Ostfriesenmoor (2023)

While Chief Detective Ann Kathrin Klaasen is still busy investigating the murder of a young girl found in the moor, Gundula Müller’s twin babies disappear from the city. Since time is of the essence in finding the kidnapper’s trail, Klaasen’s team must deal with this case first. Given the family’s troubled circumstances, it is suspected that Müller’s ex-husband is behind it. Wolfgang Müller is questioned, but denies having any desire for revenge. He says he moved to Aurich only so he could be closer to his daughter Lucy. When he briefly meets his ex-wife, her new husband becomes so enraged that he knocks Müller down, drags him into the moor, and tries to force him to reveal where the twins are. Müller says he had nothing to do with the children’s disappearance, but is convinced that he is their biological father. Upset and angry, Thomas Schacht does not help Müller out of the moor, so Müller sinks into it and dies. Klaasen continues investigating the dead girl, who has by now been identified as Jule Freitag. She had been placed in a home because she was difficult to manage, so the first lead points to Dr. Alexander Ollenhauer, who founded the institution as a charitable foundation. The teenagers at the home confirm to Klaasen that Ollenhauer took more than an ordinary interest in Jule. He also used to take her out on his yacht from time to time. When Müller’s body is found, the search party also discovers the body of another young girl. Once she is identified, the trail again leads to Ollenhauer, who is immediately arrested. During questioning, he says he did nothing to either girl. Klaasen, however, is certain that Ollenhauer sexually abused the girls. While investigating whether Ollenhauer had any other wards, the detectives uncover a case from eight years earlier. At the time, sixteen-year-old Tanja Stendahl had a twin sister. Klaasen immediately has a hunch and gets the girl’s photograph digitally updated. In the picture, Klaasen recognizes the new assistant in the forensic medicine department, with whom her colleague Rupert has just begun a passionate affair. When Frauke Thanner feels that Rupert has caught her out, because during his visit to the next room he hears baby noises, she knocks him down and ties him up. Klaasen is already on her way to Thanner and realizes how serious the situation is. She assures Thanner that she has enough evidence against Ollenhauer to hold him accountable for his crimes. Thanner is skeptical, because no one will be able to testify against the man who “ruined” her sister and the other girls. All she could do was “put the other girls out of their misery.” Since Thanner happened to come across the babies while they were briefly unattended, she simply took them with her.