01x02 - Episode 2

[bunniefuu]

[man] It was still downstairs in block B.

The first commissioner's office was

in the basement.

OCTOBER 1989

LÜNEBURG POLICE DEPARTMEN

The typist, Mr. Döhnert,

was sitting there.

I no longer remember

my reason for being there.

Then the door opened, and he came in.

He had a light-brown leather coat on,

which literally glowed.

When he came into the room,

it felt like a freezer door opening.

He exuded something icy,

something completely cold.

He exuded it.

That's what I felt at the time.

I never forgot it.

For the record,

today is October 26th, 1989.

Please state your full name.

He was definitely tall.

He wasn't bad-looking.

I don't remember

if he wore glasses or not.

He had medium-blond hair,

and I suppose he behaved

politely.

Mr. Wichmann,

where did you meet Birgit Meier?

A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY SERIES

[eerie music playing]

[static buzzing]

AUDIO BASED ON TRANSCRIP

OF KURT-WERNER WICHMANN'S INTERROGATION

[Wichmann on tape]

Regarding Mrs. Hinrichsen's party

in the spring of 1989,

I can provide the following information.

While in attendance,

we drank wine and champagne.

I would describe Mrs. Meier's state

as intoxicated.

Later that evening,

I brought Mrs. Meier back to her house.

I can't remember

whether I carried or supported Mrs. Meier.

He got to know Birgit at parties.

BIRGIT MEIER'S HUSBAND

Once he even carried her home.

And he tucked her into bed.

WITNESS INTERVIEW

That was in the interrogation records.

MRS. MEYER WAS SO INTOXICATED THAT SHE

WAS UNABLE TO RETURN HOME WITHOUT HELP.

Even if I take myself

BIRGIT MEIER'S BROTHER

back to October 1989

and put myself in the detectives' shoes,

there were various signs back then

that should have led them

to take a closer look at Wichmann.

You can assume they definitely knew

who they were dealing with.

This is someone

who's already committed serious crimes,

who's done time in prison and so on.

I mean, if that doesn't just grab

your attention, then

FORMER INVESTIGATOR - LÜNEBURG POLICE

At the moment,

I can't think of any previous convictions

he might have had. I don't know.

[interviewer] Mr. Wichmann,

where were you on August 14th, 1989?

They asked him for an alibi,

and he said he was walking his dog.

What kind of alibi is that?

"I was walking my dog,

and my wife can confirm it."

That's no alibi.

When there's

no concrete reason to suspect someone,

it's difficult to interrogate them

if they are not a suspect yet.

You're just questioning a witness.

You're also limited in what you can do.

Vague suspicions.

"It could have, might have,

should have been like this."

That doesn't move us forward.

[Wolfgang] And now, the next one,

he comes in with gloves on.

Supposedly has a skin allergy.

In reality, it's a fungal infection.

He didn't want to waive

his doctor's confidentiality agreement.

It's also another sign,

on the flip side of the coin,

that they only focused on the husband.

Even if the alarm bells

should have been going off,

there were so many clues suggesting

he had something to do

with my sister's disappearance

that they couldn't ignore it.

[Wichmann on tape] I never sought

a closer relationship with Mrs. Meier.

We always spoke formally to each other.

On no occasion

did we ever express any sort of affection.

[Harald] The only thing I remember is

that this matter was treated as an MP,

a missing person case.

But the intensive work

on this case ceased, in my opinion,

because we had

no indication at all of a violent crime.

We didn't find anything

of any sort

to lead us to that conclusion.

[inhales]

Yeah, well I don't know.

[spluttering] You start to lose faith.

[door clacks]

[Wolfgang] They let him go

and waited for his doctor

to waive patient confidentiality,

but it never happened.

The case was then set aside

for the time being.

Then, after a good while,

the file was handed over

to the DA's office.

Then the file gets

a case number from the DA,

and unless some evidence just happens

to show up to suggest the case be pursued,

then it's just left alone.

[man] I was handed the case

sometime in the early '90s.

It was the very beginning of the '90s,

I believe.

But because, at the time,

the Göhrde murders were in the news,

everything else kind of took

a back seat, of course.

Let me put it this way,

no one who takes over someone else's case

FORMER CHIEF INSPECTOR - LÜNEBURG POLICE

is happy.

MISSING

FEAR FOR THE POLICE CHIEF'S SISTER

Because whatever did or did not happen

THE SECRET OF BIRGIT MEIER

can only be made right

to a very minor degree.

WHAT HAPPENED

WITH THE POLICE CHIEF'S SISTER?

So I went there

and read through everything

VICTIM OF A CRIME?

from start to finish.

I looked at the exhibits.

I spoke again with Mrs. Meier's daughter,

with Mr. Meier.

I even spoke to the cats' veterinarian,

who I knew because I used to have a dog.

We talked about the cats,

the cats' behavior,

how they behaved afterward

and everything else too.

[Klaus] The fact of the matter was

that Mr. Meier had divorced his wife

and that what he had agreed

1. MRS. BIRGIT MEIER BORN SIELAFF

2. THE BUSINESSMAN, MR. HARALD MEIER

to give his wife

MRS. MEIER SHALL RECEIVE

490,000 DM IN CASH

after the divorce was about the same

as his "tax rebate" for that year.

And that

seems like

a relatively weak motive for a m*rder.

[Wolfgang] There was one police officer

who went against the grain

because all his colleagues said,

"If we assume a crime was committed,

it's obvious

that it could've only been the husband."

"And that's that."

This colleague,

and I give him lots of credit for this,

was basically the only one who said,

"Wait, stop."

"Don't forget Mr. Wichmann."

"In my view,

the evidence points more to Wichmann

than to the husband."

[Klaus] It's like this,

everything that's at all possible

might've happened.

It's my job to determine

which of these possibilities is probable.

[shovel scraping]

[Klaus] To me,

it simply seemed improbable

that anyone other than Wichmann

could be in question

because, as I mentioned,

they knew what kind of criminal career

he had in his past.

This was something that was

not all that common.

I then spoke to the DA

in charge at the time

and presented the whole case to her,

which then led

to her submitting an application to court

and the court issuing a search warrant.

So two levels, the DA's office

and the court, followed his argument,

then a warrant was issued.

WARRANT IN THE INVESTIGATION

PROBABLE CAUSE m*rder

We're talking about 1993.

APARTMENT AND OTHER ROOMS

IN PARTICULAR THE CAR AND TRAILER

This is four years

after my sister had gone missing.

The search warrant read,

"Apartment, house,

property, cars, and workplace."

"Warrant for Kurt-Werner Wichmann,

suspect in the m*rder of Birgit Meier."

[Klaus] I had a search warrant

and rang the doorbell.

Mrs. Wichmann opened the door

and politely told us

her husband wasn't home,

but he'd be back any time now.

Something like that.

In any case, I said,

"We'll wait a moment."

Then they called him.

I mean, that's insane!

Of course, he said

on the phone that he was coming.

They waited a while until it became clear

that he wasn't coming.

In other words,

the m*rder suspect, Kurt-Werner Wichmann,

had fled.

DAY 1 - WICHMANN'S FLIGH

FEBRUARY 24TH, 1993

[Wolfgang] February 24th, 1993.

First search. Focus, the Wichmanns' house.

When Kurt-Werner Wichmann

heard about the planned search,

he fled and disappeared.

He called his employer from his car phone

and claimed he had hit a deer

and would be late for his appointment.

His wife, Alice, got a doctor's note

for him valid until March 10th, 1993.

This is Criminal Investigation 101.

When you carry out a search,

and it's a suspect accused of m*rder,

and you want to search his home for proof

to support your case that he did it,

you obviously have

to maintain control of the m*rder*r,

the suspected m*rder*r.

In other words [chuckles]

if one of my detectives acted

like they did in Lüneburg,

I would've fired him immediately.

But, as the saying goes,

"You can't get blood out of a stone."

Faced with this decision,

I said, "That's too risky for me."

"If he really knows what he's doing,

then he'll be familiar with the police

and know how we act."

If he finds out about our plan,

he'll get rid of any evidence.

And, on the other hand,

if I'm there and he's not,

and I get hold of him

and ask him to come, but he won't,

then he will have given us another sign

he has some sort

of skeleton in his closet.

[eerie music playing]

[Klaus] We split up,

and I went upstairs to find a door

that was locked.

This door had a high-security lock on it

ATTIC "SECRET ROOM"

GUEST ROOM - BEDROOM

but Mrs. Wichmann

didn't have the key to it.

She said her husband

was the only one with the key.

[door cracking]

Then I went into his [exhales]

room.

ATTIC

This is the room

we later called "the secret room"

because it really was his secret room.

Except for his brother,

no one was allowed in.

WORLD w*r II

PART 2, 1940-1945

It's what one can vividly call

"a pharaoh's tomb."

[Klaus] I then searched this room

and found quite a few objects and things,

including some sort

of stash in a secret compartment.

Among them were things

that I could assume might be

connected to Mrs. Meier's disappearance

and possible death.

There were handcuffs

and a small-caliber r*fle.

There was a modified revolver,

lots of ammunition

and bondage equipment,

handcuffs, chains,

silencers, knives,

and something very suspicious in my view,

a so-called sh**ting vest.

[inhale] Uh

This sh**ting vest,

which resembled a fishing vest,

had handcuffs with blood on them.

[Klaus] Equipment for injections,

anesthesia,

and many other things that I've forgotten.

In that moment, I felt like

I didn't have

to worry about the next five years

in terms of work.

I had plenty to do with this one case.

[Wolfgang] This was all serious evidence

that put him under so much suspicion

that it became obvious

it was time to actively look for this man.

[dramatic music playing]

[buttons beeping]

[phone line ringing]

- [receiver clicks]

- [receptionist] Please, wait a moment.

[Wolfgang] When I got back to my office,

I was told that someone had called.

So instead of saying,

"Here, we wrote something down,"

they told me about it.

They said he wanted me to know

he had nothing to do

with her disappearance.

You have the wrong man.

It was Wichmann on the run.

Why was he fleeing then?

What I found

was very dismaying.

They neither started a manhunt,

nor was there an arrest warrant.

He could travel across Germany,

and the police could check his ID,

but no one would know

he was a m*rder suspect.

In the police force,

we had the possibility,

given the right stipulations,

of putting someone

on a wanted list without arresting,

just to know where they are,

what they're doing,

and who they're traveling with.

That's what I mean.

I initiated this measure at the time.

[Wolfgang] We also know

that he went into hiding

in Wilhelmshaven for a while.

We know he repeatedly visited home

while he was on the run.

DAY 9 - WICHMANN'S FLIGH

MARCH 5TH, 1993

[Wolfgang] Another one of Wichmann's cars,

namely a Golf

with the license plate LG-AS442,

was found in Adendorf

one kilometer away from the house.

Of course, they hoped he'd be close by

and didn't touch another car

but instead waited at a distance

and observed the car,

hoping that Wichmann would return.

But he didn't.

There were items in his car

that were also very suspicious,

an army sleeping bag, a leather jacket,

night-vision goggles,

street maps covering all of Germany,

and on top of all that, supplies.

You got the impression

that Wichmann was using his car,

even at night

or in the dark at least,

to hunt people, let's say.

All of this led the police to ask the FCID

to send over a crime-scene unit.

So they sent a request to Wiesbaden.

They then sent their crime-scene unit

to come search the property again

and the house

even more thoroughly than before.

The job was to find

a corpse and ammunition.

[barking]

The Federal Criminal Police

arrived with metal detectors

to look for weapons.

They had cadaver dogs too.

Then they searched the whole property

by sticking poles in the ground.

In other words,

they loosened the soil up a bit

so the cadaver dogs would bark

because they'd immediately catch a scent

if there were a dead body buried there.

[dog barking]

All of a sudden,

the metal detector went crazy.

[dogs barking, whimpering]

They found a buried car.

[camera shutter clicking]

You don't see that every day.

Once they had dug out the car enough

and got the dirt and everything off,

they put the cadaver dogs back on the job,

and one barked at the trunk.

So they obviously suspected

a corpse might be in the trunk.

They then found stains

in the back seat of the car,

which seemed like

they might be traces of blood.

The important thing was

that this car was leased.

Not even a year old.

It had only been registered

in spring the year before.

It had been imported from the US.

Not a common car to see in Germany.

A sports car, a red one.

When I ask myself now,

"Why would someone bury a car

with a trunk

that a cadaver dog barked at?"

And it was a leased car too.

In other words, it wasn't buried

to commit insurance fraud.

It was clearly used

as an instrument of crime, as we say,

and it was buried

because it would've provided

deeply incriminating evidence.

["Tango-Max" by Friedel Hensch

& Die Cyprys playing on radio]

[music continues]

[music stops]

There was even a traffic stop

in Lüneburg while he was on the run,

when the police noticed a car

that had been reported as stolen.

They pulled him over,

and it was Wichmann in a Mercedes,

in a car he himself had reported stolen.

They asked, "What's going on?

You reported the car stolen."

He said, "Yeah, I did.

I needed to hide something

and needed an excuse to tell my wife."

So they wrote up a report,

and he went on his way.

[suspenseful music playing]

[radio presenter]

The Lüneburg homicide division

has investigated 1,620 pieces of evidence,

but they have yet to find a suspect

who might be the Göhrde m*rder*r.

The search for clues

has remained unsuccessful since 1989.

The head of Criminal Investigations

Lüneburg, Hans-Dieter Rollert,

says the files are not yet closed.

The public is being asked

to report any information

DAY 24 - WICHMANN'S FLIGH

MARCH 20TH, 1993

[buttons beeping]

[phone line ringing]

I remember it perfectly.

Around 9:00 a.m., the company receptionist

interrupted our meeting.

It was our daily morning meeting.

It starts every morning at 8:45

and lasts as long as it needs to,

depending on what is going on.

I was present that day,

when there was a knock at the door.

The department heads,

the heads of production,

about 10 to 12 people were there.

Then the receptionist said,

"Mr. Meier, I need you for a moment."

I said, "Sorry, not now. You know that."

This meeting was almost sacred.

It was very important.

You can't interrupt it.

She said,

"Sorry, Mr. Meier. I really need you."

That got my attention

because the fact that she asked twice

meant it was very important.

So I left and went to the phone.

And she said, "He won't leave me alone."

I picked up the phone

and heard Wichmann on the line.

"So, this is what I get," he said,

"and I have you

and your brother-in-law to thank for it."

"You'll hear from me again."

So, I said, "And who is this, please?

Tell me your name,"

to draw him into a conversation.

He said, "You know exactly who I am."

I said, "I don't know you."

And he hung up.

My guess is that,

if the conversation went how I heard,

and there's no doubt in my mind,

he wanted to get some sort of revenge

for everything

that had fallen apart in his life.

DAY 46 - WICHMANN'S FLIGH

APRIL 11TH, 1993

[Wolfgang] Easter 1993,

Wichmann is at home.

During his wife's questioning,

she said he left home around 9:00 p.m.

To her question

of what he was planning to do,

he said, "It's better you don't know."

[eerie music playing]

[Wolfgang] All I know

is what's in the files.

Then there was a car accident

on a country road near Bad Wimpfen.

DAY 50 - WICHMANN'S FLIGH

APRIL 15TH, 1993

Bad Wimpfen is near Heilbronn.

I don't know how many cars were involved

or if he grazed another car

while passing them or whatever.

I have no idea.

In any case, the police were called,

and they, as you can read in the reports,

they recorded the accident, as we say,

and while doing this,

they used this opportunity to take

a better look at his car.

Here's a quote from the files,

"Because of the machine g*n parts

and ammunition

found in various hiding places in his car,

along with large sums of money

and a number of checks,

he was temporarily detained

and turned over to the local police

who took his prints and mug shot."

"An arrest warrant was issued that day."

"Wichmann has been placed in custody."

If the perpetrator's identity is known,

if he isn't wanted for a serious crime

and has a permanent address,

the police won't arrest him.

Normally, he'd be deemed

a m*rder suspect on the run.

We didn't know.

He wasn't on a wanted list.

But, in this case,

there was the w*r Weapons Control Act,

which is obviously taken seriously.

The first questions asked were,

"Where did he get the weapons?

Where was he headed?"

To answer the second question,

"Where was he headed?"

there's no doubt in my mind.

He may have ultimately been planning

to use his weapon against me.

Because he announced

in such a way on the phone

that I'd be hearing from him.

He wasn't sending love letters.

CORRECTIONAL FACILITY

HEIMSHEIM

[Wolfgang] On April 20th,

so five days later,

he was moved from Heilbronn

to the correctional facility in Heimsheim.

Detectives from Lüneburg

drove to the detention center

in Heimsheim in Baden-Württemberg

and got a blood sample.

So I don't know what happened

with the blood sample.

[Wichmann groans]

Once they saw

what had been found in his house,

they immediately said,

"We have to take more decisive action."

"We have to set up an investigative team

because it's possible

he could have committed

other serious crimes."

Plus, this question remained unanswered,

"Where's my sister,

and what happened to her?"

But just as the group

had set up its work space

and before they could do a single thing,

they were suddenly told,

"Stop! That's it. Put it all back."

"The suspect k*lled himself."

As a result,

all investigations had to be stopped

because you can't investigate the dead.

You're not allowed to.

[Wolfgang] In light of all the proof

found in Wichmann's apartment

Damn it! There was so much evidence

that he was clearly involved

in criminal acts.

A car was buried.

That's a case in itself! Name another case

like this in German history.

It's literally screaming

at me to use my power

and lead an investigation and so on.

Not, "He's dead. Nothing we can do."

Where will that get us?

"We may not be 100% sure

why Sielaff's sister disappeared,

but one thing is for sure,

if we assume a crime was committed,

it was her husband."

[solemn music playing]

13 YEARS LATER

[Wolfgang] We always treated

this topic very, very

cautiously. My mother had gone quiet.

She didn't want to talk about it anymore.

It caused her a lot of pain,

and she couldn't get over

Birgit's disappearance.

My father had also died a year before,

which was a double burden.

It also led her

to try and take her life twice.

One time, a lady in the nursing home

where she lived found her just in time,

and I did the other time.

But until the day she died

she hoped the door would open,

and Birgit would walk in.

[slides clicking]

My wife, for instance,

was also very close to my sister.

They got along really well.

At any rate, she once said at breakfast,

"Not a day goes by

that I don't think about Birgit."

It made me

swallow hard, and I suddenly realized,

"I hadn't even thought about her."

I felt really guilty, you know?

I was, you could say, lucky

to be

so incredibly involved professionally.

Meaning I was distracted

and obviously had the advantage

of knowing

how criminal investigations are conducted.

I was also able to understand

many things in an objective manner.

[camera shutter clicking]

There were two major influences

that convinced me

that a job like a criminal investigator,

a detective would be a good fit for me.

- The first was the TV show Stahlnetz.

- Robbery!

[Wolfgang] This was a show

that dramatized real criminal cases.

The second was Sir Conan Doyle's books

about Sherlock Holmes,

because they were more

about working as a detective.

About thinking and forming theories.

Those were the things

that drew me closer to this work

and led me to this job.

I was the head of the narcotics division

at the DA's office

then the organized crime office.

Then I led SCID but also represented

the state police directorate.

I was in charge of all

of Hamburg police operations.

At the organized crime office,

I was in charge of 45 people,

then I was suddenly in charge of 8,000.

And 10,000

as vice president of the police.

My job was full of action.

It was never boring.

But suddenly,

you know when it's time to quit.

Since I was somewhat famous in the city,

several members of the media came to me.

"You're retiring, so could you

tell me what you'll be doing now?"

"What was the best part?"

His closest colleagues

respectfully call him "Don,"

Wolfgang Sielaff,

vice president of Hamburg police.

Under his direction,

drug rings were shut down,

pimp gangs broken up,

and arms smugglers uncovered.

The Don has retired today

at the age of 60,

the departure of an exceptional officer.

I'm definitely a bit sad

because the police shaped my life.

I spent over two-thirds of my life there.

But I'm looking forward to the future

because I've been told

there's life after work.

[crowd applauding]

POLICE - THE SIELAFF ERA COMES TO AN END

HAMBURG'S BEST POLICEMAN SAYS "BYE"

DEPARTURE OF THE MAFIA HUNTER

[Wolfgang] Looking back,

my sister disappeared

in the summer of 1989,

and 13 years later,

I retired from the police force.

In the time between,

I was obviously

in contact with the Lüneburg CID,

and they said, "Unless we tell you,

you can assume we don't have any news."

But I felt increasingly uneasy

and thought,

"Actually, I know far too little

about what exactly happened."

At some point, it became clear to me

that, once I retired,

I would have the time that I needed

to take these steps with precision

and find out what happened to my sister.

You can only view files

with the help of a lawyer.

We had a kind of gentlemen's agreement

that I'd be given the files to read.

At this point, the important thing

was to start by determining

what had been done

and what the current status was.

That was it.

I always said it was

like going from one shock to the next,

because I suddenly realized

that certain steps were taken in a way

that didn't make sense forensically.

In the end, I had a general overview

that led me to one conclusion, which was,

"There are lots of unanswered questions,

and I have to do something."

I have to sit down with my colleagues

and discuss the matter

because some of my questions

were so far outside my field

that I thought,

"I have to tell others about this to see

if they reach the same conclusion

and if they see things the same way."

And then, the second step was to ask,

"What do we do now?"

Now I needed

a high-level criminal investigator,

then I needed a legal expert.

And then, of course, to top it all off,

I needed a psychologist who could help us

to understand

criminal personality profiles

and the participants

in a criminal case and so on.

The first person

I went to was Reinhard Chedor.

I knew him well and trusted him,

and I knew

he was a good criminal investigator.

Above all, he's creative

and also unconventional.

[camera shutter clicking]

We weren't on a first-name basis yet.

In 2003,

I got a call from Wolfgang Sielaff.

FORMER CHIEF OF HAMBURG SCID

"Let's meet up."

Or rather, "Could we meet, Mr. Chedor?"

as we spoke at the time.

The Hedgehog.

Why was that his nickname?

Because he had a hedgehog haircut then.

At the SCID,

they called Wolfgang "the Don,"

and the Don is always

It's connected to the fact

[sighs]

that he worked very hard

to fight organized crime.

So, then we met.

We talked things over,

and it soon became clear,

"Man, we still have"

"A lot of these questions

have a psychological element to them."

[inhales deeply]

Then, we decided to have

Claudia Brockmann join our team.

[Reinhard] The criminological part

wasn't the issue.

It was what might lie behind it.

How to create arguments,

how to recognize emotions,

how to deal with feelings,

and how to recognize needs.

That's very much a different world.

In particular, I think

changing one's perspective

WE WILL RECLAIM THE INNER CITY

seeing something

and empathizing with others

CHIEF INVESTIGATOR:

I CALLED MY DAUGHTERS

m*rder IS HER JOB

I think that was her greatest strength.

Well, now, they call me "Mom"

POLICE PSYCHOLOGIS

because now I fill this maternal role

or whatever you call it,

but some of them also decided

to call me the "Psycho Lady,"

but playfully, of course.

PL. Yeah. That's how we were.

Of course, the group also needed a lawyer

and for the very simple reason

LAWYER

not only that I had a certain amount

of experience with m*rder cases

but also because they needed

a lawyer to gain access to the files.

While the district attorney's office

did provide Wolfgang Sielaff

with some of the files,

he didn't get all of them.

What really helped in our case

was that I was surrounded

by people, by friends

from various disciplines

who formed a team with me

that was basically unbeatable

because we had competent people

from every discipline,

and I also knew them personally.

Could you possibly ask for a better team?

[Brockmann] The main point

was the question or fact

that his sister, Birgit Meier, was gone.

We have to find her.

The other main point was

that the husband is a suspect

despite a lack of evidence against him.

Therefore, the second question is,

where is Birgit Meier, and who k*lled her?

Is it the m*rder suspect

because they said that he had a motive,

namely money,

or could it be someone else?

I knew that his sister went missing

and also that she never turned up.

Now that he had read the files,

he was visibly shaken by what he had read.

[Brockmann] He was outraged

about what had happened.

And if you know Wolfgang Sielaff,

outrage can be expressed in many ways,

but you really felt his outrage.

They always said they did everything,

but they actually did nothing.

Their work wasn't professional at all.

They did the crime scene wrong and so on.

[Brockmann] Based on what I read,

they filtered things out to find leads.

There are so many other things still open

and that can be done.

Given that fact,

I was appalled on one hand,

"Why is this still open?

What kind of conclusion is that?"

But on the other hand,

if I felt that they did all they could do,

there'd have been no hope.

[Reinhard] It became clear pretty quickly,

at least based on what was in the files,

that Birgit Meier took her life

because of the situation she was in.

Then someone made this curious statement,

"Wait for the cornfields to be harvested,

then we'll find her."

When such an attitude takes hold

at a point

when basically nothing is known,

just because of someone's gut feeling,

then a lot

of important steps will be omitted.

[phone line calling]

SOUTH VIEW

Anything you find

that isn't "normal" or doesn't fit

[phone line calling]

is first and foremost a lead.

The upper part

of the crime scene, the bedroom,

with its door open

and the footprint in the flower box,

could suggest a crime

where someone had broken into the bedroom.

[Wolfgang] Why was the patio door open?

Because it was warm outside?

BIRGIT'S ROOM - NORTH VIEW

Even at night?

But she was sleeping on the second floor,

and with an open door down there,

the house is open!

[Brockmann] Her nightgown

and clothes were missing.

The new ones she had bought,

the ones Harald Meier had also seen,

they weren't there.

Her key ring was also missing.

FRONT SIDE OF THE HOUSE KEY NO. 20 34 30

Her handbag,

her watch too, and her glasses.

So a number of items were missing.

And there was an ashtray

with two brands of cigarettes.

One of the brands stuck with me.

It was Benson & Hedges.

But she didn't smoke Benson & Hedges.

Looking back,

and you always know more in hindsight,

there were a few question marks

because

For example, it was later determined

that there was a crumpled tissue

on the floor in the bedroom.

WEST VIEW

My sister could have been drugged

and then the tissue left on the floor.

But these are all things that

couldn't be determined

with absolute certainty

because this tissue wasn't secured.

[Brockmann] As recorded in the files,

they later questioned the neighbors,

which they didn't do initially,

and one woman said she'd heard

a motor running at 1:30 a.m.

She lived right across

from my sister's house.

And the motor ran and ran,

and she couldn't fall asleep.

This led to the theory

that someone was sitting

in the car with the motor running

while someone else

grabbed her from the bedroom.

If Birgit was taken

from her house against her will,

I would certainly imagine

there were two perpetrators

because they had to overpower a woman

who is really trying to defend herself.

[Wolfgang] Detective work

is often also about brainstorming.

It means you have to discuss things

with others.

You come up

with arguments and counterarguments.

You have to think outside the box.

[Brockmann] We're talking about a case

where we're all outsiders.

But we have someone here

who is the brother.

It's different

when you're talking about a victim

and discussing everything

that could've happened

with a relative

who wants to protect his sister

and who may also not want

to discuss it publicly

because he finds it embarrassing,

or he may just not want to accept reality.

Discussing every theory

down to the smallest detail

requires some self-censorship

to say, "I'll talk about this,

but I'll sugarcoat it."

To investigate whether a relative

might be the perpetrator,

that's totally standard.

It's a normal theory,

just like it could've been

a crime or a suicide.

The question is always, "Is there

a perpetrator-victim relationship?"

"And does someone

in their family circle have a motive,

and are there more signs

that they could be the perpetrator?"

Initially, they always talked about

how Birgit Meier had a plastic bag.

A plastic bag with documents

that incriminated Harald Meier.

She always said,

"I have a plastic bag here

that can destroy Harald."

That was also part of it.

"Don't forget about Harald Meier.

He had a motive."

Maybe she wanted to blackmail him.

[Claudia] Birgit took this bag with her,

and maybe it was

the bag in question, even on vacation.

And it was always

at the bottom of her bed.

My mother said

she could've easily looked in it

BIRGIT MEIER'S NIECES

but she didn't.

"She must have her reasons

for carrying this weird bag around."

- Strange

- She just told me that.

I clearly remember riding

to Wolfgang's 25th anniversary party

BIRGIT MEIER'S DAUGHTER

and she had an ominous bag in the trunk.

I think it must've been this bag,

especially if no one could

or should see what was in it.

Must've been a reason.

I'm not sure anymore.

It was March or April 1989.

She called me and said,

"You have to come get me."

I could tell that she was probably

under the influence of alcohol,

and I drove there to meet my sister

in a pretty desperate state,

crying and intoxicated.

Totally plastered to put it bluntly.

She lived with us for a few days

because we took care of her.

She was in such a desolate state

that she couldn't be left alone.

In this context

uh, I think it was me

or maybe my wife who asked,

"What are you carrying around

in that bag?"

She said, "Well, there's a lot in there,

including quite a few things

that could put Harald away."

Well, as I always say

I think this is all, in some way,

if that's what happened,

it's all due to the fact

that Birgit may have been drinking,

which is why she came up with these ideas.

There was nothing, absolutely nothing

that I could have held against her.

Even if she drank that much.

There wasn't anything

that was or could have been a liability,

that could have put pressure on me.

[sirens wailing]

DECEMBER 19TH, 1988

DATACOLOR FACTORY

8 MONTHS BEFORE BIRGIT'S DISAPPEARANCE

[indistinct chattering over radio]

Of course, the fire played a role.

I read about it.

I said, "Yes, this looks

like it could be a motive,

but you have to think it

all the way through."

If Birgit knew

that her husband had burned down the hall

PRINTING PRESS IN FLAMES

maybe she wanted to report him

and thus had to be k*lled.

That sounds pretty logical.

[Harald] The rollers

that carry the paper through the printer

are wraparound rollers.

They roll the paper over itself.

It looks great.

They need cleaning every now and then.

The printer's cleaning cloth

slipped out of his hand.

They use a cleanser

that has a similar effect to gasoline.

Right?

And this doesn't normally happen,

but it did this time,

and the kiln blew up.

The building was damaged.

The machinery was damaged.

Some people said, "It was arson,

insurance fraud or something like that."

FIRE IN OPERATION HALL

[Wolfgang] The total cost of damages

was 9 million marks.

The key word is insurance fraud.

It's fine to pursue all of this.

But at some point, if you can't prove it,

you have no evidence and can't find any

that points in this direction,

then you have to stop.

Years later, you can still say,

"Unfortunately, I couldn't prove it,

but I'm still convinced."

[Brockmann] The key topic for me is always

when there's a suspect

but no proof, and people still say,

"Okay, he's the suspect.

We don't have any proof."

"But we know he did it."

There's always the risk

that the suspicion is false.

If there's this risk,

then it always means

the real k*ller is on the loose.

It was the same here

because the question was,

"Where is Birgit?

And was it Harald Meier?"

But if it wasn't him,

it had to be someone else.

The first thing we focused on was

to fully clarify

Kurt-Werner Wichmann's role

because of how obvious it was.

[Reinhard] Well, our goal was to get

the police responsible

for this case to start looking.

That meant collecting evidence,

leads, proof, clues, and indications

and presenting them to the team,

hoping they'd say,

"Man, we missed that. Let's look into it."

That was our intention.

The more we looked

into Wichmann's character,

the more clearly

he showed himself to be a person

who was not only responsible

for my sister's disappearance

SISTER OF POLICE CHIEF

but other crimes too.

THE DISCO m*rder*r STRUCK NINE TIMES

[Wolfgang] We also looked to see

if there were other homicides

involving girls

and women in the Lüneburg area

which had not been solved

and where, based on the modus operandi,

in our assessment, Wichmann could not

be ruled out as the possible perpetrator.

[man] We got him! Werner Wichmann,

born on July 8th, 1949, 15 Streitmoor.

That's him, right?

[car door closes]

[eerie music playing]