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When Karrass (Götz George) comes to visit his ex, a prostitute, he finds her door locked, and when he and caretaker Seuke (Josef Vinklár) want to break down the door out of worries over her, they hear two shots fired, and are quick to call the police. Inspector Keller (Erik Ode) and his team - Grabert (Günther Schramm), Heines (Reinhard Glemnitz) and Harry (Fritz Wepper) - arrive to find the woman murdered. And Grabert would be more than happy to pin the murder on Karrass, as he has previously dealt with the man in a case of blackmail but couldn't pin anything on him. He's sure he's got him this time though, as he figures Karrass must have used the dead prostitute in the blackmailing, and she was to be a witness in the case against him - so everything fits but one thing, he has an alibi for the time of the murder. So Keller and company continue to investigate, and eventually come up with a witness, paraplegic Höfer (Werner Bruhns), who must have seen the murderer escape through the window since he has been peeping on her - she lived right across the street from him - through his bedroom window pretty much constantly. But when he's confronted with all the suspects, he claims not knowing any of them. Then though his carer (Renate Roland) tells Grabert that he's to buy himself a state-of-the-art wheelchair that costs as much as a small car - which means someone is paying him hush money ... but who? Eventually, Keller and company find out that the gunshots Karrass and Seuke have heard have actually come from a tape, to give the murderer and alibi. Confronted with this, Karrass completely loses his nerves, but in such a way  that it seems unlikely he's able to kill anyone. So Keller and company lie in waiting for the real killer to enter the apartment and retrieve the tape - and ultimately it's someone (Wolfgang Spier) who didn't feature prominently in the episode so far.

Aesthetically, Tod einer Zeugin is one of the more interesting episodes of Der Kommissar, as some of the camerawork is very cinematic, and also the recurring musical theme (which also plays on the tape with the gunshots) is integrated into the plot rather nicely. Where the episode falls flat though is its not very thought-through script, starting with the question why didn't anybody hear the gunshots when they were originally fired, also using the tired old pre-recorded gunshots-twist, and going all the way to pulling a culprit out of the hat rather than working toward the reveal - but really a not-so-great script is what one has come to expect from the show, and on the other hand most of the acting is nice, and it's certainly one of the more interesting episodes of the series.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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