When a tortured woman is found hanged in Los Angeles, a detective must stop a campaign of vigilante killings rooted in a 500-year-old witch-hunting text before more innocent women are tortured and killed.

SYNOPSIS:

Los Angeles PD Detective HELEN THANOS (30) arrives at an eerie crime scene in an oak forest at night to see a young female CEO hanged, with smashed fingernails and dislocated shoulders reminiscent of medieval witch hunts. The crime initially appears to be a modern “wrench attack,” a form of torture used to extract cryptocurrency access codes. The “vic” is the daughter of city councilwoman, BEVERLY MARTIN (50), so pressure mounts on the CHIEF (male, 60) to solve the case fast-- and quietly. Beverly, a devout Catholic, sees the ties to the European witch hunts and hires an academic private investigator, DR. DIONTE JACKSON, from Atlanta, to assist Helen. She and Dionte have immediate chemistry.

A second hanged crypto owner is found tortured and hanged in Idaho, and Helen and Donte investigate. They learn that FBI and Interpol agents beat them there, following suspicious “wrench attacks” in Europe. This victim drowned, and her shoulders were dislocated before hanging. Dionte forces Helen to visit a library in Oregon where the lone copy of the medieval text “Malleus Maleficarum” resides. The infamous book details how to identify, torture, and purify witches, resulting in 40,000 to 60,000 deaths, almost all women. Helen is inspired to catch the killers, and Dionte is frightened as they return to LA. They are sharing an awkward shower when a third victim is reported, after hanging in a tree for three weeks.

Crypto-security agents for the FBI, Victoria WILCOX (35) and Max EDWARDS (30s), and Interpol, Klaus SCHMIDT (35), have taken over Helen’s case. Helen suspects that the wrench attacks are concealing a more sinister motive. Her meager suspects include a young ranch hand, TOD STEVENS (21), a clumsy policeman, OFFICER ALBERTI (25), and maybe Dionte. And Beverly is abducted, Helen pieces together the clues leading to a showdown back in the oak forest, where Beverly is being tortured. In a series of shocking revelations and story twists, Tod, Dionte, and Agent Schmidt are shot and killed by the mastermind, Officer Alberti, who surrenders with a wry look of superiority.

Beverly is saved before being hanged and burned in ritual purification. The FBI agents recorded the entire event and a contrived confession from Officer Alberti. He claims self-defense and following orders. His stable of lawyers has him out the next morning-- justice proves elusive. Helen is furious, knowing he was silencing his co-conspirators, but the pompous Chief proclaims that the smart women will never take over the world and that witches aren’t real. Helen stews in anger: “Maybe we’ve been misidentifying the real witches all along! We need to stop the witch-hunters!”

INQUISITOR OF WITCHES