sentences:  In 2017, the last chapter of "The Man from the Train" by Bill James and his daughter Rachel McCarthy James, briefly discusses the murders at Hinterkaifeck.The authors explain the possibility that the German crimes might have been committed by Paul Mueller, the titular serial killer the authors believe killed several families in the United States under similar circumstances between 1898 and 1912.The murders attributed to Mueller, including the Villisca axe murders, were apparently random nighttime home invasions in or near small railroad towns that left entire families bludgeoned to death with the blunt end of an axe, and were probably motivated by a sadistic and necrophilic attraction to prepubescent girls.The authors rate the chances of Mueller as the Hinterkaifeck killer as "more or less a toss-up" but conclude "there's no real reason to believe that it's not him".