An investigation found that the couple had been bludgeoned to death by a drunk laborer, after he and a fellow farmhand had tried to rape Ms. Lozynsky, the mayor said.

Six months on, their home is almost as they left it, with clothes strewn on the floor and a box of powdered milk in the front window.

Their garden is already wild. Up on the hillside, their graves are being slowly submerged by the weeds. Within a few years, a visitor may struggle to find the gravestones, let alone remember who was buried there; Gena’s mound is wrongly marked “Gheorghe.”

Now, Mr. Muntean is the last survivor of a village that was first settled in the 19th century, when the area was part of the Russian Empire. According to local folklore, its first residents were Ukrainians who had ultimately hoped to reach the United States (but missed their boat), and Moldovans who had fallen out with a landowner in another area.