Crime scene episode 1209: the killer in me

"The murderer in me": The title of the new crime scene from the Swabian metropolis of Stuttgart is somewhat misleading, because it's not actually about murder in 29. Case of the well-rehearsed investigator duo Thorsten Lannert (Richy Muller) and Sebastian Bootz (Felix Klare): Ben Dellien never had the intention to kill a human being. But on a car trip, in the evening in the dark and on a rain-soaked road, it suddenly happens: He overlooks a cyclist and hits him from behind with his heavy SUV. A situation that probably all drivers are afraid of. Instead of helping the injured man lying on the side of the road, Dellien, who is under pressure, simply keeps on driving. Hit-and-run with fatal consequences.

Thanks to meticulous research, Lannert and Bootz get on the trail of the lawyer Dellien, but he tries every means to maintain his bourgeois ideal world facade. And Commissioner Bootz is also suddenly overcome by doubts: Is it really fair to prosecute a person who was not attentive for a single second and then once made a wrong decision?

"Der Morder in mir" is already the third film that director and screenwriter Niki Stein has written and directed for the Stuttgart Tatort team – after "HAL" (episode 991) and "Der Inder" (episode 952).

Episode 1209 of the crime series, a production of Sudwestrundfunk, was filmed in Stuttgart and Baden-Baden in March 2021. The premiere of the film was already on 06. 06. 2022, when it was shown at the end of the SWR Summer Festival at the Schlossplatz in Stuttgart. For television viewers, Sunday, the 18. 09. 2022 at 8:15 p.m. the first opportunity to see the crime thriller on ARD's First Program.

Contents of the crime scene episode "The Murderer in Me"

Rumble. It's a dull thud that will fatefully change successful attorney Ben Dellien's life from one second to the next. So far, things couldn't have gone better for him: Professionally, he is about to make a big career leap: His boss wants to make him a partner in the law firm. And Ben's wife Johanna is just pregnant for the third time, with the birth of little Ferdinand expected soon. The Dellien family lives in a modern villa in a noble Stuttgart suburb, on the hills high above the city. But that evening, Dellien is under pressure: He's had a busy day, and the next morning he has a contract signing with an important client at the office, so he discusses final details with his colleague on the drive home. Dellien is on the road in his company car – a black SUV – on a winding mountain road, part of the former legendary Solitude racetrack. It is dark and raining cats and dogs, yet Dellien is driving at excessive speed. Then a moment of carelessness, Dellien looks only briefly at his smartphone – that's when it happens: a bump on the windshield, he has run over something. Dellien stops, gets out. The front end of the car took quite a beating. Then he discovers something on the rear window: a red peaked cap has become caught in the windshield wiper. Dellien takes a step back: he has to realize he just ran over a person. In his panic he stowed the cap in the trunk, got back in – and simply drove on.

The next morning, forensic doctor Dr. Daniel Vogt his usual bike ride along the original route of the 1925 Solitude racetrack. But today he does not come as far as usual. Stopped by a police patrol: The road is closed from here because an accident occurred last night. The accident that Ben Dellien caused. Vogt is immediately in his element and examines the accident victim – an apparently homeless cyclist – even before the police arrive. They are still on the road in the crime scene "Der Morder in mir" (The murderer in me), because the car freak Thorsten Lannert is desperate to savour the driving experience on the former racetrack, and so he speeds along the road in his vintage Porsche as if it were still a matter of victory or defeat for him today. His co-driver Sebastian Bootz is rather appalled by his colleague's offensive driving style and urges him to keep to the speed limit, and sure enough: there is already a flash of lightning, the speed trap has snapped shut. When the two detectives arrive at the scene of the accident a short time later with a full stop, forensic pathologist Vogt has already examined everything and combined by a hair's breadth: The accident victim must have pushed the bicycle up the hill and meanwhile been hit by a passenger car. The dead man's skull shows a fracture, and Vogt also suspects broken ribs and internal injuries; he lived for five to six hours after the accident. If the person who caused the accident had called a doctor immediately, the victim could still be alive. While Inspector Bootz is somewhat amazed at the combination zeal of the forensic pathologist, Lannert finds a scuffed plush bunny on the street, which the dead man apparently carried with him. I wonder what it is all about?

Ben Dellien is still quite beside himself the next morning. He overslept, although today is the important appointment in the office, and the first thing he hears on the radio is the news of the night accident on the Hohenstrabe, in which a cyclist was fatally injured. The person who caused the accident could not be found yet. Dellien is getting more and more nervous. He says goodbye to his unsuspecting wife and children and drives to the car wash in his company car, the car involved in the accident. Eliminate traces. Cleaning is the responsibility of Laura Rensing, a former stewardess who has been employed at the car wash since the downturn in the aviation industry triggered by Corona. Laura is also the mother of Helge, a classmate of Dellien's daughter Frizzi. She immediately recognizes the huge crack in the windshield of the car. Deer accident, claims Dellien. "It must have been a big one," she says. Colleague Helen is already pushing: "Where is he staying, the video conference is about to start?. So quickly out of the car wash. In the rush, Dellien forgets the red peaked cap he put in the trunk after the accident. Laura Rensing takes her in hand. During the meeting in the office Dellien is unfocused, but his boss Kurt Mader blames it on the fact that his otherwise very ambitious employee will soon become a father again. Shortly thereafter, Helen reveals to him that there is virtually nothing standing in the way of his promotion to partner at the law firm. Only the damage to the company car, this stupid deer accident, he would have to report to the insurance company, of course.

Meanwhile, in the SWR crime series "Der Morder in mir" (The murderer in me), Lannert and Bootz examine the remains of the dead man and find, among other things, photos in the bags he was carrying that probably show his children and his (ex-)wife. His name was Peter Koster, he had no fixed abode at last. Marlene Teichert, the eager new commissioner candidate – of whose existence Bootz only learns when he meets her in the flesh at the office – has already tracked down the address of Koster's wife. There the commissioners meet however only Silke Koster, the daughter of the dead one. "Good, thank you."This is her only reaction to the death of her father, with whom she probably broke up a long time ago. At least she recognizes the stuffed bunny from the scene of the accident: it belonged to her brother, who died a few years ago.

Dr. Meanwhile, Vogt manages to reconstruct the accident in detail with the help of simulation models. Koster was probably only touched on the leg and then thrown over the car. This explains why there are no traces of the accident on the bike. The car that hit Koster must have been a large SUV. Unfortunately, this doesn't really help the detectives in their investigation. But another investigation is more fruitful, which brings further information about the dead man to light: Koster last lived in Heidelberg, helped out at the university canteen there and was only called "Foxy" by everyone – because of a red cap with the lettering "Foxy", which Koster always wore. His son Lukas already died in 2003, he would have had a birthday soon. He would have been 30 now. He was buried in a Stuttgart cemetery. Apparently Koster biked all the way from Heidelberg to Stuttgart to stand at his son's grave on his birthday. Only he never arrived there. But he must have had the Foxy cap with him. Where did she go??

Meanwhile, Ben Dellien in the television crime thriller "The Murderer in Me" increasingly despairs of his situation. Instead of turning himself in to the police and confessing to the hit-and-run, he comes up with ever more hair-raising means to cover up the evidence. He deliberately causes another accident with the company SUV, with a total loss of the car as a consequence. He himself only suffers a slight concussion. But now he can no longer hide from his wife what is bothering him: He confesses to her that he has run over a human being. Johanna Dellien, also a lawyer, reacts in an extremely detached manner and is only concerned about preventing damage to her family. He had not been able to recognize what he had run over, given the visibility conditions, so he was not to blame. And anyway: That was a poor devil, that tramp, he didn't make it much longer anyway. But Dellien is getting more and more restless: after Laura Rensing returned the foxy cap to him, he already believes that she knows about everything. Johanna wants to simply dispose of the cap in the trash, but Ben carelessly puts it back at the scene of the accident. There she finds Dr. Vogt on his morning bike ride, and so the important piece of evidence ends up in the hands of the commissioners.

In the TV crime thriller "The Murderer in Me," however, they are more concerned with themselves at the moment. At the end of the day, at Bootz's kitchen table, they reflect on what they can actually achieve with their work. Bootz has been feeling pretty drained and listless lately. He wonders what this is all about: tracking down the driver of the accident, who made a mistake for once in his life, and holding him responsible for it – in the end, who benefits from this?? Inspector Lannert has more of an eye on the big picture than on the specific case: If everyone could do whatever they wanted without feeling the consequences of their actions, and if no one stood up for the rule of law anymore – would that still be a society worth living in?

As he philosophizes blithely to himself, he suddenly realizes that he is holding his fine notice in his hand: the radar speed check just before the scene of the accident. The perpetrator drove the same route. What if he had also been flashed?? The commissioners run a check on all the cars that were speeding at the spot on the day in question – and lo and behold, there's a hit: a black SUV was speeding there just before the time of the crime and had a serious accident a day later. Total loss. The car is registered to the law firm Mader. This is how Lannert and Bootz get on Dellien's track. The commission with Dr. Al-Husain the best criminal defense attorney he can find, and of course denies any involvement in the accident. At the same time Dellien continues to work on the final destruction of all traces. Although his company car is a wreck, the police still want to have it forensically examined. So Dellien sneaks into the junkyard at night, douses the wrecked car with gasoline and sets it on fire. Stupid only that the night watchman has seen him. And even more stupid, that he left the receipt from the car wash from the day after the accident in the car, which finally falls into the hands of Lannert and Bootz.
That's also how the investigators come across Laura Rensing. She says she didn't notice anything unusual about the car, but for Ben Dellien, Laura is the biggest factor of uncertainty. He fears that Laura knows something about the accident or at least suspects something – and rightly so. On the front page of a newspaper that a customer hands her, she reads a headline about the tragic accident – and recognizes the red cap she found in Dellien's car. Of course Laura puts one and one together, has already dialed the number of the police – but puts the phone aside. Should she interfere in a matter that doesn't concern her?? Should she really deliver Ben Dellien to the knife? Nor does she shrink from.

Meanwhile, Ben's nerves are on edge; he has sleepless nights and is on the verge of turning himself in to the police. But Johanna Dellien is strictly against it. She suspects that the police could now also pin a murder on him – and that would destroy everything they have built up for themselves. But Johanna also knows that Laura might know something – and that this could be dangerous for her. So Johanna and Ben try to use Laura Rensing for their own purposes. They offer her a job as a domestic helper, and later even a job as a secretary in Ben's law firm – of course much better paid than her job in the car wash. Laura is hesitant at first; she is undecided how to act. Actually, she doesn't want to have anything to do with the whole thing. And otherwise she gets along well with the Delliens. If they now also offer her a lucrative job ..