Theresa Wolff - Der schönste Tag (2023)

A young man is celebrating at a club in Jena. He is cheerful and in high spirits, beaming as he dances exuberantly with his girlfriend and looks forward to his happiest day. The next morning, he is lying dead on the banks of the Saale, with a wound on his head, 1.8 per mille of alcohol in his blood, drowned in a puddle. The young man is Patrik Kempter. The autopsy quickly reveals that he had undergone several gender-affirming surgeries, presumably in Eastern Europe. It remains to be determined whether his death was an unfortunate accident or murder. Patrik Kempter studied business administration at Friedrich Schiller University and was a member of a dueling fraternity. This raises the question for the investigators of what would draw a trans man to an environment known more for its traditional gender roles, which he can hardly have conformed to. Patrik’s girlfriend, Isabelle Saleh, is also a student. She is devastated by the news of his death, but asks strikingly detailed questions about the circumstances. She tells the investigators that Patrik was constantly afraid of being found out in the fraternity. His injuries in the genital area may have resulted from a fight that got out of hand and could point to a transphobic motive. Indeed, Magnus Battenfeld, the fraternity’s senior, seems to be deliberately trying to destroy evidence. And Martin Wondrack, also a fraternity member, who was at the club with Patrik on the night he died, is accused by a witness of staring at Patrik’s girlfriend Isabelle all evening. The investigation initially focuses on the fraternity, all the more so when two alumni step in. One, Professor Arno Pentz, was Theresa Wolff’s former professor and mentor. Despite her reservations about fraternities, she still has the utmost respect for him. But she resists his attempt to influence the investigation. The other, Johann Rottwald, had planned a successful career for Patrik at his company. He saw him as a man with “drive.” Senior Magnus Battenfeld had also hoped for that career, however, which could provide another motive. Martin Wondrack, on the other hand, turns out to have been a close friend of Patrik’s, one of the few who knew early on and supported him in many ways. It becomes apparent that Martin has feelings for Patrik that go beyond friendship. Isabelle Saleh’s composed and rather emotionless behavior when she is allowed to see her dead boyfriend once more at the forensic institute gives Theresa Wolff a terrible premonition. Despite several attempts, she cannot get hold of Isabelle, but eventually finds her on the banks of the Saale after a—rather half-hearted—attempt to take her own life. Theresa Wolff accompanies the young woman home and does not leave her alone overnight. There, she finds a medication she recognizes as a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, an antidepressant that can have serious side effects, including sexual dysfunction in the form of genital numbness. She suspects that this side effect turned sex into a nightmare for Isabelle, and that even the closeness of a man would trigger fear and panic in her. With Patrik, however, that was not the case: she did not have to fear that he would want more than tenderness, since anatomically he was incapable of more. Patrik, however, suffered from not being able to fully “be a man,” and had therefore recently undergone another operation to have an erectile implant inserted. Theresa Wolff manages to secure fragments of a down feather from Patrik’s hair. This makes it highly likely that the down jacket Patrik always wore was damaged during the struggle, and that further fragments must therefore be found at the crime scene, which could then be identified beyond doubt. An email from the fraternity’s lawyers also comes to light, in which Patrik is threatened in no uncertain terms. He was supposed to sign a confidentiality agreement and leave the fraternity. In return, a room and a monthly allowance would be paid for him and his girlfriend until he finished his studies. This threat is enough to secure a search of the fraternity house. Until then, the fraternity had said through its lawyers that it would speak further with the police only on the orders of the prosecutor’s office. During the search, Magnus Battenfeld admits to having inflicted Patrik’s genital injuries and cut up his jacket. But he says Patrik already had the head injury when he arrived at the fraternity, something the investigating commissioner Lewandowski initially does not believe. To Theresa Wolff, however, the account sounds plausible. Isabelle Saleh tells her that Patrik had planned for his happiest day to end with the two of them being physically close as well. But Isabelle could not bear that. In the end, she saw a blow to the back of his head as the only way to stop his advances. For Patrik, it was a shock. He left her apartment, got drunk, and returned to the fraternity, where he challenged Magnus Battenfeld to a duel with swords, leading to the genital injury. In despair at having been rejected by Isabelle, his friend Martin tried to comfort him. This only confused Patrik further, and he rejected Martin just as fiercely, so Martin left his collapsing friend alone on the banks of the Saale. In the end, the investigators have three perpetrators, but no murderer.