A death, a plagiarism scandal and a quest for revenge: the bizarre tale of Otto Z

After his mother died, Otto became convinced he’d been wronged by the forensic investigators – and that one of them was a fraud.

The truth was even stranger On a balmy, quiet evening in June 2020, Otto’s elderly mother, Doria, was fading in her Munich apartment.

As she lay with her eyes closed, her pale face, framed by her white hair, was calm.

Otto, masked, gloved and draped in a sterile apron, dozed in a chair beside her.

Otto, who sometimes goes by the name Rainer, and whose last name is only known as “Z” because of Germany’s strict privacy laws, was a doctor who had cared for his mother for years, ever since she had suffered a stroke and moved in with him.

He described the course of that night to me.

He woke to the sound of her short breath and tried to sit her upright.

Her eyes were shut, and her lips pursed.

She stopped breathing.

Otto reached for his phone to call for help, but then Doria opened her eyes and stared into his.

She smiled, drew one last deep breath, shut her eyes again, and lay still.

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