Mord auf dem Inka-Pfad: ARD Miniseries (2025)

About the series

Mord auf dem Inka-Pfad (Murder on the Inca Trail) is a German four-part fiction miniseries from 2025, broadcast on Das Erste (ARD) and released in the ARD Mediathek, and a dramatisation of the murder of Ursula Glück-Tesler on the Inca Trail in Peru in 1997. It is not a documentary: the roles are played by actors, and parts of the story were staged for television.

Broadcast and numbers

• Episodes: 4 × 45 minutes.
• ARD Mediathek: all four episodes were released on 19 April 2025.
• Das Erste: 30 April and 1 May 2025.
• Production: Westside Filmproduktion and RatPack Film for ARD Degeto, with Bayerischer Rundfunk.
• Filming: October 2023 to February 2024, in South Africa and Munich.

Crew and cast

Nina Wolfrum directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Mika Kallwass, based on a treatment by Rolf Basedow. Nina Gummich plays detective Rita Berg, Amelie Kiefer plays Ursula Glück, Thomas Prenn plays her husband Jona Kepler, and Florian Karlheim and Juergen Maurer appear in supporting roles.

What was changed

The series follows the investigation from the 1997 killing across several years and three continents. The husband's name is changed: he is called Jona Kepler, while the real man is Ilan Tesler. The investigator Rita Berg is based on a real person who has a different name. The 2000 mountain trek to the crime scene was re-staged for the series.

The real case

Ursula Glück-Tesler, 34, was shot in her tent at Pacamayo on 7 January 1997 and died on 13 January in Lima. Ilan Tesler was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder by the Landgericht München I on 22 January 2002; the verdict is final. More on the case page, in the film and series directory and among all cases.

A documentary film of the same title, produced by Diwafilm, appeared in 2004.