Friedhof der Welpen - Der Usedom-Krimi (2023)

While walking her dog in the woods, Karin finds three dead puppies. In a phone call with Holm Brendel, she learns that the police have more important things to deal with right now. Rainer Witt and his Usedom colleagues are searching for the missing Jana Leppin. A large pool of blood outside her house suggests that the woman, who worked for a home-care service, has fallen victim to a crime. Her daughter Fabienne was not in the house, as she had supposedly been watching birds in the Szczecin Lagoon. A suspect is quickly identified: Ivo Klose, a Leppin neighbor who has already been convicted once of manslaughter. However, the investigation yields no concrete evidence, and the man instead feels increasingly cornered. Rainer contacts the head of the home-care service and visits the two patients Jana Leppin looked after on the day she disappeared: Werner Fenske and his former boss, Richard Klüver, both of whom have terminal cancer. Meanwhile, Karin follows up on the discovery of the puppies and, with the help of Witt’s son Ben, posts a video online to use media attention to gather more information—much to the displeasure of the new prosecutor, Katharina Stozek, who is Rainer’s partner. Since her home has burned down, Karin is staying with the two of them, but for the sake of domestic peace she decides to move into a vacation rental belonging to Jörn Scherer and his daughter Lara. The two are currently building new accommodation for Karin on Rainer’s property. Lara, with whom Karin becomes friends, was attacked by Klose’s dog when she was eight and has several scars on her face as a result. When Jana Leppin’s body is later found at the site where the puppies were discovered, it suggests a connection between the two cases. Since Klose has just advertised three puppies online, he is once again under suspicion. When Rainer tells Fabienne the news of the death, she defends Klose and admits that she was doing survival training with him in the woods at the time of the crime, and that she killed the puppies because they had an infectious disease. Klose cannot be found, since the skilled hunter has built himself a small bunker in the woods. Forensic examinations show that the body must have been stored temporarily somewhere else, because oat straw was found on it, and there is none in the woods. Since Klüver’s stepson, Ingmar Bortz, also feeds oat straw to his goats, Rainer confronts him. Bortz flees, but Rainer overpowers him. It emerges that Klüver’s wife overheard her husband telling Jana Leppin to deliver to his lawyer a will amended in favor of Werner Fenske’s grandson. She sent her son after Jana, and he confronted her. A fatal struggle then ensued.