Under Other Circumstances – The Secret of the Sisters

The body of a young woman is found in a nature reserve. No one seems to miss her, but an anonymous phone call from the night before suggests foul play.

Jana and Hamm find out that the dead woman is Daria, a young girl from Ukraine who was probably forced into prostitution by her boyfriend.

But Maik Leinemann, who is known to the police, only admits to taking her to a client’s house for a big party that night.

The technicians are able to identify the anonymous caller. It is Katharina Seidel, a woman in her mid-40s with three children. Her husband, roofer Andreas Seidel, has been unable to work for years – and their own house is still more of a construction site than a home.

Katharina and her sister Sybille Barghaus claim to have seen Daria on a country road with a man whose description fits Maik Leinemann. Everything points to him as the perpetrator, but then during the autopsy drugs are found in the victim’s blood that reduce her ability to clot. Daria must have bled to death slowly while she was still at the party.

But the organizer of the party, Horst Steinbach, a wholesaler of building materials, denies any involvement of violence and refuses to give the names of his guests. But Jana negotiates skillfully and is at least able to obtain clues about the guest list. Katharina Seidel’s testimony seems increasingly implausible when analysis of her call reveals that she must also have been at the party. Finally, she confesses to having been at the event herself as a prostitute. The disastrous financial situation of her family had forced her into clandestine prostitution.

Among the suspected guests, Jana comes across Thomas Reuss, an acquaintance of Katharina Seidel and a former colleague of her husband Andreas. This cannot be a coincidence. When she wants to question Katharina again, she is already on her way to an anonymous customer who turns out to be Thomas Reuss. The disaster takes its course when her husband enters the hotel room – believing his wife is having an affair.

Photos © ZDF /Marion von der Mehden