The Wolf Family Massacre

The Wolf Family Massacre

VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Sources:
• https://www.themurderedfamily.com/index.html – Plenty of further reading!
• https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ny-justice-story-wolf-family-massacre-20200105-avzgwyevwzgy3jos327hatwvqe-story.html
• https://bismarcktribune.com/here-is-the-story-of-the-wolf-family-murder/article_af90320a-4195-5f4a-b145-37fdd83ab5c0.html
• https://the-line-up.com/the-wolf-family
• https://criminalgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/10/1920-mass-murder-on-wolff-farm-in-north.html?m=1
• https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ny-justice-story-wolf-family-massacre-20200105-avzgwyevwzgy3jos327hatwvqe-story.html
• https://www.kxnet.com/news/local-news/100-years-later-the-story-of-the-wolf-family-murder/
• https://ghostsofnorthdakota.com/2013/10/28/the-wolf-family-murders/
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/52276601/jacob-wolf
• https://murderpedia.org/male.L/l/layer-henry.htm
• https://www.parkrapidsenterprise.com/news/the-vault/whatever-happened-to-baby-emma-the-only-survivor-of-her-murdered-family-the-turtle-lake-murders-episode-4
• https://youtu.be/MqOciNcHn2M
• Further Reading: The Murdered Family – Mystery of the Wolf Family Murders by Vernon Keel.
• https://www.newspapers.com (The Bismarck Tribune, The Daily Deadwood Pioneer Times, The Washburn Leader, Jamestown Weekly Alert, The Grand Forks Herald)

Music credit:
Cause of Death OST – Hard Time
CO.AG Music – Father Marcus
CO.AG Music – Abandoned

All images belong to their respective owners.
Video credit: videoblocks.com

Follow Dark Curiosities on Twitter: @ADarkCuriosity #DarkCuriosities

Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

Please keep comments respectful. Any offensive or hateful comments will be removed. Users who consistently post remarks of this nature will be blocked.

50 Comments

  1. @annemarcoux-falzano7915 on December 23, 2023 at 8:15 am

    Any chance that Mr Wolf was in trouble in Russia before he left for USA. It may have taken many years for the victim of his bad act, to seek retribution or be able to find him. A blood vendetta never expires.

  2. @TheLexiechey on December 23, 2023 at 8:15 am

    I’m really struggling to see where the 2 people at the 7:33 mark fit in to all of this? 🙄

  3. @Valerie-oc3kw on December 23, 2023 at 8:19 am

    Have subscribed.
    Love your voice 😊

  4. @TheCrazyDumbsaint on December 23, 2023 at 8:19 am

    Could this be connected to the Villisca axe murders that occurred in 1912? Probably not, but it’s a theory.

  5. @lhysslaurentiehugues2042 on December 23, 2023 at 8:19 am

    Pouvez vous mettre les sous titres originaux ?

  6. @louiseboutin4266 on December 23, 2023 at 8:20 am

    I love your voice and the descriptions are fantastic. Please try and find accurate visuals, it really helps to keep a focus on the story line.

  7. @kathyruder5301 on December 23, 2023 at 8:20 am

    I don’t think that an argument over a dog attacking cattle would have sparked a murder spree such as this one. The evidence lends to this being a crime of rage/passion based on up-close-and-personal attacks on some of the children. Granted, children left alive could have risked one or more talking….but that doesn’t explain the one being beaten to death, which is definitely not an impersonal killing and didn’t match what was done to the rest. Very odd. More than one assailant is of course possible given the axe injuries delivered to some of the family members. If Layer was at all involved, he likely didn’t act alone. Granted, he had quarrelled with Mr Wolf over the dog incident….but I don’t see that as warranting shooting/bludgeoning the entire family (save the baby). The baby could have been spared simply because she was sleeping when the attack occurred and the killer(s) were a)unaware that she was there, b) were aware but didn’t care since she couldn’t testify or c) were afraid of being caught and left without killing her. Of course there is the option they couldn’t bring themselves to kill an infant.

  8. @tcmtr6 on December 23, 2023 at 8:23 am

    Well if Henry didn’t do it, then who did? Well obviously Trump did it, right Libterds?

  9. @cynthiabala6089 on December 23, 2023 at 8:23 am

    That person will pay eternally as he cannot hide from our creator

  10. @lisaedenshaw-krieger4241 on December 23, 2023 at 8:23 am

    I’d watch the video, but the narrative voice is annoying.

  11. @Trouble-Clef on December 23, 2023 at 8:23 am

    You gave us the motive before you gave us a story. It took the suspense out of it lol

  12. @Linda-xw9lj on December 23, 2023 at 8:24 am

    Who benifited from the sales

  13. @rubycube1506 on December 23, 2023 at 8:24 am

    This sounds like Hinterkaifeck, just 15 years earlier…

  14. @Kap3lka on December 23, 2023 at 8:24 am

    Is it me or were these family massacres a German thing?

  15. @TennesseeTrio on December 23, 2023 at 8:27 am

    Wow, a truly tragic story!

  16. @Theresa-Lottodo on December 23, 2023 at 8:28 am

    This reminds me of the still unsolved murders at Hinterkaifeck in southern Germany, which took place almost exactly 2 years later.🤔

  17. @williamwray9454 on December 23, 2023 at 8:32 am

    Lol i left out ‘ food’

  18. @reckontonottobemoved on December 23, 2023 at 8:32 am

    He wanted the baby to die
    Slowly

  19. @labeeah2810 on December 23, 2023 at 8:34 am

    I think Henry was innocent. The police forced a fake confession.

  20. @patsy205 on December 23, 2023 at 8:35 am

    Sad

  21. @maxinericheson9210 on December 23, 2023 at 8:36 am

    In those days, women didn’t wear short skirts!

  22. @phoenixfox3379 on December 23, 2023 at 8:36 am

    This what happens when you live in a country that doesnt want you to own guns for self-defense.

  23. @nicolethain5405 on December 23, 2023 at 8:40 am

    The Krafts r truly a brave couple

  24. @michaelmontano4280 on December 23, 2023 at 8:40 am

    The what??? I’ve never heard of this massacre before.

  25. @venessacallaghan7645 on December 23, 2023 at 8:42 am

    I think it was the auctioneer…look how fast it went up for auction

  26. @karlbergen6826 on December 23, 2023 at 8:43 am

    A terrible irregularly in Henry’s trial. All the concerned families are dead This is a mess.

  27. @nollem41 on December 23, 2023 at 8:43 am

    shocking story but the narrator has a very iritating drawl at the ened of each setence.

  28. @drjones1736 on December 23, 2023 at 8:44 am

    Well the US law system hasn’t changed much.

  29. @DaveWoods-ku5em on December 23, 2023 at 8:45 am

    Boo ooh snow

  30. @deannaarmstrong2237 on December 23, 2023 at 8:45 am

    Wow they shot all the kids in the head but the parents in the back

  31. @ry2thepoint on December 23, 2023 at 8:46 am

    Creepy… my last name is Wolf

  32. @Trouble-Clef on December 23, 2023 at 8:46 am

    I’m not saying whether I believe Layer killed them or not because who knows. But if he did do it then maybe he waited six months so it wouldn’t be so obvious. If they had been killed within a few days of the dispute it would’ve led police directly to his front door. Or maybe he was on a slow boil for six months and then just snapped one day.

  33. @jr7845 on December 23, 2023 at 8:47 am

    I just came accross thus channel, I love the format, no fluff no annoying ads or loud music

  34. @MarilynHart-zr2ec on December 23, 2023 at 8:48 am

    All this over a dog? Wow

  35. @LowejaDogs on December 23, 2023 at 8:50 am

    By all the info, I doubt it was Layer but carried out by at least 2 people. This would have been a solvable case nowadays with DNA and other resources. Other than the dog attacking his cow tho is all they really had against him. Who gained anything from the family been massacred?. Who got the proceeds from the sale of the house and property.
    Records not kept those days but one wanders why with such a tragedy the evidence and records were not kept being such a cruel crime.
    Thank goodness whoever did this spared the baby unless they didnt know she was there and she slept through. So tragic we will never know.
    RIP To the Wolf Family.

  36. @annnee6818 on December 23, 2023 at 8:53 am

    This is eerily like the Hinterkaifeck murders

  37. @FUGGY1000 on December 23, 2023 at 8:53 am

    Please wind this woman up, the lady word of every sentence is soooooooo slooooooooow.

  38. @courtniewesterfield9079 on December 23, 2023 at 8:56 am

    Lazy and abussive police

  39. @williamwray9454 on December 23, 2023 at 9:00 am

    i call b.s. A baby cant live 2 days without an adult can starve after 4 so its just not possible

  40. @barbarycorsair8473 on December 23, 2023 at 9:00 am

    An eye for an eye kind of behaviour killing in my book. Maybe, we should look at before the father emigrated to America. The answer could be found in his past. Revenge killing of sort.

  41. @angelacamlin3528 on December 23, 2023 at 9:00 am

    Regardless of having the right killer or not, life in prison was insured for,8 killings. Just like today, no proper punishment.

  42. @tvmike6513 on December 23, 2023 at 9:01 am

    It would have to have been someone that knew how many people were in the house and how many people were outside, also not taking the shotgun, why, maybe because it was someone that knew them, waiting for the two that were in the field, show’s that whoever it was, was comfortable being in the house.

  43. @queenofeverything4004 on December 23, 2023 at 9:02 am

    This reminds me so much of Hinterkaifeck. It’s one of the most famous German cold cases, where a whole farmer family was killed in cold blood on their farm in 1922

  44. @cindyfreeman1047 on December 23, 2023 at 9:04 am

    So, to make sure I’ve got this straight: SUPPOSEDLY, Henry Layer was angry with Jacob Wolf because Jacob’s dog bit Henry’s cow…but Henry’s cow was on Jacob’s property at the time? And this family was supposedly massacred over THAT?

  45. @janetwatson7966 on December 23, 2023 at 9:06 am

    Look what happened with the McCoy’s and Hatfield’s. They fought over a pig. It was so bad the government had to draw up a treaty between the two family’s.

  46. @reddrockingeezer on December 23, 2023 at 9:07 am

    Sorry, I just can’t watch a program that uses good, real pictures; but drops in totally unrelated footage. She’s talking about the Russian/German family in the barn; but the video shows a young black man in a frock coat & white tie riding a horse around a field. What is that all about?

  47. @McRambleOn on December 23, 2023 at 9:07 am

    The Fam perhaps just wanted the baby? Except I don’t believe Henry was guilty.

  48. @michaelmontano4280 on December 23, 2023 at 9:08 am

    I’m guessing the narrator is Irish or Canadian?

  49. @nathalie9678 on December 23, 2023 at 9:09 am

    Very sad story

  50. @imtheeternalscholar on December 23, 2023 at 9:12 am

    Poor bugger was scapegoated by a corrupt and incompetent police force!!!

Leave a Comment