Crime scene: holy blood

Episode of the series Tatort
Original title	Holy blood
Country of production	Germany
original language	German
Production company	WDR
length	88 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12
classification	Episode 324 ( List )
First broadcast	January 14, 1996 on Das Erste
Rod
Director	Hartmut Griesmayr
script	Dorothee Schön Susanne Schneider
production	Veith von Fürstenberg
music	Roland Baumgartner
camera	Charly Steinberger
cut	Walter Schellemann
occupation
Martin Lüttge : Bernd Flemming, Chief Inspector Roswitha Schreiner : Miriam Koch Maria Schell : Abbess Laetitia Ina Weisse : Sister Elia Carmen Hanlon : Sister Theresa Monika Schwarz : Sister Maria Benigna Anne Brendler : Sister Lauretta Hickman : Sister Susanna Holger Handtke : Gabriel Engelhardt Friedrich Theuring : restaurateur Wollersheim Karlheinz Lemken : Father Domenicus Lars Wellings : Martin Buchenroth Gert Burkard : pathologist Günter Spörrle Udo Weinberger Teo Gostisha Christian Goles Christa Pillmann Achim book Detlev Redinger

Heilig Blut is a television film from the crime series Tatort . It is the 13th case of the Düsseldorf investigators Flemming and Koch and the 324th crime scene sequence. The report produced by Westdeutscher Rundfunk was broadcast for the first time on January 14, 1996 on Das Erste . Flemming and Koch are dealing with the mysterious death of a nun in a women's convent.

action

The corpse of the nun Theresa is found early in the morning in the Heilig Blut convent , the woman fell from the bell tower and suffered a broken neck. Flemming finds a wooden figure in the shape of a fish in the hand of the dead, the abbess Laetitia rules out suicide , what the deceased was looking for on the church tower at night, the abbess cannot explain. In the pathology department , Flemming and Koch found out that Theresa was five months pregnant , traces of foreign blood were found under her fingernails, a piece of her skirt was missing and residues of algae were found in her hair. Abbess Laetitia is surprised by the pregnancy and sees a suicide motive in it, Theresa would not have had any male contacts, as far as she knew. She gives Flemming more wooden animal figures that Theresa had hidden in her mattress. The monastery management offers Flemming that he can bring an officer to the monastery to investigate there, Miriam Koch moves into the monastery shortly afterwards, while it turns out that the blood under Theresa's fingernails must have come from a man with whom she is Had spent time before her death. Flemming interrogates the priest of the neighboring church, Father Domenicus, who denies having anything to do with Theresa's pregnancy or death. Novice master Maria Benigna tells Koch that Theresa was an exemplary nun, but five months ago she asked to be relieved from the office of ringing bells.

During the night Koch hears Sister Elia, who has taken over the office of ringing the bell from Theresa, screaming. She sees a man running away who can escape her unrecognized. Sister Elijah is disturbed. She wouldn't tell Koch who the man was. The next morning, cook asks Laetitia that she doesn't believe there was a man in the monastery, only that she has the key to the gate. Flemming has meanwhile carried out a blood test with Father Domenicus, who is leaving as the father of Theresa's child. For her part, Koch tells Flemming that she saw a rosary on the bell tower. The murderer could have lost this. Flemming visits the restorer Wollersheim, who briefly had the key to the gate years ago when he was doing work in the monastery chapel. He denies having made a duplicate key at the time. One of his apprentices, Martin Buchenroth, helped him with the work and is still with him today. The neighboring locksmith confirms to Flemming that Buchenroth had a duplicate key made at the time. At night, Koch discovers that the rosary she discovered on the bell tower has disappeared. The next morning Flemming meets with Martin and the current apprentices of Wollersheim in front of the church. Sister Elia is startled at the sight of the young men. When asked by Flemmings, Martin admits that he had a duplicate key made out of adolescent stupidity, but he never used it, the duplicate key must have been lost in the mess of the workshop today. He told the current apprentices about the key. Apart from Gabriel Engelhardt, the apprentices have an alibi, Flemming takes this with him to the presidium, where he confesses that he met Theresa while working in the church and that he slept with her once, but after that he never entered the monastery again.

Koch searches Sister Elijah's room, but is caught by Abbess Laetitia, who expels her from the monastery; Before she leaves the monastery, she receives an anonymous message that she should look around Laetitia's office, where Koch finds the missing rosary. Elia, on the other hand, does not meet her anymore because she is in the sick bay. Flemming picks up Koch from the monastery. Gabriel's blood test has meanwhile shown that the blood under Theresa's fingernails also comes from him and they arrest him. Gabriel continues to deny the murder that he visited Theresa again because he had a guilty conscience about that night. He had brought her self-carved animal figures, because he had injured himself while carving, she had torn off a piece of her skirt and bandaged it. He then returned to the workshop before the thunderstorm that had raged on the night of the murder to bring figures to the workshop that were drying outside. Although Wollersheim confirms the version, Flemming takes Gabriel with him. Koch reports to Flemming about the anonymous tip she was investigating. It could only come from Elia or from the head of the infirmary, Maria Benigna. Both have a view of the bell tower from their windows and can therefore have seen the act. In addition to the rosary, Koch also found strong sedating drugs and psychotropic drugs in his desk. The officials have the rosary, made of woman's hair, and a sample of the abbess's hair examined in the laboratory and it turns out to be Laetitia's. Meanwhile, Gabriel is released because the officials determine that Theresa must have been killed during the thunderstorm.

Flemming and Koch go to the monastery to speak to Maria Benigna, Laetitia joins them and shows the officials notes from Theresa. She felt guilty about her pregnancy and wanted to die. Elijah had met her and pushed her from the tower so that she would not have to take on the sin of suicide. Elijah is Laetitia's niece, her sister died giving birth to Elijah. The girl suffered from schizophrenia from early childhood and lived in orphanages and psychiatric hospitals. Laetitia accepted the girl into the order and continued treating her schizophrenia in the monastery. Her niece confided in Laetitia after she had been frightened of the young men in church. Laetitia had decided to protect her niece. Flemming and Koch arrest Elijah.

reception

Reviews

The critics of the television magazine TV Spielfilm rated the episode as mediocre and commented: "'In the name of the rose' here goes in your pants"

Audience ratings

The first broadcast of Tatort Heilig Blut on January 14, 1996 was seen by a total of 10.99 million viewers in Germany and thus achieved a market share of 31.01%.

Web links

• Crime scene: Holy Blood in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Holy Blood in the online film database
• Summary of the plot of Heilig Blut on the ARD website
• Holy blood at the crime scene fund
• Holy blood at Tatort-Fans.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Release certificate for the crime scene: Holy Blood . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2011 (PDF; test number: 128 876 V).
2. ↑ Heilig Blut short review on tvspielfilm.de, accessed on February 27, 2016.
3. ↑ Audience ratings at tatort-fundus.de, accessed on February 27, 2016.

previous episode January 1, 1996: The specialist

Crime scene follow

next episode January 21, 1996: Friday Murderer