Two hitchhikers, Stella Blumauer and Esmeralda Nemetz, are given a ride by cattleman Josef Trummer, who rapes them. Trummer then disappears, and the two hitchhikers are accused of killing and robbing him. As the two women are considered 'indiscriminate' in their choice of sexual partners, the possibility of self-defense is dismissed. The authorities point to various episodes from their lives as proof of their - alleged - promiscuity. A former sailor named Harald Poppinger, a dubious character who is popular with the ladies, has had affairs with both women. Poppinger believes in their innocence, as does Kuno Fichtinger, an insurance agent who persistently courted Stella in vain. The investigating magistrate, Baldur Meixner, suffers from sexual neuroses and is found dead in the course of the investigation. In his incoherent suicide note, he blames Esmeralda's 'animalistically erotic' personality for his death. Poppinger starts his own investigation, which soon casts doubt upon the official version of the story: Trummer had been looking for an opportunity to stage his death and disappear. Tabloid newspapers, letters to the editor, and postcards to the prison with unambiguous offers and abuse poison the trial's atmosphere. But several intensive searches fail to turn up the body.