By Matanmi Opeyemi
A German woman is accused of murdering a lookalike she found on Instagram in an elaborate attempt to fake her own death.
The alleged perpetrator identified only as 23-year-old Sharaban K. killed beauty blogger Khadidja O, also 23, in Ingolstadt, Germany last August, according to investigators.
The brutal and bizarre case has been dubbed “the doppelganger murder.”
The police referred to the German woman as Shahraban K, 23, residing in Munich, who had set up a fake Instagram account and tried contacting women who resembled her. After scouting many profiles, she found a cosmetics blogger, Algerian citizen Khadidja O, 23, who lived about 100 miles away, police said. Both the women had long dark hair and similar complexion.
According to police, Shahraban K and her boyfriend named Sheqir K, 24, reached out to Khadidja and offered beauty products and went to pick her up.
Khadidja O. had been brutally stabbed more than 50 times,with her body left on the back seat of Sharaban K.’s Mercedes. Sharaban K. and an accomplice – identified as her boyfriend Sheqir K. subsequently went into hiding.
Sharaban K had told her husband that she was going to meet her ex-husband. When she didn’t return, her parents went looking for her in Ingolstadt and found her Mercedes near the Danube.
When the body was found, police traced the car’s registration to Sharaban K’s family. Given the corpse had been disfigured, investigators assumed that she was the victim. However, a subsequent autopsy report uncovered that the actual victim was Khadidja O, prompting an investigation into the bizarre case dubbed “the doppelganger murder” by German media.
The police has charged her for murder, with prosecutors saying she trawled Instagram in a bid to find a victim who matched her physical appearance.
“It has been confirmed that the accused had contacted several women via Instagram before the act who seemed to look similar to her,” Attorney General Veronika Grieser told local publication, Bild.
“It can be assumed that the suspect wanted to go into hiding, due to internal disputes with her family, and fake her own death.”
A police spokesman said the killing was done for “base motives.”
According to investigators, Sharaban K. connected with beauty blogger Khadidja O. via Instagram sometime last summer, sending her messages about cosmetics. She reportedly enticed the victim into meeting up by offering her a set of beauty products.