Vera Brühne (2001)

Tutzing on Lake Starnberg, in the early 1960s: Dentist Dietrich Schwarz and his housekeeper and partner, Elisabeth Huhn, are found shot dead in a villa. At first, the police assume that Schwarz killed Elisabeth Huhn and then took his own life. However, an autopsy conducted after the victim’s son requested that the body be exhumed establishes that both were murdered. Suspicion quickly falls on the attractive Vera Brühne, who was named in the wealthy doctor’s will. In a circumstantial-evidence trial, she and her alleged accomplice, Johann Ferbach, are sentenced to life imprisonment. A particular role is played by the contradictory testimony of Brühne’s daughter, Stephanie, and by Brühne’s lifestyle, which was considered immoral. Years later, the young lawyer Haddenhorst reopens the case and uncovers numerous inconsistencies in the verdict and the investigation at the time, which had completely disregarded Schwarz’s possible role as an arms dealer.