Saalfeld - 1 - Todesstrafe

Having just arrived in Leipzig by train, Chief Inspector Andreas Keppler is called directly to a crime scene. His new colleague Eva Saalfeld is already waiting for him here, with whom he has more in common than their future work together – they were once married to each other. The marriage ended in divorce, and now both are nervous about meeting again. But they don't have time for private matters, because they have to solve a murder together. Hans Freytag, operator of the event center 'Fabrik', has been stabbed. He was restoring a boat with some young people with the word 'death penalty' spray-painted on the bow. The inspectors determine that Freytag's 'factory' had already been daubed with the word 'child molester' several times by unknown persons.
The background could be a criminal complaint by his wife Sibylle, who lives separately from him, who claims that Freytag abused their little daughter. Towards Friday there was a pogrom mood in the district. A witness saw a youth running out of the 'factory' at the time of the crime. Inspectors Saalfeld and Keppler come across Max Lornsen, who was the last person to telephone Freytag. However, the young man was friends with the victim - what motive for a murder should he have? Things are very different with the innkeeper Kurt Steinbrecher: He is the chairman of an association that publicly calls for the death penalty for child molesters. Steinbrecher has no alibi, and his fingerprints are on a spray can found at the crime scene.
When the inspectors then find out that Sibylle Freytag and her lawyer Klaus Arend have been a couple for a long time, the question arises as to the actual purpose of the abuse report... Eva Saalfeld and Andreas Keppler investigate in a district where hysteria and vigilantism reign . In their first case, they have to unravel a web of slogans from the regulars' table, broken marriages and failed dreams.