Woman Allegedly Brutally Murdered Instagram Doppelgänger To Fake Own Death, Arrested

A German woman was arrested for allegedly fatally stabbing her lookalike to fake her own death, in a case that has been dubbed as "doppelganger murder" by the local media.

Shahraban K, 24, a Munich-based Iraqi-German woman, committed the crime in August 2022, with her Osovan boyfriend, 24-year-old Sheqir K, in the Bavarian city of Ingolstadt, The Telegraph reported. Both the woman and her boyfriend have been arrested.

In her pursuit to find a look-alike, Shahraban set up fake Instagram accounts and offered to meet many users until she zeroed in on Khadidja O, a 23-year-old Algerian beauty blogger, who had the same long dark hair as her and a similar complexion.

Shahraban was believed to have lured Khadidja with a cosmetics offer before she and her boyfriend led her into a forested area and fatally stabbed her over 50 times.

Shahraban had told her family she was going to Ingolstadt to meet her ex-husband and when she didn't return, her parents began searching for her, only to discover the blood-covered body of Khadidja lying in the backseat of the accused's Mercedez, which was parked in a quiet residential area on the banks of Danube after the accused pair drove it there, The Guardian reported.

Though Shahraban's parents were initially convinced it was her, going by the striking resemblance of the deceased with their daughter, an autopsy and multiple DNA tests proved the body actually was that of Khadidja.

The police learned about Shahraban's exploits after tracking her past social media activity.

"It has been confirmed that the accused had contacted several women via Instagram before the act who seemed to look similar to her," Veronika Grieser, an Ingolstadt prosecutor, told the German news outlet Bild, adding the accused plotted the murder as she tried to cut herself off from her family due to internal disputes.

"The murder weapon has not been found, but the weight of evidence is overwhelming. There were more than 50 stab wounds on the victim's body, and her face was extremely badly scarred. It was an extremely brutal murder," RMF, a local outlet, quoted Grieser, as saying.

Arrest warrants were issued against Sheqir and Sharaban on Jan. 26 and Jan. 27. They are expected to face a life sentence if convicted, the prosecutor's spokesperson told The Guardian.