Theresa Wolff - Home Sweet Home (2021)

After completing her studies and working in Berlin for several years, young forensic pathologist Theresa Wolff returns to her hometown of Jena and takes over as head of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the university hospital there. This is met with incomprehension, particularly by Dr. Bernhard Zeidler, the institute’s acting director, who had ambitions for the position himself. Wolff also quickly rubs people the wrong way when she first meets Chief Inspector Robert Brückner in connection with a woman’s body found in the water, offending the investigator with her blunt and unconventional manner. Wolff inherited from her father, who recently died and had been a forester in Jena, the gift of communicating with animals and listening to nature. She has incorporated this into her work as a forensic pathologist: she not only talks to the dead, but is also convinced she can sense their bodies and souls, allowing her to empathize with what the victims went through. Tensions between the investigator and the medical examiner are fueled in particular by the fact that the prime suspect, the victim’s husband and university hospital doctor Dr. Steffen Köhler, had an affair with Theresa many years ago—a fact she conceals from Brückner for as long as possible. When this comes to light, people are quick to raise the question of bias—but Brückner, too, seems not to be impartial in this regard. In the end, however, the two manage to overcome their reservations and bring the perpetrator to justice. Wolff had long resisted seeing her childhood sweetheart Köhler as the culprit, but the evidence on his wife’s body is unmistakable. Wolff’s last doubts are dispelled when Köhler’s wife is nearly cremated because someone had switched the body. Since Wolff had spoken with Köhler the previous day about wanting to carry out more detailed examinations using a CT scanner, he was the only one with an interest in preventing them. Furthermore, the organizational connection between his clinic and forensic medicine gave him the opportunity to gain access. To obtain one final conclusive piece of evidence against Köhler, Wolff plans to manipulate the test results. She intends to secretly get carpet fibers from his apartment, but Köhler catches her in the act, putting her in immediate danger, as she is also recording audio on her phone, capturing Köhler’s confession to the murder. Brückner arrives in time to save her life. Köhler is arrested and must answer for murdering his wife, whom he had beaten to death because she wanted to leave him after enduring years of domestic violence.