Die Toten von Salzburg - Zeugenmord (2018)

In their second case together in the Bavarian-Austrian border region, Major Peter Palfinger and Chief Detective Inspector Hubert Mur from Traunstein investigate a double murder at a hospital in Salzburg. One of the murder victims is the driver of a German politician, State Secretary Hofstätter. The driver was seriously injured in a car crash, in which Hofstätter was killed. The second victim is the other patient in the intensive-care room: Albrecht Edlinger, a rock-face maintenance worker who had fallen, and the husband of Annemarie Edlinger. He may have seen the killer and therefore had to die as well. There are no skid marks at the crash site, and Chief Detective Inspector Mur suspects the car crash was an attack on the State Secretary. He assumes the motive was Hofstätter’s involvement in arms-export deals. The hospital surveillance footage leads them to Carolin Landsbergis. The State Secretary’s mother, Rosalinde Hofstätter, tells Mur that Landsbergis collected her son’s computer and work mobile phone. From an employee of the Federal Intelligence Service, who is observing their investigation, they learn that Landsbergis was the State Secretary’s spin doctor. Landsbergis hands the investigators Hofstätter’s computer, on which they find documents about the arms deals. These show, however, that Hofstätter and Landsbergis were not carrying out the deals but trying to prevent them. Otherwise, Landsbergis is uncooperative. On the orders of the Bavarian State Chancellery, the crash vehicle is scrapped, making any further examination impossible. Dr. Angela Doll, the hospital doctor, gives Palfinger the medical records of the two dead men. The electrocardiogram shows that Albrecht Edlinger, the second victim, had a rise in his pulse every day at 5 p.m. Palfinger learns from Edlinger’s pregnant wife, Annemarie, that his brother Konrad always visited him at that time. At the time of the crime, too, Edlinger’s pulse rises, followed somewhat later by the driver’s. By then, Landsbergis, whom Mur suspects, had already left the hospital. Palfinger therefore suspects that the visit was intended for Edlinger and that the driver accidentally witnessed the murder of the rock-face maintenance worker. Palfinger confronts Konrad Edlinger, who is working on the Mönchsberg rock face, with his theory: Konrad deliberately caused his brother’s fall because Konrad and Annemarie Edlinger were having an affair and Annemarie was pregnant by Konrad. After his brother survived the fall, Konrad killed him in the hospital, then killed the driver, who had happened to witness the murder. Konrad did not appear on the hospital surveillance videos at the time of the crime because he had entered the hospital room through the ventilation shaft and left by the same route. After confessing, Konrad Edlinger unclips his climbing safety gear and plunges from the Mönchsberg.