01x01 - A Mysterious Death

[bunniefuu]

[dramatic cello playing]

- [flash bangs]

- [music intensifies]

[electronic dance music playing]

[woman] Police are looking

for an alleged k*ller.

[man] Investigators suspect m*rder.

The man drugged

and then robbed his victims.

[electronic music playing]

This is the sort of case that made me feel

we're dealing with a monster.

[man] People are dying right now.

And nobody knows where he is

or what he's planning next.

An incredibly eerie m*rder case in Berlin.

THE POISON k*ller OF FRIEDRICHSHAIN

COMA k*ller

HOW MANY MORE VICTIMS DID HE m*rder?

For this region, you could say

it's a once-in-a-century case.

[dramatic techno music continues]

That's what's so terrible about it,

to consciously do it.

To know exactly

what he's doing.

[music swells, ends]

He doesn't have any reason to stop.

[ominous music playing]

[dramatic cello resonates, fades]

[mysterious music playing]

[music fades]

[dramatic music playing]

[people chatter]

[car honks]

[techno music playing]

Berlin nights are vibrant, rather diverse

STATE PROSECUTOR

And in my professional opinion,

somewhat dangerous.

[electronic dance music playing]

[man] Loud music,

hedonism, sexuality, vibrations,

the sounds of the low bass.

I think it has a lot to do

with the history of Berlin's past.

It's because of The Berlin Wall,

which also divided Friedrichshain.

After being the location of a death zone,

it went on to become

a lawless party scene.

It's like magic.

[crowd cheers and shouts]

[techno music playing]

Getting high on drugs

is part of our nature.

Some go out partying and have five beers.

Others smoke a joint,

and others snort a line. [chuckles]

The possibilities here are endless,

but at the same time,

this party scene does have a dark side.

[siren wailing]

[siren wailing]

[ominous music playing]

What's most terrifying is

how quickly such a life can

be turned completely

upside down on its head.

That's very scary.

FRIEDRICHSHAIN DISTRIC

[suspenseful music playing]

[people chatter]

MAY 5TH, 2012

[suspenseful music continues]

It was just a typical Friday night

here, at the bar.

Guests were roaming around,

we were serving drinks,

all the regulars were here.

It was business as usual.

[suspenseful music playing]

[music fades]

f*cking

[ominous music playing]

[dramatic sting]

- [breaks screech]

- [siren wailing]

The doorbell rang.

My boss got me straight out of bed.

He stood there and said,

"Please come to the bar with me."

At that point, all I knew was

we had a dead body at the bar.

I didn't know who,

I didn't know why, I didn't know what.

[ominous music playing]

My co-worker who found him at the time

initially didn't realize he was dead.

He basically was just trying

to wake him up.

So, he placed a glass of water

next to him,

saying he'd be back in ten minutes

and he'd have to kick him out then.

His skin also changed color,

and it was at that point when he realized

what was actually going on.

At first I thought it might've been

a sex accident, maybe too many drugs,

too much alcohol, or a mix of both,

which can definitely also lead to death.

It was unclear from the start

what had happened here.

STATE CRIMINAL POLICE AGENCY

[car engine starts]

Up until that moment,

I didn't know what a darkroom was.

SENIOR HOMICIDE INVESTIGATOR

I wasn't familiar with these places

where h*m* men meet

to have anonymous sex with each other.

And so, we ended up

taking a closer look at the place,

to understand the situation better.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Andreas] We got the impression

there was a sexual element.

That was undeniable. It seemed obvious.

[suspenseful music continues]

It's the kind of place where you'd expect

a large amount of evidence

including DNA evidence.

There were paper tissues lying around,

we inspected the garbage,

lots of condoms in there.

[suspenseful music playing]

[flash charges]

[Andreas] Securing a crime scene

includes a scan,

so we can access a simulation of the scene

later on a computer.

This includes taping,

meaning tape is attached to the body

in a specific grid pattern,

to secure DNA and fiber traces.

We do this because we only have one shot,

that exact moment

while we are at the crime scene.

[ominous music continues]

But we found nothing on the body

to reveal its identity.

So for us, this was initially

an unidentified dead person.

[music swells, wanes]

FORENSICS

[pensive music playing]

We found clues on the deceased,

indicating suffocation.

FORENSIC PATHOLOGIS

This can manifest as point-shaped bleeding

in the eyelids and conjunctiva,

on the outside of the eyelids,

on the facial skin,

possibly the oral mucosa.

Initially, we couldn't explain it.

So, during our initial examination,

working with the police,

we couldn't find any evidence that

would have pointed to a strangulation,

which in turn would have

explained the evidence we found there.

So, after examining the body,

it was still unclear

what actually happened here.

That left me with

an uneasy feeling.

[dramatic tone resonates]

[rumbling]

Obviously, it was very important to us

to be able to ID the victim.

And as early as Saturday,

there were initial hints

of the victim's possible identity.

One of the bar employees knew the victim

worked as a cashier at the Metro market,

where he was some sort of manager.

So, one of my teams drove

to the Metro market

with a picture of the victim,

and there, they were able to obtain

information pretty quickly from the staff

as to who it was,

a 32-year-old man whose name was Nicky.

[suspenseful music playing]

That day, I felt different

right when I woke up.

NICKY'S SISTER

Somehow, I felt sort of

down like, I was in a bad mood,

I don't know, kind of like

Yeah.

And then my phone rang.

It was a police officer.

"Your brother was found dead in a bar."

When she said that, I dropped my phone.

I fully panicked.

When I saw my parents, it hurt even more

It was just everything all at once.

I was overwhelmed with pain.

[ominous music playing]

In a matter of seconds, gone. Vanished.

Huh?

We still had so many plans.

Really.

My parents, too.

Our parents.

It was too soon.

[suspenseful music playing]

[music continues]

[Katrin] I was informed

that investigations had begun.

Since we had

little information to go off of,

we began investigating

into every possible direction

with open minds.

And it would have been a mistake

to jump to conclusions too early.

[music continues]

[woman] My job was to drive to the office,

where I proceeded to question

the bartender from Grosse Freiheit

HOMICIDE INVESTIGATOR

in our interrogation room.

At that point, he was our key eyewitness,

who could tell us more about the location,

and the frequent clientele,

so, I told him to describe

all the guests that night to me.

Someone must have seen or heard

what happened that night.

[suspenseful electronic music playing]

I remember sitting in this room

with at least five, six, seven officers.

My boss was there.

It went on for hours.

Everyone was questioned

separately, thoroughly.

Who did you see? Who was having sex where?

With who? How? In which of the cabins?

They kept asking us what a darkroom was,

what happens in there,

who does what with whom here.

So, that was very

[exhales]

That kind of shook me up a bit.

That you're not just an employee in a bar

where someone lost their life,

but also, for a brief moment,

you're actually

considered a suspect yourself.

[techno music playing]

There were clues

suggesting this was possibly a m*rder,

so basically, we just assumed

this was a homicide.

Nobody just lets themselves

be k*lled in silence.

So, I thought there must have been some

groaning and screaming,

but nobody could confirm

that they had witnessed

any argument or physical struggle

occur that night.

INSTITUTE OF FORENSIC MEDICINE

[Dr. Sven] After the autopsy,

there were still some

unanswered questions.

We still didn't have enough evidence

to rule out suffocation,

so, we also considered the possibility

that the victim was poisoned.

[ominous music playing]

What irritated me was

that there were no signs of a struggle,

because, when someone that age

has a physical altercation,

you usually find evidence

indicating such a struggle.

So, at first, things just didn't add up.

There were substances taken, stimulants,

and these drugs,

taken in an improper dosage,

could just as well have contributed to

to Nicky basically

dying an accidental death.

That was definitely a strong possibility.

Naturally, we took into account that,

this might a person

who liked taking substances of some sort,

so, we reached out to

We asked his family, friends,

anyone who could provide us

with information.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Anka] Nicky had two lives, and we knew

very little about his life in Berlin.

Almost nothing.

When Nicky told us about Berlin,

like when he went to

a Kylie Minogue concert and this and that,

he would tell us about that,

but never about going on dates

in the evenings or when he would

He never mentioned that.

HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY

[ominous music playing]

[Anka] In a wig, he could pass as a woman.

He really could.

He tried on Mom's wedding dress,

and Mom was very slim around then.

And it fit like it was

custom-made,

for him.

Then he put on high heels.

It's hard to believe,

but he walked around in them

as if he wore high heels all the time.

And he had a tiny lady's waist.

What was I wearing?

Dad's firefighter uniform.

It shows that

roles can't be assigned.

Yeah, totally.

I always protected him, I felt.

Yeah.

When we got older, the roles reversed.

Nicky was on a good path,

while I drifted.

And so, he thought,

"Let's turn this around."

[people chatter]

Village life wasn't for him. He knew that.

[melancholic music playing]

[Anka sniffles]

He was always adamant

about moving to Berlin.

Although Dad did say,

"Berlin will be his undoing."

And Dad is usually right.

[Dr. Sven] For Nicky M., we examined

blood, urine, stomach contents,

and hair from his corpse.

Other than alcohol,

we couldn't trace any other substances.

We tested for 3,500 medical ingredients,

We checked for ill*gal drugs of all types

and prescription narcotics.

And none of which were detected.

It was really difficult for us

to try and indicate the cause of death

without any concrete evidence.

[eerie music playing]

[Andreas] We found nothing on the body.

There was no wallet,

no identification, no cell phone.

We investigated to see

if he had a credit card.

Did he have a debit card?

How many did he have?

Were any withdrawals made

with the credit cards?

We were able to confirm

that a credit card belonging to the victim

was used after his death.

[suspenseful techno music playing]

[Andreas] At Deutsche Bahn,

our investigation allowed us to establish

that the card was used

at around 5:46 a.m.,

in two attempts to buy a ticket

from a kiosk at Ostbahnhof train station,

with the destination being Saarbrücken.

I imagined he was desperate to flee

because he knew he had done something.

But he wasn't able to buy a ticket

because the card was declined.

So, I started to think,

did he use a different form of payment,

or was he able to successfully buy

a ticket to Saarbrücken at a later time?

We addressed this issue

with the German Railroad company,

and sure enough,

Nicky's card had been declined twice.

Just an hour before, another card was used

to buy the exact same train ticket,

to Saarbrücken, and at the very same kiosk

that had been used previously.

[suspenseful music playing]

Obviously, it takes a while to trace

an account number associated with a card.

But we were able to find out that the card

belonged to a certain Miroslaw.

[rewinding]

MAY 5TH, 2012

[siren wailing]

ONE HOUR LATER

EMERGENCY PARAMEDIC

[suspenseful music playing]

I wake up suddenly,

my eyes open, I look around,

not knowing where I am.

I look up and see there's a nurse over me.

[machine beeping]

[Miroslaw] She asks,

"Do you know where you are?"

"No, where am I?"

"You're in the hospital."

Obviously, the first thing

you ask yourself is,

"How did I get here?"

"What happened? Where was I?"

I didn't even know which hospital it was.

[suspenseful music playing]

So then, at some point around 6 p.m.,

7 p.m., the doctor entered the room,

and with a brash tone asked me,

"So, what did you take?"

And I told him I just drank some alcohol.

- [electronic dance music playing]

- [crowd cheering]

But he went on to say,

"Well, there was something else."

And that's when I remembered

this particular encounter.

It was really the only explanation

for how I ended up there.

I remember it was May 5th, 2012,

just before 5 a.m.

I walked over to

the late-night corner store to grab a beer

and a peppermint liqueur

for the ride home.

Warschauer Bridge was busy that night.

[suspenseful music playing]

People standing around

outside the corner store,

checking schedules,

figuring out how to get home.

And then I was standing alone

on this platform.

Then suddenly, a man in his early 30s,

if I had to guess, approaches me.

We casually strike up a conversation

about our nights,

what bars and clubs we each went to.

He was also waiting for

the train to Ostbahnhof.

So, we got on the train together.

At some point, I take a sip

from my peppermint liqueur,

and I grimace because

it's not exactly my favorite drink.

So he said, "Hey, if you don't like

your peppermint liqueur,

you can have some of this schnapps

I have with me."

So, we decided to swap bottles.

And the way you drink

these little drinks is

to clench it between your teeth

and down it.

[ominous music playing]

At that moment, it actually felt like

my head was going to explode.

[high-pitched tone ringing]

[tone stops]

[Miroslaw] Shortly afterwards,

we arrived at Ostbahnhof station.

He said he knew his way

around Berlin well,

and said he knew

which bus stop I needed to get to.

He told me

he would go with me to the bus stop.

And after a while, I couldn't stand.

At that moment,

I realized something wasn't right.

[suspenseful music playing]

[high-pitched tone rings]

My forehead was soaking wet.

I felt uncoordinated.

The last thing I remember is

that I bent over.

He was still with me

at this point, of course.

And I remember he put his hand on my back.

I also remember he tried to

slide his hand under my shirt,

and moved his hand around my waist.

And then he said, "Do you feel unwell?"

I'm still not sure

how I got to the bus stop.

That's the moment I don't remember.

[tense music playing]

[music stops]

[pensive music playing]

[Miroslaw] On Monday morning,

I went to the police station in Wedding,

and reported my credit card stolen

and also that my cash had been stolen.

And within the hour,

I heard from the criminal investigators.

I thought, "Wow,

they really want to find my credit card."

They said they wanted to come and collect

the clothes I was wearing that night.

That's when I thought, "Okay,

maybe something else happened that night."

And the last question

the investigator asked

was if I frequently visited

Grosse Freiheit 114.

I said I've never heard of this bar.

But I couldn't stop thinking about it

when I got home.

So, when I arrived home

after giving my statement,

I sat at my computer

and typed in "Grosse Freiheit 114".

And I said, "Oh, that's not very far

from where I was that night."

The website for Grosse Freiheit

was just some black writing

on a white background that read,

"A m*rder happened here on Friday night."

And I thought, "Whoa."

- [suspenseful music playing]

- [machine beeps]

What was vital to us was

the information we obtained from Miroslaw,

or rather from his hospital report.

SENIOR HOMICIDE INVESTIGATOR

The attending doctor told us that Miro

had been given liquid ecstasy,

which confirmed the suspicion

that he had been drugged.

[suspenseful music playing]

[music wanes]

[inhales sharply]

What we're talking about here

is attempted m*rder.

So, the perpetrator was actually

intent on taking my life.

And

I can't tell you how lucky

I must have been to escape the way I did.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Andreas] A lot of evidence pointed

to GHB, also known as liquid ecstasy,

which could have caused Nicky's death.

Then, I requested

an extensive toxicology report for Nicky,

because at the time, this wasn't part of

the standard examination procedure.

[suspenseful music swells]

[Dr. Sven] This substance

wasn't on our radar.

It just wasn't part of

the standard screening process

at that date and time.

[suspenseful music playing]

The term "liquid ecstasy" is misleading

because GHB has nothing to do with ecstasy

or designer amphetamines of any sort.

GHB is referred to

as the ultimate knockout drug.

Only a small amount is needed

to render someone defenseless.

Even minute traces are enough to trigger

severe physical emergency situations,

which can sometimes lead to death.

Speculative evidence concerning GHB

and approximate blood concentration levels

is used to determine when someone uses

it as a recreational drug.

We can speculate that

people who suffer severe intoxication

through external influence

will show higher blood concentration

levels on their lab report.

So, in the case of Nicky M.,

we came to the conclusion

that this was fatal poisoning.

[Monika] After we identified GHB

as the weapon,

This confirmed our suspicion

that the actual m*rder

and this attempted m*rder

were connected somehow.

[suspenseful music playing]

We have two crimes,

one m*rder and one attempted m*rder,

both of which, regarding their times

and locations, are very closely related.

So, we went with Miro

and retraced the steps he took

while drugged with the liquid ecstasy

that he had been given.

[ominous music playing]

Given the amount of liquid ecstasy

I was dosed with,

I shouldn't be able to remember anything.

However, I was able to remember

which platform we arrived on,

as well as the relative time.

So, they were able to secure

the surveillance footage from that night.

[ominous music playing]

We finally knew who we were looking for.

Or at least we had an image of the man.

The problem was, the images weren't good.

It's frustrating,

because you hope the person

will have certain characteristics,

that make them easy to describe

and will help you find them faster.

But that wasn't the case.

[ominous music playing]

They look like two guys who've known

each other for a long time,

just walking together.

Nothing gives me the sense

that these two only met for the first time

five minutes beforehand.

[ominous music playing]

Maybe this is part of

the perpetrator's ability to win over

complete strangers in an instant.

And then to prevent any suspicions

or mistrust arising from the victim

from the moment they meet each other.

[suspenseful music playing]

He is slumped over.

A profiler would say

he has a guilty conscience. I'm not sure.

[scoffs]

It's tough.

He took him from us.

Just like that.

Boom, gone.

Yeah.

[suspenseful music continues]

[Katrin] What we knew at that point

was there was an attempted m*rder,

as well as a completed m*rder

within a very short time frame.

Even for an experienced prosecutor,

the scope of this case was unraveling

into something quite extraordinary.

If he did this twice within

an hour and a half, then maybe

this wasn't over yet.

- [suspenseful music playing]

- [heart beating]

BASED ON ORIGINAL PERPETRATOR STATEMEN

[man] Yeah.

That's me.

BASED ON ORIGINAL PERPETRATOR STATEMEN

I've always led a normal life.

Determined. Honest.

I had a concrete moral compass.

Then at some point, something happened

inside of me that I couldn't comprehend.

I'm always asking myself questions

and searching for answers,

but this sort of thinking

is completely alien to me.

I feel desperate

because I'm scared of what I'm capable of.

[tense, ominous music swells]

[music stops]

[rhythmic techno music playing]

[music ends]