Why a Booktrail?
1950s: Based on an unsolved murder case that took place in Bavaria in 1922.
The Murder Farm
What you need to know before your trail
And then a former resident returns home to the village where he used to live. There, he finds carnage…
A whole family has been murdered with a pickaxe. They were old Danner the farmer, an overbearing patriarch, his put-upon devoutly religious wife, and their daughter Barbara Spangler, whose husband Vincenz left her after fathering her daughter, Marianne. Also murdered was the Danners’ new maidservant, Marie.
Despite the brutal nature of the killings and the small village where it has taken place, the police have no leads.
The narrator leaves the village unaware of the truth, only the reader is able to reach the shattering conclusion.
Travel Guide
Bavaria
The Gruber family/Hinterkaifeck Murders
This is a fictional story of a real murder mystery – but the atmosphere is just as dark and depressing. The real murder took place in the 1920s but with the crime being fictionalised in the 1950s, the war and atmosphere of the time makes it even more chilling.
An entire family hacked to death on a cold winter’s night. No one really knew the Danners but they all know of their deaths. Characters past and present narrate the village’s emotions along with hymms and interviews
“The demon’s here in every one of us, and every one of us can let our demons out at any time.”
The six victims are buried in Waidhofen, where there is a memorial in the graveyard. The skulls were never returned from Munich, after having been lost during the chaos of World War II.
The farm was demolished a year after the attacks, in 1923. Close to where the farm was located, there is now a shrine.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Murder Farm
Destination: Bavaria, Germany Author/Guide: Andrea Maria Schenkel Departure Time: 1920s, WW2
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