The Wolf Family Murders: An Unsolved Case

The Wolf Family Murders: An Unsolved Case

41-year-old farmer Jacob Wolf emigrated to Turtle Lake, North Dakota from Southern Russia in 1903 looking to build a successful future for himself following anti-German propaganda back home. In 1905, 2 years after arriving on American soil, Jacob married a woman named Beata Bossert, 35, who had also emigrated to the United States from Southern Russia.

The pair ran one of the most successful farmsteads in Turtle Lake, all the while raising six daughters. Bertha, who was 13, Maria, who was nine, Edna, eight, Lydia, five, Martha, three, and Emma, who was nine months old. They also shared a good relationship with their chore boy and farmhand, 13-year-old Jacob Jake Hoffer, who by all accounts was like a son to them.

The family were well-liked amongst their community, many of which were also German-Russian immigrants who flocked to the Dakotas following bitter anti-German propaganda after the First World War. But with this being said, however, the Wolf family had quarreled in recent months with their neighboring farmer, Henry Layer, after the Wolf’s farm dogs attacked one of Layer’s cows after it crossed into the Wolf’s pastures.

Both Jacob and Henry argued over compensation for the attack on Layer’s livestock, though the incident in question took place six months prior to the Wolf’s murders in November of 1919 and there was no evidence of any hostility towards them in the subsequent months. Prior to this particular incident, Jacob and Henry were reportedly on good terms.

In the early hours of April 24th, 1920, following a heavy storm, a neighbor named John Kraft who was driving past the Wolf’s farmstead noticed that it looked eerily silent. Clothes had been hanging out to dry for over a day and three of the horses had remained saddled by the haystacks. The Wolf’s normally carried out numerous chores across the farm throughout the day and yet nobody appeared to be around.

Up until this point, life carried on as normal with farm duties having been carried out as usual. Both Jacob and Beata had celebrated their birthdays just a week prior and Jacob had even arranged to purchase a drill press on April 22nd though he had unusually failed to collect it. John returned to his home and informed his wife of the strange silence at the Wolf’s farm and the pair then made their way back to the farm to see what was going on.

Upon their arrival, all that was heard was the crying of a child but nothing more. Scouring the exterior of the property, the Krafts tumbled upon the bodies of Jacob, Maria, and Edna in the barn. Jacob had sustained a large gaping wound in his back. He had been shot twice, once from further afield, the second from close range.

 The wound was several inches in diameter and had even ripped three ribs from Jacob’s spine. The bodies of 10-year-old Maria and 8-year-old Edna were discovered in the barn with both girls lying underneath some hay and a pail of dirt. Both had been shot in the back of the head once again at close range. Their hair and skin covered in gunpowder.

The Krafts then entered the Wolf’s home through the kitchen and were left immediately shocked when they discovered a trail of blood on the floor leading towards the cellar door. With bated breath, the couple walked down into the cellar only to be met with a gruesome scene. Mother Beata Wolf was the first corpse to meet their eyes.

 She had suffered a gunshot wound to the back which had been within close range similarly to her husband. Beside her was their eldest daughter Bertha who had also suffered a gunshot wound to the face. She also appeared to have injuries sustained by a hatchet or similar object. Young Lydia also appeared to have sustained hatchet wounds to her body though she had also been shot within close range behind her left ear.

Martha was the only one who had not been shot. However, she had suffered a fatal beating with the perpetrator having used the broadside of the hatchet’s blade to beat her to death. The fifth body to lie within the cellar was the family’s farm hand Jacob Hoefer who had been shot through the neck fatally hitting his jugular vein.

The Krafts continued to search through the property for any signs of life and found the youngest member of the family 9-month-old Emma crying in her crib. She hadn’t been fed or changed in at least two days. After discovering the bodies of the Wolf family, the Krafts tried to contact the police from the landline of the Wolf’s farm.

 However, they soon realized that the lines had been cut. As a result, the Krafts decided to take the only surviving member of the family, 9-month-old Emma, back to their home to keep her safe in case the perpetrator was still at large. The Krafts then subsequently contacted Washburn police telling them about the horrific scenes at the Wolf’s farmstead.

When authorities arrived at the farm, they were met with a grizzly sight. The bodies were examined by investigators and they managed to determine that the murders had taken place approximately 48 hours prior, most likely on April 22nd, 1920. When investigators scoured the crime scene and started collecting evidence, they did notice a number of things which struck them as being rather odd.

As previously mentioned, the phone lines had been cut and the reasons why were unclear. According to a number of German newspapers who reported on the murders at the time, the bodies of both 13-year-olds Bertha and Jacob Hoefer were found wearing gloves. We don’t know if this particular piece of information is true or not, though if both teens were found wearing gloves, it means that they possibly had encountered the perpetrator not long after coming in from working in the fields or perhaps doing some chores. Bertha and Jacob were

believed to have been killed in the kitchen before their bodies were dragged down to the cellar and dumped there. Though only one large pool of blood was discovered on the kitchen floor, leaving many to believe Jacob may have been the only one killed in that particular location.

 The presence of blood spatters on the cellar walls indicated that Beata, Lydia, and Martha were killed there and possibly Bertha as well. Whilst the police scoured the property to look for clues or any evidence, they uncovered the hatchet which was used to kill several members of the Wolf family as well as some bloody rags and overalls which were hidden within the kitchen.

Police believed that the overalls were used in an attempt to clean the floor and that these particular overalls had actually belonged to Jacob Wolf. Evidence indicated that Jacob had been shot and killed in the yard before his body was dragged into the barn and covered with hay similarly to two of his daughters who lay dead beside him.

Authorities were able to trace Maria and Edna’s footsteps through the house. Their trail suddenly ending at a window. Because of this, authorities believed that the sisters escaped through the window in order to flee from the perpetrator. They attempted to hide in the barn beneath a stack of hay. However, they were eventually discovered and shot in the back of the head from point-blank range.

An auctioneer going by the name of E.N. Mayer who was helping police investigate the crime claimed to have uncovered the gun believed to have been the murder weapon in a pond just a short distance away from the property. Unfortunately, as far as tracing the weapon back to its owner or manufacturer, this was a nearly impossible task.

 It was not a weapon owned by the Wolf family and despite questioning neighbors, nobody seemed to recognize the shotgun in question. Police weren’t able to link the weapon to anyone in the vicinity, leaving them at a loss as to who had so brutally murdered the Wolfs and Jacob Hoefer. According to a number of witness statements which were published in various German newspapers at the time, gunshots were heard on the Wolf farm at around 10:00 a.m.

 on April 22nd by a neighbor. Shots being heard was not unusual in the farming community, pest control and the like, so it wasn’t a cause for concern for the neighbor who heard it. The 13-year-olds Bertha and Jacob Hoefer were spotted in a field not too far from the farmhouse at around 11:30 a.m. This corroborates the idea that they were not in the house when the killings began, that they returned after completing their work and were subsequently murdered.

 Following this was 2 days of silence until John Kraft grew concerned for his neighbors and checked upon them, only to find them dead. It was at around this time that the police came to learn about the feud between the Wolfs and their neighbor Henry Layer over the cattle which had been bitten by one of the Wolfs dogs 6 months prior.

As a result, police suspected that Henry was involved in the family massacre. Not much is known about Heinrich Layer other than he was born in Southern Russia and immigrated with his parents to North Dakota in 1886. Henry then went on to marry a woman named Lydia in 1912, and similarly to Jacob Wolf, he was a farmer with his property located not too far from the Wolf stetting.

Henry was very much known to keep himself to himself, though he did help other local residents with the upkeep of the Wolf’s farm following this horrific tragedy. As the investigation into the murders went on, Henry started to hear a lot of rumors circulating in the area that he was being considered as a suspect in this case.

The sheriff had allegedly heard that Henry had spread rumors in the past about Jacob Wolf, claiming that he had sexual relations with one of the neighbor’s daughters. No one was actually able to confirm whether this was fact or fiction, so many just believed it to be a wild and scandalous rumor.

 Though this, as well as the cattle incident, was enough for some sort of feud to develop between the Layers and the Wolfs. According to numerous reports, whilst Henry was helping with the upkeep of the Wolf’s farm following the crime, he allegedly suggested to the sheriff that they should check the eggs in the chicken coop for clues.

 When police went to investigate, they actually found three 12-gauge shotgun shells in the hay. Investigators allegedly had not come across these when looking in the chicken coop earlier that same day, and this caused them to become extremely suspicious of Henry. The when questioned about this particular incident, Henry claimed that one of Beata’s brothers had suggested the idea of checking the chicken coop.

During the early hours of the morning following the discovery of the bodies, the county sheriff Ole Stefferud had been left alone at the farm whilst both of Beata’s brothers and Emmanuel Hoefer, who was looking after baby Emma, drove away to fetch breakfast. At around 5:30 a.m.

, Stefferud witnessed a man pull up to the farm in a car before glancing through the windows and walking towards the barn. Stefferud stopped the man in his tracks and spoke with him. It was Henry Layer with one of his hands glued within one of his pockets, yet more suspicion. It was at this time that Layer and one of Beata’s brothers checked the chicken coop and the pair discovered the shotgun shells.

 Stafford then noticed that Henry no longer held his guarded hand in his pocket. News about the horrific murders quickly spread across the Dakotas, all the while a political battle was in full swing. The governor of North Dakota and the attorney general were fighting for the Republican seat and after a week had passed and the governor Lynn Frazier had made no public comments regarding the gruesome murders, the attorney general William Langer sent some of his own investigators to help solve the crime.

As the public were putting pressure on law enforcement to solve it, the Langer had an ulterior motive. He wanted to get the people on his side so that he would win the upcoming election. He visited the crime scene with the chief of police from Bismarck, a special agent for the North Pacific Railway and a private operative for the Fields Detective Agency of St. Paul.

Langer even donated $1,000 to help with the investigation, whereas his political rival refused to use the state’s money to help catch the killer. The public were beginning to favor Langer for his commitment. Meanwhile, the Turtle Lake community had raised over $10,000 reward money for anyone who could bring the Wolf’s killer or killers to justice.

 Despite their solidarity, the residents feared for their own lives with many farmers staying awake at night with their shotguns in hand, fearful that the murderer was still around. The funeral for the Wilf family and for Jacob Huffer was attended by over 2,500 people. Some had come as far as 50 miles just to be there, which was a long way to travel back in the 1920s.

Rumors circulated at the funeral that Henry Lee Huffer had insisted to see the bodies of all the victims in open caskets, but according to a lot of news articles, this is inaccurate. This is due to the fact that Turtle Lake as a whole were mostly German Russians, and it was custom for them at the time to have open caskets at funerals.

On May 6th, shortly after the funerals, the Wilf property, their animals, and all of their belongings were auctioned off. This seemed quite rash considering it had been less than 3 weeks since the crime had been committed, and some potentially damning evidence could have easily been lost. Whilst Henry attended the funeral, other investigators went to his farm to conduct their own inquiries, including questioning one of his daughters.

 She had recalled a day in the previous week where her father had been absent for much of the morning, though she couldn’t remember which day specifically. Evidence against Henry Lee Huffer was stacking up, though one could argue that the evidence was purely circumstantial. An arrest needed to be made. Pressure was mounting heavily on law enforcement to do so, and on May 12th, police arrived at Lee Huffer’s farm and arrested him, believing that their circumstantial evidence was enough for them to believe that Henry had committed

this heinous crime. Whilst police were driving to the station, they pulled over at the side of the road and arrested a supposed criminal, who was actually an undercover officer. The pair were then placed in at the same cell at the Washburn police station and were left there for hours where the criminal questioned Layer extensively about what happened with the police hoping to coax a confession out of him.

However, their efforts proved to be fruitless. Henry was then questioned by police who had already made up their minds regarding his guilt. They asked Henry how and why he killed the Wolfs, showing him crime scene images and told him to confess to his crimes repeatedly. He denied having any involvement and proclaimed his innocence throughout the interrogation which lasted for several grueling hours.

The investigators told Henry that an angry mob was waiting outside the station and told him that he would be attacked by them if he didn’t confess. According to law enforcement, after hours of extensive questioning, Henry admitted to killing the Wolf family and their farmhand. However, according to Layer himself, he confessed out of fear for his own life.

The officers questioning him told him that he would be safer in a jail cell and that they would keep him away from the angry residents outside of the station. In his confession, Henry stated that on Thursday, April 22nd, he had decided to finally confront Jacob Wolf and demand compensation for the injuries sustained to his cattle 6 months prior. This seemed odd.

 Why wait 6 months to seek out compensation? Henry claimed that he entered the Wolf’s property from the north side at around 11:30 where he then got into an altercation with Jacob. Although this is where the first problem arises because if he had arrived from the north, he would have been seen by several other neighbors who were out plowing their fields that morning, and yet no one ever recalled seeing Henry near the Wilf’s property.

The second issue here is that if Henry had arrived at 11:30, an hour and a half after neighbors had heard gunshots and when the phone lines had been severed, this doesn’t match the timeline of events. The Wilfs would have already been a deceased by this time, apart from 13-year-old Bertha and Jacob Hofer. Also, the third issue is that Henry walked to the farm, a place which was guarded by Wilf’s herding dogs, including the one which had attacked Layer’s castle.

 Surely, the dogs would have barked and alerted anyone of any trespassers. Layer had also claimed to have entered the Wilf’s home, but this in itself was odd as Henry and Jacob were not exactly friends. Would Jacob have willingly allowed Henry into his home, especially considering the bad blood between them? Henry then claimed that an altercation between him and Jacob, which took place in the kitchen, soon got out of hand and Jacob pulled out his shotgun, though the Wilfs did not own the shotgun used in the killings. The two then fought for

the weapon, which then discharged twice, killing Beata and Jacob Hofer. This again seems contradictory to the evidence found in the cellar, which indicated that Beata was killed there and not in the kitchen. It was then alleged that Jacob fled the house, at which point Henry reached into a dresser drawer and reloaded the gun, firing once from long range, hitting Jacob and shooting a second time within close range.

 The issue with this particular statement is how did Henry Layer know where the ammunition was kept unless of course he saw Jacob take ammunition from the drawer at some point. Henry then stated that he chased both Edna and Maria towards the barn after they fled the home but again the timeline doesn’t add up. He said that he killed them instantly with the three other daughters left screaming at the top of their lungs in the farmhouse.

Henry then returned to the house and killed the other three girls in the kitchen and then used the hatchet subsequently disposing of the bodies down the cellar. Again there was no evidence to support Henry’s claims that the three daughters found in the cellar were killed in the kitchen. Henry then took Jacob’s body and placed it in the barn covering his remains with hay and dirt just as he had done with Edna and Maria.

According to Henry he did not know Emma was in the house as he did not enter the bedroom. This is highly unlikely. Surely if a gun was fired Emma would have been upset and crying. He would have heard this. So why leave one silent lone survivor? Henry’s confession was riddled with inaccuracies which simply didn’t match up with the evidence found at the scene but despite this police believed that his confession was the truth and arrested him.

Police even contradicted themselves when addressing the public on Layer’s arrest saying he was not in his right mind and that the murders had not been premeditated. Their initial theory stated that the murders were premeditated. Henry’s first statement regarding his whereabouts on the day of the murders taken on April 30th also seemed to be completely disregarded at this point.

According to him Henry began his day as usual plowing the fields at around 8:00 a.m., working for around 4 hours up until midday. He reportedly saw someone working in the fields belonging to Jacob Wolf plowing between the hours of 10:00 and 11:00 a.m., but because there was such a distance between both properties, around half a mile or so, Henry couldn’t exactly see who it was.

He then took his lunch break between midday and 3:00 p.m., during which time he also cleaned the barn, and he told police that he never left the property, something which was backed up by his wife, Lydia. Henry continued plowing from around 3:00 up until 7:00 p.m. that night. Throughout the day, Henry also spoke to neighbors who were plowing their own fields, including a man named Joseph Meyer, who lived to the south of the Lair’s property.

 The pair had a conversation about the railroad strike, with Joseph Meyer also being told by Henry that he wanted to go into town that day, but that his children were feeling unwell. Therefore, he had to stay at home after Lydia voiced her own concerns about their sick children. Again, Lydia completely corroborated Henry’s story, giving an account of the day, and she told police she knew exactly where Henry was throughout the day, when he was doing chores around the farm yard, and when he was plowing the fields, and she never saw her husband

leave the property once. Henry Lair was placed on trial for the murder shortly afterwards and entered a plea of guilty. The judge recommended he get a defense attorney should he plead not guilty. However, Henry refused. He wanted the quickest route to being locked behind bars, guilty or not. This being a very unusual route to take, but as previously mentioned, he was in fear of his life and firmly believed that prison was the safest place for him to be after police allegedly told him an angry mob was waiting to lynch him.

Henry was also allegedly physically assaulted by the officers who questioned him, leaving bruises all over his body, later corroborated by a prison doctor and a barber. He claimed, quote, “They cursed me, took my chair away from me and made me stand still until I was dizzy and faint. All this time I maintained that I was innocent and that I knew nothing of the murder.

 Finally, the man that I thought was the real road detective beat me along the side of my head and took me by the hair and pulled, after which he sat down across the table from me and related to me just how the murder happened and told me what I would have to say. Then he got up, shook a billy club in my face and told me that if I would not say what he wanted, he would beat my brains out.

 I then gave up, started to cry, and said that I would do and say what they wanted.” After being taken to prison following a guilty verdict and being given life imprisonment at hard labor, Layer asked to speak to the judge to prove his innocence, but he was not allowed to do so for weeks. It wasn’t until November of 1920 that Henry’s lawyers were able to file a motion asking to withdraw his plea of guilty and to change it to not guilty for a trial upon merits, but this request was once again denied.

The prison doctor examined Layer a few weeks after being imprisoned, but found Henry in good physical health other than small patches of discoloration on his cheekbones. The doctor noted no bruising or swelling, though of course any bruising would have been gone by this time as weeks had passed. The barber, however, stated that Henry looked, quote, beat up with bruises all over his face and swelling on the top of his head.

Henry told the barber the interrogating officers beat him, and when numerous family members went to visit Henry in prison shortly after he was incarcerated, they were told that he was in, quote, no condition to be seen. The sheriff denied any incident occurring involving his officers threatening Henry verbally and assaulting him during interrogation.

 They claimed that Henry confessed of his own free will after being shown at the crime scene images and being caught out after his story continued to change. Who to believe in this case is up for much debate. One of the biggest questions in this case still remains. Was Henry Layer guilty of killing the Will family and their chore boy, or was someone else responsible? Who would commit such a heinous crime against a well-liked family? A family which consisted of mainly innocent children.

 What reason or motive would one possibly have for slaughtering an entire family and yet leaving the youngest member alive? Would a dog attacking livestock really have been enough motive to commit a murder? According to a number of sources, the cattle which had been attacked was actually sold for a good price not long after Layer was imprisoned.

 The damage sustained to the cow was clearly not fatal or damaging in regards to how much it was worth. Was Henry the sole perpetrator? If so, what was his true motive? If Henry was not responsible, however, who was? Law enforcement wanted the culprits to be caught quickly. Was Henry Lyer simply a scapegoat, simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Other members of the community also carried inconsistencies in their statements.

 Why weren’t they investigated further? Political figures wanted to open and close this case as soon as possible in order to gain supports from their local constituency for the upcoming election. Was the evidence, witness statements, etc. properly evaluated? Political figures refused to help assist in a fair trial for Henry, fearing it would lose them support.

 Was there any physical evidence at all tying Henry Lyer to the Wolf family murders, or was he a victim to greedy politicians and corrupt police? Regardless of whether he was guilty or not, Henry Lyer only spent 5 years in prison before he passed away in March of 1925 following complications as a result of surgery for appendicitis.

His relationship with his wife, Lydia, also broke down and the pair divorced in 1922. Lydia struggled to care for her family and subsequently sent them to an orphanage. Tragedy continued as one of the Lyer children was killed in a wagon accident. One of their daughters, Blanche, returned home after her father passed away, but she suffered from anxiety and ridicule for the rest of her days.

Following the tragic death of her parents and her siblings, young Emma Wolf went to live with her aunt and uncle until they both passed away in 1933. Following this, Emma lived with a local grocer until she graduated from high school when she was 18 years old. She subsequently went on to marry and had three children living a full and happy life.

 She passed away at the age of 84 in 2003. According to numerous sources, the farm belonging to the Wolf family still exists, though a windmill is all that remains of the original structure. According to Vernon Keel, who wrote a book about the Wolf family murders, key evidence in this case was not kept. Therefore, we will probably never know who committed this heinous and despicable crime.

After a century, it is still unclear whether Henry Layer was truly responsible for this crime or not. If he was innocent, he suffered major injustice. His family also suffered significantly following his incarceration, and the remaining Wolf and Bossert families struggled to come to terms with their own loss.

If Henry was innocent, the killer or killers of the Wolfs, after a century, have never been brought to justice, and tragically, most likely never will be.