Die Toten von Salzburg - Königsmord (2018)

In their third case together in the Bavarian-Austrian border region, Major Peter Palfinger and Chief Inspector Hubert Mur of Traunstein investigate the murder of Ferdinand Gschwandtner, the Bavarian sausage king. He was killed with a knife and found dead in his villa in Anif by Rosa Holub, his housekeeper. Holub tells Palfinger that Ferdinand and his son Rupert Gschwandtner had argued. After his mother’s death and personal and financial troubles, Rupert works as a butcher instead of in the executive suite of his father’s company. However, he has an alibi. One of Ferdinand Gschwandtner’s Romanian foster children, seven-year-old Tyki, has also gone missing. The fingerprints of his older sister Liana are found on the murder weapon, a kitchen knife. She explains that she had handled it while helping around the house. For once, Palfinger and Mur agree: they are both convinced the children are innocent. Ferdinand’s widow, Nicole Gschwandtner, reports that the villa has been vandalised by graffiti artists several times. She says she was at Lake Wörth at the time of the murder. Gernot Lanner, deputy managing director of Gschwandtner GmbH, says he was at the office. Footage from the surveillance cameras at Gschwandtner’s villa leads Palfinger to Nicolas Bruckner. Bruckner’s father died after eating sausage from Gschwandtner that had been contaminated with listeria. Ferdinand Gschwandtner was acquitted at trial, however. The defence relied on the father’s underlying condition, a rare autoimmune disease said to have been the actual cause of his death. Palfinger learns from his brother Sebastian that there are rumours Ferdinand Gschwandtner may not have been entirely innocent in the death of his first wife, Waltraud, around ten years earlier. Officially, she died in a swimming accident in the Salzach. Foreign epithelial tissue was found under her fingernails, but since no other signs of a struggle were discovered, the case was not investigated further. Russmeyer orders a DNA comparison with the suspects. Shortly before that, Ferdinand Gschwandtner had met Nicole, who would become his second wife, but Waltraud refused to agree to a divorce. The investigators also discover that Lanner and Nicole Gschwandtner are having an affair. They now say they were together on the night of the murder. Ferdinand Gschwandtner had prepared a charge against Gernot Lanner, accusing him of embezzling three million euros in company funds. Liana also tells Russmeyer that Nicole Gschwandtner had hit her. Ferdinand Gschwandtner, by contrast, wanted to adopt Tyki and Liana. On the night of the murder, Mur becomes a first responder at a car accident; shortly beforehand, a red Jaguar had passed him near the crash site. Liana saw the Jaguar at the villa on the night of the murder. The car is later found burned out. Its vehicle identification number identifies Gernot Lanner as the owner, though Lanner had reported it stolen. Fingerprints are found in the car. A database search shows they belong to Georg Schachner, an employee at the slaughterhouse who was fired ten years earlier. In the meantime, Tyki turns up again. He tells Palfinger that he saw the killer, who then took him along but later let him go. Tyki identifies Georg Schachner as his kidnapper from a photograph. Schachner is found hanged soon afterwards, but the autopsy determines that it was not suicide. Tyki is abducted by a masked person, who manages to escape with the child without being recognised. A USB drive is found on Schachner, protected by a password. Palfinger finds the password in a tattoo on Schachner’s arm. An audio file on the drive contains a conversation between Schachner and Rupert Gschwandtner. It reveals that ten years earlier, the sausage king hired Schachner to kill his wife. Rupert Gschwandtner discovered this, blackmailed Schachner with the information, and in turn forced him to kill Rupert’s father. The police eventually apprehend Rupert Gschwandtner, and Tyki is found unharmed with him.