The murderer's trail

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TV movie
Original title The murderer's trail
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2019
length 90 minutes
Rod
Director Urs Egger
script Fred Breinersdorfer ,
Katja Röder
production Nils Dünker ,
Eric Bouley ,
Christopher Sassenrath
music Ina Siefert ,
Nellis du Biel
camera Lukas Strebel
cut Benjamin Hembus
occupation

The Trace of Murderers (French title: L'Empreinte des tueurs ) is a German television film by Urs Egger based on an original script by Katja Röder and Fred Breinersdorfer from 2019 with Heino Ferch in the role of special investigator Ingo Thiel. The film deals with the cold-blooded murder of six people in front of an Italian restaurant in Duisburg in 2007 . This crime caused a stir at the time under the name Mafia Murders of Duisburg . The film premiered on TV on October 18, 2019 on ARTE .

action

In front of an Italian restaurant in Mönchengladbach , five men were shot or actually executed by two perpetrators in the early hours of the morning. Afterwards they both flee in a car and are seen by a cyclist on the way there. Commissioner Ingo Thiel and his team take over the investigation, which immediately points in the direction of the Calabrian mafia . They are supported by Carla Orlando, an Italian special investigator from Interpol who is particularly concerned with fighting clan crime, since her father was killed by these people.

Pietro Giordano, one of the dead, has already been noticed by the police in the area of ​​extortion, but nothing has been proven so far. Carla Orlando is convinced that all the victims belonged to a clan and were involved in money laundering transactions here in Germany. During the forensic investigation in the vicinity of the victims, a very professionally hidden listening device is found in the car of one of the dead . Since this should not come from Italy due to its technical details, the investigators suspect an illegal eavesdropping attack from Germany on behalf of the Italian authorities. Thiel confronts Carla Orlando because he is convinced that she should have known about it. She denies this and promises to inquire in Italy to find out something.

Based on the testimony of the cyclist and the evaluation of video recordings from a gas station, the two perpetrators can be optically narrowed down. However, there is not enough specific data on the vehicle, so that this lane cannot be followed up any further. The forensic evaluation of the smoke traces brings surprising clues. Since the perpetrators and their victims are in close contact with the gunshot, the finest DNA particles are carried away by the air stream of the bullet and thus remain intact, they can be secured and analyzed. This means that it is clear that no foreign clan was at work here, but relatives of the paternal line of one of the victims.

Thiel is not satisfied with the lack of information about the perpetrators' escape vehicle. He has an expert report on the rear lights of the car, which can be seen on the surveillance videos, that clearly indicates an Opel Vectra B , built in 1997. This means that the car can now be officially searched for. In addition, a photo of the car and a mug shot of the alleged perpetrator are published in the press. Incoming clues lead to a pizzeria in Grevenbroich , but the suspect he was looking for has already gone to Italy. The escape vehicle is discovered in a junkyard and based on the DNA traces attached there, it can be clearly assigned to the perpetrators.

Thiel thinks it is possible that the attack was aimed solely at the restaurant owner Pietro Giordano and that the other four were only random victims. He also hopes that Sofia Russo, the son and brother of the victims, will provide information about the background and thus about the perpetrators. Her father himself was head of the clan in Italy for years and has been kept hidden by his family since his prison break. But she shows little cooperation and suddenly disappears to Italy as well. In the meantime, there is another indication from the population that one of the perpetrators should live in Aachen. This is immediately observed and arrested.

Thiel and Carla Orlando do not succeed in obtaining information about the status of the investigation from the authorities responsible against clan crime in Italy. So they make their way to Calabria personally and try to contact them directly. After a few attempts to negotiate, Thiel actually gets access to the taped conversations from Giordano's car. From these conversations it emerges that Giordano wanted to get weapons and that a possible attack against another clan was imminent. Thiel is extremely upset that the Italian authorities knew about it and that Germany had not sent a corresponding warning. Using the data on the clan members and targeted DNA tests from three suspects in question, Thiel and Orlando can now identify the second alleged perpetrator: Salvatore Costa. He is the cousin of Lorenzo Costa, who was arrested in Germany.

Due to the family tragedy that Sofia Russo has to endure, she is ready to testify against the clan, which she blames for her fate and the death of her son. She does not want to have anything to do with any further acts of revenge by the “family” and hopes to end the decades-long clan war between the Russos and the Costas. Her father, whose hiding place Sofia had revealed to the police, can no longer be found there.

After tireless investigative work, the case was closed after 57 days.

background

In 2018, Heino Ferch gave the commissioner Ingo Thiel in an almost documentary-looking film by Urs Egger. This film, entitled A Child is Wanted, was based, like The Trace of Murderers , on a true story and addressed the so-called Mirco case .

In the new True Crime case, the 2007 mafia murders in Duisburg are taken up. The location of the action will, however, be moved from Duisburg to Mönchengladbach. The film was made under the working title Die Jagd as a co-production by ZDF, Lailaps Pictures GmbH and handwritten Pictures GmbH in cooperation with ARTE and with funding from the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW . The shooting took place from November 7th to December 14th, 2018 in Reggio di Calabria , Düsseldorf , Neuss , as well as Cologne and the surrounding area. The film is the last that the director Urs Egger , who died in January 2020, was able to complete himself in full.

reception

Audience ratings

The first broadcast of the film saw 1.156 million viewers on October 18, 2019 on ARTE in prime time at 8.15 p.m. In France, another 1.039 million viewers saw the film.

criticism

Tilmann P. Gangloff evaluated for Tittelbach.tv and wrote: “Once again, Egger's implementation sometimes seems like a docudrama reconstructing the investigations without interviews, especially since music is only used sparingly. The tension results mainly from the tenacity with which the investigators track down the murderers. "

“In contrast to the series crime thriller, the script and direction completely forego excursions into private life. The only exception is a short phone call Thiels with his son, who apparently lives with his mother; that explains why the Commissioner can attend to the case day and night. Of course, the disputes with the Italian colleague, who comes from South Tyrol and therefore speaks German, provide additional stimulus, but this aspect also never comes to the fore. "

Jens Müller wrote for Die Tageszeitung : “True crime, now also under public law. As Commissioner Thiel, Heino Ferch clears up the Mafia murders in Duisburg - but not in Duisburg. "

TV Spielfilm said in its short review: “Vendetta in NRW! [...] Pleasantly sober, full of exciting details "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Murderer's Trail. Retrieved October 19, 2019 .
  2. ↑ The Track of the Murderers, TV Movie, 2018-2019 | Crew United. Retrieved October 19, 2019 .
  3. ↑ AGF Video Research - DAILY HITLISTS. Retrieved October 19, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Audiences TV Prime (published October 18, 2019): The Voice Kids s'impose sans panache devant Borderline, Bull menace TF1 et France 2. Accessed on October 21, 2019 (French).
  5. ↑ Tilmann P. Gangloff : The trace of the murderer - review of the film at Tittelbach.tv. Retrieved October 19, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Jens Müller: Jens Müller: factual crime thriller with Heino Ferch: The Mafia murders of Gladbach . In: The daily newspaper: taz . October 18, 2019, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed October 19, 2019]).
  7. ↑ TV Spielfilm online: The track of the murderers in the TV show - TV SPIELFILM. Retrieved on October 19, 2019 (German).