The poacher of the Gruobi alp

On 14 October 1899 the Obwalden gamekeeper Werner Durrer and his son Josef surprised two hunters from Nidwalden on the Gruobi alp in the Melchtal, who had been poaching chamois on Obwalden ground. Father and son were shot dead. The man held responsible was Adolf Scheuber, a carpenter from Wolfenschiessen and a well-known hunter, said to have supplied the city of Lucerne with chamois meat.

Scheuber was caught. But while being taken to custody he jumped from the moving train near Dallenwil and escaped. The authorities compiled thick files to trace his route and his motive, and in 1902 the Obwalden high court sentenced him to death in his absence. He could never be questioned about the crime.

His trail led to South America; he wrote letters home from Montevideo. More recent sources suggest he was still living in Burundi in the 1950s. According to Peter Steiner he cannot be linked to the Scheubers of this family tree, yet the shared name was a burden for a long time: Jakob’s son Adolf called himself «Bill» in California so as not to be mistaken for him, and in the 1930s relatives objected to a novel that mixed fiction and fact.

Rumours and stories surround the double murder to this day. Isabelle Kaiser and Franz Heinrich Achermann wrote novels about it, and the Dallenwil theatre staged the «Doppelmord auf der Gruobialp» on the alp at Niederrickenbach. Since 2012 the poaching tales of Nidwalden have been among Switzerland’s living traditions. The Lucerne historian Michael Blatter has reworked the case from the files; his book reads like a crime novel.

Further reading (in German): Michael Blatter, «Wilderergeschichten und ein Doppelmord. Die Ermordung der Wildhüter Werner und Josef Durrer in Akten und Geschichten», bildfluss, Altdorf 2022

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Sources: Michael Blatter, «Wilderergeschichten und ein Doppelmord. Die Ermordung der Wildhüter Werner und Josef Durrer in Akten und Geschichten», bildfluss, Altdorf 2022; Luzerner Zeitung, 2022; Peter Steiner’s notes on the 3rd edition of the Book of the Scheuber, and his remarks to Philippe Scheuber, 2026.