10 years ago, a man only known as Professor was convicted of serial murder and sentenced to death... only he didn't actually die and sithe forged the papers to make it look like he did. back then, drebber was a poor college student who occasionally dug up bodies to sell to hospitals. one day he was in the cemetery when he saw the professor climb out of his own grave, with a steel mask on to conceal his face. drebber gets the shit scared out of him and a gunshot from behind him is fired, killing the professor for good (I don't think it was made clear who it was).

drebber runs the fuck out and tries to tell his story to someone but only a tabloid paper will hear him out and that's how the story spread. btw the author of the article is meningen.

in the present, meningen goes to drebber to ask him to build dovinbow's contraption and this is where drebber gets His Idea and the whole murder shit starts.
the large amount of smoke coming out of the machine was to hide meningen's cage falling through the trap door. the cage that fell into the crystal tower came from drebber's balloon etc.(ok this stuff is from day one) the body in that cage was the professor's wax statue stolen from the museum. of course this means that drebber needed a conspirator, sithe in this case. she had to cooperate or else the truth behind the professor's death 10 years ago would be exposed. since her team had exclusive rights to the crime scene switching things was easy enough.

BUT, when she went to stab the screwdriver in the body to frame dovinbow things got kind of weird. meningen actually didn't die from the 30 foot fall. he was trying to get out but then sithe stabbed him (the true cause of death). she had a motive as well, because when meningen was still a reporter he looked into the professor shit, found out about sithe, and was blackmailing her for money (this is needed in court so I'm including it I guess)