Die Toten vom Schwarzwald (2010)

Inka, a young teacher, gets a ride to the Black Forest. During a stop in Holltal, the driver, Katharina, disappears without a trace. Since the local police investigation is proceeding slowly, Katharina’s ex-husband Matthias Auerbach, a criminal forensics technician himself, drives to Holltal. In the village, he encounters icy silence, and the mayor, Beierle, seems to have everything under control. He orders the sons of gas station owner Mandy Kreuzer to make it clear to Auerbach, by force if necessary, that he is not welcome. But at the Twin Rocks in the forest, where Katharina disappeared, Auerbach discovers a woman’s skeleton. Although the woman has been dead for several years, the DNA matches Katharina’s. Auerbach refuses to believe that it could be his ex-wife. Desperate, he continues his investigation on the ground with Inka’s help. In the process, he comes across a legend about the Twin Rocks and a pact with the Devil that the people of Holltal are said to have made during the Thirty Years’ War. It turns out that the skeleton in the forest really is Katharina. In the meantime, her twin sister Roswitha Beierle, the mayor’s daughter, had taken her place. The mayor had separated the twins immediately after their birth, without their sedated mother’s knowledge; Katharina had grown up with the midwife Birgit Kraft. When Roswitha and Katharina later met by chance, they confronted their father, and he killed Katharina. Roswitha initially tried to carry on Katharina’s life, but was unhappy in her new role. She had deliberately lured Auerbach to Holltal to solve Katharina’s murder.