Crime scene: murders without bodies

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Episode of the series Tatort
Original title Murders without corpses
Country of production Austria
original language German
Production
company		 ORF
length 89 minutes
classification Episode 360 ​​( List )
First broadcast May 19, 1997 on ORF
Rod
Director Wolfgang Murnberger
script Wolfgang Murnberger
production Heinz Ambrosch
music Roland Josef Leopold Neuwirth
camera Wolfgang Koch
cut Gerda Ghanim
occupation

Murder without corpses is an Austrian television thriller from 1997. The screenplay was written by Wolfgang Murnberger , who also directed. It was the 360th crime scene episode and the second and last case of Chief Inspector Kant ( Wolfgang Huebsch ) as the main investigator. Fichtl, who has been promoted to chief inspector, and his team have to deal with a number of people who have disappeared without a trace and who apparently fell victim to a cunning contract killer.

action

The brother of a young Hungarian woman reported his sister missing and when the police broke into her apartment, they found no one there. Chief Inspector Kant and Inspector Varanasi are puzzled, while Chief Inspector Fichtl points out to the two that there have been a number of people who have disappeared in Vienna recently. Kant and Varanasi find evidence in the apartment that the young woman was extortionate, and the lady was apparently engaged in prostitution . A friend of the missing person contacted him through Kant's girlfriend, the bar owner Maria. She testifies that the missing woman seduced lawyers and doctors and then blackmailed her. Kant and Varanasi seek out Professor Ellinger, who was a customer of the missing person, who denies ever having been to a prostitute. Meanwhile, the well-off gentlemen's outfitter Therese Hohenberg hires the killer Mag. Ritte to get rid of her unfaithful husband. Ellinger is now identified as a customer of the missing person through a pubic hair secured by Varanasi, who finally admits to having been with her, but denies having been blackmailed by her.

Mag. Ritte meets with Ms. Hohenberg and has her hand over the key to her villa. He guarantees that there will be no traces and tells her that she should travel at the time of the crime and show herself at the vacation spot. Kant and his team discover that Ellinger was on vacation during the time of the crime; in the previous missing person cases, too, the main suspects had been away for a long time at the time of the offense, Kant and Varanasi suspect contract killings, but wonder where the bodies are. Mag. Ritte visits Hohenberg in his wife's villa and hits him with a poison arrow, his dealings with him are emphatically polite and cultured. The poison is deadly, as Mag. Ritte explains to his victim that he only has a few minutes to live. He offers the dying one last cigarette and explains that he lived immorally and deserved death. After his victim dies, Mag. Ritte puts a wad of money in his mouth, then leaves the villa. Then he calls his Eastern European partner to collect the body. However, a homeless man is on the Hohenbergs property and finds the body of the host. He takes the wad of money in his mouth and his shoes. The homeless man watches from a hiding place as the Eastern Europeans remove Hohenberg's body. Shortly afterwards, the Eastern Europeans complain to Mag. Ritte that there was no money with the corpse, who meets with the undertaker Jordan and Mag. Ritte clarifies the problem and reassures his accomplices that he simply forgot the money.

The homeless man who took the money is arrested for a fight and explains to the police what he observed from the Hohenberg Villa, whereupon Kant takes him there. Mag. Ritte, who has returned to the scene of the crime to clarify the whereabouts of the fee he left behind, observes Kant and Varanasi's local appointment with the witness from afar. The witness also describes the removal of the body by the Eastern Europeans. Kant and Varanasi find out that Therese Hohenberg has gone away, like the potential client in the previous cases, and that the missing person cannot be reached. The witness testifies that the loop of a funeral wreath stuck out of the trunk of the Eastern Europeans, which is how Kant and Varanasi come to the conclusion that they must be people from the undertaker milieu. While the police went through all of Vienna's undertakers the next morning, Mag. Ritte shaded the homeless. Through the check, Varanasi can locate the car with which the body of Franz Hohenberg was removed, and he can also locate the two Serbian undertakers. Mag. Ritte seeks out the homeless witness, he kills him and a companion, the corpses end up in a building pit. Meanwhile, Varanasi observes how the body of Franz Hohenberg is placed in the coffin with another. Kant goes to the undertaker Jordan, who organizes the funeral, but there he does not learn anything more. He informs Fichtl of the results so far and suggests secretly exhuming the corpse so as not to stir up the dust. Fichtl organizes the exhumation, while Kant uses his girlfriend Maria as a decoy to look for a hit man on the scene.

About divorce attorney Dr. Hildebrandt and various newspaper advertisements, Maria comes into contact with Mag. Ritte, while Varanasi learns from forensic medicine that Franz Hohenberg, whose body has since been autopsied, died of poison. Maria follows Mag. Ritte's extensive instructions on how to get in touch, the surveillance by the police fails because otherwise Maria would have been exposed. Kant lets Maria describe himself as a murder victim. The officers carefully observe the cleverly planned handover of the advance to be paid by Maria, which was planned by Mag. Ritte. Maria had to deposit the money in a locker at Vienna's Westbahnhof, where a messenger picks it up and waits for the mailbox to be emptied before dropping the envelope. Since the officers can't figure it out, Fichtl orders the messenger to be arrested. He states that he does not know his client, he addressed the envelope to a Mag. Ritte. Kant recognizes the name of the Belgian painter René Magritte in it. The officers discover that the money was taken from the basement of the house where the mailbox is attached. Mag. Ritte observes the police investigations on site, because he is dressed like the painter, Kant speaks to him and has him arrested, but he denies any involvement in the crime. He merely claims to love the Belgian painter Magritte.

Mag. Ritte still lives with his mother, who says that her husband disappeared at some point and was pronounced dead. Since the family is well-off, there is no financial motive for the murders; Kant and Varanasi speculate that murder, like copying Magritte pictures, is his art. During an extensive exhumation of corpses buried by the undertaker Jordan in various cemeteries in Vienna, the officials found numerous coffins with two corpses, Varanasi also arrested Ms. Hohenberg, and numerous other people involved were arrested. However, since none of the arrested people confess extensively, only charges of minor offenses such as disturbing the peace of the dead or illegally using titles come into consideration. When the officers were almost resigned, the body of the homeless witness was found on a construction site. Based on DNA traces on his hand, Mag. Ritte could still be convicted of the murder.

Audience and background

The scene of murders without corpses reached 5.85 million viewers when it was first broadcast on ARD, which corresponds to a rate of 18.01%.

criticism

TV Spielfilm rated the film as mediocre and commented: "Routine, but also beautifully bizarre". The Tatort fans on tatort-fundus.de, however, almost consistently rate this episode as one of the ten best Tatort episodes of all time.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Murders without corpses audience rating at tatort-fundus.de, accessed on April 26, 2015.
  2. ↑ Murders without corpses short review at tvspielfilm.de, accessed on April 26, 2015.
  3. ↑ Ranking list of the crime scene episodes , accessed April 26, 2015.
previous episode
May 4, 1997: Nightmare 		Crime scene follow next episode
May 25, 1997: Murder business