An Ominous Blending of Dark Realities: Brutal Murders and the Paranormal

Solving murders often involves some of the most nuanced and complex investigations on record, where investigators often start with a blank canvas where they don’t simply need to connect the dots; they have to discover where the dots are in the first place. When those respective murder cases involve the paranormal, whether it is cases of possession where an evil spirit seemingly takes over a person’s body and influences them to kill or even the murder victim themselves offering information on their own murder from beyond the grave, these cases take on another level of complexity and intrigue.

There is perhaps no better place to start than with a case of the murder victim themselves attempting to bring their killer to justice from the other side. Officially, David Chase’s murder remains unsolved. In fact, the vast majority of the alleged details of his death have come from Chase himself after he was killed, and as such, police rejected the claims, and no action was taken. With this in mind, it is important that we treat such claims with caution. However, as we shall see, the claims allegedly made by David Chase after his death resonate nicely with the very real circumstantial evidence that investigators had already revealed.

At the time of his death, David Chase had lived with his wife, Judi, in Evergreen, Colorado, for around 18 months, along with their two foster children. On June 6th, 1985, David was working on a roofing job with his neighbor, Matt Orahoske, at a local club. After finishing their work at some time around midday, the pair went for something to eat. They then traveled to the bank so that David could pay in a cheque he had received for the job. From there, the pair went to a local bar, where they had a few drinks before Matt left for home early in the evening. David, he claimed, remained at the bar to finish a game of pool.

When David hadn’t returned home by the following morning, however, Judi immediately knew something was wrong. After waiting several more hours, she telephoned Matt to ask if David was there. He wasn’t, and what’s more, Matt had no idea why he hadn’t returned home. Several hours later, things became even more bizarre.

Judi received a phone call from Matt’s girlfriend, who claimed that she had questioned Matt about David after overhearing their telephone conversation earlier that afternoon. He had informed her that rather than leaving David in the bar, David had told him that he had a raft and planned on “going for a swim” in the Bear Creek River. This didn’t make any sense to Judi. While David was an experienced outdoorsman, he was more than aware of the dangers of entering the freezing water alone at night. At this point, Judi contacted the police.

Ultimately, as the last person who seemingly saw him alive, Matt was brought in for questioning. He told investigators the same story he had told his girlfriend. However, he also added an extra detail – something that, like his claim of David going for a swim, made Judi immediately suspicious. He claimed that after having a few drinks at the bar, he and David had taken the brush that was in the back of the van to the river and dumped it in the water. This, Judi later stated, was something David just wouldn’t have done given his “fanatical” environmental beliefs. Even stranger, it was at this point that Matt claimed David had told him he was taking his raft onto the water and that Matt should pick him up in Morrison. Matt, however, claimed he simply went home.

Whatever did happen that night in Evergreen, around six weeks after he had disappeared, David Chase’s body was dragged from the Bear Creek River, approximately three miles from his last known whereabouts. Initial examinations suggested he had drowned. However, several cuts were discovered on his legs. Even more suspicious, he was found to have a broken neck. Perhaps most bizarre of all, though, he was pulled from the water wearing only his socks and shoes, with the only other material discovered being a strand matching the style of trousers he was wearing when he disappeared. According to the coroner, this suggested David’s clothing had been removed by someone else, who had inadvertently left the strand behind in their struggle to do so. Also strange, toxicology tests showed his body was clear of alcohol, something it wouldn’t have been if he had consumed several drinks in the hours immediately before his death.

Matt was questioned for a second time by police, who were growing increasingly suspicious of his version of events, especially when he changed his story during this second interview. Instead of jumping in the river to swim and take his raft to Morrison, Matt now offered that David had fallen into the water accidentally. Furthermore, Matt now claimed David had not asked him to pick him up in Morrison at all. Police questioned if David had fallen into the river, and why hadn’t anyone heard his presumed cries for help, to which Matt could offer no answer. Perhaps more damning, though, if things had played out how Matt was now insisting they had, why hadn’t he tried to help his friend, or at the very least, why hadn’t he raised the alarm and gotten help (the local fire station was close by, for example).

During their investigation, police also learned from Matt’s girlfriend that she had discovered $800 in the glove box of Matt’s car in the days following David’s disappearance – money that Matt could offer no information on.

Despite all of this, the police didn’t have enough to charge Matt and had to release him from custody. Needless to say, Judi and David’s family were more than frustrated with the investigation – as was, it would appear, David Chase himself.

At around 4 am one morning, around four months after David’s death, private investigator Phil Harris was sleeping in his chair when he was awoken by a strange voice speaking to him saying, “I’m David Chase. I was murdered!” According to Harris, the voice continued, insisting that Harris investigate his death. Then, rather specifically, the voice instructed Harris to purchase the “Sunday paper”, which the private investigator duly did. He couldn’t, though, find any mention of David Chase anywhere in it. As such, it is unclear why Chase – if we accept this apparent spirit was David Chase for a moment – issued such instructions. It is also a detail that perhaps offers Harris’s version much more credibility. If he had manufactured such contact, why would he include a detail that proved to be useless to him? Perhaps there was something of importance in the newspaper but Harris simply missed it.

Whatever the truth, Harris eventually decided to make contact with David’s widow, who, although suspicious and cautious, agreed to meet with him. When Harris offered details to her that only David and herself knew about their lives, she contemplated if David really had contacted Harris from the other side and agreed for him to investigate the case. Not long after, and after having received more information from David, he returned to Judi with a timeline of events that fateful evening.

According to what David had told him and what his own investigation suggested, as opposed to depositing the cheque in the bank that day in June 1985, Matt had talked David into cashing it, stating he knew of a truck that he thought David might wish to buy. However, toward the end of the evening, as they were leaving the bar, David informed Matt that he had changed his mind about purchasing a new truck. Matt then became angry and pushed David in the chest, insisting he had promised to make the purchase earlier. To this, David pushed back, and a fight quickly broke out between the pair.

They ended up on the ground, near the water’s edge. Suddenly, David felt Matt hit him with something hard on the back of the neck. Chillingly, he had told Harris that he knew immediately his neck was broken, and he knew immediately that he was dead. David had then told Harris that a second, younger person assisted Matt in removing David’s clothes, which Matt then instructed them to wrap around the murder weapon and throw them into the water.

Following these revelations, Harris agreed to continue to investigate the case. However, tragically, he passed away from a sudden heart attack only several weeks later. Judi approached the police with the revelations she had learned from Harris, but they couldn’t act on it. Not least as the way she had come about it meant the information would not stand up in court.

Ultimately, the murder of David Chase remains unsolved, and it is important to state that Matt Orahoske has never been charged with any crime concerning David Chase’s death, nor has he ever indicated he was involved in his death. Whether David Chase tries again to offer information from beyond the grave remains to be seen.

The David Chase account, though, is far from the only such case. What’s more, many of these cases have happened in more recent times. In 2013, for example, while under arrest on much lesser charges, Adrian Daou suddenly confessed to the murder of Jennifer Stewart in 2010, stating he had bludgeoned and hacked her to death with a large ax. He claimed that since her murder, she had visited him several times from the spirit world. Not only did these visitations cause him to confess, but he claimed that he had now “accepted God” into his life. He was found guilty of the murder, but several years later, significant doubt was cast on his mental ability to make such a confession.  

Another similar confession was made in January 2017 by Jose Ferreira from Wisconsin. He claimed to staff on a crisis hotline, and then later to a Milwaukee journalist, that over three decades earlier, in March 1982, he had murdered 13-year-old Carrie Ann Jopek, when he himself was only 17 years old. Moreover, he claimed he was making the confession as the spirit of the young girl was “haunting him!”

He claimed that he had met Carrie Ann at a party on the night in question, offering that she was a “teenage runaway”. The pair had ended up making their way to the basement so they could share a marijuana joint, at which point, he claimed he made sexual advances towards her, which she immediately rejected. Her rejection angered him, and he struck her, which caused her to fall down a set of steps. When he examined her, it was clear she had broken her neck and was dead. Panicking, he discreetly buried her under the porch of the property. She was discovered 18 months later, but he was never apprehended as her killer, despite being questioned (along with several other suspects) at the time.

Another similar sudden confession occurred several months later in May 2017, when convicted (and incarcerated) serial killer Terry Childs suddenly confessed to two unsolved murders from the 1980s, those of Joan Mack and Christopher Hall. Similar to Jose Ferreira, Childs offered that the spirits of Mack and Hall were visiting him in his jail cell each night, and claimed they would continue to do so until he confessed his crimes. Whether or not he was visited by the two spirits or not, or whether he simply wanted to ease a guilty conscience, Childs was given two further life sentences for the crimes.

Around four decades earlier, a very similar set of events unfolded, only this time, rather than merely contacting a person from the beyond, this murder victim allegedly possessed a person.

On February 21st, 1977, in Chicago, Teresita Basa was discovered dead in her home. It appeared as though she had suffered a terrifying and harrowing end. Examinations suggested she had been stabbed, stripped of her clothing, a pile of clothes placed on top of her, and then set on fire. Investigators also determined that her body had been purposely positioned to give the impression that she had been raped, but medical examinations determined this was not the case. Police also determined that whoever had taken Teresita’s life had also wrecked her apartment, as if to make it look like robbery was also a motivation in this brutal attack, although nothing of consequence appeared to have been taken. Perplexed, they asked themselves why someone had killed Teresita and then gone out of their way to make her death appear like a robbery that had resulted in rape and murder?

Police investigated the death for several months but were seemingly no closer to catching the killer than they were when her body was discovered. The only thing they knew for certain was that on the night she died, at around 7:10 pm, she had received a phone call from a friend, whom she spoke with for several minutes. Then, at around 7:30 pm, she received another phone call, this time from an unknown person. The conversation lasted around 20 minutes. Only 50 minutes later, at around 8:40 pm, local firefighters were sent to Lincoln Park to tackle a blaze in her apartment, and shortly after, her body was discovered.

The police had also discovered a handwritten note in Teresita’s journal that read, “Get tickets for AS!” To begin with, they were at a loss as to who “AS” was. Then, they received a most unusual but thought-provoking phone call. The call came from Dr. Jose Chua, who claimed that his wife, Remy, had become possessed on three separate occasions by a lady who said her name was Teresita Basa. Moreover, she had done so to tell them who had murdered her.

Initially, detectives were more than cautious of Chua’s claims. However, when he began to offer details to them about the case that had not been made public, they agreed to take a full statement. One of these details was that the killer was named Allen Showery. According to Chua, Showery was a respiratory technician at Edgewater Hospital, where Teresita also worked. On the night she died, he had arrived at her home to repair her television. However, without warning, he turned on her and stabbed her multiple times. He removed one single expensive item of jewelry from the property before making it look as though a robbery had occurred. He then positioned Teresita’s body and set her alight.

Investigators interviewed Showery about Teresita’s death. He denied having any involvement in it whatsoever. Police had little to go on. Then, however, they discovered the missing item of jewelry from Teresita’s apartment within Showery’s girlfriend’s possessions. When she was questioned about it, she told the police that Allen had given it to her several months earlier in February, adding that it was a “late Christmas gift!” When the jewelry was examined, it was determined to be the missing piece from Teresita’s apartment.

Armed with this new information and evidence, police brought Showery in once more for questioning. While he didn’t admit to murdering Teresita, he did admit to taking the jewelry and being in her apartment that night. He offered that he had “knocked out” Teresita and, due to financial problems, decided to steal whatever valuables he could find. He then started a small fire to make it appear like a random attack.

When the case went to court, however, Showery claimed that the police had forced his confession from him, elaborating that they also threatened to arrest his girlfriend, who was pregnant at the time. He now claimed that he had not been in the apartment at all and that he had spent the night at home with his girlfriend before seeing a friend. Ultimately, the trial ended with a deadlocked jury, and the judge ordered a fresh trial.

Things, though, would take another strange turn. In February 1979, two years after Tersita’s death, Showery suddenly admitted the murder following advice from his lawyer of risking a long and severe sentence if he were to be found guilty. As a result, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison, although he received parole only four years later in the summer of 1983.

Paranormal researchers and investigators began to take an interest in the case, however, particularly whether the spirit of Teresita Basa had really possessed Remy Chua as her husband had offered. And what their research discovered only muddied the waters of the case even further. They discovered that Remy Chua worked in the same department in the same hospital as Basa and Showery. It also came to light that Showery’s defense revealed that Showery had made an official complaint about Chua, a complaint that appeared to result in her losing her job. Only hours after her dismissal, coincidentally or not, she was “possessed” by Teresita’s spirit and began making her extraordinary claims.

In light of all of this, we might ask, did Allen Showery really murder Teresita Basa, or did he simply plead not guilty in order to receive a lesser sentence? Was he somehow set up by Remy Chua and her husband? And if the Chuas hadn’t learned of the unknown details of the case through Remy being possessed by Teresita’s spirit, where did she learn of them? The questions remain unanswered and only add to the mystery.      

While our previous case features the allegations of possession to reveal information, our next one features the killer being possessed and then forced to kill.

Across the Atlantic Ocean in Ossett, West Yorkshire in England in 1974, events began unfolding that would result in the brutal slaying of a woman at the hands of a person who would be dubbed the Ossett Exorcist Murderer. In reality, the Ossett Exorcist Murderer was 31-year-old butcher Michael Taylor, a married father of five young children, who, for the most part, was kind-natured and trustworthy. However, Michael also suffered from severe bouts of depression and appeared to be particularly susceptible to outside influences. In 1974, one of those influences was the Christian Fellowship Group.

Initially, his wife, Christine, was both surprised and happy with how Michael had taken to the group as he quickly became a regular attendee at the group meetings. He quickly became close with the 21-year-old pastor who ran the group, Marie Robinson. As this relationship progressed, though, Christine began to speak to some members of the group, confiding in them that she believed Michael was having an affair with Marie. As Christine discovered more about her husband’s activities with the group, she became even more certain of her suspicions.

She was informed that Michael and Marie had taken part in several “private rituals” involving only the two of them. Furthermore, these rituals were only performed when there was a full moon. Eventually, with Michael spending an increasing amount of time with the group, Christine confronted him about her concerns – and she did so in full view of the group at one of their meetings. Whatever she thought might have been going on, she wasn’t prepared for Michael’s response.

To begin with, his demeanor remained calm as he offered that an “evil influence (had) cast a shadow over him!” Then, however, he aimed a verbal tirade at Christine before standing up to physically attack her, eventually being restrained by other members of the group. Marie, who also witnessed the outburst, later stated that she could see “his whole features change”, and that he had a “really wild look in his eyes” that was “almost beastial!” For his part, Michael later claimed to have no memory of the encounter. After a seemingly genuine apology, the matter was forgiven and forgotten about. This was, however, just the start.

As the weeks went on, it became all too clear to the rest of the group, and to Christine, that Michael was struggling with something, and whatever those struggles were, they were seemingly getting worse. Eventually, other ministers were called in to give their opinion on Michael’s increasingly erratic behavior. They were concerned enough to conclude that demonic possession was a genuine possibility, and they arranged for an exorcism to be undertaken.

Just short of midnight on the evening of October 5th, 1974, at the St. Thames Church in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, ministers Peter Vincent and Raymond Smith began the exorcism, which would last until the early hours of the next morning. During the proceedings, Michael reacted aggressively while screaming profanities. For their part, the ministers carried out practices that would be seen as questionable by today’s standards, to say the least, including forcing a crucifix into Michael’s mouth while repeatedly pouring “holy water” over him. Michael’s demeanor continued to deteriorate, with him almost growling like an animal at one point.

According to those present, over 40 entities were found to be in Michael. Moreover, despite most of them being dispelled, several stronger ones remained. By 8 am, in part due to sheer exhaustion, the exorcism was brought to a halt. It was suggested that everyone get some rest and then they would perform another exorcism the following day. Before that planned exorcism could take place, though, events progressed drastically.

A little over 24 hours after the exorcism was brought to a stop, Michael Taylor was discovered naked and covered in blood outside his home in the middle of the street by a police officer, Ian Walker, while he was on routine patrol. He immediately brought his patrol car to a stop, got out, and approached Taylor, who appeared confused and almost trance-like. As Walker approached further, Taylor lay calmly on the ground, repeating the phrase, “It’s the blood of Satan!” over and over again.

At this point, Walker looked around the street, and for the first time, he saw a police car already parked outside the house he assumed belonged to Taylor. He later discovered that a neighbor had contacted the police a short time earlier due to the obvious sounds of an altercation in the Taylor house. Walker began in the direction of the open front door. Before he could enter the property, however, another police officer suddenly rushed out of it. He looked at Walker for a moment before he vomited onto the street. When he had composed himself somewhat, he turned to Walker and said that Taylor had “ripped at her” and that there was “not much left of her!”

His suspicions that the “her” the officer referred to was Michael Taylor’s wife were confirmed when Walker finally entered the house. He discovered her body in the living room, which was covered completely in blood. Even more horrendous, Walker discovered what was later confirmed to be brain matter on the living room floor. Close to the body of Christine was the lifeless body of the family dog, who, like Christine, had been ravaged beyond recognition.

The police eventually put together a rough timeline of events for that tragic morning. They estimated, that around 9:30 am – only minutes before the arrival of the first police officer – Michael had strangled his wife to death before clawing and ripping at her face. They discovered Christine’s tongue ripped out of her mouth, while her eyes had each been gouged out. She had been attacked so brutally, that some of the bones of her skull were visible through the wounds. Michael was arrested and taken to the police station where he would ultimately be charged with Christine’s murder. A short time after he was placed in custody, he revealed to police exactly what had happened.

He told them of the exorcism the previous day, stating that he was kept locked inside the church right the way through the night. He offered that there was some kind of otherworldly power inside him that he “couldn’t get rid of”, and nor could those who had performed the exorcism. Most disturbing of all, though, he told the police that he was “compelled by a force” within him to “destroy everything living within the house!”

He continued that he couldn’t remember anything about the attack on his wife, adding that he loved and cared about her deeply. He added, however, that he also felt “released” through his actions, and that “the evil in her has (now) been released!”

Within no time at all, in part because of the truly strange background to the murder and partly because the movie The Exorcist had only recently been released, the national press took an intense interest in the case and, more specifically, the trial, which began in March 1975. As part of his defense, Michael offered that he not only had no memory of murdering his wife, he offered that he was under the control of dark, evil forces. Furthermore, he claimed his wife had been possessed by an evil spirit.

The Christian Fellowship Prayer Group also came under severe scrutiny during the trial, not least from Michael Taylor’s defense team. They likened the group to a cult that engaged in “warped religious ideals” that had, ultimately, begun the slow-burn descent in Michael Taylor that led to him brutally murdering his wife.

Attention was also given to the private rituals that Michael had been involved in with the 21-year-old pastor, Marie Robinson, suggesting they were some kind of catalyst for Michael’s horrifying actions. The defense asked just why Michael was seemingly targeted by Marie to take part in these one-on-one rituals. Moreover, the exorcism itself and the brutal methods employed by the ministers involved were brought into question, with one comparison being made to the methods of The Inquisition.

Rightly or wrongly, Michael Taylor was found not guilty of murder on the grounds of reduced responsibility – essentially, he was “insane!” He would spend several years in secure medical facilities before being released from incarceration in the early 1980s.

We might ask, was Michael Taylor temporarily insane at the time he committed the murders? Or could he have been possessed by one or more violent, malicious spirits whose desire for blood was more than he could control? Whether of importance or not, he continued to act irrationally following his release back into the public, even being ordered back into psychiatric care in 2005 for inappropriate behavior with a teenager. Was this proof that Michael Taylor was still a danger to members of the public due to his own mental struggles? Or could it be that the same spirits that had seemingly taken over his body in 1974 still had some kind of hold or influence over him decades later?

Just under 30 years before the events in Yorkshire, also in England, this time in Lower Quinton in Warwickshire, another murder occurred with apparent connections to demons and the paranormal world. On the evening of February 14th, 1945, the body of Charles Walton was discovered near Meon Hill, a location known to be connected to black magic and witchcraft. He was discovered with a pitchfork sticking out of his throat. Closer examination revealed it had been thrust so deeply into his neck that he was almost decapitated.

How he was killed, combined with the location, caused some to immediately speculate that there was some kind of supernatural or paranormal connection. Thrusting a pitchfork through the throat and, essentially, pinning a person to the ground was used against perceived witches. It is a practice called “blooding” and was supposed to encourage blood to drain from the body while also preventing the person from rising after death. Furthermore, many in the village were already suspicious of Walton and his apparent interest in the “dark arts”, so much so that some even blamed him for the particularly poor harvest the previous season.

Detective Superintendent Robert Fabian was in charge of the case, and he immediately suspected Albert Potter, a local landowner to whom Walton owed money. He suspected this debt caused the conflict that ultimately resulted in Walton’s death and that Potter, well aware as he was of all the local legends and the perception of Walton, used such beliefs to cover his tracks. Despite Fabian’s suspicions, however, Potter was never charged with the murder, and the death of Charles Walton remains a complete mystery.

There was one more twist in the tale, however. Around 15 years later, in early 1960, while renovations were taking place in Walton’s former home, his pocket watch – which was the only item that was missing from his person when his body was discovered – suddenly appeared on the property. Inside the pocket watch was a small colored piece of glass that Walton had always claimed was a magic talisman. Walton was well-known for never letting this talisman or the pocket watch he kept out of his sight as he believed it protected him from evil. Folklore says that if such talismans become lost or stolen, they will somehow “find their way home!” Did Walton’s murderer steal this talisman and did it somehow magically appear at the property he once lived before its renovation? Like his death, it remains a complete mystery.

There can be no doubt whatsoever that one of the most unsettling of these murders that blur somewhat into the paranormal world are those that occurred at Hinterkaifeck Farm, not least as they remain unsolved over a century later. The Hinterkaifeck Murders unfolded in early 1922 near the small town of Groben in the alpine woods of Bavaria in Germany. The brutal events would see the slaughter of six people by an unknown assailant, as well as rumors of paranormal activity that even involved speculation from the townsfolk that a one-time lover of one of the victims had returned from the dead.

The Hinterkaifeck Farm was owned by the Gruber family, which consisted of 63-year-old Andreas Gruber and his 72-year-old wife, Cazilia Gruber, as well as their 35-year-old widowed daughter, Viktoria Gabriel, and her children, 7-year-old Cazilia and 2-year-old Josef. Far from living out a happy existence, however, the actions and accusations swirling around the Gruber family were as disturbing as the events that eventually ended in their brutal killings. It was well-known in the community, for example, that Andreas regularly beat his wife and his daughter. Of much more concern was the apparent incestuous relationship he had with Viktoria, something both were found guilty of several years before their deaths.

Following the death of her husband – Karl Gabriel, who was believed to have been killed in the First World War although his body was never recovered – Viktoria wished to marry a neighbor of the family, Lorenz Schlittenbauer, claiming that he was Josef’s father. Not only did her father refuse to allow the marriage, Schlittenbaur denied being Josef’s father, instead claiming that Andreas was (something that had been rumored around the community also). He would even go as far as to report the pair to authorities, which led to them once more being charged with incestuous behavior.

Interestingly, Schlittenbaur would alter his version of events several weeks later, insisting that he was, in fact, Josef’s father, even claiming that he had received a significant amount of money from Viktoria herself, with instructions that he should pay it back to her in installments as child support. These bizarre twists could be of importance, as we shall see later, but one thing that was clear to all was that the Gruber family was far from a normal one.

The source for much of what was known in the local community about the Gruber family came from their maid, Kreszenz Rieger. Suddenly, and without warning, she had suddenly quit her job at the farm in September 1921 (around six months before the murders), following which she told of the many unsavory things she witnessed at the farm. She also, however, told of truly strange goings-on that she attributed to the paranormal, insisting something truly strange existed at the Hinterkaifeck Farm. She told of hearing strange footsteps and people moving around in rooms that she knew were empty, as well as sometimes even hearing unsettling voices coming out of nowhere.  

Over the following months, members of the Gruber family themselves began to speak of strange occurrences they had witnessed. Andreas, for example, spoke to several people about hearing footsteps in the farm’s attic. However, when he ventured upstairs to search the room, he found no one there. Viktoria also mentioned that she had heard strange voices from the attic room.

Perhaps the most unnerving events, though, occurred around a month before the murders following an intense snowstorm. As Andreas was inspecting each of his buildings for any potential snow damage, he noticed a set of footsteps in the freshly fallen snow coming from the forest, seemingly in the direction of the farm. However, these footprints suddenly stopped a short distance from the main house. With no prints leading away or in any other direction, it appeared that whoever had made them had simply vanished into thin air. Later that same night, Andreas once more heard noises and footsteps coming from the attic. Once more, he went to search the room, and once more, he discovered nobody there.

These bizarre events were still occurring when the Gruber family finally found a maid to replace Kreszenz, Maria Baumgartner, who arrived at the farm with her sister on the afternoon of Friday, March 31st, 1922. Her sister remained at the farm for several hours while Maria settled in before she left to return home. It would be the last time she, or anyone else, saw Maria alive. Only four days later, Maria, along with the entire Gruber family, would be discovered dead, having been brutally murdered.

By the afternoon of Tuesday, April 4th, some of the locals began to discuss how they hadn’t seen any of the Grubers over the weekend. They had not been seen at Church, and Cazilia hadn’t attended school the previous two days (Monday and Tuesday), causing members of the community to contemplate that something could be wrong at the farm. Eventually, Lorenz Schlittenbaur, along with two other men, Michael Poll and Jakob Sigi, made their way to the farm. As soon as they entered the barn, they knew the concerns of the community were correct.

To one side of the barn were the bodies of Andreas, his wife Cazilia, and their daughter, Viktoria, each piled on top of each other. Slightly to the side and partially covered with straw was the body of 7-year-old Cazilia. It was clear that all had been killed by repeated blows to the head, likely with a pickax. After getting over their initial shock, the men then went to search the main house, where they would make further harrowing discoveries. In his cot in the bedroom was the body of 2-year-old Josef, once more seemingly killed with a violent blow to the head. Maria was also discovered dead in her room, lying in her bed with similar fatal wounds, as if she had been asleep when the attack took place.

Needless to say, the men, as would be the community at large when they learned of the tragic events, were at a complete loss as to what had happened. Further information, though, would come courtesy of Lorenz Schlittenbaur, and it was suggested that the unsettling, paranormal events were still taking place.

He offered that he had spoken to Andreas on the morning of March 30th, the day before Maria arrived at the farm and the last known sighting of the family alive. According to his account, Andreas had told him that he had discovered a newspaper that was only available in Munich on his doorstep that morning, a newspaper he knew he had not ordered to be delivered. He had searched around the main house and found no signs whatsoever that anyone had been on the property. When he searched the other buildings, though, he would make some concerning discoveries.

On one of the farm buildings – the tool shed – he discovered significant scratch marks on the padlock, suggesting that someone had been attempting to pick the lock. On the same day, a set of keys for the farm also went missing. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, those keys were never found, despite extensive investigation of the property following the discovery of the Gruber family and their maid.  

While initial estimations were that all six victims were killed on a Friday evening (on March 31st), later details would emerge that brought up two possibilities: either these estimations were incorrect and the killings took place later over the weekend, perhaps even as late as the Monday, or that whoever was responsible for the murders remained at the property for several days after.

It came to light that two coffee sellers had visited the farm on Saturday (April 1st) somewhere between midday and 2 pm. They were hopeful of taking an order from the Grubers, but despite walking around the property several times and knocking on the door, they found no sign that anyone was home. What’s more, all the doors were locked. Later that night, though, another witness recalled seeing strange activity at the Gruber residence.

At around midnight on Saturday evening, a local carpenter was returning home, his route taking him right past Hinterkaifeck Farm. As he went past, he could see the fire of the outside oven burning brightly, and what’s more, he could smell “old rags being burned” in the oven. Even stranger, he could also see a strange flashing light in the woods at the edge of the property, as if someone was walking with a pocket lantern. Most disturbing of all, though, when he looked back to the light of the outside oven, he saw what he said was the “shape of a figure” closing the oven door. The figure then turned around and began in his direction before shining a light at him. At this point, the carpenter peddled away as fast as he could.

There was another sighting of some kind of activity at the farm several hours later. At around 3 am, a local butcher was returning home when he also went past the property. He later recalled seeing two suspicious figures near the woodland at the edge of the farm. He stopped and stared for several moments, attempting to see who they might be. However, before he could do so, the figures turned around clearly to hide their faces.

On the morning of April 3rd, at around 8:30 am, Josef Mayer arrived at the farm to deliver the Grubers’ mail. While he stated that while it seemed there was no one home, it appeared to him that the kitchen door of the property was “half-open”. He also found it strange that he didn’t see Josef’s pushchair through the kitchen window as he usually did.

The following morning, early on Tuesday, April 4th, a repairman arrived for a pre-arranged appointment to service one of the food chopper engines. He recalled also seeing no signs of life at the property, but as he could complete the work in the yard, he repaired the engine and then left, making a note to return later for payment. Of course, several hours later, Lorenz Schlittenbaur and the two other men arrived and found the six victims dead.

Plenty of other details emerged during the investigation that also caused contemplation as to what had happened at the farm that weekend. For example, although they couldn’t recall seeing the Grubers themselves, several members of the local community attested to having seen smoke coming from the chimney of the farmhouse during the weekend. Moreover, some local residents stated they could see signs of movement around the house as if someone was inside. Even stranger, when the house was examined following the grim discovery of the six bodies, there were clear indications that it had been occupied by at least one person throughout the weekend, and quite possibly until late on the Monday (the day before the bodies were discovered). A freshly baked, half-eaten loaf of bread was discovered, as well as several cold joints of meat that appeared to have been recently sliced.

Without a doubt, one of the strangest details noticed during the examination of the farm was that all of the animals and livestock had been recently fed, once more suggesting that at least one person was at the property (or at the very least, returned there) seemingly after the murders had been committed. We also have to ask, as investigators did at the time, why a cold-blooded killer would go out of their way to ensure the animals were fed and in good health before they finally vacated the farm.

What made these discoveries even stranger was that despite the house containing cash and valuable jewelry, nothing appeared to have been taken, meaning that whatever the motivation might have been for the killings, it didn’t appear to have been burglary or theft. If someone was at the farm during that weekend, assuming it almost certainly wasn’t the Grubers, just who might it have been, and, more importantly, were they the killer? Many people have faced scrutiny over the years that followed.

Perhaps for obvious reasons – not least due to the denials and then claims of being Josef’s father – the Grubers’ neighbor Lorenz Schlittenbaur was a person of interest to many, and it is easy to see why.

When Schlittenbaur, along with Michael Poll and Jakob Sigi, discovered the bodies, they also found the Grubers’ dog tied up elsewhere in the barn. Interestingly or not, the dog remained calm near Poll and Sigi, but on the several occasions that Schlittenbaur approached it, it growled and even snarled at him. Had the animal witnessed him carry out the brutal acts? Poll and Sigi also later noted that the Grubers’ neighbor appeared to have a strange detachment to the brutal scene they discovered, almost as if he knew the carnage they would discover when they first entered the barn. It was also Schlittenbaur who discovered the bodies of Josef and Maria after having entered the main house alone. Did he know they were there? Perhaps most suspicious of all, though, was the fact that Schlittenbaur had the keys to enter the main house in the first place. Were these the keys that he claimed Andreas had told him were missing?

Perhaps even more damning was the discovery that Viktoria was seemingly planning on taking Schlittenbaur to court as he had ceased paying child support for Josef. This not only meant he had the means to carry out the acts, he also, potentially at least, had the motive. Despite all of these details, Schlittenbaur maintained he had nothing to do with the deaths at Hinterkaifeck Farm, and investigators were unable to find any solid evidence against him.

Some members of the local community quietly suspected another perpetrator – Viktoria’s husband, Karl Gabriel, the same Karl Gabriel who was presumed deceased in the First World War. We might recall that Gabriel’s body was never recovered, leading to some suggestions that he had not been killed in the war after all and had returned to the farm to discover that Viktoria had given birth to another man’s child. It was speculated that, full of rage, Gabriel had snapped and murdered Viktoria before killing the rest of the family and Maria to ensure he was not identified.

What made these claims a little more believable was that several people said they had witnessed Karl Gabriel alive and well in the years after his apparent demise. Some of these witnesses even went as far as to offer that Gabriel had told them he planned to travel to Russia once he realized he was presumed dead.

Although it wasn’t known at the time, years later, following the end of the Second World War, several intriguing claims reached Germany courtesy of German prisoners of war released by the Soviet Union. These claims involved a Soviet Soldier who spoke fluent German who confided in some of the German prisoners that he was the person behind the Hinterkaifeck Murders.

There are multiple things to think about and consider here, not least if it was possible that Karl Gabriel could have somehow survived the war and then, ultimately, deserted to Russia while the German authorities ruled him officially dead. And if he did achieve this, what made him return to the farm in the early spring of 1922? Had he suddenly wished to rekindle his marriage with Viktoria and then committed the killings in a fit of rage upon discovering she had given birth to another man’s child, as some put forward? Or had he somehow become aware of this from afar, news which caused him to return to the farm in the first place? And if that was the case, were the murders premeditated, or were they unplanned and occurred in the moment?

There is also reason to speculate that Viktoria was more than aware that Gabriel was very much alive, at least in the days before her death, and what’s more, that she very well could have been planning on leaving the farm and, essentially, running away with him. In the days before the murders, for example, Viktoria withdrew a significant amount of money from her bank account, with the money remaining unrecovered or accounted for since. Even more interesting, while the other residents of the farm were discovered in their nightclothes, only Viktoria and Cazilia were fully dressed, each even wearing a large overcoat, as if they were getting ready to leave. If that was the case, was she planning to leave with Karl Gabriel with their daughter? And if so, why did they, as well as the other victims, end up dead?

Might we speculate that Karl Gabriel had returned to Germany from Russia and that Viktoria was not only aware of his return but was harboring him at the farm until they could leave? Could it be that the strange noises and footsteps heard in the attic were, in fact, Gabriel?

Might the killings have not been pre-planned at all, and could they have been a result of the family – or at least Andreas and his wife – discovering their plans and attempting to stop their daughter from leaving? If this was the case, why were Josef and Maria killed – who we might assume had remained in the house? And, if Viktoria was planning to leave with Gabriel, taking Cazilia with them, why were they murdered also? Perhaps the killing of Viktoria’s parents was a crime committed in the moment, which led to Gabriel insisting he had to kill Josef and Maria, so there were no witnesses. We might imagine that while it is one thing for Viktoria to leave her young son behind, it is another altogether for her to agree and, essentially, participate in his murder. Could this disagreement have led to Gabriel taking the decision to also kill Viktoria and Cazilia?

Perhaps the murders, at least those of Andreas and Cazilia Gruber, Josef, and Maria, were planned all along. Once more, there could have been a disagreement following these murders that led to Viktoria and Cazilia also being killed, or we might contemplate that Gabriel had planned to double-cross his former wife all along – we might recall that the money she had removed from her bank account was missing and unaccounted for.

While Lorenz Schlittenbaur and even Karl Gabriel (who was never located, incidentally, and remains officially, killed in the First World War) were the main suspects, several others were briefly brought into the frame over the years that followed. However, no one was ever charged in connection with the killings, and the murders remain unsolved and unexplained.       

There is, though, the paranormal aspects to all of this. Were they somehow connected to these harrowing events? What should we make, for example, of the footsteps Andreas had witnessed in the snow – footsteps that stopped in the middle of the yard as if the person who had made them had simply vanished? If Karl Gabriel hadn’t returned from the dead, what was responsible for the strange noises, footsteps, and even voices coming from the attic?

We might also ask what the strange lights were that the carpenter and the butcher recalled seeing in the woods. Were these the lanterns of the killer, or could these lights be paranormal in nature? It is worth mentioning here something Cazilia had said to her teachers after she had fallen asleep at school several weeks before the murders; she claimed she was tired because of “chasing her grandmother through the woods” during the night. It is not known what she meant by this, but might we contemplate that the Grubers – at least Andreas and his wife – were in the habit of performing strange, dark rituals in the woods around their farm in the middle of the night, and could these rituals have involved Cazilia, likely against her will and in some kind of confused state? Admittedly that is wild speculation, but if there was any truth to such claims, might we contemplate further that these speculative rituals resulted in the unleashing of some kind of paranormal or demonic force, one that would ultimately result in the family’s untimely ends?

As unlikely as it might be, was some kind of entity, such as a poltergeist, attracted to the house, perhaps because of the negative energies we might expect to have existed there in light of the beatings and incestuous behavior? Ultimately, like the murders themselves, the apparent paranormal activity surrounding the killings remains unexplained.

There is perhaps one more thing to consider – that someone wanted to make the Grubers believe they were the victims of paranormal activity, perhaps to drive them out of the community. While this is once more pure speculation, we know that the Grubers were far from popular in the wider community, a community that, for the most part, was made up of hardline churchgoers. And within this hardline religious mindset would have almost certainly existed a belief in demons, evil, and even the Devil himself. Indeed, it is not too much of a stretch of the imagination to think that some of the community would have seen the very real manifestation of evil at the Hinterkaifeck Farm and the Gruber family.

Again, remaining in speculation territory, could it be possible that at least some members of the community took matters into their own hands to rid themselves of the family once and for all? Could it be that one or more members of the wider community were responsible for spooking the Grubers and then, ultimately, murdering them? For now, it seems all possibilities remain on the table.

As we can see, then, there are many more examples of blurred lines between brutal murders in the real world and paranormal entities from beyond the grave than many of us might think. And these are just a small example of the many similar cases on record. One thing we haven’t examined here (not least, as we shall return to it in a future article) is the many murder investigations that, officially or not, make use of the power of psychics to apprehend the respective culprits. If we did so, we would surely find further connections between harrowing murders and entities and powers from the other side.  

What should we make of these cases? Are they nothing but half-truths and coincidences? Or could there be much more to them? Is it really possible, for example, that a murder victim could return from the dead to make contact with the living so that they help them reveal their murderer? Can such spirits return to haunt their killers until they break and confess to their crimes? And what should we make of the cases of possession – both to relay information about a murder or even to carry out a killing? Indeed, like many aspects of the paranormal world, there are many more questions than answers. And for any answer we receive, several further questions arise.

One thing that is certain, if any of the accounts we have examined here, or any of the other similar encounters that are on record, have even partial truths to them, then not only will that change what we know about our own reality, but also give us an insight into what awaits each one of us after death on the other side. Perhaps it might also help us understand if each one of us will have the ability to somehow return to the realm of the living, or at least make our presence known, or if this otherworldly journey is exclusive to those who have “unfinished business” in this world. Only further study of these fascinating cases will bring us collectively closer to such lofty realizations.