four thousand US dollars in today's money. The inspector approached the baby stroller at the end of the bed and pulled back the dress that was draped over it to reveal the blood soaked baby Joseph underneath, his face, unrecognizable from the blows. The hood of the pram had also been torn apart, suggesting it had been closed when the

killer struck. Perhaps even they had found the thought of killing a baby too much and couldn't bear to have to see what they were doing. That all the bodies had been covered over without any real attempt to hide them was an indication, perhaps of the killer's sense of shame, a shame likely only felt by someone who knew the victims. Rhyme Gruber stared up at the three religious icons hanging on the wall above the bed and the three crucifixes hanging underneath them. Then a call came down from the

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That's better help dot com. Forward slash unexplained joined the over one million people taking charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. Better Help wants you to start living a happier life today. Rhine Grouper's men were standing to the side in a section of the attic above the stable corridor, pointing at something on the hay covered floor. As Rhine Grouper drew near, he caught the unmistakable noxious whiff of it. It was human excrement.

There were also bacon ryan scattered about two and two indentations in the hay suggesting the possibility of two perpetrators. Then one of the officers noticed a kink of light coming through the roof. Moving toward it, he found that a number of tiles there had been loosened. A similar set of loose tiles were found in another section of the attic over the main barn. Anyone looking out of the gaps in the roof would have had a clear view of the courtyard and the entrance to the main

house had they been watching the family. Rhyan group of thought. The family's bread supply, usually well stocked, was empty, while some smoked meat appeared to have been taken after their deaths in their absence. The livestock had also been watered and fed, all in all, suggesting that whoever had done

this had not been gone long After. A thorough search of the house, investigators uncovered around fifteen thousand marks in various denominations of cash and gold, but no sign of the hundred thousand marks that Lorenz claimed was kept at the property. With the bodies having been moved, it was difficult to ascertain who had been murdered first, but aside from baby Joseph and Maria, it seemed reasonable to assume the victims had been lured into the barn one by

one and then bludgeoned violently to death. Since seven year old Cecilia hadn't been seen at school on Saturday, the murders were considered to have taken place on the night of Friday, March thirty first, only hours after Maria Baumgartner had arrived at the farm to begin her new job. Just then, rhine Gruber heard a commotion outside and stepped into the courtyard to find a small crowd of onlookers had gathered at the edge of the property, desperate to

see the murder scene for themselves. It was early in the afternoon when doctor Johann al Mullah, the district court doctor, arrived from the nearby town of Neuburg ad Donnau to carry out the autopsies. One by one, the bodies were taken from out of the farmhouse and laid side by side in the middle of the courtyard as the ever

growing crowd of onlookers jostled for the best view. A door was placed over two wooden tressels as a makeshift table, and then, with the help of two porters and clerk assistant, twenty seven year old Heinrich Nay, the first of the bodies was lifted on to it. The bodies were pale and gray, the skin like rubber, with liver mortis and

dark patches underneath where the blood had pulled. For Andreas, death had come quickly, having been bludgeoned to death with a blunt object that pulverized the right side of his face. Maria Baumguard and the young Joseph were similarly killed with heavy blows to the head and face. Victoria and her mother's injuries, however, were subtly different, suggesting they'd endured something even worse. Both displayed bruising around the neck, as if

they'd been strangled before being beaten. Both their skulls had been smashed, but Victoria also had nine peculiar star shaped puncture wounds in hers. The crowd gasped as seven year old Cecilia's body was lifted from the ground and placed

on the table. The lower jaw was shattered and her head smashed, but there was also a huge gaping wound on her neck, suggesting the weapon had not only been blunt put sharp to Doctor al Mullah noticed something scrunched up in her right hand, prying the fingers open, he found a clump of Cecilia's hair inside. The doctor concluded that she'd likely survived for some time after the attack and had clawed it out of her own head in

the agony and confusion. Having finished his investigations, doctor al Mullah reached for his surgical sore and began methodically to remove Cecilia's head from the body, a thick bluish blood oozing onto the table as he went. The process was repeated for each of the bodies, with the heads being backed up and sent to the Pathology Institute at the University of Munich for further investigation. With the autopsies complete, Heinrich and the porters gathered each headless body onto a

stretcher and returned them to the barn. Having brought the rest of the bodies in, the young Cecilia's was the last to be returned. Placing the headless corpse onto the stretcher, the porters each grabbed an end and headed toward the barn as Heinrich Nay followed close behind. As the porters stepped inside, one of them cried out in horror and

dropped the stretcher, knocking the body to the floor. Heinrich ran inside and found them pointing toward a thick line of rope hanging down from a beam at the base of the hayloft above. Heinrich stared up in utter amusement, then looked to the others in stunned silence. The rope had not been there when they last came into the barn. Taking a breath, Heinrich pulled a ladder from the side

and carefully made his way up to the loft. Pulling at the knot, he could feel just how tight it was, as if a significant weight had only just been applied to it. And there, right next to it in the dust on the beam was a set of freshly made handprints. With police rushing into him investigate, the search dogs sniffed eagerly at the rope for a cent, and though an effort was made to track it, it was quickly lost out in the fields. Are you a proud cat person?

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promo code unexplained. Just go to kittiepooclub dot com and enter promo code unexplained to get twenty percent off when you set up autoship that's k I T t y p ooclub dot com and enter promo code unexplained a checkout. With the investigation of the crime scene finished, lead investigator Rheine Gruber turned his attention to Lauren Schlittenbauer and the two other men Michael Pearl and Jacob Siegel, who'd first

discovered the bodies. After explaining again why he'd moved the bodies and decided to stay overnight at the property, Lorenz was keen to justify his decision, insisting that his being there had helped to keep anyone else from entering the house until rhine Gruber and his team arrived. This, however, was a lie, as reported by many others. As soon as word had got out, a number of villagers had descended on the property, keen to see the murder scene.

Lorenz had not only welcomed them, but shown them around the property himself. One man had even paused in the kitchen to fix himself a snack. But there were other concerning things too. It was strange, thought Michael Pearl, when giving his statement later how Lawrence had managed to unlock the front door and let them into the property in the first place. Lawrence himself had told him that Andreas had complained about one of his house keys going missing.

Lorenz maintained that he'd merely found it sticking out of the lock when he went to open the door for Jacob Siegel, it was the strangeness of Lorenz's calm demeanor and eagerness to move the bodies that most stuck out to him. Despite his and Michael's protestations that they should leave the scene untouched, Lorenz gnawed them immediately after finding the bodies. As Siegel explained, he'd set about fetching milk from the cellar to feed the pigs and rearranging other

parts of the house. At one point, he'd even suggested that Jacob go into the hay loft and throw down some hay for the cattle to eat, but Jacob refused, and he and Michael left the property soon after, wanting nothing more to do with it. Michael was so suspicious of Lawrence's behavior, according to Jacob, that he accused him then and there of being the murderer, although in his

own statement Michael neglected to a portion any blame. It was certainly well known amongst the community what Lawrence's feelings were toward Victoria. As it turned out, he'd actually gone as far as to ask for her hand in marriage, only to be denied it by her father Andreas. Investigator Rhine Gruber also spoke to Franciska Maria Baumgartner's sister and

Bernard Gruber, Andreas's brother, but nothing valuable was ascertained. In the end, Rheine Gruber concluded that although Lorenz's behavior was bizarre, it wasn't in itself evidence that the man was guilty of the crime. On the morning of Saturday, April eighth, a crowd of up to three thousand people watched as six coffins were transported to the cemetery of Wadehoffen parish church, where only seven years previously Victoria and Carl had been married.

The five bodies of the Gruber and Gabriel family and that of their maid, Maria Baumgartner, the adults on the outside and the two children in the middle, were lowered down into a mass grave and buried there together with no fresh leads. Munich police announced aard of one hundred thousand marks to anyone offering information that might lead to the arrest of a perpetrator, equivalent to twenty thousand US

dollars in today's money. This was soon increased to half a million marks, likely due to the hyperinflation that had begun to take hold of the country in the aftermath of defeat in the First World War, and though a flurry of suspects were offered by numerous locals, spurred on by the promise of the reward, nothing came of them.

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A special link has been set up for unexplained listeners, just go to unexplained newcarm dot com and get fifty percent off your thirty day subscription of newcarm and their money back guarantee. That's unexplained nucalm dot com. Unexplained newcarm dot com. In the evening of May second, nineteen twenty two, three people are gathered round a table in a dark, oak paneled room somewhere in Nuremberg. On the table sit

a number of unopened packages. Two of the group, a retired public prosecutor and Paris psychologist doctor Joseph Boehm, watch on in quiet expectation as the third, self described medium Ellen Jurgens, or Miss Yu as she prefers to be known, sits deep in concentration with her eyes closed, when suddenly she opens them. There is something there, she says, pointing at the largest of the packages. A man that does not belong. He looks small, poor and depraved. I see

a village, a house like a farmhouse. There is a room that goes out at the back, and someone hears something. Monsieur gathers the package in her arms. It's deadly cold and eerie, she says. There is a small child, a boy strangled, suffer, hated, crushed in a bed. A young woman, old woman, old man, another child. Are the people Catholic? Doctor Boem moves forward with excitement, Yes, he says, yes. Someone screams something about the child six years Is there

a six year old child? Close, says Boam again. Monsieur places the large package back on the table, inside which are the five skulls of the Gruber and Gabriel family. Then she grabs a smaller package. This one has Marie's skull inside it. There is someone else there too. Her name is Marie, looks like a maid. Does she have anything to do with it or not? Is she dead too, Marie? Yes, I have the feeling that she is dead too. She

talked to a man at the front door. He had high boots with trousers tucked inside them, made from something like leather. He has no beard, but used to have one. He was suspicious of the farmer. There came a few days beforehand to figure everything out. Like God, they'd watched all the people, saying to themselves that it must be done.

It was over in five minutes, and standing watch over the bodies as each one fell, Monsieur sensed another man or his spirit at least the father of the young girl, who'd wanted nothing more than to intervene, but could only watch on helplessly from the other realm. The self described medium Ellen Jurgens, who had contacted the police to offer her services, and with little else to go on, there seemed no harm in seeing what she had to say.

After providing her with the skulls, she and her partner in trade, Miss Burr, spent two days attempting to discern clues from the spirit world. Despite both painting a compelling picture of a possible suspect in a highly theatrical performance, they provided little of significance to the police, with the exception of one thing. Both Miss Yeur and Miss BurrH were adamant that two murder weapons had been used, one described strangely as being both blunt and sharp, something hideous

that was more wide than narrow. In June, a fierce battle for ownership of the farm was bought out by the Gruber and Gabriel families, with Victoria Gabriel's parents in law insisting that since the young Cecilia had been the last to die, technically she was the final living owner of the property. Therefore the Gabriel family were now its

legal owners. Eventually an agreement was made in which the Gabriels bought the farm from the Grubers, but still no perpetrator could be found, and though some tourists of the macabre still continued to visit the property, for most of the following year, the white Stone farm yard stood empty and still giving nothing away. Then, in March nineteen twenty three, Carl Gabriel's father did what many had been hoping for, as he began the process of tearing the place down.

At some point in the process, two carpenters who were disassembling the roof at the time noticed a couple of loose floorboards at the top of the stairs. After clearing away the hay, pulling them back, they were astonished to find a large mattock underneath. The farm tool that was used mainly for digging and chopping, was comprised of a long wooden handle and a stout iron head with a small vertical blade on one side and a larger horizontal blade on the other. It was stained all over with blood.

A large screw protruding from the base of the head matched exactly with the strange star shaped puncture wounds on Victoria's skull. A few days later, while excavating the barn, a penknife was also found close to where the bodies in the barn had been discovered. The discovery of the weapons renewed focus on the case. Even Victoria's supposedly deceased husband, Carl Gabriel, was considered a suspect, with some speculating that perhaps he'd faked his death during the war and returned

to exact revenge on Andreas and his family. Former soldier Adolf Gump also became a leading suspect at one point, having been accused of participating in the massacre of nine farmers in a politically motivated attack in nineteen twenty one. Then in nineteen thirty seven, two brothers of Carl Gabriel was said to have confessed their maid that they had

committed the crime. The pair were arrested and released without charge, But before long, with the rise of Adolf Hitler's government and a Second World War on the horizon, the events at hinter Kaifek was soon to be dwarfed in comparison by even greater horrors. Lauren Schlittenbauer, who many considered the prime suspect and the case died in nineteen forty one. The following year, a bombing raid on Munich destroyed most of the case evidence, taking with it two the six

skulls of the victims. The case would be reopened again once the dust of war had settled, and though more suspects were proposed, by then, there was little hope of finding anything significant enough to make a successful conviction. To day, the killings at hint Kayfek Farm are widely considered to

be one of Germany's most infamous unsolved murders. And though the farmhouse has long gone from that quiet patch or central Bavaria, the earth soaked with the sweat and blood of those who have come before, and those tall, dark pines that care not for the foibles of humankind remain. If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to help supporters,

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