Steirerrausch (2021)

Sascha Bergmann of the Graz State Criminal Police Office and his new colleague Anni Sulmtaler investigate a murder on Halloween. During a séance with the medium Vera Lehner, the winemaker Sabine Fuchs is shot through the window. Vera herself, who is sitting directly opposite the victim, collapses unconscious. Vera lives with her partner Richie, who arranges her appointments. The investigation initially focuses on Sabine’s husband, Pepi, whose hunting rifle turns out to be the murder weapon. Pepi has no alibi, but insists that he is innocent. However, the question arises whether the attack was meant for the victim at all, or perhaps for Vera, and whether the shooter missed his real target. Last summer, a stone with a piece of paper bearing the words “Drop dead, witch” was thrown through Vera’s window. Dr. Stelzhammer’s role is also unclear; he had been stalking Vera. One of Stelzhammer’s cancer patients nearly died after he tried to defeat her cancer using only her own healing powers. The patient later visited Vera, who advised her to report Stelzhammer. Stelzhammer’s practice was then shut down. Bergmann suspects that this could provide a motive for murder. Sabine’s daughter, Resi Fuchs, and her friend Clara Triebl had also visited Vera. Clara wanted to contact her deceased boyfriend Oliver through Vera and her control spirit, Cornelius. Oliver had died in a motorcycle accident. Vera, however, suggested that Clara accept Oliver’s death. Hans Triebl stormed into Vera’s premises with his sons Lukas and Michi to pick up Clara, and told Vera to leave his daughter alone or he would report her. Richie and Vera then reported Triebl themselves. Hans also held a grudge against Resi and Sabine Fuchs because they had taken Clara to Vera. Vera later learned that Stelzhammer had told Triebl that Clara was with her. Sulmtaler learns from Resi that her mother had recently started going to the gym. Richie also works at a gym on weekends. Sulmtaler suspects it might be the same gym. At the gym, the investigators run into Michi and Lukas, who tell them that Richie and Sabine were having an affair. Richie suspects that he was not the only man Sabine was involved with. Pepi Fuchs says he knew nothing about his wife’s affair. When Pepi continues to insist that he is innocent, Bergmann theorizes that the culprit could be Michi and Lukas Triebl or Resi’s boyfriend, Moritz Kröll: they may have wanted to scare Vera, and their planned prank went wrong. Resi blames herself in part for Oliver’s death, because she did not stop him after he and Moritz had raced their motorcycles. Bergmann and Sulmtaler visit Vera to contact her control spirit, Cornelius. They want to ask whether Michi, Lukas, or Moritz has criminal tendencies, but Vera says they do not. Vera tells the investigators that Richie was kneeling beside Sabine when she regained consciousness after the shot was fired. Richie says he had been tending to Sabine because she appeared to be more seriously injured. Sulmtaler notices that the shot was fired five minutes before seven, but Richie did not call emergency services until eight minutes past seven. She wonders what happened during those 13 minutes and develops a theory that Richie actually intended to kill Vera and had planned the murder with Sabine. If the murder had succeeded, Sabine would have given him an alibi and told the police that he had been with her immediately after the shot. Richie had obtained the gun and ammunition from Sabine, framing her husband Pepi for the crime. According to Richie and Sabine’s possible plan, Pepi would have wanted to kill his wife because of her affair with Richie, but accidentally hit Vera instead. Dr. Stelzhammer says that Richie went away again for twenty minutes on the night of the murder, after the killing. The investigators suspect that during that time he took Pepi Fuchs’s murder weapon to the hunting lodge, where it was later found. After Richie confesses and reconstructs the crime with the police, he is arrested for attempting to murder Vera and for the negligent killing of Sabine Fuchs.