Im Schatten der Angst - Der Skorpion (2025)

Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Karla Eckhardt recommends in an expert report that prison restrictions be eased for inmate Anton Lisky, who is serving a sentence for taking Sandra hostage and murdering Stefan Zenker, Helene Zenker’s son. Sandra was Lisky’s girlfriend and had visited his friend Stefan, making Anton jealous; while under the influence of drugs, he murdered Stefan. Eckhardt is supported by her colleague, Dr. Kressmann. Detective Irene Radek, who arrested Lisky at the time, does not believe he has changed. At a plant nursery, Lisky is provoked by his coworker Leon Wimmer. Soon afterward, Wimmer is found beaten to death in the nursery’s greenhouse by its owner, Birguel Yilmaz. Yilmaz had seen both Lisky and Wimmer lying on the ground when she went outside; when she returned, Lisky had disappeared. To Radek, the case is clear: Lisky murdered Wimmer. Helene Zenker also blames Eckhardt for Wimmer’s death. Eckhardt begins to wonder whether she misjudged Lisky. In one of their sessions, he had told her the fable “The Scorpion and the Frog”; he saw himself as the scorpion. According to Yilmaz, a cellphone had been at the crime scene, but it too has disappeared. Crime writer Fabian Kröger has recently moved into the apartment next door to Eckhardt’s. Soon afterward, Lisky shows up at Eckhardt’s door. He claims Wimmer was already dead when he found him, and that a third person knocked him out. Lisky also gives her the license plate number of a vehicle Wimmer had gotten into. The vehicle belongs to Helene Zenker, who admits she had incited Wimmer to provoke Lisky. When Lisky contacts Eckhardt again, intending to show her photos from Wimmer’s phone, she is being watched by detectives without her knowledge. Lisky then overpowers a police officer, takes his gun, and flees. Believing Eckhardt has betrayed him to the police, he barricades himself inside a house with the gun and threatens to kill himself. At his own request, Prof. Kressmann goes into the house alone to talk to Lisky. He pretends he wants to comfort him, takes the gun from Lisky’s hand, points it at his head, and pulls the trigger. Lisky dies instantly. Kressmann tries to wipe away the fingerprints and takes Wimmer’s phone. He tells Radek and Eckhardt that Lisky killed himself after admitting that he had killed Wimmer. To Radek, Lisky is a double murderer who committed suicide; Eckhardt continues to have doubts, particularly because Wimmer’s phone is missing. Radek, however, thinks Lisky simply made up the story about the phone. From Kressmann’s neighbor Bodo Rexin, a customer of Yilmaz’s nursery, Eckhardt learns that Wimmer had also worked for the Kressmanns, though usually when Prof. Kressmann was not at home and only his wife, Dunja, was there. Birguel Yilmaz thinks Wimmer may have been having an affair with Dunja. Eckhardt listens again to the audio recordings of Kressmann and Lisky, but there is no confession from Lisky on them. She suspects Prof. Kressmann discovered Wimmer’s affair with his wife and wanted to frame Lisky for Wimmer’s murder. When Eckhardt confronts Prof. Kressmann with her suspicion, he admits that during an argument he pushed Wimmer, who fell headfirst onto a garden claw. Wimmer had nude photos of Dunja Kressmann on his phone. Prof. Kressmann also admits that he killed Lisky. Eckhardt had recorded Kressmann’s confession on her smartphone. The professor injects her with ketamine and deletes the recording. Fabian Kröger sees Eckhardt lying on the floor and calls for an ambulance. Meanwhile, Prof. Kressmann throws himself from a window several stories up and falls to his death. Helene Zenker visits Eckhardt to wish her a speedy recovery. She had thought she would feel better once Lisky was dead, but nothing could bring her son back to life.