The young man attracted the victim via Instagram and had the help of a friend to murder her
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Lookalike was murdered in Germany
Photo: Reproduction/Social Networks
A 23yearold woman of German and Iraqi nationality killed her double to fake her own death in Germany. According to The Guardian newspaper, Bavarian prosecutors believe she searched for the victim on Instagram and enlisted the help of a friend.
In August 2021, the police found the bloodsmeared body of a young woman in a Mercedes parked in Ingolstadt. Initially, the victim was identified as Sharaban K, a 23yearold beautician with Iraqi roots who lives in Munich.
Her family managed to identify the body, but an autopsy report the next day raised questions about her identity. The victim was eventually identified as Khadidja O, a beauty blogger, also 23 years old.
According to police, both had straight black hair, wore heavy makeup and were “surprisingly similar,” police said, prompting the German press to describe the case as a “doppelganger murder.”
The friend who helped commit the crime, identified as Sheqir K, and Sharaban were arrested as a precautionary measure on August 19, 2022, although authorities did not publicly speculate as to the reason for the detention until this week.
“The investigations have led us to believe that the suspect wanted to go into hiding because of a family dispute and faked her own death,” said Veronika Grieser from the Ingolstadt public prosecutor’s office on Monday morning.
Police say several women like her were contacted via social media under various aliases in the week before Sharaban K’s murder. “She tried to promote meetings with various promises that were initially unsuccessful,” said Grieser.
Until the victim agreed to meet, lured by an offer of cosmetics. The criminal duo is said to have picked her up from her apartment by car on the day of the crime. In a wooded area between Heilbronn and Ingolstadt, they are said to have come up with an excuse for the woman to get out of the vehicle and stab her.
“The murder weapon was not found, but the evidence is overwhelming,” said police spokesman Andreas Aichele of the “Bild” newspaper. “The victim was killed with more than 50 stabs and his face was completely disfigured.”
Prosecutors allege that the couple put the victim in the back seat of their Mercedes and drove to Ingolstadt, parked the car in a quiet residential area on the banks of the Danube, where it was spotted by Sharaban K’s parents just before midnight on August 16, 2022.
The investigations are still ongoing, and other witnesses still have to be questioned, said the spokesman for the Ingolstadt public prosecutor’s office. If convicted, they both face life imprisonment.
“You don’t get a case like this every day, especially not with such a spectacular twist,” said Aichele of the picture. “On the day we found the body, there was nothing to prepare us for this development.”
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