Ein Mädchen wird vermisst (2021)

Fourteen-year-old Nele Sommer has had diabetes since birth. Even so, she is an ambitious and enthusiastic synchronized swimmer. After a training session, Nele disappears without a trace. A special task force begins investigating under the leadership of Chief Inspector Ingo Thiel. It soon becomes a question of whether the schoolgirl really was the victim of a violent crime or had run away of her own accord. The latter possibility is supported by the fact that her father kept her under tight control. Time is running out, because Nele’s supply of insulin will last at most a week. While searching for clues, the investigators also inspect Nele’s room. There they find a conspicuously expensive piece of underwear, something unusual for a fourteen-year-old. Because of its exclusivity, its origin is quickly traced to a lingerie shop in town. The shop’s security officer recognizes Nele in a police photograph and says that some time earlier he caught her and a friend stealing, but gave them the chance to simply put the items back, and then did not intend to report them. He had not checked whether they did so, choosing instead to trust the girls. Nele’s friend Anna is questioned, but claims she knows nothing about Nele’s disappearance. Based on the last network registration data from Nele’s phone and the direction indicated by a mantrailing dog, the investigators search a wooded area more closely, where they eventually find the phone. The investigation also reveals that Nele’s father gave false information about where he had actually been on the evening she disappeared. He explains that he had been following his wife because she had been having a secret affair with her boss for some time. After eight days of searching, Nele is found dead at a quarry lake. Her body bears numerous wounds that were probably caused by a fierce struggle, and foreign DNA is found on her panties. She was not raped, but was brutally strangled. Near the place where her body was left is a fishing club’s hut. All the club’s members are therefore asked to provide DNA samples. The testing does not lead directly to the killer, but to a close relative. The investigators are now looking for a male relative on the paternal side of the angler Frank Dehler. The leading candidate is his cousin Florian Dehler, a young monk, but his sample tests negative, and he says he has no other siblings. Ingo Thiel wants to look into this more closely and questions Florian’s mother. Paula Dehler is reluctant to talk about her husband, who died years ago, and no usable DNA is found. The investigators then get a decisive clue from a stamp on an old postcard. Although the saliva on it is completely dried up and more than thirty years old, a genetic analysis is still possible. It establishes that Florian Dehler’s father is definitely the father of the killer. So he must have had an illegitimate son. The search eventually leads to Oliver Frenzel, who works as a security officer at the department store the investigators had already visited. Frenzel is arrested on the 73rd day of the search. Identified as the killer through his DNA, he confesses that he had lain in wait for Nele and blackmailed her. In return for not reporting her for the theft, he wanted some affection from her. She then panicked, lashed out, and said—something he could not understand at all—that she absolutely had to eat something. He then squeezed her throat.