Tod am Rennsteig - Auge um Auge (2023)

Criminal psychologist Annett Schuster returns to her hometown of Erfurt from the United States after a stint at Boston University. She joins the new Operational Case Analysis (OFA) team, led by Marion Dörner and including case analyst and trained carpenter Jan Kawig. The investigators are assisted by forensic pathologist Vanessa Sun and Detective Sabine Limmer. Schuster’s first assignment takes her and the team to the area near Wartburg Castle, where a man’s body is found in a refrigerator in a forest. The deceased had worked at the Higher Regional Court in Erfurt under the nickname “Judge Merciless.” Religious symbols at the scene, referring to the biblical quote “an eye for an eye,” point to revenge as the motive. When a second body is found near an abandoned church, the search begins for a serial killer who is evidently following a plan and must have a religious background, since this time the message is “a tooth for a tooth.” The victim is a young woman with a drug addiction and a criminal record. A race develops between the perpetrator and the police. What is strange is the perpetrator’s preference for not hiding from the police. He was already spotted during drone surveillance, but they were unable to apprehend him. Some time later, the man calls investigator Jan Kawig and announces a third victim with the words “a hand for a hand.” The very next day, Kawig receives a package at the police headquarters containing a severed hand. Later that same day, the victim is found, and Kawig is sure the perpetrator is deliberately communicating with him. Annett Schuster fears that her colleague is to be the fourth victim. Once the third victim’s identity is established, the connections become clear: the man was the director of the women’s prison in Weimar, where victim number two had been imprisoned for some time and where victim number one, as a judge, had sentenced many of the women serving their terms. Schuster follows up on this lead and contacts the prison in Weimar. There she discovers that drugs are being consumed on a massive scale in the prison and that the prison director had been turning a blind eye to it. In just one year, three women had died of overdoses. One of them was Lara Wehmeier, whose imprisonment Kawig was responsible for. The team now hopes to identify the perpetrator through the prison visitors’ list. Jan Kawig realizes they probably need to look for Hendrik Uhl, his former school friend, whose girlfriend Kawig had stolen from him back then. Uhl’s name is indeed on the visitors’ list, so a manhunt is launched. Schuster is convinced that Uhl is seeking revenge and may be trying to make Kawig suffer what he himself went through. But she has to find out the hard way that she is right: Uhl abducts her. He then forces Kawig to come with him. He takes him to a remote building, where he is holding both Schuster and Kawig’s father captive, and reveals his revenge plan. He intends to force Kawig to decide which of the two should die. Unexpectedly, Kawig throws himself at Uhl, managing to incapacitate him and save both hostages.