In Wahrheit - Unter Wasser (2022)

The body of police officer René Schubecker is found in a river on the German-French border. He was shot with his own service weapon, and suicide cannot be ruled out. Nevertheless, investigators pursue every possibility. In the course of the investigation, Detective Chief Inspector Judith Mohn of Saarlouis comes across an old case that Schubecker had been working on shortly before his death. Fifteen years earlier, Willy Voss was sent to prison for murder as a result of Schubecker’s investigation. Since Voss was recently released, he is considered a prime suspect. Mohn and her colleague Freddy Breyer question him, but Mohn soon begins to doubt the suspect’s guilt. Unlike Breyer, she believes Voss, who is now suffering from terminal cancer. After hours of questioning, he had admitted to murdering a young woman, but later withdrew his confession in court. He was nevertheless convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence. He had filed motions to reopen the investigation so he could prove his innocence, but they were rejected. Judith Mohn looks into the past and uncovers a number of inconsistencies. Apparently, the French investigators had focused so heavily on Voss that they even tampered with evidence to prove his guilt beyond doubt. The head of the local gendarmerie is Schubecker’s father, and he is far from pleased with Mohn’s inquiries. He does not want his son’s memory to be tarnished. Mohn discovers that René Schubecker wanted to face up to the mistake he had made in the past, which had sent Voss to prison innocently. His father wanted to stop him from “throwing his life away” over it. According to his account, a shot nevertheless went off. But in the end, Mohn is able to prove that Schubecker’s father himself was responsible for the murder. At the time, his son had been in love with the girl. When she rebuffed his advances and laughed at him after an evening of dancing, he lost control and knocked her down. Believing she was dead, he confided in his father. When his father found the girl still alive, he forcibly silenced her, and the two of them covered up the murder by sending an innocent man to prison in their place. Thanks to her investigation, Mohn secures a retrial for Willy Voss, so that after 15 years he can finally be exonerated. When she goes to give him the good news, she learns that Voss has just died.