Hinterkaifeck: Ax Murderer Extraordinaire Part 5

This infamous unsolved ax murder event from Germany has it all... murder, a haunted house, wrong place at the wrong time, incest, and more. Part 5 of our TMFTT series on ax murders that may belong to one murderer.

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Ref:
James, B., & James, R. M. C. (2017). The man from the train: The solving of a century-old serial killer mystery. Scribner.

Der mythos Hinterkaifeck • Hinterkaifeck. Hinterkaifeck. (2018, April 30). Retrieved May 15, 2022, from https://www.hinterkaifeck.net/his

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Matthew: 0:00

Macabrepedia makes light of dark subject matters and may not be suitable for all audiences listener discretion is advised. 1898 Brookfield, Massachusetts a former German soldier named Paul Mueller abruptly quits the service of his employer and heads to a nearby farmhouse where Mueller, a short, broad shouldered man in his mid 30s, who had become known in the area for his carpentry skills, was hired on a live in farmhand for the Newton family, Francis new and his wife Sarah, and their 10 year old daughter, Elsie lived in an L shaped two storey White House on their farm not far from Western. The new ins would be found dead by neighbors before the year was out. Each of the three would have their heads caved in by four to five vicious blows from the blunt side of an axe. Witnesses would later claim seeing Muller heading towards the train station is this the first of dozens of murders that followed was called Mueller. The man from the train would this man returned to his home country in the 1920s and end the decades of murders in the snow covered hills of the hinter chi Feck Germany. Join us as we add another entry into this hour Macabrepedia. Hello, and welcome to Macabrepedia a marriage of true crime in the truly bizarre we are your hosts, Matthew and Marissa. And today we are doing something a little. We were intending to do like two stories together. But then Marissa ended up rabbit holing into hinter Kofax so deeply that it's its own episode, it turned into its own episode. And because of this, we are out of order as to the timeframes and whatnot. As to this, this murder in hinter chi fac, which is pretty popular. If you look up European X murders, which are very few and far between, as far as I could find it in my research, the hinter chi fac is Top Top, Top hit on the search engines, but for a few reasons, as we will see. And this takes place in the 1920s

Marissa: 2:42

Yes. 22 and Paul

Matthew: 2:45

Muller, as far as the authors of the man from the train, are they they don't they? I mean, the basis of their book is PAUL MULLER did it that's kind of what their whole their whole shtick was with with the writing of the book. And this is may or may not be associated, really with with Paul Mueller. I mean, none of these, none of the murders that we've covered thus far and those that are in the book that we didn't cover. None of them are 100% obvious that it was Paul PAUL MULLER them this could all just be random acts. No pun intended. But the the the as a as the opening scene. That was the story of what could have been called Mueller's first attacking fits most of the hallmarks, but what they were kind of looking for was the the mistake like the amateurish attempt to do something that he would later perfect through multiple crimes. But most things are the same. The nail was a family killed by bludgeon bludgeoning by an axe. It's kind of far away from her kind of a little away from like densely populated areas. It's near the train tracks. It there was an attempt to burn the place down it just didn't work, because he had soaked it with kerosene and then threw a lamp at the kerosene but it didn't have enough to catch the bodies of the of the of the females were positioned the and covered with their covered with with their bed clothes, stuff like that. There wasn't any sign of sexual outraging as the well as combination of our current current form of saying things and the more respectable way that they would dance around the subject of being outraged. But But yeah, so it has a lot of those a lot of those moments but hinter chi fac What is it about hinter kaifa Deckard make it possible or completely not possible that it was Paul Mueller the man from the trains

Marissa: 5:09

well all started out being saying that I don't think it was,

Matthew: 5:12

but come on. Yeah. Kind of button burying the lede? Yeah,

Marissa: 5:16

what we'll get to that. So this did take place on March 31 1922. And it's a small farm tucked by the woods behind, or in German hinter, the town of Copic. Chi fac is about 70 kilometers or like 44 ish miles north of Munich, Germany. In the state of Bavaria, the hinter caffeic farmstead was home to Victoria Gabriel, who was 35 years old. Her parents, Andrea scoober, he was 663 and Cecilia Gruber, who was 72 years old and married to Andrea's and Victoria's daughter, also named Celia. She was seven named after her grandmother of course, and the son Yosef, who was two years old. They also had a live in maid now named Maria Baumgartner, who was 44, who had just started working there that day,

Matthew: 6:08

which this day becomes important,

Marissa: 6:10

very important moment. There are previous made a left about six months earlier. So this lady just started, this family was involved in one of the most infamous unsolved cases in German history. March 31, is when the Gruber family were all hacked to death, but they weren't found until April 4. On April 1, Yun said Celia did not show up for school, and the whole family failed to show up for church, but they like to keep to themselves and the neighbors could see smoke still coming out of the chimney, so they didn't really suspect anything. But when, you know Sylvia did not show up for school again on April 3, and the mail was starting to pile up. The neighbors became more concerned. So finally on April 4, this is five days after the murders, four days after the murders, the 31st of the fourth, the neighbors started to go over there to investigate and they went to the intercom effect homestead led by one of the neighbors Lorincz Linton Bauer when they got there, they went to the barn where they found four bodies. Both grandparents and their daughters that cilia and young daughter cilia. The elders had Celia had been beaten on top of her head seven times her skull cracked. She also had signs of strangulation. Andrus, his face was matted in blood. His face was described as shredded with his cheekbones poking out from the flesh on his face. Nice. Yes, Victoria school was shattered, and her face appeared to be to have been hit by a blunt object. She also had nine star shaped wounds to her neck. Couldn't find anything that said what that came from, but she had these wounds on her neck.

Matthew: 7:48

She's gonna be like, Phillips head screwdriver.

Marissa: 7:52

I don't know. I mean, there aren't pictures of it. So

Matthew: 7:55

no descriptor as to how big the stars are.

Marissa: 7:58

The only thing I could find was just saying there were nine star shaped wounds on her neck. Yeah. The young girls that silly his jaw was shattered and her face and neck recovered and slashing wounds.

Matthew: 8:08

So grandparents and the youngest daughter Earth and the daughter without their

Marissa: 8:12

grandparents daughter and your granddaughter. Okay. Yeah. The bodies were covered up with hay and a board that was was about four foot by 3.5 foot. So not a big board but fairly. Inside the house were the bodies of young Yosef and the main Maria Baumgartner. These two appear to have died fairly quickly with blow through their heads and the faces. Yosef had been hit in the side of his head so that his brains were splattered. Maria was still in her street clothes and heavy shoes that she had traveled in. The bed had not been used yet and it looked like she was actually getting ready to unpack her bag. Again. This was her first day she just got there. After she got bad timing Maria. They were covered up with a sheet Maria was covered with Maria was covering up the sheet rather and Yosef was covered up with her his mother's either dress or skirt. I saw both

Matthew: 9:02

right. So at this point, though, this is not this is not an invasion where everyone's asleep. This is everyone's actively doing stuff.

Marissa: 9:10

It appeared that and I'll get to it in a minute, but it did appear that the four that were in the barn may have been laid out one by one. And then he went into the house and of course the baby is

Matthew: 9:23

biting people out and you said that that Maria hadn't even unpacked her stuff or slept, right but so she's still wearing her boots and she's still wearing her boots and this is not get them while they're sleeping. That's just the only one

Marissa: 9:35

the only one who was in sleeping clothes was the grandfather.

Matthew: 9:40

But he was in the barn.

Marissa: 9:41

He was in the barn. Okay, we knew the windows were also covered, at least in Maria's room. So that's something we've seen in some previous, you know, Max murders. They had all been killed with a pickaxe like tool called a medic that is used for digging

Matthew: 9:59

right So, the miners, the miners acts as kind of similar to what we had seen that is like a large plaster hammer, which means Ebenezer strikes again,

Marissa: 10:15

always Ebenezer

Matthew: 10:16

be like 100 And something years old.

Marissa: 10:20

It's different country to but that's

Matthew: 10:22

Well, I mean, if you could get to the US and do it true, yeah. But he does it all these at least a few of them over and he's written all over

Marissa: 10:32

it. So they actually didn't find the murder weapon during their investigation. They did find it.

Matthew: 10:37

Maria's name was yeah, she's another made. This is this hat. Yeah, this has happened. He's written all over it because Jane Clausen Yeah, clusen whatever. She was also like a maid. Right? She was, yeah. avenues are coming full circle out in Germany.

Marissa: 11:01

All right. So are we done then wrap it up. Ebenezer did it

Matthew: 11:06

was another thank you for joining in tuning in to Macabrepedia where we solve crimes with zero evidence needed.

Marissa: 11:15

Yep, that's all we need seven either. All right. Anyway, back to the story. So they didn't find the murder weapon. They did find it later. And like, it was like a year later. I don't know. I'll tell you no investigation. Yeah, that's what I thought they had all likely died instantly except for younger cilia. Who likely unfortunately lived for a few hours and shock after her gruesome injuries because she had been found with clumps of her own hair in her hands like she had torn them out in agony the autopsy doctor actually said that she might have been saved if she had been found in time so very it's another another very sad young child

Matthew: 11:57

yet another another kid murderer

Marissa: 12:00

pretty much all these Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be

Matthew: 12:03

good to kind of wrap up with that nice unicorn chaser adult murders with no kids no excuse that

Marissa: 12:09

so anyway. But also anyway in the area, the family dog a Pomeranian and farm animals animals were unharmed although I did see one account that note that the dog had a bad impact injury above its right eye but it was still

Matthew: 12:22

it's a Pomeranian of you put any impact out of a Pomeranian it is it is just a burst of floof

Marissa: 12:31

Yeah, most accounts said that it was unharmed. But there were a lot of farm animals in the barn that were so there was like two oxen, two bowls for cows, three young cow cattle to heifers, three calves to piglets. 25 chickens, all dead. No. And the dog who were who was usually locked up there at night was in the barn also. In fact, it appeared that they had all been fed and tended to in the days after the murder. And the neighbors had even seen smoke, as I mentioned coming from the chimney during those days. So it looks like the murderer had lived in the house for at least a couple of days after the murders that occur. Yeah.

Matthew: 13:10

And just took care of stuff. He's like, took care of my house. Now he did the farm work.

Marissa: 13:16

Leading up to the murders were a series of very mysterious happenings. In the days and weeks leading up to the murders. Andrea's mentioned to his friend include Lauren's was the neighbor you mentioned to Lawrence who's again the guy who found the bodies right so Lauren's comes up actually kind of a lot but he mentioned to Lauren's that he found footprints in the snow that had led from the forest behind the house to his house and none leading back out.

Matthew: 13:46

And then did what just left that just left that ship he told Lawrence Hey, Lauren's so this is weird. Ha. And Lawrence was like, Yeah, sure.

Marissa: 13:54

That's crazy, man. Yeah, weird, huh? Yield quarter. How

Matthew: 13:58

they did they must have walked backwards through all of this stuff. No, he's in your house.

Marissa: 14:03

He also said that he thought he heard footsteps in the attic.

Matthew: 14:06

Mm hmm.

Marissa: 14:07

There was a newspaper found. I was like I one thing that said it was in the house one that it was like near the tree line. The newspaper was a it was a publication that none of the neighbors subscribed to and these people didn't subscribe to like it was very out of place.

Matthew: 14:21

Like somebody took it with them to go read while they watched. Maybe it's the stakeout on the house.

Marissa: 14:28

Yeah, nobody knew where it come from. It wouldn't have been an error because again nobody subscribed to it so nearby so we wouldn't have been even in the postal carriers bag presumably.

Matthew: 14:41

Well, you know, I mean, it's paper when can carry some stuff,

Marissa: 14:45

right? But it is it is a detail here. His house keys also went missing. They had like two sets, one of them set went missing. These were all very odd happenings. But Andrea's only mentioned them to his friends and never to the police. So Laurens offered to lend him a shotgun for protection but Andrea's declined. Yeah, I mean, I read that he did try to search the house but don't think he searched the attic.

Matthew: 15:10

clearly didn't search it well enough because there's a dude with his keys walking around and he's like, okay, you know, Sir, you don't search the frickin attic. You hear it? You hear somebody walking around up there. And he's like, I think someone's in my house. Probably not the footsteps that are clicking around there. That's almost certainly a ghost. But

Marissa: 15:29

so you bet. Yes. Maria Baumgartner, the new maid. She had just started there. She had been retained after the previous maid had left about six months earlier. She of the previous maid claimed that she left because she believed the house was haunted. Oh, yes. She She said that she believed this because she heard sounds coming from the attic. And she often had the feeling of being watched. So voices and sounds six

Matthew: 15:53

months later than six months. I know. Living in this house for six freakin months.

Marissa: 15:58

That is a theory. So she she said she heard voices and sounds filtering down from the attic that would disturb her in her sleep. And she would wake up. She left the farm six months before all these things happened. So it is possible. But you know what? You know what the killer or the the the man from the train authors do point out something here. She might have just come up with it after the fact when the murders happened. She'd been like, yeah, I guess. Or she might have been using it as an excuse. Because I mean, Andrea's doesn't seem like he was a very good guy. He might have been abusive. So she might have just said she wanted to leave. Sure. Because it was harsh. And

Matthew: 16:35

she wanted to run away with the pook.

Marissa: 16:38

In the immediate aftermath of the bodies being discovered the news spread fast. People came by the crime scene, looking at the bodies and maybe even making meals and eating in the kitchen.

Matthew: 16:49

Okay, that's that one that one they don't normally do. They normally swing the murder weapons around and pick up pieces of skull and

Marissa: 16:56

pick up the bodies or something. But yeah, they don't normally eat in the kitchen and make full meals. But yeah, it's a broth. So the police were alerted and drove down from Munich or motion. And they got there after many other people had been traipsing through the crime scene. So they you know, it was already a bit of a mess when they got there. Initially, they did suspect that it was robbery as a motive. But it became clear that this was not the case. As they found a good bit of money at the house. It had not been taken, that they investigated the homestead and determined that the reason that four of the bodies had been found in the barn must have been because they had been learned out learned, Lord, third Lord, no lured lured? I still didn't say it right. They are certain words. Alright, so though initially, it was considered that the animals may have been causing a lot of noise. It was later determined that you couldn't you couldn't hear at least a human scream from the living area coming from the barn. So they had theorized that somebody in the barn must have upset the animals causing them to make noise, and then somebody would hear them and go out to the barn. But you couldn't even hear a human scream as what they tested to see. They also found food scraps in the attic, indicating that at the very least, the suspect had been living there for some time. They also found tiles that were removable, so the murderer could watch the movements of the people in the house. So creepy

Matthew: 18:20

sitting around reading newspapers,

Marissa: 18:23

the police, they did have suspects. They interviewed over 100 people on suspicion of the murders. One was Andrea himself. They did not interview him of course, but he was was a suspect. I worked at that and then he legend himself to death. Well, okay, so they did suspect

Matthew: 18:40

so I said bras and I met brought worst, but didn't have time to correct it for you moved on. Okay. And then I thought that bras might mean beer. It doesn't. It means roar. But I thought it meant like to brew. Anyways, I meant brought worst. Don't ask me. Oh, you have to do the history of bratwurst on the show. Please, for some brothers.

Marissa: 19:09

So anyway, they thought it might have been Andreas. They thought that he had murdered everybody and then turned it on himself. Andrius was known by some to be particularly violent. Some study in is that he and his wife had had many children. But Victoria was the only one to survive her violent childhood with him. Oh, yeah. But none of the wounds appeared so self inflicted, and the murder weapon was not anywhere nearby. Of course, he didn't find it for a long time. That would be that's Clue Number One. How could he have hidden it when he was so gruesomely injured? You know,

Matthew: 19:39

also who can blast themselves in the skull seven times? Yes.

Marissa: 19:45

But they quickly moved on from that theory. Another suspect was the neighbor who had found the bodies Lauren schlitt and Bauer. There were suspicions around town, and there was even an official complaint filed by Lawrence that Andreas was the father. Have the younger child of his daughter, Victoria.

Matthew: 20:03

Man. So this might as well go deep into conspiracy. Let's do it.

Marissa: 20:10

It was supposedly supposedly well known around town that they had an incestuous relationship. This report was filed filed by Lauren slit and Bower. But he was Victoria's boyfriend briefly also. So he had been sleeping with Victoria for a while until she became pregnant with Yosef. He was he's a two year old boy. And he became he had suspected that it was actually not his child, but Victoria's father's child. So there was a layer of jealousy in this, this report that he filed resulted in Andrea spending a year in jail, and Victoria a month in jail. He later withdrew the report and accepted the boys as son. He actually at some point, did like sort of adopt the child and he started providing support and calling him my son. And at one point he, I think he was interested in marrying Victoria. But Andrea's wouldn't, you know, approve of that. But I mean, if, of course, he's not going to approve the guy like, accused them of incest lock them away for a year and a month. I mean, so there is that, but he was Lauren's was cleared of involvement, though it is known that he did disturb some of the bodies at the scene. There are pictures of the crime scene that you can actually still see online. I looked at these, they're pretty cool. They detail both how the bodies were moved. And the reconstruction of what Lauren said he saw before we move to the bodies,

Matthew: 21:36

okay. And there's this other we can post.

Marissa: 21:40

I don't know I it might be something that we would have to pay to post so. No, but it's on. It's on hinter Karthik dotnet. So, very cool. So, you if you don't speak German, there is a Google Translate Option to translate the page into English.

Matthew: 21:55

Yeah, well, we can at least link the page. So you can.

Marissa: 21:59

But he said that he did this because he ran in there and he, he moved Andrius to see and he saw that Victoria was under him. And he thought to himself that Yosef might be there. So he was just concerned to try to find his son is what why he said he moved the bodies. Another suspect was Victoria's husband, Carl Gabriel. Carl had been drafted into the Army shortly after they had wed. He had allegedly been killed in World War One, but his body had never been recovered. So he had been killed in 1914, which has made it impossible. Well, it would have made it possible to be the daughter of or to be this. I can't say things to be the father upset Celia, but I'm definitely not Yosef. So Yosef definitely was not his child is he was dead. Yeah. So there was speculation though, that he was not dead. And he had come back for revenge after he found that his wife was cheating on him. Yes, wow. Yeah. However, there were many soldiers who swore that they had actually seen his dead body. And that's when the police moved on from that.

Matthew: 23:03

Yeah. Lots of theories when I said rabbit hole it yeah, this is this?

Marissa: 23:09

I did. Yes. So one strange detail, is that Victoria made a donation of 700 marks in the confessional of her church. And if my math is correct, that's about 40 bucks today, US dollars. But it's not insignificant. She also closed her savings account shortly before these events. But worth noting, maybe is that this was near the beginning of a period of hyperinflation in Germany. So at the time, about 300 marks equaled $1, a US dollar, but by December of the next year, it would literally be billions of marks to $1. So that's, that's how quick it went up paper. It's printed. No people, you have their pictures of people in dresses made of these paper bills and their children playing with blocks at them, like their play blocks, because it's worth more and that's cheaper

Matthew: 23:58

if you can get a few minutes of entertainment. Yeah. So I

Marissa: 24:01

don't know the minutiae of all the baking inflation during this period. But closing her account may have been related to that she might have just been, they might have started and she just got concerned and got her money, I don't know. But a few things seemed true. The murderer must have been familiar with farm work, as all the animals of the all the animals had been fed, and were looked after following the events. And he was probably familiar with ematic and digging with one because of how brutal the slayings were, it seems like it must have been somebody with a vendetta, who knew them personally. But we know from these other murders, that that is not necessarily the case. Right? So

Matthew: 24:39

random acts of violence.

Marissa: 24:42

So the heads of all the victims were taken off and sent to Munich for analysis. And they basically consulted psychics because at this point, they didn't know another, you know what to do. So they consulted psychics, unfortunately, nothing came from that. Their heads were lost in the chaos leading up to World War Two. You Nice. Yeah. So I mean, it's Germany World War Two, it's not surprising that they got lost but that's kind of crazy. So, but despite all of this and the murder was never solved, it is in fact still referred to as the most notorious unsolved crime in Germany's history. The murder weapon was found as I mentioned, it was in the attic of the house, which you know what I thought at first they didn't search it, but as I kept reading they did search it they found some stuff up there. But I guess it didn't search it thoroughly enough for

Matthew: 25:32

the for the year where they actually find it. Yeah, okay.

Marissa: 25:35

Yeah, they did search it when this all happened but they didn't find the murder weapon and then a year later when they were demolishing the house is when they found it in the attic

Matthew: 25:46

okay, if you do a search I don't know.

Marissa: 25:49

Unless somebody went back and put it in the house. I don't know it could it could be

Matthew: 25:53

planted or if you're demolishing a house I don't know exactly how they were doing.

Marissa: 25:59

I don't know exactly how the process went. But it was written that they found it when the house was being demolished so it was definitely right there. The bodies sans heads of course were laid to rest near their farm and white often winter I hope I'm saying correctly cemetery. We're not saying hardly any of these. I tried on these names, but probably didn't. There is a memorial where the farm was stood the reeds on March 31 1922, the Gabriel Gruber family fell victim to the ungodly hands of the murderer.

Matthew: 26:29

And I also saw something on there too, that that did also the the I think the the authors of the man from the train aren't weren't sure of how far how close this farm was to a train station. But somebody who, who did put a post up that I did, I did see so this she lives in Germany, who I assume it's a she, I don't know. But they live in Germany. And you as the crow flies, it's about a mile and a half. But if you take the actual trails to get to the train, trail, the train tracks it's two to 2.6 miles or something like that.

Marissa: 27:07

Yeah, so not not super close, but not far. doable. With no further leads to follow the case straight up. Oh, man. Yeah, the police officially closed the case and 1955

Unknown: 27:20

Oh, they gave it an effort, okay, even an effort 3033

Marissa: 27:24

years. And then in 2007, the first and fed Brook police academy worked on the cold case. This was nearly 100 years later. So the evidence was quite old warming up again. The crime scene had been demolished. You know, people involved had died. The witnesses were gone. And the original investigation was not very advanced to begin with, to say the least. But they worked with what they had and they were unable to solve the murder but they did come up with a theory. But they kept the theory secret for the sake of the families involved. So we don't know.

Matthew: 28:03

We don't have that theory.

Marissa: 28:05

We don't but some speculate that that they they pinned it on Lauren's.

Matthew: 28:11

But okay. That's, we're gonna open this investigation. We figured it out.

Marissa: 28:19

Well, they did it because people who are related to them are still alive. They don't want to offend them, I suppose. But okay. So think about it, Lawrence. He is the neighbor. He lives pretty much right next door. He's the one who found the bodies. He led the you know, people over some neighbors. I think there were three of them. But he was the one leading over to find the bodies. He moved the bodies originally. He is very familiar with the area he was dating Victoria. So there's that there's there was something I read that was speculating that Victoria and Lawrence had met up in the barn that evening, as they usually did. And then perhaps Andrea's came out and caught them. Or maybe well, what it is, is maybe he killed Victoria because they got into an argument when the Andrea's came out to see where you know what was going on. And he killed Andrea's, and later the grandmother said Celia and younger Cecilia bring in Cecilia came out and he killed them. And then he was like, Well, I got to finish the job. So he went inside the house and killed the other two. That's the theory.

Matthew: 29:18

I mean, it's pretty solid, I guess. Yeah.

Marissa: 29:20

So he is he is he is more involved than any other name that I'm seeing. Doesn't mean that it was him of course. But you know, he's the one that told us presumably told the police all these things that Andrea said. So all this stuff is obviously not coming from Andrew because he never told the police he saw the footprints in the snow or anything like that. He didn't say that. He said that to Lawrence. Lawrence told the police that Andrew said it. So it's a possibility that it never happened. And Lawrence is making it up. Right so that's that's the theory.

Matthew: 29:52

Oh, that's that's a that's a solid theory. I mean, you if you're the only survivor, you definitely can make the make your alibi pretty. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, they were talking about this than the other. But then you have you have the other maid who said that she left because of all the other sounds and stuff. So if you put any credit or credit into what she says,

Marissa: 30:19

then it would have been a six month thing. Also, the one thing that that threw up a red flag on that theory for me, is all the stuff in the attic. If he was a neighbor, why would he be in the attic

Matthew: 30:29

waiting for everybody to go to sleep? So you can go to go to bank town with Victoria?

Marissa: 30:33

Presumably, if he was on he wouldn't be waiting for that. But presumably if he was in like the bar and glad everybody out in that manner. Then again, why would you be in the attic? That's my thing. They did find like food crumbs and stuff up in the attic. There were lots of things up there.

Matthew: 30:51

Yeah. But again, this is one of those things where it's like, there's a lot of similarities between the others, the other murders and whatnot. But then there's also a lot of differences and stuff. And it just kind of seems like a lot of a lot of murder scenes and scenes look very similar.

Marissa: 31:09

Yeah, definitely seeing that.

Matthew: 31:11

It seems it seems like there's they all seem like they're done by the same person, because there's just a way to break into somebody's house.

Marissa: 31:20

And be successful without being caught.

Matthew: 31:22

Yeah. And there's actually another one that we didn't really cover from the man on the train where somebody does just that where he lures them into a barn and then kills him kind of one by one. So that also

Marissa: 31:36

well, you know what that happened? Presumably if this is him and Hurley I keep saying word, presumably I apologize. But in Hurley, you know, the older the Father, He came outside and he was monitored that way first before anyone else was killed. So

Matthew: 31:50

that's just another three line that that the authors make from the man on the train is that that's it isn't that far off of other things that they were connecting to him more so?

Marissa: 32:01

Yeah. But in Laurens also kinda has mania motive, just because he didn't seem to like Andrea's well, he had, maybe a tempestuous relationship with Victoria. But with Andrea's, you know, he thought he might be the father of the good boy that he's claiming as His child. So there's that too. Just Just a lot of things here.

Matthew: 32:19

There's a lot going on.

Marissa: 32:21

So the man from the train authors believe that these murders may have been committed by Paul Mueller. I don't think they're dead set on this. But the reasons they give is that he was German. So they speculate he might have returned to Germany at some point. This was 10 years after Valeska, which is the last one that they really pin on him. But you know, plenty of time to to cross the ocean, I guess.

Matthew: 32:45

Yeah. And the one of the things that they point out, too, is that this was shortly after World War One. And and the he probably wouldn't have had to, he probably wouldn't have been in the war, because at this time, he would have been like, 60 years old.

Marissa: 33:03

Yes. So he would have been too old. 60 at a time, I believe. Yeah,

Matthew: 33:07

if he was like, 35, at the time of the first murder, if you don't take the first murder as being the default, as in Georgia, but instead you take it to Western Mass, then he's, he's like, 35 years old. That's the time.

Marissa: 33:19

Yeah, so in addition to being German, they also give the reasons that the bodies were moved, they were stacked in the barn, this happens. You know, in other cases, the murderer used a type of axe. But again, lots of murderers use dogs.

Matthew: 33:34

Yeah, there's a lot of murderers who does use what's at hand. But also, I mean, if he was a German speaker, and then at this at this time, at the time of the Valeska, murders. And there, this, that's when people started to connect all the murders together. So beaten feet back now back to your home country, or whatever, or another country is a good escape route. Yeah.

Marissa: 34:00

And, you know, as you mentioned, it was close to railroad track, fairly close. Anyway.

Matthew: 34:04

It does. It checks a few of the boxes. And in, in the next episode, we will also see that there's a lot of similarities to other murders that and assaults really, that have a lot of those hallmarks of the attacks and murders of the ones that are associated to the man on the train that but these are the axe murders. And the cleaver attacks of New Orleans at the same time, yeah, the cleaver ones actually, when I was looking at it, that's that's that was what was supposed to be the second half of this, but we're not gonna get into that. We're gonna save that for the next episode. Well, we'll kind of go into that, but that again, that kind of fuels my thing, my belief of just that there's so like, there is there is a way that that people who are doing home invasions did it at this time. And, you know, but absolutely touch on that in the next episode, they evolve.

Marissa: 35:04

Do we

Matthew: 35:04

have a McCobb Minute? A Marisa is McCobb minute

Marissa: 35:07

we do. Cool theme song theme song for a theme song. Oh my to do list, so Lake Superior. It is 31,700 square miles the largest of America's Great Lakes, the world's largest freshwater lake by surface area. And when you're standing on the Wisconsin shoreline, you cannot even see the other side. It's massive, and Lake Superior never gives up her dead. There have been an estimated 10,000 people to have died in the waters of Lake Superior with over 30 350 shipwrecks on the bottom of the lake, although some claim the number to be as high as 6000, but I think that's a little bit too much. However many it is though the most well known is the Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank in a massive storm on November 10 1975. Using sonar they were able to locate it four days later. In May they went to the bottom and saw the words Edmund Fitzgerald upside down on the ship Stern, which was 535 feet onto the water. All 29 crew members had died and no bodies were recovered. Family members requested that the ship be left undisturbed out of respect for the dead. And in 2006, Canada passed a law making it illegal to dive around the Edmund Fitzgerald and to other shipwrecks that are in command Canadian waters. The fine for being caught for like diving on one of these wrecks is a million dollars. Well, it's a graveyard. It's a graveyard. I mean, these bodies are still there or they have decayed, but they died there. They died in these holes. But

Matthew: 36:52

they didn't decay though.

Marissa: 36:55

Perhaps more McCobb indeed, is the Kamloops ship which sank in 1927. So in December 1928, a trapper working at the mouth of the Aggarwal River, found a bottled note from somebody named Alice bettridge. She was a young assistant stewardess who initially survived the sinking of the ship. And she when she survived, she wrote this note. She wrote, I am the last one left alive, freezing and starving to death on Isle Royale and Lake Superior. I just want mom and dad to know my fate.

Matthew: 37:30

Wow. Yeah.

Marissa: 37:33

So many years later, in August 1977, the ship was found. A group of divers went down and found a startling discovery. Because of how cold it is at the bottom of Lake Superior and how little bacteria in life there is down there. The average temp for Lake Superior, the coldest of the Great Lakes is 39 degrees Fahrenheit or four degrees Celsius. If you are not American, because we have our own thing. pretty consistently, once you get down below, like 660 feet 200 meters, the current temperature is 39 degrees pretty consistently across the lake at that point. Because of this, there is a remarkable level of preservation. There was they found clothing and even food preserved down there on the ship. But also they found the crew. So noteworthy, the temperature that morticians typically store with dead bodies is between 30 and 40 degrees. And as I said, like superior, isn't there 39 degrees. So whereas a normal body would float once the bacteria started to overgrow and cause more gas, which would cause the body to rise with this colder temperature. Bacteria doesn't really grow like that, and the body stay where they are. They stay sunk down there. They don't float up to the surface. And this is what it means by Lake Superior does not give up her dead. But Ask a Mortician has a very cool video on this. And she's talking about one of the bodies that they found down there. This body was covered with that. Well, they came across it while they were diving. And they were shining their light and something bright. showed up. And they looked and it was a body and it was like it was covered. It was white. It was bright white. This was adipose sear. So yes, so adipose here is basically like a yellow, white waxy substance that covers the body it's in certain circumstances doesn't happen that often wax it preserves it and just so happens that the conditions at the bottom of a lake superior a great for this weird. Yes. I mean, adipose you're just I don't. It's fat.

Matthew: 39:47

So Right. Yeah, yeah, it's just weird that it would form

Marissa: 39:51

Yeah, the fat breaks down and reacts with the water and hydrogenation causes liquid fat to turn into solid fat. And then this is what On. So because of the substance the very famous corpse that is in the shipwreck is called Old yd. And I know that sounds insulting but it's literally because it's so bright white. And it's because the fat the fat is was white. And yeah, I mean that's that's our McCobb minute because that's just that's I found that fascinating. I was originally going to make it its own episode but it's really not enough for its own episode. So here we are

Matthew: 40:27

super cool, kind of super cool. And of course if you want to hear the story of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, as a song by Gordon Lightfoot, and I've liked the rendition by the punch brothers, but it goes The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the old big lake they call get you Gumi. The lake it said never gives up her dad when the skies of November turn gloomy. With a load of iron ore 26,000 tons more than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty. That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed when the gales of November came early, and continues on and it's a cool song out here for copyright reasons. But check it out. Thank you for that McCobb minute. And thank all of you for joining us. As always, if you want to reach out, you can obviously do so on Twitter and Facebook at Facebook, Twitter and Facebook at Macabrepedia.

Marissa: 41:34

Yes, and Instagram at Macabrepediapod. And of course you can always email us at macabrepediapod@gmail.com. And thank you to everyone who has like ranked us like does rated us

Matthew: 41:46

commented all that

Marissa: 41:48

etc, etc. If you have not done so please do so it does help us a lot.

Matthew: 41:52

Yeah, also thank you to our patrons who pass in a few few dollars as the as the plate comes round. We do thank you very much for that. If you have not, or are unable to do so that is fine. Please share, like and tell other people to check us out. But if you would like to support us financially, in expanding what we have here, then you can do so over at PATREON slash Macabrepedia. And it is $5 You get some extra bonus stuff. We send out stickers, and other little thank yous and there's a couple other extra little episodes and whatnot over there. And gives you access to our Discord, which is pretty quiet. But yeah, if you also for any of our patrons who are listening, if you have any ideas as to things that you'd like to see us do on Patreon, let us know we were open to ideas. I want to give you guys as much content as we can. So it's just kind of a matter of getting what you want. So let us know. And join us next week as we add another entry into this our Macabrepedia