Original subtitles

I was afraid it wasn't a psychological problem,

but a medical, psychiatric problem.

On one hand, I wanted help.

On the other hand, I was also afraid of what this therapy might look like.

But I also knew I couldn't just push it away

or forget about it.

I was torn

but couldn't find the courage to see a psychiatrist or a doctor.

The more a perpetrator does at a crime scene to a body,

the higher our chances are to say, "Hey, we have a clear pattern."

It's always particularly interesting

when it tells us about the perpetrator's personality.

Sometimes, when you investigate a series of crimes,

you realize the full scale of the crimes, and then, in retrospect, you realize

he's committed more crimes than we previously thought.

Maybe he realized,

"Hey, that worked great. No one came after me."

6:25 A.M.

We had the location.

We also knew when it happened almost down to the minute.

Everything was clear, but there were still no clues

regarding the man from the surveillance video.

Kind of like a ghost, flying totally under the radar.

That's how he moved through here.

At that point, I couldn't imagine it being anyone who had been here.

I had no idea.

I also could never have imagined

that someone would just walk in here,

offer someone some liquor, then use it to kill them.

I think it could be someone who wanted to feel like they belonged

but wasn't able to accept this feeling of belonging.

Grosse Freiheit has always been a safe space for homosexual men.

So it became a big talking point among friends,

the community, with the people in my circle.

You could sense there was this sudden apprehension

about going to the darkroom.

It was just awful, and caused fear within the community.

We closed the bar for two days,

and then very carefully reopened with a vigil.

We also placed a candle up on the bar.

Our regulars were all here

to...

to collectively say goodbye as well.

He was loved by everyone. Everyone.

Nothing about him was feigned.

Nothing. No need to.

He had this kind of aura.

If you talked to him,

you just had to love him.

A little ray of sunshine.

Mom and Dad were completely unable to do anything.

All they were doing was

breathing.

That was about it.

You couldn't talk to them.

They weren't eating either.

They barely slept.

We just wandered around the apartment.

Nicky's sister was able to describe the color of his wallet,

and his personal documents should've been in there.

And she told me Nicky always had his cellphone with him.

But the items were missing.

And we couldn't find them at his place either.

It's a classic investigative approach, putting a trace on the phone to check

who might have it in their possession or to check where it was last active.

Can the location give us any clues about the person who took the phone?

We were able to establish that his phone had been used after he died.

And that it had been used with a SIM card

and a phone number associated with a clear profile,

meaning a person who actually exists.

With this, we were really on to something.

Then we looked into this person, tried to get a photo.

We looked into him. Does this person have a previous police record?

Who are we actually dealing with?

And could it be the perpetrator?

We had the picture that we got from the person.

I kept watching the surveillance videos over and over

and comparing them with the picture.

It was extremely difficult.

On one hand, I personally thought this man

and the one from the Ostbahnhof videos

looked kind of different.

I struggled to say, "That's him."

But I couldn't totally rule it out either.

We then took the picture to Grosse Freiheit

and showed it to the bar staff.

And one of the bartenders actually said that he knew this person.

And he was 99% certain that this was the person

on the surveillance footage from Ostbahnhof.

With this statement,

the person with the phone became our prime suspect.

So we went there with a team.

And we detained him.

He was questioned. He seemed calm, self-composed.

He described how he had been out

with two female friends and one male friend.

And at some point, they parted ways, and he went to Grosse Freiheit on his own.

He walked around a little,

and also described having multiple sexual encounters.

He said he eventually left.

Outside, he then found a cellphone, an iPhone.

Of course, we didn't believe this story.

Then he realized he was actually here as a suspect in a murder case.

I think that slowly got him thinking, and he said, "What actually happened?"

So we told him, "Someone had died there, the owner of this iPhone to be exact,

the one in your possession."

Then he started to talk.

He said that's how they do it there, you offer yourself, naked,

and then the other person joins you.

So he proceeded to touch his genitals,

but there was no reaction.

He thought, "Oh well, he must be asleep," or something.

He didn't think much of it.

He then felt an iPhone in one of his pockets

and for some reason,

grabbed it and took it with him.

I didn't buy his story.

So that led me

to say, "Let's go get Miro."

The person I was shown had pulled the iPhone out of the victim's pocket.

That makes you immediately suspicious, of course,

when there's a dead body, and he takes the phone from their pocket.

Obviously, it's a strange feeling

because then he was asked to walk up and down the corridor,

and I'm supposed to look at his gait to see

if I recognize it as possibly being the perpetrator's,

or as I remembered it.

I'd definitely never seen him before.

But apparently, he had also been in that darkroom on that night.

Now imagine the following situation.

Apparently, there's a perpetrator

who's running around town with knockout drops,

and he's also caused the death of Nicky at Grosse Freiheit.

And then maybe someone else afterwards approaches the victim

and steals his phone.

It's unlikely.

What was problematic about assessing this man

was that he lied to us on many occasions.

There's no denying that.

And this is classic perpetrator behavior that I've seen many times,

to only admit as much as can be proven at that exact time.

At some point, I had to make a decision.

Do we put him in front of an investigative judge or not?

And I didn't feel comfortable doing this at that point in time.

I can tell it's hard for you to understand my course of action.

It was about the feeling of doing something forbidden.

It's a behavior I don't recognize in myself.

It's completely alien to me.

Just the idea of using these means is bizarre and sick.

And then somehow, I had the crazy idea

to try it all over again.

THAT WORKS. ARE YOU FREE TONIGHT?

In Berlin, we have about 100, 110, 120 homicides per year.

The clearance rate is over 90%.

What creates a lot of work for us are these remaining few percent.

The perpetrator used a drug, GHB,

which is easy to get.

It won't be a gory death. He won't get his hands dirty.

He doesn't have to expect much resistance.

He has everything under control. No problem, right up until the end.

And then he picks a victim that doesn't provide any clues

about who the perpetrator is.

So, a clever perpetrator, I must say.

What kind of person does something like that?

I'm a trainee teacher in Brandenburg.

In an elementary school.

For first, second, and fifth grade.

In Math and German.

I don't have any children.

I'm unmarried.

I've been living with my partner for almost ten years.

I don't do any voluntary work.

I don't have a criminal record. I have no points on my driver's license.

In summary, the status of our investigation

was that we had video footage.

We knew that he had given knockout drops to people twice.

We knew it was important for him to buy train tickets.

And that's it for the time being.

If he were trying to get money using the card,

or even buy something nice for himself with cash...

Instead, it was this compulsive "I'm taking this card

and going to the next ticket machine to buy a train ticket."

"If that fails, I'll have to kill someone else."

Why?

It had to be something very unique

that probably only he can answer.

I never used that train ticket. This shows you how I tick.

So I had no intention of gaining any financial benefit from doing this.

I'm doing something that I would condemn anyone else for.

I threw away the wallet.

I didn't even take the cash out of it.

When I stole these items, I did so spontaneously.

It's hard to explain,

but it had nothing to do with the material aspect.

There wasn't much we could do. We were a bit helpless.

We could continue the meticulous work,

or rather, the police could continue this meticulous work,

but that was all that could be done.

We then had to change our investigative approach,

meaning we decided to go public with the video footage.

The goal of any public manhunt is, of course,

to get any information on the identity of the depicted persons.

With these images from a surveillance camera,

the police are looking for an alleged murderer.

He is suspected of having killed 32-year-old Nicky M.

in a bar in Friedrichshain on Saturday, May 5th.

The suspect is between 25 and 40 years old and about 1.70-meters tall.

He has a strong build and was wearing a dark jacket.

I can only remember the headline, something like,

"Another Dead Body in the Darkroom,"

and "The Darkroom Killer."

Which at the time, put all the focus on us and our darkroom.

All of a sudden, those dim darkroom bars were dangerous, evil.

You shouldn't go there anymore.

You could get killed, and nobody would notice.

That's how it was portrayed back then.

I think there was some very serious finger-pointing

at our community.

Not just at our bar, but the entire gay community,

which was, once again, portrayed as,

"Reckless as always,

risking their lives with all their darkroom sex business."

MURDER IN SEX CLUB?

I read the paper at the time.

I read what it said.

But for them to put him so front and center on the front page...

It could happen to you in any village bar. It could happen to you anywhere.

I'd like to finally see an end to this cliché someday.

This idea that, "It's his own fault."

"Why did he go there? Why is he gay?"

I can only speak for myself.

To me, a world was shattered that day.

It actually still is today.

My perfect world. My colorful, perfect world.

The freedom, the uninhibited life.

You could be yourself.

Nobody cared where you're from, where you wanted to go.

You were just part of a single entity like a pixel in a large image.

These days, my bar is open to "queer and friends".

I just think it's important

to have spaces where you and your partner,

or someone anonymous who's also up for it,

can get intimate.

Under cover of the night.

Berlin's nightlife is a happy, free coexistence, very cosmopolitan.

And I think the togetherness we have here in Berlin

is quite unique.

Why do you go out at night?

You don't want sunshine. You want dark light.

You want an atmosphere.

Smoke.

The way I got to know that world, I gotta say,

what Berlin can do, only Berlin can do.

I moved to Berlin because my boyfriend found a job here.

I never would've if it were up to me.

It was all too big and too loud for me.

I felt lonely in this city of millions, despite being in a relationship.

I would've preferred a life with my boyfriend and my parents.

In a multi-generational house.

But I knew this would never happen due to the physical distance.

NINE DAYS BEFORE THE MURDER IN THE DARKROOM

My grandson, Alexander,

didn't show up at work,

and he'd always been very reliable before.

So the employer got in touch with Alexander's mother.

They called to ask, "What's going on?"

So then she drove to his apartment. She had a key.

She entered the apartment, stood in front of the bed, and found her son dead.

Out of the blue.

It's very difficult to comprehend, but it's devastating.

Torn from life.

POLICE DISTRICT MITTE POLICE DISTRICT FRIEDRICHSHAIN

ALEXANDER'S APARTMENT

And then the phone rang,

and an acquaintance of Alexander's was on the phone.

You could tell by his voice that something bad happened.

He said he couldn't tell me much,

just that...

forensics were at the door and the police,

and Alexander was found dead in the apartment.

And that his mom had found him. That's all he knew.

We looked at the body first.

He was lying face down in bed, covered up.

We checked all body orifices.

We checked his palms for any signs of a struggle.

But there wasn't really anything notable about the body.

It was all so unreal.

Dead in his apartment? How can that be? He was in great health.

What happened there?

I didn't wanna believe it. It can't be true.

They must've gotten it wrong.

There was nothing noteworthy in the apartment,

apart from his parents telling us his personal belongings were missing,

for example, his backpack, a cellphone, and a wallet.

But he would never have gone to bed without his cellphone...

If it had been missing, he'd never have lied down.

The unlocked door was the second clue. He'd never!

He always locked himself in.

Always.

FORENSICS

Because of how he was found,

with certain items missing,

and it being totally unclear what happened that night,

we decided to have him picked up by forensics.

This way, we basically compel them to carry out an autopsy.

About 33,000 people die in Berlin every year.

Many of them alone in their apartments.

And in all of these cases, the cause of death is declared "unclear",

and the police have to be notified.

Which is why, in Berlin each year,

we have around 8,000 preliminary death investigations.

Preliminary death investigations are slightly different from homicides,

since it's not at all certain

that a homicide occurred in the first place,

and nothing necessarily suggests this.

We "only" have a situation

of a dead person having been found.

There can be multiple reasons for this. Very often, it's a natural death.

In these cases, where no one is present when someone dies,

the doctors also find it difficult to figure out the cause of death.

And even with the autopsy of Alexander M.,

they were unable to find a convincing cause of death.

Alexander was joyful.

He was always happy to help.

We talked about all kinds of things,

from politics

to social issues.

He had this way of commenting dryly on things,

sometimes even in serious situations,

where you couldn't help but laugh.

We also rated men together and viewed profiles together.

Obviously, because I was curious myself.

And, of course, it was a lot of fun to do that with him.

He was always surrounded by pals and friends.

For his birthdays, he went to the Baltic Sea with them.

I would bake a quiche for him

and give him a bottle of wine, for example.

He was a sweet boy.

There was no information

indicating the police were still working on this.

Young people were experimenting with drugs,

and it was more or less just an accident.

But no one within the family could accept that.

We were bewildered.

The fact that it just wasn't like him.

All the circumstances, how he was found, what was missing.

Where is Alexander's cellphone?

Why didn't he tell anyone?

And we never strayed from our opinion that it must've been someone he knew.

We were sure something must've happened.

We said someone must've been at his place, but "murder", we never...

used that word.

In that case, we would've seen strangulation marks or...

But he was just lying in bed.

Then there was this article where the public was asked to help.

It drew attention to a young man,

the fact that he tried to use the credit cards

that he stole from his victim

to buy a train ticket to Saarbrücken.

And when I heard "Saarbrücken",

I clearly remembered

Alexander telling me he had a friend, a pal,

who lived in Saarbrücken.

And that's when I thought,

"I should inform the police."

The phone rang.

An elderly lady was on the line.

She stated that, just less than a month prior,

her grandson had died.

This young man, however, had died at home in this case.

He was homosexual.

There was no clear cause of death.

She just wanted to report this

and also happened to mention that his backpack was missing,

his iPhone was gone,

his wallet, gone.

The man on the phone was nice.

He wrote everything down.

I told him I was the grandmother.

I gave him Alexander's personal details

and was also able to tell him that an autopsy was carried out,

which, however, didn't yield any findings.

Based on these similarities,

I then decided to contact the coroner and the toxicologist

to raise the issue of whether GHB, GBL may have been

a possible cause of death.

And indeed, one day later,

that very result came back, that here too,

a liquid ecstasy overdose was the cause of death.

So we said, "Okay, so he had been poisoned."

And...

That was quite heavy. At least, we got a sort of closure.

But then again, the next thing we couldn't fathom was,

who would do such a thing to him?

Why him?

Why?

So now we have yet another victim. That was definitely alarming.

I still remember the goosebumps.

There was this incredible fear and pressure.

And this had now confirmed our suspicion that it was actually a serial offender.

What else awaited us?

I had noticed that something was wrong with me.

But I didn't know who to talk to about it.

I didn't dare talk to my boyfriend or my parents about it.

The fact that something was wrong with me scared me.

But the urge was greater than the fear.

And then I received a call.

"Doreen, have you seen the story about the darkroom killer?"

"The surveillance photo that's on there?"

I said, "Yes, I have."

And she just asked, "You recognize the jacket?"

So I look at it and I'm like, "Alexander had one just like that."

For me, this was an ultimate display of power,

him actually walking around in his victim's clothes

and continuing to kill.

It was a detail that really shook me

because I found it so unbelievable.

I knew it was only really me who could have taken these things.

I expected it,

or at least knew

that suspicion could only fall on me.

Serial killers often get away with it

because they have a certain practical intelligence,

even down to their choice of victims and locations.

For him, there was no other option.

As a criminologist, I find this interesting

yet quite tragic at the same time.

He wanted to kill, and...

I don't know what reason he had to stop.

Subtitle translation by: Kristopher Brame