This time of year, spooky stories can be told around the campfire, scaring little children for amusement and into obedience. Sometimes it can be hard to find that horrifying, stomach-churning, gut-wrenching story to keep the kids on their toes, so what better story than one that actually happened and has never been solved?

The Hinterkaifeck Murders

Few concepts disturb more than the image of footprints going towards a location with none coming back. But what if the footprints had been made by the killer, not the victim? In Bavaria, Germany, 1922, Andreas Hinterkaifeck mentioned strange happenings around his family farm to friends. A maid quit because she believed the farm to be haunted. Nobody outside of Hinterkaifeck’s family felt concerned until his 7-year-old granddaughter failed to show up for school one day, the family stopped appearing in church, and mail began to pile up significantly at the post office. Grunge informs that, “a search party was assembled by neighboring families, led by Lorenz Schlittenbauer, a farmer who had previously had a relationship with [Hinterkaifeck’s widowed adult daughter].”

The search party discovered eight victims in total: the entire Hinterkaifeck family and their maid. Evidence showed that the murder weapon had likely been a pickaxe-like tool called a mattock. Six of the bodies lay in the garage, and the other two had been covered with sheets inside the house. Police could not identify any suspects; anyone that their focus turned to had been cleared of involvement. Investigators speculate that the murderer lived in the Hinterkaifecks house without their knowledge for approximately six months before committing the horrendous multiple homicide, and continued to live at the house until the search party found the mauled bodies.

The Ice Box Murders

On June 25, 1965, two Houston police officers, Charles Bullock and L.M. Barta, answered a welfare call from Marvin Martin, the nephew of the home owners Fred and Edwina Rogers. Martin reported that he had not heard from his aunt for an unusual amount of time. According to All That’s Interesting, the officers knocked on the door, but received no answer, which prompted them to check the back of the house, where they found “a makeshift barricade of flower pots obstructing the back door.” Suspicious, they entered the house and Officer Bullock had a strange feeling which led to him searching the fridge. At first, the officers mistook the objects in the vegetable drawer for hog meat, but as they looked closer, they recognized the heads of the homeowners. The killer did not stop at decapitation; the details may be a little gruesome for some readers, so check out All That’s Interesting for more information. The police primarily suspected the victims’ son, Charles Rogers, who had supposedly endured his parents “manipulative behavior for years… his parents took out loans in his name, robbed him of his savings, and made his life a living hell,’’ which made for a good motive. Unfortunately, the police never had the chance to question Rogers because he disappeared. Police conducted a “nationwide” search for him, but he has never been found. Officials declared him dead in 1975.

These cases likely won’t ever be solved. However, if students have an interest in solving other cold cases, Mrs. Cattrell teaches a Forensic Science course, which delves into the workings of criminal science.