Footprints in the Snow: The Hinterkaifeck Farm Murders

2026-06-18 · Unexplained Deaths · 2 min read

Hinterkaifeck was a small farmstead in rural Bavaria, tucked between the villages of Ingolstadt and Schrobenhausen. In the days before 31 March 1922, the farmer Andreas Gruber told neighbors about strange things happening there: a set of footprints in the fresh snow that led from the forest edge to the farm — but never back — footsteps heard in the attic, a house key that had gone missing, and an unfamiliar newspaper that no one in the household had bought.

On the evening of 31 March, six people died. Andreas Gruber, 63; his wife Cäzilia, 72; their widowed daughter Viktoria Gabriel, 35; her children Cäzilia, 7, and Josef, 2; and the new maid, Maria Baumgartner, 44. Four of them appear to have been lured, one by one, into the barn, where they were struck down with a mattock — a heavy farming tool belonging to the family. Little Josef and the maid were killed inside the house. Maria Baumgartner had arrived at the farm only that afternoon; her predecessor had quit months earlier, reportedly saying the house was haunted by strange noises.

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