Violence, jealousy and murder – crime thrillers like Tatort and SOKO Leipzig are not stingy with shocking content. When an unfaithful husband poisons his wife or the family dispute ends in a bloody catastrophe, we as spectators are repeatedly confronted with a truth: the depths of the human psyche know no boundaries.
The current case of Police Call 110: Immortal proves how close reality and fiction sometimes are. The shocking murder is based on a true story.
This is what happened in Police Call 110: Immortal
A young woman falls from the roof of a shopping center and is killed. Inspector Doreen Brasch (Claudia Michelsen) is faced with a mystery: Was it murder or suicide? The dead woman is a popular influencer who recently had to deal with a shitstorm because of a questionable advertising deal.
Then a DNA sample brings shocking findings to light: the dead woman is not Aalisha at all, but a perfectly styled doppelganger. The real Aalisha, on the other hand, is still alive and in hiding. The influencer wanted to escape the online hate and therefore decided to fake her own death. However, to make the lie even more believable, she needed a corpse. One of her followers looked a lot like Aalisha and had to die for it.
The real doppelganger murder in Ingolstadt, which inspired the new police call 110 episode
At first glance, the plot of Police Call 110: Immortal seems so hackneyed that it could only come from the exuberant imagination of a crime writer.
In fact, Police Call 110 screenwriter Michael Gantenberg was inspired by a real murder case. The so-called “doppelganger murder,” which took place in Ingolstadt, Upper Bavaria, in 2022, served as the basis for the episode.
“Everything I told you happened exactly the same way, at least in essence”says Gantenberg in an interview with ARD.
The real case shows astonishing parallels: A young woman from Ingolstadt is said to have specifically searched the Internet for a doppelganger in order to enable her to escape from her own family. The chosen doppelganger was then lured into a trap by an accomplice and murdered with 56 stab wounds. The body was then placed in the parents’ car in order to stage the alleged death of the daughter. The young woman probably hoped to be able to build a new life after her escape.
Gantenberg was particularly inspired by the moral question in his script: “Can I kill a person so that I can realize my right to my own life?”
This is how you can watch Police Call 110: Immortal
Police call 110 is a real classic on TV. The crime series was already popular during the GDR era as a counterpart to the crime scene. You can stream Police Call 110: Immortal for free in the ARD media library. The next episode Police Call 110: Funkensommer will be shown on Sunday, May 26th at 8:15 p.m. on Das Erste. The series then goes into summer break.