On the morning of October 30, 1928, in the quiet village of Lake Bluff, Illinois, an ordinary day took a sinister turn. Chief of Police Barney Rosenhagen and municipal worker Chris Louis arrived at the town hall, which also served as the police station and firehouse. The building was unusually cold, prompting Barney to send Chris to check the furnace. What Chris discovered would leave the town reeling for decades.

Chris unlocked the cellar doors leading to the furnace room. Inside, he encountered a dark, human-like figure slumped in a corner. Believing he had seen a ghost, Chris fled and alerted Barney. The two men returned, only to be confronted by a horrific reality. The figure spoke, saying, “I’m cold.” It was Elfrieda Knaak, a 30-year-old woman from Deerfield, Illinois, severely burned and naked. Barney wrapped her in a blanket and summoned help.

Elfrieda was a well-known figure in Deerfield, one of eleven children born to Dr. Theodore Knaak, a respected local physician. At the time of her death, she was working as a door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson. On October 29, she had attended a sales meeting in Chicago, phoning her family afterward to inform them she’d return home shortly. However, a broken-down bus diverted her route to Lake Bluff, where her movements became a mystery.

Investigators discovered Elfrieda in a furnace room with two heating units. The smaller, gravity-fed water boiler was identified as the source of her burns. Her personal items, including her watch and shoes, were found nearby, but most of her clothing was missing. Burn marks and ash remnants suggested her head and body had been in contact with the boiler’s hot coals. She suffered third-degree burns on 30% of her body, with devastating injuries to her hands, feet, and head. Despite these injuries, Elfrieda clung to life for three days, during which she offered cryptic statements to detectives, alternately claiming responsibility for her injuries and hinting at foul play.

Elfrieda’s fragmented words included, “I did it, it was me,” as well as references to a “Hitch” and statements like, “He pushed me down” and “Why did they do it?” Despite her confession, questions about the involvement of others lingered. She succumbed to her injuries on November 2, leaving behind more questions than answers.

Police focused their investigation on Charles “Hitch” Hitchcock, a local speech instructor and town watchman. Elfrieda had taken his speech classes, leading to speculation about a potential relationship. Charles, a married father of four, denied any personal connection to Elfrieda and provided an alibi, supported by a doctor’s confirmation of his recent ankle injury. His wife, Estelle, also vouched for him but admitted she could not confirm his whereabouts on the night of October 29. Other individuals connected to Elfrieda were also scrutinized. Among them were a violin instructor who shared studio space with Charles and a spiritualist who visited Elfrieda in the hospital. Letters from a “B. Lock”, traced to a Mrs. Roch from Libertyville, hinted at a deeper relationship, but investigators found no evidence linking these individuals to the incident. Even Elfrieda’s best friend, Marie Mueller, who harbored feelings for Charles, was questioned without result. Amid these inquiries, detectives uncovered a potential clue in Elfrieda’s home. A book titled Christ in You contained an underlined passage about “the purifying power of pain” and “The Refiner’s Fire,” suggesting she may have been influenced by spiritual or religious beliefs about suffering. This finding bolstered the theory of suicide, but inconsistencies in the case continued to trouble the Knaak family.

Unexplained bloodstains on the furnace room door and the locked state of the room when Chris discovered Elfrieda raised doubts about the official narrative. The family hired a private investigator, but no new evidence emerged. Over the years, multiple individuals falsely confessed to the crime, including a chauffeur, a self-proclaimed occultist, and a man claiming to be an Egyptian hypnotist. All were eventually dismissed as hoaxes.

The mystery deepened when crucial evidence, including the coroner’s report, autopsy photos, and items from the furnace room, disappeared in the 1980s after the death of a police chief. This loss rendered further investigation impossible.

Adding another layer of intrigue, Marie Mueller married Charles Hitchcock 14 years after Elfrieda’s death. Following Charles’ passing in 1964, Marie’s niece revealed that Marie had confessed to a romantic involvement involving herself, Elfrieda, and Charles, and claimed to know the truth about Elfrieda’s death. However, Marie refused to share details, leaving these assertions unverified.

Today, the tragic death of Elfrieda Knaak remains an unsolved mystery. The combination of circumstantial evidence, conflicting testimonies, and missing records ensures that the truth of what happened that night in Lake Bluff’s furnace room may never be known. Her story continues to haunt the small town and serves as a reminder of the enduring enigma surrounding one woman’s untimely demise.

https://fearflicks.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-burari-deaths-haunting-case-of.html

In 1922 a German farmer by the name Andreas Gruber woke up and found footprints in the snow leading from the forest right up to his back door. Whoever had come to his house hadn't left as there were no other footprints leaving the house, other then the ones leading up to the door. He went to make sure it wasn't just his family. It wasn't. he then searched everywhere on his property in his house everywhere. Nothing, he could not determine who made the footprints or where they went. Weeks leading up to this incident, Kreszenz Rieger, the family maid abruptly quit. It was later found out she claimed hearing stranger noises coming from the attic. She believed the house to be haunted.

On the afternoon of Friday March 31, 1922, a new maid arrived at the Hinterkaifeck farm. Maria Baumgartner had been escorted to Hinterkaifeck by her sister, who left the farm after a brief stay. It was likely that Baumgartner’s sister was the last person to see the Gruber family and her sister alive. A few days go by and No one hears from the Gruber family. Saturday and Monday, little Cecilia was supposed to attend her school, but she didn't show up to. and on Sundays, none of her family members went to church. On Tuesday April 4th, a mechanic visited the farm and spent a few hours fixing farm equipment, but none of the family came out. When the repairman thought it was strange and told the villagers of Kaypek, the villagers also wondered, The family of Hinterkaifek Farm are nowhere to be seen.

At some point during the night of March 31st. Andreas and his wife Cäzilia, along with their daughter Viktoria and granddaughter Cäzilia, were lured away from the house one at a time to the barn, where they were attacked and murdered. The killer had used a hatchet that belonged to the family farm, inflicting blows to the head. The killer then went into the family's house, and using the same weapon, killed the youngest son Josef, while he slept as well as Baumgartner, who was found in her bedroom. The bodies of the family and their maid would remain undiscovered over the next four days. The day after the murders, April 1st at around 3:30pm, Lorenz Schlittenbauer sent his sixteen-year-old son Johann to the Hinterkaifeck farm to see if they could find the whereabouts of the Gruber family. He eventually returned home and reported he hadn't seen anyone at the Hinterkaifeck farm. Schlittenbauer headed to the farm the same day in the company of Michael Plöckl and Jakob Sigl. The three men entered the barn and there found the bodies of Andreas Gruber, his wife Cäzilia Gruber, his daughter Viktoria Gabriel, and his granddaughter Cäzilia. Schlittenbauer stacked on top of each other, he then went into the house alone shortly afterwards, and there found the maid, Maria Baumgartner, and the youngest family member, Josef, murdered inside the house. The victims in the barn suffered horrendous injuries. Cäcilia Gruber was found to have eight holes in the right side of her skull, while her daughter Viktoria’s skull was found to have nine holes after being hit repeatedly on the right side of her head.

Both of the murder weapons belonged to Andreas Gruber, who suffered significantly different injuries to the other members of his family. He was found to have died from a fall onto the tip of the heavy pickaxe, which was found in the animal feeding trough. This wound tore open his carotid artery, causing him to bleed to death within a very short time. The flesh was torn open on the right side of his cheek and the cheekbone protruded. He only had this one injury. Detectives believe the killer had remained in the house for three days with bodies of the victims, and despite a thorough investigation, this gruesome crime remains unsolved to this day.

The police set about questioning eye-witnesses who came forward with information. One such person questioned was artisan Michael Plöckl. In an interview with Michael, he States he would walk past the Hinterkaifecker's property every morning and evening as he went to and from work. According to Michael, On Friday night March 31st around 9:00 o'clock, as he was returning from work, he was illuminated with a lantern by a man who was coming towards him from a field near Hinterkaifeck. This man, whom he did not know very well, then jumped back into the field without saying anything. As Plöckl told me, the figure of the man matched that of Lorenz Schlittenbauer.

As he continued walking, Plöckl noticed that there must have been a fire in the Hinterkaifecker's oven because he saw smoke rising. This smoke had a disgusting smell, as if old rags were being burned. Plöckl also told me that that evening, or rather, on that night, the inhabitants of the Kaifeck were killed, at least that night was described by the homicide squad as the night of murder. Plöckl said "I am convinced that Schlittenbauer burned his blood-stained clothes in the oven that evening". For many years people speculated that Schlittenbauer murdered the family after Viktoria demanded financial support for young Josef. Before his death in 1941, Schlittenbauer initiated and won several civil claims for slander against those people who described him as the “murderer of Hinterkaifeck”. If Schlittenbauer had knowledge of who committed the Hinterkaifeck murders, he took the secret with him to the grave.

( Thank you guys for reading I hope you enjoyed it, I spent a whole day reading and watching documentaries and what not on this story. I know I didn't get all the details but I tried to cover most of it lmk what you think! )