The Wolf Family Murders

The Wolf Family Murders

A Brutal Crime in Small Town North Dakota

One of the terrible crimes in North Dakota’s history happened April 22, 1920, on a farm just north of Turtle Lake. 

It was a grey, cloudy day and light rain had been falling. Resident John Kraft noticed the neighbours, the Jacob Wolf family, had left their laundry on the clothesline overnight and their horses untended. He went to examine and fumbled into what might be the most horrible crime scene in North Dakota history.

He found out the first bodies in the barn, rapidly wrapped with dirt and hay: his neighbour Jakob Wolf and two of Wolf’s young daughters, Maria and Edna. In the basement of the house were five more bodies: Jakob’s wife Beata; the remainder of their daughters, Bertha, Liddia and Martha; along with their employed boy, Jacob Hoffer. The children varied in age from three to 12. The employed boy was only 13. They had been murdered with a shotgun and a hatchet.

The only survivor, the Wolfs' eight-month-old daughter Emma, was screaming and hungry in her crib.

Most Violent

 It was April 1920, in the still-young state of North Dakota. Even a century later, it categorizes among the country’s most violent crimes.

The town of Turtle Lake, North Dakota had fewer than 400 citizens at the time, but more than 2,500 people appeared for the burial where the eight coffins—both big and small—were lined up in a row. 

This German family, who had immigrated from Russia, had come to the New World to subdue a rocky land. They are laid to rest beneath a stone reading “Die Ermordete Familie”—The Murdered Family. At the time of the funeral, the killer was still unfamiliar. 

But at the service, one of the mourners was acting oddly. Henry Layer, who occupied a close farm, opened each coffin in turn and gazed down at the face inside. The coating had also raised anxieties when he was found out roaming around the Wolf shed by the sheriff. Layer seemed anxious to help. He indicated they check the feed in the warehouse and pulled out a handful of used shotgun shells.

Henry Layer

The layer was caught. After prolonged inquiry, he eventually admitted to the bloodbaths and was convicted to life in jail at hard labour. He died in jail just five years later after an operation for appendicitis. The layer was also a German who had immigrated from Russia. He had a huge family, with six children. In his admission, he said he had gone to the Wolf farm to meet his neighbour about a dog that had bitten one of Layer’s cows.

Layer said it was Wolf who generated the shotgun—a double-barrel. There was a brawl and both barrels went off. The first killings were unexpected, Layer said, and after that, he was in a fog. According to Layer’s admission, Beata, 36, and the employed boy died from the first incidental shots. Jakob, 41, then ran and Layer shot him. Daughters Maria, 9, Edna, 7, listened to the shots and disappeared into the barn. Layer followed them in and killed them. He then went into the house and shot Bertha, 12, Liddia, 5, and Martha, 3. The youngest, he said, he bludgeoned with a hatchet. He said baby Emma was spared only because he didn’t discover her.

He wrapped the bodies in the warehouse with grass and pushed the bodies in the house through a trapdoor into the cellar. Then he went home to his farm.

But from prison Layer rescinded his admission. He said he had been persecuted into it and cautioned that he would be turned over to a ferocious mob if he didn’t cooperate. 

Vernon Keel was born 20 years after the killings. Like everyone growing up around Turtle Lake, North Dakota, he grew up neck-deep in tales about “the murdered family” and the neighbour who went to jail for the killing but contended he was railroaded.

Keel became a journalist, writing for his hometown newspaper, and later a journalism professor. Keel decided to modify the story for a work of historical fiction, which he named The Murdered Family. Did Layer actually do it or was he compelled into a confession? We will possibly never know for sure but I’d say in my belief they got the right guy.

There is one remark of hope from this horrible story. Baby Emma, the sole survivor, was raised by an aunt and uncle. She lived a long life, dying in 2003 at the age of 84.