00:00Footprints in fresh snow led straight to the farmhouse door, but there were no footprints leading back.
00:07Days later, neighbors found the whole family gone, and smoke still rising from the chimney, as if someone was still
00:14living inside.
00:16Who walked into Hinterkaifeck that night, and never walked out?
00:20In March 1922, Hinterkaifeck was a quiet farmstead hidden in the cold Bavarian woods of Germany.
00:28Andreas Gruber, his wife Kazilia, their widowed daughter Victoria, her two small children, and the family maid all lived there,
00:36far from the nearest village.
00:38Weeks before the end, Andreas began telling neighbors strange things.
00:42He had found footprints in the snow, one set leading from the forest to the house, and none returning.
00:49A newspaper he had never bought lay on the porch, and at night, the family heard footsteps in the attic.
00:56Above rooms that should have been empty.
00:59Then, the house key vanished.
01:01The old maid quit, saying the house was haunted.
01:05A new maid arrived on the last day of March.
01:08That same evening, neighbors saw smoke from the chimney.
01:11Then, silence.
01:13No one went to church on Sunday.
01:15The children missed school.
01:17Letters piled up, unopened, at the post office.
01:20Four days later, concerned neighbors finally walked to the farm.
01:24Inside the barn, they made a terrible discovery.
01:28The family, and the new maid, had been taken by someone who knew the farm well.
01:33Someone who had stayed in the house after that night, feeding the animals, eating the food, and keeping the fire
01:40alive.
01:41Investigators found the attic floor covered with hay, as if someone had slept there, watching and waiting.
01:48Roof tiles had been shifted, giving a clear view of the yard below.
01:53Whoever it was had been living above the family, listening to them, for days, maybe weeks.
01:59More than 100 suspects were questioned over the years.
02:02Robbers, neighbors, old grievances from the war.
02:06Every lead faded to nothing.
02:08No weapon was ever matched, no stranger was ever identified, and no one was ever charged.
02:13A century later, the farmhouse is gone, but the footprints remain in the case files.
02:19One set of tracks, walking out of the dark forest toward the lonely house, and the silence that followed.
02:25Who was waiting in the attic of Hinterkaifeck?
02:28Germany's most haunting cold case has never given up its answer.
