01x01 - Episode 1

[bunniefuu]

The second case in Lüneburg

revolves around the fate of a woman

who has been missing since August 14th.

Her name is Birgit Meier.

She is 1.65 meters tall.

She is thin.

She has blond hair and green-gray eyes.

[man] When a family experiences

such a heinous crime,

their world falls apart.

Things are no longer how they were,

and they won't ever be how they were.

The fact that our daughter,

our wife, our sister had gone missing

left a mark on us all.

Of course, I sometimes pushed away

the thoughts of what may have happened.

Sometimes I thought,

"Do I even want to know?"

"Do I need to know?"

While reading the files,

it became clear to me

that I had to do something

because I suddenly realized

that certain steps were taken in a way

that didn't make sense forensically.

Some of it was so unbelievable

that you think, "Oh God."

"Did I miss something?

What's going on here?"

And that many things

required further explanations.

That's the bitter truth, I must say,

which, in retrospect, is even harder

for the family to stomach, right?

I mean, from 1989 to 2017,

we didn't know

what had happened or where she was.

We could've been spared all that

if it had been done correctly.

But at no point did we give up.

A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY SERIES

[eerie music playing]

[slide s clicking]

[woman] On Monday, August 14th, 1989,

around 10:00 p.m., was the last time

I ever spoke to my mother,

the very last time.

Birgit and I had arranged

to meet at around, let's say

HARALD MEIER

BIRGIT MEIER'S HUSBAND

6:00 p.m. or something like that.

We wanted to discuss

how we wanted

to handle the upcoming divorce

and the financial settlement.

[woman] My parents

were going to meet for a talk,

and we wanted

to have a call about it later.

The call seemed totally normal to me.

YASMINE MEIER

BIRGIT MEIER'S DAUGHTER

I didn't notice

anything out of the ordinary.

Though I have to admit, due to the trauma,

I can only remember

bits and pieces of the discussion.

The main thing

I remember was my final question

about what she wanted to do next.

She said she was

in her nightgown and going to bed.

She also said the first thing

she wanted to do the next day

was to call me.

[handset clicks onto base]

I imagine we would've sat down here,

where we're sitting now.

We were sitting here.

If I was drinking water or not,

I don't remember.

It lasted maybe 20 minutes.

I left, went to my apartment,

and went to bed later.

I'd been sleeping for a while

until exactly midnight.

I'm totally sure about the time

because I had a digital clock,

and it showed "00:00"

when I was startled awake,

as if a b*mb

had just gone off right next to me.

My immediate thought was,

"Did something bad happen?"

- [soft eerie music playing]

- [crickets chirping softly]

[phone line clicking]

[phone line clicking]

[phone line crackling]

[phone line clicking]

- [phone receiver clicks]

- [eerie music intensifies]

[dial tone]

[phone buttons dialing]

[phone calling and ringing repeatedly]

[Yasmine] Of course, I tried to call

Mom early the following morning.

Despite all the ringing, nothing happened.

That was not like her at all.

You could count on her like clockwork.

[phone rings, stops]

[Yasmine]

I took the next taxi to Brietlingen.

So many thoughts, none of them good.

I got to the house.

I was trembling and shaking.

I still rang

the doorbell just like normal.

But I saw that there was a curtain

that is normally opened

after she wakes up in the morning.

- It was drawn shut.

- [phone line clicking]

I went around the house

and saw one cat through the window

looking at the other cat,

which was unusual.

Like my mom and I, they stuck together.

Candy and Kimby, they were never apart.

[phone line calling]

Eventually, I entered the house

and called for Mom.

I turned the house

I turned the house upside down.

I was obviously scared

each time I opened a door

that I'd find her in an awful situation.

[phone line calling]

Fortunately, that didn't happen,

but what did that mean?

I felt like it wasn't real life.

[phone line crackling]

[phone line calling]

[Harald] Yasmine called me

in the morning and said,

"Dad, do you know where Mom is?"

- "I can't get a hold of her."

- [phone line calling]

And I told her,

"I don't know where she is."

"She wanted to go to Bad Segeberg today"

That's the name of the city.

"to go to a furniture store.

That's all I can tell you."

[receptionist] I can connect you.

Could you stay on the line, please?

My secretary said,

"Your niece is on the line."

WOLFGANG SIELAFF

BIRGIT MEIER'S BROTHER

Then I picked up, and it was Yasmine.

And she said, "Mom is gone."

She didn't go to Bad Segeberg

because her car's still here.

Her car still being there

made me very suspicious.

That's when I called the head

of Lüneburg's criminal investigation unit.

"Mr. Rollert, have you heard

my sister's gone missing?"

"Yes, I've heard."

To that, I said, "I have a request."

"Please treat the house

from which my sister went missing"

"Please treat her house as a crime scene."

[shutter clicks]

AUGUST 15TH, 1989

[man] Following the disappearance

of Mrs. Meier,

Chubby Döhnert and yours truly

tried to get to the bottom of it.

First, we visited the house in Brietlingen

in order to determine

MANFRED HAMEL

FORMER INVESTIGATOR - LÜNEBURG POLICE

if we could gather any clues

about her disappearance.

I think you can assume,

if you saw the house at the time,

that these weren't people

who were begging on the street.

There weren't

any traces of violence at all.

None at all.

There were no disputes,

no traces of blood, no signs of a fight.

It was a normal, empty house.

[shutter clicks]

I still remember a

footprint

in the wet grass.

But we couldn't make sense of it.

I didn't know any more

I think it led to the house.

GARDEN DOOR

(BACK SIDE)

You tried to follow every lead

FENCE TO THE NEIGHBOR'S HOUSE

FENCE HEIGH

and to shed light on the situation.

When an adult goes missing,

there are four

causes or motives.

The first is,

"I'm going to go pick up cigarettes,"

and then your partner is gone

for the next 30 years or forever.

We'll call them "the dropouts."

The second is an accident,

the third is suicide, and fourth is crime.

[Yasmine] When I arrived,

there was this green cash box,

which was opened,

and there were black-and-white photos

from the past in there.

It had cigarette ashes on it

as if it had been repurposed

as an ashtray.

To this day, I still remember seeing

this thing on the nightstand.

WITNESS QUESTIONING

But according

to some police reports and files,

it was supposedly on the ground.

OLD GREEN METAL BOX

WAS IN FRONT OF HER BED.

I also remember a bottle

but don't remember what was in it,

plus two champagne glasses.

One had lipstick on it.

This suggests

she had some sort of company.

I had just talked to Dad.

That's all I knew.

So, who was there?

Who should have been there?

I think we might be

better off calling a psychic

who could tell us exactly what happened.

But we have to

stick strictly to the facts,

to things that a detective can work with.

[eerie music playing]

[Wolfgang] My sister's case

took place in the Lüneburg area,

and Lüneburg is

around 60 kilometers southwest of Hamburg.

It's just a stone's throw.

In the summer of '89, I was head

of the State Criminal Police in Hamburg

and so the head of the CIU,

and when my sister went missing,

my mother asked,

"Can you do anything?"

And I always said, "Well,

technically, I can't

because I'm not in charge of the case."

She meant "do something" as in,

"You're the head of the Hamburg CIU."

It was natural to assume

that because I'm in the department,

I should know what's been done so far

and what sort of options there are

and so on,

but every state has its own police.

Their loyalty and trust were

with this case in Lüneburg.

There was no reason to think

they wouldn't do their job correctly.

[dog barking in distance]

"Assumption of Mary, August 15th, 1989.

Bike tour to Niendorf Park with Claudi."

CLAUDIA SIELAFF AND TANJA DAVID

BIRGIT MEIER'S NIECES

"Bought ice cream from Correl's.

Sat on the bench."

"Aunt Birgit went missing."

"Dad is in Lüneburg."

"Search with dogs and helicopters."

"Yasmine is sleeping at Harald's."

"Ingrid and I are picking Grandma up.

She's totally distraught."

Then I wrote, "Birgit is coming to her,"

then dot, dot, dot.

My grandma, in total shock,

probably said, "She's coming."

"She's coming to my house.

She's not gone."

[Claudia] I still remember.

We sat down looking toward the airport

where you see the planes.

We were looking and thought,

"Where could she be?"

Not that she was in an airplane,

but where was she?

What did she do? Where did she go?

There are statistics

from the Federal Criminal Police Office

about missing persons

who never turn up.

They don't always have to be

cases involving violent crimes.

Many just disappear and don't want

people to know where they went.

[female announcer

speaking indistinctly over PA]

[Wolfgang] Of course,

in order to rule out every possibility

and follow every lead,

and with the help of her family,

we looked for traces of Birgit in Mexico

because she had a friend in Mexico City.

[plane whooshing]

[Wolfgang] Nothing came out of it

that would suggest the first option.

This one

"Bye, I'm off to start

a new life somewhere else."

Completely unfounded.

I didn't think it was possible

that she had gone to Mexico.

She was far too kind a person

to ever consider

doing something like that.

Not because of the cats.

Of course, she loved them too.

But she would've never done that,

because of Yasmine.

Never. Never.

[eerie music playing]

[Wolfgang] I was told [chuckles]

to wait until the cornfields

had been harvested

because I kept

asking about the investigation.

It was a clear indication

he thought my sister committed suicide.

I can't imagine

my daughter hurting herself

LIESELOTTE SIELAFF

BIRGIT MEIER'S MOTHER

because she adored her daughter.

She would've never done that,

just because of her child

because she meant everything to her.

[Yasmine] I really held on

to the thought that she would come back.

To just leave and not tell anyone

wasn't in her character.

Or that she'd k*ll herself

and not tell anyone

is just as nonsensical.

NO TRACE OF BIRGIT MEIER

I would've known something.

She wouldn't have left my grandma behind

without her knowing where her daughter is.

VICTIM OF A CRIME

That's when I said,

"We're going to have to do something."

"We can't just sit around

and wait for something to happen."

I went out with flyers

and glued them onto billboards.

10,000 DM REWARD

I also placed a missing-persons ad

on the back page of a sports journal.

We tried to make

the public aware of Birgit's case.

I even got into the habit

of always looking everywhere,

no matter where I went,

to see if I could find Birgit.

Because at that time, it was unknown

what had happened.

We got more worried every day.

GÖHRDE NATIONAL FORES

20 KM AWAY

JULY 1989

4 WEEKS BEFORE BIRGIT MEIER WENT MISSING

Within just a few weeks,

there've been four murders near Lüneburg.

On July 12th, in the Göhrde Forest,

the bodies of the missing Hamburg couple,

Reinhold, were found.

This past Thursday,

just a few hundred meters away,

the police found the bodies

of Ingrid Warmbier

and Bernd-Michael Köpping.

The man was strangled and shot.

The woman was beaten to death.

There's a reward of up to 50,000 marks

for the capture of the perpetrator.

[male reporter] The police

are completely in the dark.

The public is in shock,

particularly Göhrde residents.

[woman]I used to go walking

here in Göhrde Forest every year

but not anymore.

To be honest, I'm scared now.

You only go into the forest if you must.

- Are you scared of going into the forest?

- Yes, definitely.

We hope the k*ller isn't a local.

[female reporter] What about you?

Do you think the k*ller is a local?

Yes.

- [female reporter] Why do you think that?

- [man] They know the area.

Everything points to the perpetrator

being sexually disturbed.

CASE 1

LÜNEBURG CRIMINAL POLICE

The police believe both crimes

were committed by the same man.

Since the discovery

of the second double m*rder,

hikers and visitors

have avoided Göhrde Forest.

POLICE

[Wolfgang] The fact

that there were two double murders

was a total bombshell. It still is today.

THE GÖHRDE m*rder*r'S GRUESOME KILLINGS

It's called the forest of death now.

Then, the police were under pressure.

Of course, the public expected them

to solve it soon

because the m*rder*r was on the loose.

SINISTER FOREST MURDERS

And he could k*ll again.

2 COUPLES ALREADY DEAD

So we'd better keep an eye on it.

HAMBURG IN PANIC

FOREST m*rder*r! ALREADY 4 DEAD

These cases aren't simply

about solving murders.

It's about preventing them.

[anchorwoman] The police suspect

these two crimes are connected

because the bodies

were found close together.

[female reporter] If the bodies

were hidden here on the 12th,

then the police and the k*ller

must've almost seen each other.

That can't be ruled out.

We just weren't in this part.

- [female reporter] 500 meters away.

- Exactly, to the south.

[female reporter] It's crazy to think

the police almost ran into him.

Yes, we think so too.

[Wolfgang] When these crimes shock people,

journalists are particularly interested.

k*ller SURPRISES

COUPLE IN BLUEBERRY BUSH?

They were less interested in my sister.

And the public

They acknowledged it

then went about their daily business.

Not possible with the Göhrde cases.

The main focus was on the Göhrde murders.

So, a second crime shortly after those

had them completely overwhelmed.

We had the impression

that our case was kind of secondary.

[r*fle c*ck]

[man]Of course, the murders

happening around us caused us anxiety.

We're paying

more attention than ever before

to who's roaming around.

And if it's a stranger,

you take a good look at them.

I'm an old East Prussian.

My father was a forester too.

And this is what he taught us,

"See everyone

you come across in the forest

as a criminal."

"You can still change your mind."

"If you don't,

you might not have a mind left to change."

[device beeping]

[beeping continues]

[man 2] The thing that fascinates me is

that this case is so mysterious.

There are few cases

that really reach this level of mystery.

There were so many unknowns

and difficulties for the police

and also errors, mishaps, and negligence.

The whole thing.

Everyone has their own theories and ideas

JENS FUHRMANN

AMATEUR DETECTIVE

and they don't all match up

with what the police told

the public at the time.

But because the k*ller's motive

was unknown,

it is, of course, extremely difficult

to be sure there's only one k*ller.

POLICE SKETCH: THE GÖHRDE m*rder*r

IS SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE THIS

THE MONSTER IS AMONG US

60 MURDERS UNDER INVESTIGATION

[Wolfgang] What I found

a little problematic was

that the detectives

were very quick to focus on one person

who they made a sketch of

and thought was the Göhrde k*ller.

"The Bag Man."

"The Bag Man." Right.

THE SINISTER CHARACTER LEFT NO TRACE

JUST FEAR

So, berry pickers

found the Reinholds' bodies.

Then this "Bag Man" walked past.

A man with a backpack or a large bag,

which is how he got that name.

And who,

according to their description later,

behaved strangely.

Supposedly,

he was a grim-looking, unpleasant man.

He crossed their path

and went to the second crime scene.

The police sketch was made

based on this encounter

with the berry pickers.

"Speculation is rife."

"Is the missing woman

a victim of the Göhrde k*ller

VICTIM OF A CRIME?

who already has people on his conscience?

That's been ruled out."

"There isn't the slightest parallel."

Actually, in situations like these,

you should be cautious

when completely ruling out a possibility.

In other words,

ruling out something completely,

at that stage,

is totally irresponsible.

AUGUST 29TH, 1989

[anchorman]

Two weeks after Birgit Meier went missing,

her ID was found

at the central post office in Hamburg.

It must have been mailed in

the day before by an unknown person.

Could this be a sign

that she's still alive?

They found her ID

in what was the central post office then,

where mail from all Hamburg mailboxes

was brought multiple times a day

and where they began sorting it.

They were able to determine

that the ID was in the mail

collected from mailboxes

in northwest Hamburg.

The important thing may not be

where it was mailed in

but that it was mailed in at all.

It was

an important indication

that it couldn't have been my sister

who put it there.

What reason could she have

to put her own ID in the mail?

We picked up the ID

and asked the postal workers

who was responsible for this mailbox,

but no one remembered seeing anyone

who could have put it in the mailbox.

You have

a better chance of winning the lottery

than seeing someone put

an ID into a mailbox instead of a letter.

POLICE CHIEF'S MISSING SISTER -

WHO PUT HER ID IN THE MAILBOX?

[Wolfgang]

The media also reported this at the time

because, of course, they had a clue now

UNKNOWN PERSON PUT ID IN MAILBOX

that might lead to something concrete

if the public was informed.

And if someone said,

"I'm the one who put the ID in there,"

it would disprove the theory

that it was the perpetrator.

I mean,

that the perpetrator was misleading us.

But if it were someone else,

then I would've had more questions.

Where'd you find the ID?

How did you touch it?

Because of fingerprints and whatnot.

Today, we'd even look for DNA

because the perpetrator

must've touched it.

There was hope, in the first two weeks,

that she would come back,

until her ID was found in Hamburg.

For me, that was the sign

that she wasn't coming back.

Of course, I kept my hopes up.

No one wants to hear,

"Mom is dead or has been k*lled."

I've always tried to keep hope alive.

Otherwise, I'm not sure I'd have made it.

[dramatic music playing]

[Wolfgang]

She must be 17 or 18 in this picture.

She was a trainee for the newspaper,

which involved photography.

She got married at 20.

People got married younger back then.

At that time,

sexual procurement was still ill*gal.

It was considered improper

to go to bed with an unmarried woman.

Those were the days.

[shutter clicks]

[Harald] That was a really long time ago.

I was 22 years old

and worked as a typesetter

for a small company.

Birgit worked

as a trainee for this newspaper.

We met there.

Birgit was an attractive young lady.

She was happy. She loved life.

And that led to us liking each other,

no question about it.

It also led to a child being conceived.

Namely, Yasmine.

My father, who was still very traditional,

said, "Now you have to marry her."

Then, everything went so fast.

The years flew by.

Though, maybe we didn't

marry for love.

That's just the way it was.

It was a bit early for me

because I wanted to achieve something.

I wanted to achieve more

than what I already had at that point.

And, for that reason,

I basically neglected my family a bit.

I just didn't have the time

and focused more on

building up the company.

[machines whirring, clacking]

[Harald] We had

over 300 employees at Datacolor.

[woman] Working together there was great.

It was a lot of fun.

We all got along well.

ANGELIKA MÖWES

FORMER COLLEAGUE OF BIRGIT MEIER

Some of us

even got together outside of work.

[keys clicking]

[Angelika] For me, Mrs. Meier

was always the company's "kind soul."

Even though she was the boss's wife,

she never made anyone feel that way.

When I think of Mrs. Meier,

I think of her hands.

Her hands were always well-manicured.

She always wore nail polish.

She had a special way of walking.

I didn't even need to look up.

I could always tell

when it was Mrs. Meier coming.

She just had

this kind of spring in her step.

It was very special.

We really started getting to know

each other by playing tennis.

Of course, we talked about our families,

what we did or what our plans were

or things like that.

But never about problems

or anything we had to deal with.

And, like I said,

Mr. Meier was the love of her life.

We all knew that.

[seagulls mewing]

[Yasmine] It's always so hard

to say in retrospect.

I think it must've been

sometime after 1984.

That's when it became

noticeable.

They'd sometimes fight and such.

They didn't seem like a married couple.

They seemed more like

[chuckles]roommates.

I moved out and got my own apartment.

We had a relationship

that could only be described

as painful for Birgit.

Of course, we noticed.

We didn't just have

a relationship with her

but also with her daughter and husband.

It was obvious that she

that this separation

was a real blow to her

and that she started to turn to alcohol.

Not that she was constantly drinking,

but every now and then,

and with increasing frequency,

she'd pass out drunk.

[gulps]

[gulps, exhales shakily]

I found alcohol in her wardrobe

that I wanted to get rid of

so she couldn't keep drinking,

but, of course,

she had other hiding spots.

At some point,

rumors started popping up and

[inhales sharply]

[exhales]

But

Okay

We knew [hesitates]

that Mr. Meier and Mrs. Philips

had a relationship, but

Yeah

When you think about it now

[exhales]

She'd already realized

that I had a girlfriend.

Of course,

this fact wasn't ignored by her.

We had discussions about this.

She wasn't the kind of person to say,

"Let's sit down and sort things out."

Let alone all three of them doing this.

No. She was deeply hurt.

And so she made some rash decisions.

[cassette tape clicks]

- [pop song plays]

- Rest your pretty head ♪

Before you head out ♪

And lead me away ♪

Don't let me catch you

Looking over my shoulder ♪

Why has your love been going down?

You're much older ♪

Just come on back now ♪

wh*re

- Come on back to me ♪

- [song ends abruptly]

I'm no psychologist.

I can't judge

what was going on in her head.

Ultimately,

she wasn't strong enough as a person

to say,

"Okay, I can accept things as they are

and start a new life for myself."

She was actually still in love with me.

[Yasmine] Too much, I fear.

She would never have left him.

You have to imagine,

her husband was suddenly gone.

He was the love of her life.

It changed her life completely.

She didn't get over it.

She couldn't get over it.

- It wasn't swept under the rug.

- No, but

She did have a problem with alcohol, yes.

And it surfaced from time to time.

And she lived with us for a while.

- You drove her somewhere.

- [Claudia] Yes.

- To the addiction

- To Alcoholics Anonymous in her car.

[Wolfgang] We had good opportunities

to talk to her about it.

"Birgit, you can't change it.

You can't change things."

"It is what it is.

You have to look forward."

"You have to find

a way for your life to go on."

She was financially independent.

She clearly had no financial problems.

Then, she suddenly said,

"Hey, I have a house,

uh,

in my sights that I want to buy.

I've already visited it. It's great."

She seemed to have her life back on track.

Everything we heard

from others who knew her

was that she was really euphoric, happy

to have found her footing again.

We were thankful and happy

that she seemed

to have her life back together.

That's what is so dramatic and what

[sighs]makes it so awful.

She was just starting

to build a new life for herself,

and then she goes missing.

[Yasmine] "For Mom."

"My light never goes out entirely."

"It just shines dimly sometimes."

"I will rise up again."

"I still haven't seen the sun."

"Without you, I live in the shadows."

"I don't know your universe."

"Today is yesterday, is tomorrow."

"A new day and the old sorrows."

[g*nsh*t echoes]

[Yasmine] "Your child misses her mother."

"For Mom.

Missing since August 14th, 1989."

"Please get in touch."

[anchorman] On the evening of August 15th,

Harald Meier visited his wife,

who had lived on her own for two years,

to talk about their divorce agreement.

He was the last one to see her.

If anyone has something

to do with Birgit's disappearance

HARALD MEIER

BIRGIT MEIER'S HUSBAND

or knows anything about it,

I'd urge them to immediately pass on

any information, even anonymously.

Mom, I'm begging you

YASMINE MEIER

BIRGIT MEIER'S DAUGHTER

if you can see and hear us,

to reach out to us.

But the best thing would be

for you to come back to us

because we all miss you,

and because we all love you.

Dear Birgit, where are you?

Please get in touch.

We miss you so much.

I think about you day and night.

[sobbing]

We miss you so much,

and we all love you so much.

[sniffles]

Please get in touch with us.

Where are you?

[sniffles]

[Wolfgang] After two months,

even the dumbest cop should have realized

that she may have been

the victim of a crime.

And so, I basically had to put pressure

on the DA's office

to finally open a criminal investigation

against unknown persons

suspected of a criminal act,

because the police have far more options

when criminal proceedings are underway.

To put it the way it felt at the time,

he finally had the heart

to initiate proceedings.

[Manfred] One thing

that was a bit suspicious at the time

was that if it had been

a normal divorce

1. MRS. BIRGIT MEIER BORN SIELAFF

2. THE BUSINESSMAN MR. HARALD MEIER

a larger sum of money

would have been paid to the wife.

MRS. MEIER SHALL RECEIVE:

- 490,000 DM IN CASH

For us,

that was a lead worth investigating,

at least to uncover a motive.

The crucial question is always,

"Who benefits from this crime?"

In other words,

you're always looking for a motive,

because once you know the motive

or are getting close to finding a motive,

you'll soon find the perpetrator.

[Manfred] Based on the facts,

we then questioned her husband.

We spoke to him for a long time,

taking turns.

I think the interrogation lasted

six, seven, eight hours.

One line of thought was that,

if they had gotten divorced,

he'd lose a million.

"That's so much money.

I can't accept this."

"I'll k*ll my wife and save the money."

That was the idea.

AUDIO FROM THE INTERROGATION

OF HARALD MEIER

[Harald on tape] Birgit opened the door.

I didn't notice anything was wrong

and, above all, any smell of alcohol.

It seemed to me

that she hadn't had any alcohol.

It didn't take long.

Twenty minutes, maybe.

Then I left, drove to my apartment

and later went to bed.

The reason we questioned

and interrogated him was always

to get the truth out of him,

even if he didn't want to tell us.

We didn't go easy on him

during the interrogation.

[cassette crackling]

"Just admit it!"

"Maybe, you did it

in the heat of the moment."

"Yes, and then your wife,"

they basically went on,

"had a bit too much to drink again,

and your hand slipped

because your wife threw something at you,

and then she was lying on the ground."

I said, "Are you insane?"

Then, I got really angry.

I said, "In the heat of the moment?"

They said, "You got rid of the body."

I said, "Stop this now."

When you've interrogated

suspects for so many years,

you can tell if a person is acting

or if they're really speaking

from the heart.

[Harald on tape] She does sometimes forget

to turn on the alarm system at night.

That does happen.

The police also asked me,

"Can you rule out

your brother-in-law from this case?"

I said, "I can't rule anything out."

It would be foolish

to rule that out immediately.

This is also me speaking professionally,

because the worst thing an investigator

can do is to rule something out.

AUDIO FROM QUESTIONING

OF LIESELOTTE SIELAFF

[Lieselotte] That evening at 10:00,

my phone rang. She said,

"You're right, Mom. Harald just left."

Birgit brought me all the papers.

And all I said to her was,

"And how was your talk?"

And she said,

"To the point and harmonious."

Everyone had their own theory about it.

Everyone talked about it.

The police also asked me

if I could imagine

Mr. Meier being involved.

And I said, "I can't imagine that at all."

"Mr. Meier is

an uncompromising businessman,

but a m*rder*r? No."

Toward the end,

it really became so argumentative

that he got up and told me

to stop playing games

and just confess to k*lling my wife.

What happened was that Mr. Meier

had tears in his eyes

during the conversation,

and we thought we were close

to the truth and that we might get him.

From then on, I realized

that I was somehow a prime suspect.

HARBORMASTER

[engine gradually fades and stops]

[Harald] Our boat, which was docked

on the Baltic Sea at the time,

was secretly searched without a warrant

because they assumed they might find

her body or some clues

related to my wife's disappearance.

[Manfred] If I remember correctly,

it was a big ship.

I think it was a large sailboat

docked in Travemünde or Timmendorf.

It was on the Baltic Sea, in any case.

My colleague, Döhnert, and I went there.

[Wolfgang] The theory was

he'd k*lled my sister

and had to get rid of the body,

so he put it in his Porsche

then drove up to the Baltic Sea with it.

And

after bringing it onto the ship,

he sailed out to sea

and threw the body in the water.

They asked the harbor captain

if anyone heard a motor during the night.

They made distance-time calculations.

These calculations determine

how long you need at night,

when the highway is relatively empty,

to get from Lüneburg to there

and back again

and arrive fresh for work the next day.

I don't know

if it says "yacht" in the police records.

I don't remember at all.

In any case, it was a motorboat.

Unfortunately, the problem is

that the media's sensationalism, um,

is always the same.

They want to make

a mountain out of a molehill

because they assume,

"He's a millionaire, and look, uh,

that's what happens

in millionaires' families."

To be totally honest, for a while,

I pretty much suspected everybody.

But the fact is

Mom disappeared from one day to the next,

and Dad was a suspect.

But any realistic possibility

that could've happened to Mom,

that could be eliminated quickly

had been ruled out.

Then my brain got going again

and started imagining

totally absurd things.

I always tried to keep Yasmine

from knowing too much

about how I was feeling

because I know

how sensitive Yasmine is about everything

and how much it ultimately weighs on her.

POLICE CHIEF'S SISTER m*rder*d?

MISSING

FEAR FOR POLICE CHIEF'S SISTER

[Wolfgang] At the time,

the media was relatively sensitive.

The fact that my sister had gone missing

couldn't be kept secret.

It was obvious,

and the media was very careful

not to immediately publicize the story

but to wait until much later.

As the director of Hamburg's CID,

I spent a lot of time in the media

due to the major cases in the '80s,

some of which really shook Hamburg.

Barely a week went by

where Sielaff

wasn't interviewed about some crime.

I was a real thorn in the side

for some criminal gangs, of course,

and some were even shut down.

We had some major successes back then.

Of course, as the director,

some of them held me responsible.

Two major cases

When my sister went missing,

there was a relevant question,

"Might someone in the criminal underground

have wanted to make my sister disappear?"

Was this a threat,

an act of revenge or something like that?

The Organized Crime Unit looked into this.

POLICE

There's a saying that goes,

"Watch who's watching."

My own team watched me to see

if I was being watched by the other side.

I had a police car, and when I drove home,

I was always told very clearly,

"Make sure

you don't always go the same way."

"Take detours and check your mirror

to see if you're being followed."

It was always during these phases,

when we were dealing with gangs,

that these things

happened from time to time.

Since there are

also informants within the police,

someone, uh,

might have asked,

"Do you know if Sielaff has

a sister or a brother or something?"

You just never know.

Of course, I knew

it was a challenge for them in Lüneburg,

from a psychological perspective, to know,

"That's the sister

of the head of the Hamburg CIU."

I found myself in situations

where you sensed that, on the one hand,

you did a lot

that you might not have in other cases.

But at some point, it was the opposite,

and whenever I asked anything,

it was always seen

as interfering in their investigation.

They would feed me platitudes like,

"Don't worry, we'll find your sister."

I wanted more to be done

to try and reach people

who might be able

to help with the investigation.

Like the show Unsolved Mysteries.

The second case in Lüneburg

revolves around the fate of a woman

who has been missing since August 14th.

The evidence suggests

that it was a violent crime.

The woman's name is Birgit Meier.

She was 41 years old,

living in Brietlingen Moorburg.

Of course, there's a difference

between an episode of Unsolved Mysteries

that doesn't affect me

and a show

that involves a member of my family.

You have mixed feelings.

On one hand,

there's the case,

which is already a strain.

On the other hand, you think,

"Thank God, something's happening."

"Hopefully,

this will lead to solving the case."

[presenter] She was wearing

a green jumpsuit and a yellow top.

Tips that lead to solving

this presumed crime

will be rewarded with 10,000 marks.

Please send your tips

to the Lüneburg Police.

I think we received 105 tips.

My mother regained some hope.

"Maybe this will lead to something. Maybe

someone did see her."

[Harald] I can still remember

I had to drive to Frankfurt

to visit a customer.

On the way back, I went to

a rest stop and sat there drinking coffee,

when someone came in

with another person.

From the side,

this person looked like Birgit.

I got up and left my coffee where it was.

I was convinced it was Birgit.

One person had seen my sister

in Hammerfest in North Cape.

The next one saw her

at the same time in South Africa.

And on it went, round and round.

One of Birgit's friends, who at the time

hadn't yet realized the importance

of a conversation she'd had with her,

began to be bothered by it

at a certain point.

So she worked up

the courage to tell my brother-in-law

that in the conversation

she'd had with my sister

on the evening of August 14th,

my sister had mentioned a man.

I can't even remember

if we spoke about it

on the phone or in person.

She told me she had been

to a birthday party at her neighbor's

and that their gardener was also there.

I know that my aunt

What did she call him?

- She spoke about a

- [Claudia] Her housemate.

Her "housemate," right,

and that he seemed a bit

crazy or something.

I just thought of him as someone

who wore gardening boots and dug around.

[Wolfgang] My brother-in-law told me,

"There's this man

who sporadically worked

on the neighbors' property as a gardener."

He shared this with the police,

and so I obviously assumed

that the police "checked him out,"

as we say in law enforcement.

I remember him very clearly.

He had a very penetrating gaze,

such a penetrating gaze.

I'd basically set my sights on him

when I told the police about him and said,

"How about actually looking

in the right place?"

"Who is he?

What does he have on his record?"

Wait, stop! Huh?

When you get a tip that a woman

talked to your sister on the phone

a few hours before she went missing

and your sister talked about the gardener,

then you see

what he has on his criminal record,

you have to go search his house.

Immediately!

[eerie music playing]

[music intensifies, stops]

[eerie music continues]