Das Schicksal geht seltsame Wege

Erik Semeler, a successful, athletic, and young teacher, loves his job. His colleagues appreciate his kindness, humor, helpfulness, and reliability. At school, Erik teaches math, physics, and sports. He impresses students and parents with his teaching skills and modern classroom ideas.

Sports are also his great hobby in private life. He enjoys tennis, fitness, bowling, and martial arts for mental relaxation. Once a month, he meets with good acquaintances from the faculty and sports clubs for bowling. Only during these bowling nights is alcohol consumed while engaging in sports, sometimes less, sometimes more. Late at night, a minibus takes the bowling group home. Unfortunately, Erik does not handle alcohol, food, and driving very well. Therefore, the taxi has to stop from time to time, and he walks the remaining distance, just like after the last bowling night he spent with his bowling buddies.

Within a few hours, his life changes dramatically. On his way home late at night, he stumbles over a horrifically mutilated female corpse in the darkness. In the following days, the criminal police search for perpetrators and evidence. All the clues and a dubious expert witness heavily implicate Erik. In the early 1980s, the investigating officers did not have the technical tools available today.

Suddenly, he is no longer the good person but a brutal beast. After a short trial, he is sentenced to life in prison. Only Erik knows that he is innocent. Being wrongfully imprisoned among serious criminals means for him a very slow execution over time.

Several fellow inmates attack him in the workshop under the watchful eyes of the prison staff, beating him so brutally that he cannot be helped in the prison hospital. At the nearest university hospital, several doctors fight for his life.