Die letzte Spur - Alexandra, 17 Jahre (2011)

Alexandra disappears on the night before her 17th birthday from Krems, a town in Lower Austria on the edge of the Wachau, where her family moved from Germany two years earlier. As the police investigation makes little progress, Alexandra’s father, Alfred Walch, conducts his own inquiries and is confronted with details of his daughter’s life he had never thought possible, since he had assumed she was still sexually inexperienced. Alexandra Walch seems like a cheerful, fun-loving young girl. Her biggest apparent problem on the eve of her birthday is what time she has to be back from the town festival. Since her mother and father cannot agree, Alexandra sweet-talks her father into letting her stay out until half past three. But Alexandra does not come back at the agreed time, or the next morning, or the day after that. Anna Walch subtly blames her son Daniel, who was supposed to keep an eye on Alexandra. But Daniel had his own problems to deal with, since his girlfriend had broken up with him that evening. And little Sonia, the Walchs’ youngest child, is not spared the impact of her sister’s disappearance and the resulting difficult situation within the family. Before long, a violent crime can no longer be ruled out. Inspector Lenz and his colleague Lisa are brought in from Vienna. A large-scale search is launched. When the body of a young woman is found near the Walchs’ house, their worst fears seem to have come true. However, the dead woman is not Alexandra. But it is troubling that Alexandra’s phone is found with her. Seven days after Alexandra’s disappearance, hope of finding the young woman alive is fading. The uncertainty about what has happened to their daughter is almost unbearable for her parents. Alfred Walch tries to investigate for himself what might have happened to his daughter, and is often so clumsy about it that he clashes with Inspector Lenz. Much of what he discovers leaves him baffled and makes him realize that his daughter was not the innocent young girl he had thought she was. Then a second girl’s body is found. And this time it is Alexandra. The autopsy reveals that the young woman was pregnant; further investigation shows that Alexandra was having an affair with her German teacher. Ultimately, it emerges that Christina Walch, Alexandra’s cousin, was responsible for the young woman’s death. On the night she disappeared, Alexandra had argued with her boyfriend Moritz and angrily left his car in the harbor district. There she ran into Christina, who had fallen seriously in love with Moritz and had high hopes for him after he had slept with her. The two girls got into an argument. Alexandra first mocked Christina, and then her father, Gerhard Walch. Christina then grabbed a stone and struck Alexandra on the back of the head. When she saw what she had done, she called her father, who helped her hide Alexandra’s body. He had not reckoned on the fact that the incident had been witnessed by Carla, a prostitute, who soon began blackmailing Gerhard Walch. Convinced that she would never stop, Walch saw no way out but to kill her too. She was the woman whose body was later found with Alexandra’s phone. Although Christina’s father also wants to take the blame entirely upon himself, the whole tragic story comes to light when Christina then tries to throw herself to her death.