SYSK’s Fall True Crime Playlist: The Hinterkaifeck Axe Murders

Summary

Stuff You Should Know – The Hinterkaifeck Axe Murders

Podcast: Stuff You Should Know
Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Release Date: September 26, 2025
Episode Length: ~52 mins (main content ~46 mins)
Main Theme:
A deep-dive into the unnerving, unsolved 1922 Hinterkaifeck murders in rural Bavaria, Germany—a case marked by grisly violence, longstanding mystery, small-town suspicion, and centuries-old rumors. Josh and Chuck blend detail, wit, and skeptical reasoning as they explore suspects, possible motives, odd happenings, and the enduring legacy of this infamous crime.

---

Overview

The episode revisits the brutal and still-unsolved axe murders at Hinterkaifeck farm, where an entire family and their maid were killed. Josh and Chuck recount the eerie events leading up to the murders, the crime scene's peculiarities, and the complex speculation surrounding suspects—both plausible and supernatural. The hosts deliver their classic banter, balancing the dark subject with moments of humor and pointed skepticism.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene

• Location: A small, isolated Bavarian farm, Hinterkaifeck, situated near the towns of Ingolstadt and Schrobenhausen, but technically closer to Weidhofen.
  "So the name of this farm was Hinterkaifeck. And on this farm lived a man, a woman, another woman, some little kids..." (05:20, Josh)
• Family: Andreas Gruber, wife Kazilia (discussed pronunciation wittily), adult daughter Victoria, granddaughter Cäzilia, and two-year-old grandson Josef.
• The family was disliked locally. Andreas was described as unfriendly and abusive. Victoria, a widowed choir singer, was somewhat respected.
  "The Grubers...they were very much disliked as a family." (08:01, Josh)

---

2. The Grubers’ Family Dynamics

• Abuse & Isolation: Andreas' abuse and coldness led to family isolation and suspicion.
• Rumored Incest: Local rumor held that Josef, Victoria's son, was the product of incest between Andreas and Victoria, though this was unproven.
  "He was rumored to have been born from an incestuous relationship with her father." (09:27, Chuck)
• Victoria’s Suitors: There was a local suitor, Lorenz Schlittenbauer, complicating matters around paternity and motives.

---

3. Strange Happenings Before the Murders

• Haunted House Fears: The previous maid quit, complaining of ghostly noises from the attic, footsteps, and a mounting sense of dread.
  "She said, 'I'm out of here. I quit because this house is haunted.'" (11:18, Chuck)
• Unexplained Incidents:
  • Footprints in the snow led to the house but not away (13:10-13:36)
  • Lock tampering on the tool shed
  • Keys went missing
  • A strange newspaper appeared on the porch—origin didn't match any household subscriptions
• Auditory Evidence: Andreas began to hear the same noises previously reported by the maid.
  "Now I'm hearing things. I'm hearing people in my own house." (18:09, Josh)

---

4. Discovery of the Crime

• Timeline:
  • March 31, 1922: New maid Maria Baumgartner's first (and last) day
  • By April 4, neighbors noticed absence of the family—no church attendance, mail piling up, Josef missing from school
• Initial Discovery:
  • The search party found the house eerily quiet, the Grubers’ dog Pomeranian tied up and barking
  • Four bodies (Andreas, Kazilia, Victoria, Cäzilia) found beaten to death, stacked in the barn, covered with hay
  • Josef (2) and new maid Maria (in her bed) found murdered in the house
    "They found some of the Grubers bludgeoned to death... in the barn. Stacked one on top of the other" (23:48, Josh)
• Brutality: Killed with a mattock (pickaxe variant), wound focus on head/face. Signs some victims survived for hours.
  "They found in Tizilia's hands, clenched in her fists, tufts of her own hair." (26:07, Josh)
• Crime Scene Details:
  • All bodies covered (hay, sheets, or clothing).
  • Some evidence of strangulation, but most fatalities from head trauma.

---

5. Chilling Post-Crime Activity

• Signs of Life After Death:
  • Smoke seen from the chimney for days after estimated murders
  • Livestock and pets well fed
  • Recent meals, slept-in beds
    "All signs point to the fact that someone killed this family and then hung out there for a few days." (28:42, Chuck)
• Inferred: The killer likely remained in the house, caring for animals and eating.

---

6. Investigative Theories & Leading Suspects

• Robbery Dismissed: Only a minor sum was taken; valuables left behind.
  "They had four days ... to rob the whole house blind... They also found out in the investigation that Victoria had emptied her bank account and left a donation to the church. But there was also a substantial amount that just wasn't accounted for." (29:50-30:24, Josh)
• Lorenz Schlittenbauer (Neighbor):
  • Prior romantic involvement with Victoria, possible Josef paternity
  • Odd behavior: In search party, disturbed bodies/the crime scene, knew details about the house, claimed searching for ‘his son’
  • Family testified he was elsewhere that night but alibi suspect (asthma vs. sleeping in barn)
  • Dog barked at him; he gave inconsistent statements
    "He was part of the original search party that searched the house. Suspicious, first thing." (34:21, Josh)
    "He had no alibi for the night, apparently, his family said... He spent the night in the barn because he knew there was weirdness going on over there." (37:09, Chuck)
  • Discussed that his intimate knowledge of the house was suspicious, but might be due to previous relationship.
• Other Theories/Suspects:
  • Victoria's dead husband, Carl Gabriel: Unlikely, as evidence suggests he died in WWI, despite rumors to contrary.
  • Random killer, vagrant: Unlikely, details (remaining in house, animal care) indicate personal connection.
  • Supernatural/ghost theory: Skewered by hosts as implausible, though locals and internet conspiracists have considered it.

---

7. Police & Forensic Follow-up

• Lost Evidence: Many records and potential clues were lost to time, compounded by lack of forensic methods.
  • Victims’ heads were severed for clairvoyant analysis, then lost in WWII destruction—recurring black humor.
• Modern Review:
  • 2007 police academy students re-investigated; declined to publicly identify their suspect due to living relatives, but all evidence points to Schlittenbauer. "They said, we think we know who it is...But you can guess, right? It's the one living suspect..." (44:45, Josh)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On local suspicion & rumors:
  "That was the rumor in town...Which smacks to me of small town, 1920s stuff. I'm not sure if I bought that." (09:38-09:48, Chuck)
• Humor & Banter:
  "Don't be a sicko." (03:04, Josh, deadpan about letting kids listen)
• On the supernatural:
  "You don't want people to think you got ghosts, you know? Right. So the maid leaves, and that kind of sets the tone. Like that kicks off this season of dread that settles over Hinterkaifeck." (12:02-12:21, Josh)
• Immersive Storytelling:
  "Creepy, creepy, creepy." (14:18, Chuck, re: the footprints)
• On suspect awkwardness:
  "Why would he be looking for his son in the stack of bodies when he knew full well his son was in his room in the house?" (36:54, Josh)
• Summing up the solution:
  "So, yeah, you’re right, it probably was him. But no one will ever be able to prove it one way or another." (43:51, Josh)

---

Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|-----------------------------------------------------| | 05:20 | Introduction to Hinterkaifeck, the Gruber family | | 08:01 | The Grubers’ reputation and family background | | 09:27 | Rumors of incest and small-town suspicion | | 11:18 | Maid’s haunted house claims and departure | | 13:10 | Andreas finds footprints in the snow | | 17:12 | Strange newspaper and missing keys incidents | | 18:09 | Andreas hears attic noises, referencing previous maid| | 20:34 | Day of the murders; new maid arrives | | 23:48 | Search party finds stacked, bludgeoned bodies | | 26:07 | Details of violence; tufts of hair in victim’s hands| | 28:42 | Evidence someone lived in the house after the crime | | 32:29 | Introduction and analysis of Lorenz Schlittenbauer | | 36:54 | Oddities in Schlittenbauer’s behavior and alibi | | 39:06 | Legends about Victoria’s dead husband, dismissed | | 41:55 | Ghost/supernatural theories debunked | | 44:45 | 2007 police academy re-investigation and conclusions| | 47:03 | Tangential banter on Steve Guttenberg, Party Down |

---

Tone & Style

• The hosts use sardonic humor and conversational asides to balance the episode’s grim story.
• They mock outlandish theories, focus on factual inconsistencies, and often note how details are “lost to time.”
• Banter provides levity: mispronunciation jokes, police academy references, a Steve Guttenberg tangent (47:03), and poking fun at small-town rumors.

---

Conclusion

The Hinterkaifeck murders remain one of Germany’s most perplexing unsolved crimes, shrouded in rumor, small-town pettiness, and chilling, unexplained aftermath. Though much of the evidence is lost, Josh and Chuck compellingly argue—alongside most modern researchers—that neighbor Lorenz Schlittenbauer fits the suspect profile best. Yet, in the absence of concrete evidence, the case endures as a source of speculation and fascination nearly a century later.

---

Further Listening & Reading:

• Stuff You Missed in History Class did their own Hinterkaifeck episode.
• The main English source referenced was a detailed article from mysteriousuniverse.org.
• For more, listeners are advised to search further online for investigative articles and true crime discussions.

---

For listeners intrigued by unsettling mysteries, true crime, or the eerie collision of folklore and forensics, this is an engrossing episode with both depth and entertainment.

Transcript

[Advertisement/Announcer]

This is an Iheart podcast.

[Advertisement/IBM Sponsor]

If you're waiting for your AI to turn into ROI and wondering how long you have to wait, maybe you need to do more than wait. Any business can use AI. IBM helps you use AI to change how you do business. Let's create Smile to Business IBM.

[Chuck Bryant]

I want to tell you about Odoo. It's a platform that has a suite of different applications that businesses need. And each app can vary from sales apps and CRM apps to websites, accounting and more. And all these apps live in the Odoo ecosystem, providing businesses with tools necessary to use for their business. Software for business is expensive and those costs add up and it can make things really complicated and confusing. Odoo is going to address all of this because it's all connected on one platform in a simple and affordable manner. Save money without missing out on the features you need with Odoo. Just check out Odoo d o o dot com. That's Odoo d o o dot com.

[Josh Clark]

Hi everybody and welcome to our new playlist for the fall featuring some of our best episodes on true crime. We've got so many that it was hard to choose and we left a number of the all time greats out because we've released them as selects. But if this floats your boat, then check out some of our other true crime episodes that didn't make the list, like The Yuba County 5, the body on Somerton beach, the Missing sodder children, and 10 dumb criminals, among many others. We're starting the playlist off with our episode on a grisly unsolved mystery from 1922 in Bavaria where a family was found murdered on their farm. It has all sorts of weird twists and turns out and it's a genuinely mysterious unsolved case. Okay, here we go.

[Advertisement/Announcer]

Welcome to Stuff youf should know from.

[Josh Clark]

Howstuffworks.Com hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry. Yep, this is stuff you should know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I would say this is a bonus Halloween episode in a way. You can all look forward to our regular ad free Halloween show on Halloween.

[Josh Clark]

The real bonus episode.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly. Where we do our traditional reading. It's all gussied up by Jerry, but you were like, hey, since this is hello Weekend almost, why don't we just tell the story of an ex murdered family? Yeah, I hope I didn't spoil it.

[Josh Clark]

I don't think so. I think we probably would have gotten to that point eventually, right? Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 ex murdered family.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Don't be a sicko.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's up to you whether or not you want to expose them to this kind of treachery.

[Josh Clark]

This is bad stuff. Are you ready for it?

[Chuck Bryant]

Have you got your German pronunciation down, by the way? Should we talk about Hinterke fec? Dixie Chang?

[Josh Clark]

Hinterke feck. Yeah. Disha chang.

[Chuck Bryant]

Disha Chung, more specifically.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

The irony of all this, because why.

[Josh Clark]

Should I ever get it right at all?

[Chuck Bryant]

The irony of all this is I was almost right when I first said it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And said, I don't think Chinese pronounces the X right. But 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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that happens.

[Josh Clark]

Happens. Still got everything else. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

So Dixia Cheng is really dishon. Sort of. Okay.

[Josh Clark]

And Hinterkaifeck. Hinterkaifeck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I looked over these. My German is rusty, but I think.

[Josh Clark]

I got them all.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, most of them. I bet you're gonna stumble on one, but I'll just hold on to that.

[Josh Clark]

I don't even know which one you're talking.

[Chuck Bryant]

I know that's what's gonna make it exciting.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

Maybe we should have a sound effect when it happens and I'll just like a bore.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

That'll disrupt the spookiness.

[Josh Clark]

Well, let's get spooky, Chuck, shall we?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

Cuz there's a little town in Bavaria that's correct. It's between the towns of Ingolstadt and Schobenhausen. Is that either one of the ones you thought it was gonna stumble on?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I mean, technically you should say like Stadt instead of Stadt.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, well, I didn't realize we were getting technical.

[Chuck Bryant]

But, you know, you're not from Germany. That's how an American might say it.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And by God, I'm an American.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

Although it's much closer to Weidhofen. Is that the one? I'm just gonna ask. Every time I say something in German.

[Chuck Bryant]

You'Ll hear the sound effect.

[Josh Clark]

But there's a little. Little tiny village in town called Kaifeck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hinterkaifeckt.

[Josh Clark]

No. Well, the town. The village is called Kaifeck. Yeah, there was a ranch, basically. You call it in America a dude ranch? Maybe even, but not really. It was Just a farm called Hinterkaifeck. It was located a little bit outside of this village in the hinterland, you might call it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

So this. The name of this farm was Hinterkaifeck. And on this farm lived a man, a woman, another woman, some little kids. Yeah. This is going terribly, isn't it?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I think it's great.

[Josh Clark]

So the. The family who, who made up this, the tenancy of this farm, they were the Grubers?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

Andreas Gruber was the father. His wife. Ding, ding. Is this the one? Okay. All right, let me do this then. You ready?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

The wife's name was Kazilia. Sigelia. Frank.

[Chuck Bryant]

No. If I'm not mistaken, if you begin a word with C in German and it's pronounced like a. Like a ts for me, I think that would be Tatzilia.

[Josh Clark]

What? That's not fair.

[Chuck Bryant]

I know, right?

[Josh Clark]

Come on. Germany. Tetzelia. Okay, well, let me ask you this. So Tezzelia.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Am I saying it right now?

[Chuck Bryant]

I think Tezzelia.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, that's Italian.

[Chuck Bryant]

It does sound Italian.

[Josh Clark]

So Tezzelia is his wife. That's to be determined. Their daughter, Victoria. So if there's a K instead of a C, is it something else entirely or is it Victoria?

[Chuck Bryant]

Victoria.

[Josh Clark]

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. Tatselia.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. How would you say that it would be Tertzelia, Tzelia.

[Josh Clark]

Tsur T. Yeah, Tertzelia, Tzelia and Tatzelia.

[Chuck Bryant]

Tatzelia and Tertzelia.

[Josh Clark]

So it wouldn't be like Tatzelia and Tatzelia Jr.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 umlaut or if they really named her after her grandmother but added the umlaut. Maybe there's a story there.

[Josh Clark]

Well, you know, Chuck, as we'll find, a lot of the details and facts of this case have been lost to time.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

Lastly, there was a little boy, a two year old, named Yosef, that was Victoria's son. And Victoria was widowed. She was 35, I believe, at the time that we come into Hinterkaifeck. And they all lived together relatively isolated actually, because they, the Grubers, although they were wealthy and from what I saw, held in somewhat high esteem or at least treated with respect to their station, they were very, very much disliked As a family.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And there's quite a few reasons for this. One is that the paterfamilias Andreas was. He was not friendly. He liked to keep to himself. And apparently he was very abusive to his wife and children. Yeah, children. He only had one living child still at this point, which is Victoria. And we're in the wayback machine, by the way, and it's 1922.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, we didn't say that.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't think so. So he was abusive. I don't know the story of the passing of his other children.

[Josh Clark]

Lost the time.

[Chuck Bryant]

Lost the time. My immediate reaction was like, well, if he was abusive and they're no longer around, maybe he had something to do with it.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe.

[Chuck Bryant]

But that was a leap, a total leap.

[Josh Clark]

Also the time when like people routinely died from the flu.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure. You know, that's a good point. So he was a loner, he was abusive. There was the matter of Yosef, the two year old daughter of Victoria.

[Josh Clark]

Son.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, she's daughter. I don't know where I was going with that. And he was rumored to have been born from an incestuous relationship with her father.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Andreas.

[Josh Clark]

Right. That was the rumor in town.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which smacks to me of small town, 1920s stuff. I'm not sure if I bought that.

[Josh Clark]

No. But that was definitely the rumor in town.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But there was a significant number of people in town who either believe that or were very much aware that other people believe that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because he apparently was very controlling of.

[Josh Clark]

Victoria, kind of to the level of being characterized as obsessed with her.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So it could very well be true.

[Josh Clark]

Could Lost to time could also have not been true. And there's other reports that Joseph was the son of another man in town who we'll meet later on who at one point claimed paternity but later on said no way.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Especially I think when the concept of alimony payments was brought up.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

He's like, no kid was a product of incest instead.

[Chuck Bryant]

So Victoria was the only one supposedly that kind of spent a lot of time in town and that people seemed to care for much because she sang in the choir. Apparently was a very good singer in the church choir. So this is the. The scene here in semi rural Bavaria.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And we. We want to give a shout out. We've given. We found some other articles about the case itself, but the main one that we started with was from mysteriousuniverse.org not a normal place where we would get our stuff. But it's a good article. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And we. Everything Else I read about it, it sort of all checked out as being the same.

[Josh Clark]

So way to go. Mysteriousuniverse.org Good job. Thanks for it.

[Chuck Bryant]

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, she said, I'm out of here. I quit because this house is haunted.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm hearing weird noises in the attic, Hearing weird sounds all around the place. I'm hearing footsteps. I'm out of here.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And apparently she left pretty quickly and suddenly. And the family so much so was like, I think she was mentally disturbed.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure. That's an easy way to quiet the townspeople if you don't want to cuckoo.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

You don't want people thinking, like, a, I'm abusive, and B, I also live in a haunted house.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Yeah. You don't want that. That's where you draw the line. Incest, abuse, sure, that's allowable, but you don't want people to think you got ghosts, you know? Right. So the maid leaves, and that kind of sets the tone. Like that kicks off this season of dread that settles over Hinterkaifeck.

[Chuck Bryant]

That'd be a good name for the movie version of this season of dread.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I can't believe there's not a number of, like, blockbuster movies about this.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I looked it up. Apparently there were a couple that weren't very big, but nothing. Nothing that ever starred Ralph Fiennes.

[Josh Clark]

Well, if it doesn't have him, who cares?

[Chuck Bryant]

He would clearly be one of the dudes in this.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. You know, maybe even Andreas Gruber, who I keep wanting to call Hans, I'm gonna go ahead and admit. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

You see the name Gruber and that's what jumps to mind.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So the maid leaves, and like I said, this. Weird things start happening a few months later. Andreas is wandering around his property around Hinterkaifeck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wandering around, Right. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Just looking aimlessly for something to do.

[Chuck Bryant]

A family member to punch.

[Josh Clark]

There was a snowstorm, and he was looking around to see, you know, if there had been any damage, anything that needed repairing. And he noticed that there was a set of tracks in the snow and human tracks, footprints, I guess is a better way to call them.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

Leading to the house. And they went right up to the house.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But he looked around, and he could not find any tracks leading away from the house.

[Chuck Bryant]

Creepy.

[Josh Clark]

Super creepy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Just a single set, though, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

It wasn't like the footsteps, like, God carried him from there that point on.

[Josh Clark]

Well, that would Be a single step set.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, you know the old adage, there were two sets of footprints, and then when there were only one, it wasn't.

[Josh Clark]

That God left you, it was when he was carrying you. Your sorry ass.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because anytime you get to that point, Jesus goes zing. Doubt me, will you?

[Chuck Bryant]

So footprints leading to the house, not leading away. Creepy, creepy, creepy.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

He was a little creeped out. So he said, let me wander around more and see if I can find.

[Josh Clark]

Well, at this point, he wasn't wandering. He had purpose.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, so let me not wander aimlessly, but let me go from room to room and barn to barn. Room. Yeah, barn, room to barn room. And find out this person that is clearly on my property somewhere.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he did like a hard target search looking for somebody, even 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 the house. And he didn't find anything. He found nothing. No evidence of anybody. He certainly didn't find anybody. There was just nothing. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Correct.

[Josh Clark]

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 maid leaving, citing ghosts as the reason she left.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Somebody has come to their farm and not left. They tried to get into the tool shed. The things are getting a little creepy.

[Chuck Bryant]

So in that case, it was a ghost sighting. Citi.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Another accidental pun.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Was that accidental?

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

You didn't mean that, did you?

[Josh Clark]

Did I say that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, you said that she saw a ghost sighting.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, wow. Yeah, I guess so. Nice.

[Chuck Bryant]

See how that happens.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I wondered, by the way, really quickly if these footprints, if whoever did that did the old shining trick, Little Danny was so smart, he doubled back in his footprints.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And it worked?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, it worked big time. Anyone who's seen the end of this shining can tell you it sounds a lot like I've been drinking today. I haven't at all.

[Chuck Bryant]

I've seen what you're drinking. You're drinking water. And that's not the Only weird thing that happened on. So that was in March. I'm sorry. Two more weird things happened.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

So a set of keys go missing in March.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I don't know that one. To me, people lose keys.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But if you're suddenly, like, there's. Is there somebody, like, hanging around a property trying to get into the tool shed? Now there's keys missing. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I could see that. The scratchy lock. And then the other final weird thing in that month in 1922, they found a strange newspaper on the porch.

[Josh Clark]

Man.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 a newspaper that I couldn't get. If it was like, was it from.

[Josh Clark]

Russia or was it from 1989?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that'd be super creepy.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Either they didn't subscribe to it wasn't in their town, or just some just random newspaper. Being on their porch was what matters.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I couldn't find anything beyond that as well.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

There was one other last thing. And all this is now starting to take place over just the course of a couple of days. Things are getting, like, weirder at a much faster pace. Andreas himself, who I. I've not taken to be a very superstitious person, started to notice sounds coming from the attic. The same kind of, like, disembodied footfalls that the maid had sighted as a ghost sighting. So he's sitting there like, okay, keys are missing. Somebody's tried to get in a tool shed. Those tracks are really messing with me. And now I'm hearing things. I'm hearing people in my own house.

[Chuck Bryant]

And there's a Chicago Tribune from 1989.

[Josh Clark]

Right, exactly. Things have gotten weird.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. Should we take a break?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Advertisement/IBM Sponsor]

If you're waiting for your AI to turn into ROI and wondering how long you have to wait, maybe you need to do more than wait. Any business can use AI. IBM helps you use AI to change how you do business. Let's create Smarter Business. IBM.

[Advertisement]

You can make a difference in someone's life, including your own, with a job in home care. These jobs offer flexible schedules, health care, retirement options, and free training. They also provide paid time off and opportunities for overtime. Visit oregonhomecarejobs.com to learn more and apply. That's oregonhomecarejobs.com. stop settling for weak sound. It's time to level up your game and bring the boom. Hit the town with the ultra durable LG XBoom portable speaker and enjoy vibrant sound wherever you go. Elevate your listening experience to new heights, because, let's be real, your music deserves it. The future of sound is now with LG x boom. And for a limited time, save [e-mail] with code fall25. Bring the boom x boom.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, things are weird. This is in March 1922, the last.

[Josh Clark]

Day of March 1922, the 31st. All right.

[Chuck Bryant]

A new maid comes on the scene named Maria, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, this one's confirmed.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Maria Baumgartner.

[Chuck Bryant]

She on her first day on the job. It proved to not be a very good first day at work.

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

For one really good reason that we'll get to in a minute.

[Josh Clark]

Oh. Oh, okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

We'll tease it out a little bit more.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. So she comes to work. She's working. Everything's totally normal as far as anyone around the Hinterkaifeck farm is concerned. Like the neighbors and all that. It's just a totally normal day.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But in a few days, they would realize that this day, March 31, 1922, was the last day anyone could say for certain that they had seen any of the Grubers alive.

[Chuck Bryant]

Correct. So flash forward a few days. April 4th. People were a little weird. They were like, you know what? Certilla was not in school, which is unusual. No one's been to church. We missed that sweet, sweet voice of Victoria up there.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. That was highly unusual as well. Like, Victoria did not miss church.

[Chuck Bryant]

Did not miss choir.

[Josh Clark]

I'm assuming not only did she love to sing, but this is like her one weekly excuse to get out of the house.

[Chuck Bryant]

I could see that, you know, for sure. And so they said. And also, the mail had been piling up supposedly, right. At the post office because they didn't use stamps.

[Josh Clark]

Dot com. Right. They would have if they'd had the technology, believe me.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. That was free.

[Josh Clark]

So the. The neighbors say, let's go check on them. Apparently they went.

[Chuck Bryant]

I bet other neighbors, like, really?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Like them that much. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And finally someone was like, yeah, we really should.

[Josh Clark]

Let's go. Yeah. It's a neighborly thing to do. We're Bavarian, so.

[Chuck Bryant]

Exactly.

[Josh Clark]

So we do so that this little search party goes to the house to go check on things. And the house is just. The whole farm is just eerily quiet. Everything's just kind of there's not a sign of life.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

There's a dog barking. The. The Gruber dog was a Pomeranian, actually.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And this is a time of Pomeranians were a little bigger and stockier and. But barked nonetheless, just as. Just like any other Pomeranian.

[Chuck Bryant]

Are they bigger back then?

[Josh Clark]

Mm. And stockier?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. German stock.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

But what was odd was that it was tied up in the far. In the barn. This is a house dog that the groupers kept. That was a little weird, but otherwise it seemed okay. The horses and 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 Grubers bludgeoned to death.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. Andreas, the papa, daughter Victoria and dear old Tselia, the granddaughter in the barn. Stacked one on top of the other, bled to death. Bludgeoned to death. Only in the head area.

[Josh Clark]

Largely in the head area like the. The attacks were. The attacks were definitely concentrated on their head and face.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And they were covered with hay. Not completely covered. There are pictures of this, by the way. Did you look at the crime scene? Creepy.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

You see them in the barn with the hay.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Very graphic. So beware if you're googling that right now. So they were dead and had been dead for a little while, which we'll get to. They go inside and they find poor little Joseph. Just horrific. Two year old was found dead, also bludgeoned to death and is caught in mom's bedroom. And then the maid, on her first day on the job was killed in her bed as well.

[Josh Clark]

And the Andreas, his wife Tatzilia, she was in the barn as well.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, did I miss that?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, so four of them in the barn, two in the house.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

All killed in the same manner and all covered up in some way.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Whether it was hay or sheets or clothing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which is a weird thing to do.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's very weird. Although it would. It would become evident why in a little bit once they started questioning the neighbors.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

So the. The day after the bodies were found, doctor, Dr. Johan Armuller performed the autopsies in the barn. And he decided that what had been used as a murder weapon was a type of pickaxe called a mattock.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Although the murder weapon wasn't found for another year, actually. After that, the. The doctor concluded, quite rightly, that it was a mattock that had been used. And if you've ever seen, you know, like a pickaxe, but the other end is, like, blunt and wide. Yeah, that's a mattock.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And whoever killed the. The Grubers and the maid did it with that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Which is horrific. It is even worse than that, though. They found in Tizilia's hands, clenched in her fists, tufts of her own hair.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So there was evidence that she had survived for, they think, several hours after she was attacked and watched her other family members attacked and had pulled out her own hair for whatever reason.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'd say that was a good enough reason.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 pickaxe to the head.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Most of the victims were in bed clothes, except for Victoria and Tercella. They were in their regular clothes, which seemed to indicate that it probably happened in the evening. Some people were already getting ready for bed, some people had not yet.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And they also think that the. The groupers were lured one by one out to the barn, kind of Scooby Doo fashion.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because clearly it wasn't all them killed at once because there was no signs of struggle. Yeah. Maybe one person went out and died, and then the other person was, like, they hadn't been back for a while.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And then they died and then again and again.

[Chuck Bryant]

Horrific.

[Josh Clark]

So there was some other. There was weirdness beyond that, beyond these. Just the horrificness of the crime and the fact that the bodies were covered up. This was April 4th. Right. They figured out that the bodies had been killed or the people had been killed on March 31. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

There was smoke coming out of the chimney the whole weekend. The. The livestock 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 were tended to, like, this whole time. So what is that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, even the house itself, it showed evidence that someone had eaten a meal there recently or more recently than four or five days ago. The bed looked like it had been slept in since that time. And like we mentioned earlier, that Pomeranian was tied up. I saw different accounts on whether the dog was somewhat injured or not.

[Josh Clark]

I did too.

[Chuck Bryant]

So let's just say the dog might have been hurt some, but ultimately was fine.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And like, you know, wasn't killed or anything.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah, it was. It was not injured, I think.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. So what this. All signs point to the fact that someone killed this family and then hung out there for a few days.

[Josh Clark]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Days after taking care of everything.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Just living the life.

[Chuck Bryant]

Very strange.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So the police started looking around pretty quickly for suspects and realizing, well, first we got to go with motive, I think, is what they said to themselves.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure. Like, occasionally it happens that there's a vagrant that comes through and kills for money and robs. And the thing they found out was that there was a little bit of folding 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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And especially if somebody, the person who killed them, if they were planning on robbing, they had four days to look around and amuse themselves by robbing the whole house blind. They certainly wouldn't leave this stuff behind. They also found out in the investigation that Victoria 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Lost to time.

[Josh Clark]

So robbery was kind of discarded as a. As a. A motive. But another one would come to light soon. We'll talk about that after a break.

[Advertisement/IBM Sponsor]

If you're waiting for your AI to turn into ROI and wondering how long you have to wait, maybe you need to do more than wait. Any business can use AI. IBM helps you use AI to change how you do business. Let's create smarter Business IBM.

[Advertisement/Announcer]

You can make a difference in someone's life, including your own, with a job in home care. These jobs offer flexible schedules, health care, retirement options, and free training. They also provide paid time off and opportunities for overtime. Visit oregonhomecarejobs.com to learn more and apply. That's oregonhomecarejobs.com.

[Advertisement]

Stop settling for weak sound. It's time to level up your game and bring the boom. Hit the town with the ultra durable LG X Boom portable speaker and enjoy vibrant sound wherever you go. Elevate your listening experience to new heights. Because, let's be real, your music deserves it. The future of sound is now with LG X Box Boom. And for a limited time, save [e-mail] with code Fall25. Bring the boom. X boom.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so to me, it's this guy for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Is it?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think so. We'll go ahead and talk about this dude. There was a neighboring man. A neighbor, as you might call it, or neighboring man. You're a normal human.

[Josh Clark]

Hello, neighboring man. How are you today?

[Chuck Bryant]

If you're. By all means. If you're a professional broadcaster, you should say neighboring man.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

So his name is Lorenz Schlittenbauer, and he was a. Like I said, lived nearby. He was a suitor for Victoria, and she had always said, this guy who knocked me up. Yosef's. This is Yosef's father.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And like you said earlier, he was like. For a little while, I think he claimed paternity. But then when he found out what that meant, he had to pay for that.

[Josh Clark]

He's like. That's an English word I didn't understand exactly.

[Chuck Bryant]

What is this paternity? So he backed off of that claim, and later it emerged that she was about to sue him for paternity when. Before this murder took place.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So some people say, oh, well, that probably set him off.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. 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.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. And he didn't want to make the payments. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Especially if he wasn't 100% sure it was his kid.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

So if you look at this Schlittenbauer guy, some really weird stuff starts to emerge. In addition to that motive of not wanting to pay alimony for little Yosef, the way he behaved 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

At least on TV they do.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. Everything I learned from the Flintstones points to this guy being suspicious. He also 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

Apparently Schlittenbauer was totally fine handling them. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

He's like, I got the head, you get the legs. One of the men was quoted as saying he disturbed everything there was to disturb.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

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, which isn't necessarily a.

[Josh Clark]

It doesn't necessarily. Yeah, especially if he was, you know, dating Victoria.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, well, true. I would call this part of the body of evidence, though. Okay, so he apparently went into the house from the barn, which meant he knew they were connected. He unlocked the front door from the inside, which, like, did he have a key or did he know where the key was? Remember the missing keys? 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 again. Maybe he spent some time over there with Victoria and knew these things. Yeah, like, a lot of this can be explained away in some ways.

[Josh Clark]

They also said that the dog went nuts when he was around.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Like it's him.

[Josh Clark]

Right, Exactly. There's the murderer, which you take, take or leave. That. That seems like local folklore to me. Yeah. The dog called out the murderer. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know, and he said it was because he had blood all over his shoes from disrupting the crime scene. And the dog was, like, barking at that.

[Josh Clark]

Which, by the way, the. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Joseph, 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And then secondly, if he was the killer and he was not trying to act unaware.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Why would he be looking for his son in the stack of bodies when he knew full well his son was in his room in the house?

[Chuck Bryant]

Misdirection, I guess.

[Josh Clark]

This guy seemed like he was not very good at misdirection.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 not obvious. It gets really suspicious to me. His family said, oh, no, he's. The night they were murdered, he 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.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, so he spent the night in the Gruber's barn is what. Is what they're saying.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, no, no. Their own barn.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay. I gotcha.

[Chuck Bryant]

So he apparently, though, had asthma, so people were like, why would he spend the night in a barn if he has asthma? Smarty.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

But that was his alibi, which is pretty weak. He only lived 350 meters away, which I think that's like 19 miles. Just kidding.

[Josh Clark]

What is it? It's like three football fields, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I looked up the conversion three and a half. It's not too far. So he could have. He could have been the one coming back and forth. Like, the fact that there were footprints leading one way doesn't, to me signify that someone spent six months hiding there. It could have been. He could have come and gone as he pleased and not been, like, away from his house too long that anyone noticed.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

And maybe he walked in those same footprints. Maybe he did do the Danny.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe, you know, he was the one who originated the Danny. He was Danny before Danny was even born.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's true. Or maybe he was Danny.

[Josh Clark]

This case keeps getting weirder and weirder.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

The more we make up about it.

[Chuck Bryant]

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, 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.

[Josh Clark]

I don't buy that necessarily.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't either. That sounds like something that people would make up in a pub.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

He used to say, I killed them.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

No one ever cared.

[Josh Clark]

Sure, I guess.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Not literally.

[Josh Clark]

In some ways, yeah. But no, not literally.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

This guy's name was Carl Gabriel, and he used to be married to Victoria.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But he died in World War I in the trenches. 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. May. Maybe. Maybe. Follow me on. This is what they said. Maybe he came back to reclaim his wife, found out that she'd had an incestuous relationship with his father. He snaps. He kills everybody. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I Don't buy this at all.

[Josh Clark]

Well, no, they started the police, I think, and the Munich police Department really apparently went to town trying to get to the bottom of this murder over the years. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And one of the other things that pointed to him supposedly was that In World War II, another whole war later, supposedly some people came forward and said, you know what? We met this Russian, German speaking Russian soldier that used to claim to be the Hinterkaifeckt killer. And we think that that's Karl, right?

[Josh Clark]

I guess. Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

The thing is, the Munich police apparently spoke to some of the. The men who were there when he died. And they. They described him being died. People witnessed his. His death.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Even though his body didn't make it back, it wasn't recovered. People saw him die. All right, so it was verified that he was died, I guess, at least to the satisfaction of the police.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that was a pretty weak link anyway, because supposedly the reason that he fled for the war was to. Or was to fake his death. Not why he fled for the war, but that he faked his death to get out of the marriage.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

So why would he fake his death, get out of the marriage, come back years later and kill them all?

[Josh Clark]

Great, great question, Chuck. Yeah, I think the answer to that is he wouldn't.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or maybe it's the perfect crime. Yeah, it's so nonsensical.

[Josh Clark]

He's listening right now, laughing.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's the perfect crime. What else? Of course, whenever there are footprints going one way and not the other, and they're talk of ghosts, and I have some tinfoil hat wearing people on the Internet talking about paranormal, you know, that it was ghosts and these strange noises and this mysterious newspaper and all these footprints is because there was some supernatural force out to get the family.

[Josh Clark]

Well, that would account for the ghost.

[Chuck Bryant]

You could say that accounts for everything.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's why it's bunk.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, 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 skulls were sent for forensic analysis and were handled by clairvoyant, who apparently was not able to come to any conclusions about their fate or the killer.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, and those bodies were buried headless because those heads eventually went missing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, apparently they kept them in the Nuremberg, I guess in their. One of their city government buildings. And it was leveled in World War II. They think that's where the skulls were lost.

[Chuck Bryant]

They think that was mixed in with the other skulls.

[Josh Clark]

It was either that or the ghost that did it.

[Chuck Bryant]

So for the cops part, they interviewed over a hundred suspects over the years, including the clear killer to me, the neighboring man.

[Josh Clark]

Lawrence Schlittenbauer.

[Chuck Bryant]

I just think it all points to him. He apparently, years later too, 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 just said, all of them, they deserved it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 of covering the bodies. It just doesn't seem like a random burglary.

[Josh Clark]

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 350 meters away, maybe you would feel safe there. Well, you could retreat very quickly.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Or know that like, I know no one comes by here.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Whereas if it was a burglar, they, they probably wouldn't feel so comfy hanging out for days on end.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So, yeah, you're right, it probably was him. But no one will ever be able to prove it one way or another.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, they didn't have any hard evidence.

[Josh Clark]

No. And the evidence they did take, a lot of it was lost. This is 1922, so a lot of forensic techniques hadn't been invented yet or were still being developed elsewhere in the world. So in 2007, a police academy in Munich got their hands on the case. Some students did. The Gutenberg Police Academy, the Furstenfeld Brook. They just threw in Brook after, you know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, why not?

[Josh Clark]

Let's throw in another syllable. Students from that police academy investigated this crime and in Germany, like, it's pretty. This is an enormously famous crime.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, sure. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

It's huge there. It's their Jack the Ripper for sure. It'll never be solved. It's not possible being solved. And this is the conclusion from the students at the Furstenfeld 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 guess, right? It's the, the one living suspect that anyone's ever really raised. Yeah, it was probably him.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

They didn't say that. That was my conclusion of their conclusions.

[Chuck Bryant]

And then they said, thank you, police Academy for your findings. And where's the guy that makes all the funny noises with his mouth.

[Josh Clark]

You know, Steve Guttenberg follows us on Twitter.

[Chuck Bryant]

No way.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Really?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Eve Gutbuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Really?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And he 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, really? Boy, you know his name. Michael something, maybe.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Michael something.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 did you ever see that, Joe?

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

Boy, it was good. Yeah, it was really, really funny. Had the great Adam Scott and Lizzy Kaplan and one of my heroes, Ken Marino from the state and Martin Starr, Megan Mullally. It was great.

[Josh Clark]

Good episode, huh?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, they were caterers, like cater waiters, all actors and writers and stuff in Hollywood. And each episode was its own thing. Owners catering event. And they had one where they showed up to Steve Gutenberg's house for his birthday party. And he pulled up and he was 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 Gutenberg and he like does some scene acting with them and gives them great wine and he has great art and he's just really, really funny in it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I can imagine. He seems like an awesome dude.

[Chuck Bryant]

He seems so awesome. After watching this episode, I was like, man, goots is the best.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I think they call them Goots in the show even.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Anyway.

[Josh Clark]

Or good boot.

[Chuck Bryant]

Shout out to Party down. Great, great show.

[Josh Clark]

And Steve Gutenberg.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Do you have a listener mail or is this too spooky for one?

[Chuck Bryant]

He did great work on that Bible. Yeah, I got a listener mail.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. Well, if you want to know more about hinterkaifeck, you can go listen to Stuff youf Miss in History class. I think they did an episode that covered it as well. You can search mysteriousuniverse.org and all sorts of other places for it. And since I said hinterkaifeck, it's time for listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

Before we do listener mail, we want to give a very special thank you to Margaret and Mike in Jacksonville, Florida.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Thanks, guys.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. They stepped forward and helped Jerry out in a big way. As the Stuff youf Should Know army is often does.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that's all we're gonna say other than big, big thanks to you guys for helping out for real. How about that?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Alright, I'm gonna call this listener mail. Squirrel shootin'. Hey guys. Been listening for about a year. 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 13, 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 and I shoot a squirrel as long as we agreed to skin it and eat it.

[Josh Clark]

They're like, they'll never do it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, you gotta love those depression era grandparents. Like, sure, skin it and eat it, it's all yours.

[Josh Clark]

I envision them as hippies, like passing a joint, like joking about how stupid their grandkids were.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

Depression era. Sure, I see that one too.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so we were very excited. We dressed up in camo, walked up property because, you know, you gotta dress in camo if you're hunting squirrels.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Eventually found a squirrel in a tree. I should note 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, needing it though alive.

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

He said it tastes like chicken, so why bother like we promised that we would do. 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 themed candles made for dogs. He donates.

[Josh Clark]

We skin them alive.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, they donate 10% of all profits to animal shelters and rescues. And so, Stephen, I am going to plug your company.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Over my wife's candle company even.

[Josh Clark]

Whoa.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which is Mama Bath and Body. And you can go to www.Knox favorite k n o x s. Knox's favorite dot com. And Knox was their dog. Named the company after.

[Josh Clark]

That's sweet.

[Chuck Bryant]

These are soy candles I looked at. They're good.

[Josh Clark]

Made from dogs.

[Chuck Bryant]

No. Thanks again for everything you do your daily listen for me. I hope to hope you continue for years to come. That is Stephen. Stephen.

[Josh Clark]

Way to go, Steven. Thank you for that. We appreciate you letting us share your horrible story with everybody.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

If you have a horrible story you want to share. Oh man, I'm gonna regret saying that. You can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com stuffyouchouchouknow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastoustuffworks.com and as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyou should know.com.

[Advertisement/Announcer]

For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com hey guys, it's Chiquis from Cheekies and Chill Cleaning Today. Well, not exactly my idea.

[Josh Clark]

Fun.

[Advertisement/Announcer]

But wait a second, is Fabuloso involved? Because that's different cleaning with Fabuloso 2 times concentrated cleaner turns chores into fiestas Fabuloso pairs twice the concentrated cleaning power with long lasting lavender freshness. From showers to countertops, floors to doorknobs, it leaves your whole home smelling and feeling like a fresh oasis. You may never love cleaning, but you will love a home cleaned with Fabuloso. So make your home dramatically clean with Fabuloso. Pick some up today at your favorite store. Fabuloso 2 times concentrated formula provides 2 times more active ingredients vs non concentrated Fabuloso original use as directed.

[Advertisement]

Stop settling for weak sound. It's time to level up your game and bring the boom. Hit the town with the ultra durable LG X Boom portable speaker and enjoy vibrant sound sound wherever you go. Elevate your listening experience to new heights because let's be real, your music deserves it. The future of sound is now with LG XBoom and for a limited time save 25% at LG.com with code fall25. Bring the boom XBoom.

[Josh Clark]

There'S a lot going on in Hollywood.

[Chuck Bryant]

How are you supposed to stay on top of it all?

[Josh Clark]

Variety has the solution. Take 20 minutes out of your day and listen to the new daily Variety podcast for breaking entertainment news and expert perspectives. Where do you see the business actually heading? Featuring the iconic journalists of Variety and hosted by co Editor in Chief Cynthia.

[Chuck Bryant]

Littleton, the only constant in Hollywood is change.

[Josh Clark]

Open your free iHeartradio app, search daily Variety and Listen Now.

[Advertisement/Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast.