A woman is accused of hunting for a lookalike on Instagram and murdering her in an attempt to fake her own death.
The body of a young woman was found in a Mercedes in Ingolstadt, Germany, last August.
Police initially identified her as Shahraban K, 24, a German-Iraqi beautician based in Munich, with members of her family identifying the body.
READ MORE: Woman's hopeful final words on future before 'fellow uni student raped and killed her'
However, an autopsy carried out the following day raised questions about her true identity.
The victim was eventually named as Khadidja O, 23, an Algerian beauty blogger from nearby Heilbronn.
German media have dubbed the case the "doppelganger murder".
Police said the two women look "strikingly alike", with long black straight hair and a similar complexion, and they believe Shahraban killed Khadidja in an attempt to fake her own death and go into hiding over a "family dispute".
They found that Shahraban set up multiple fake Instagram accounts and reached out to several women in the week before the murder, attempting to meet up with them.
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletter by clicking here.
Shahraban and her Kosovan boyfriend, named as Sheqir K, 24, reportedly offered Khadidja beauty products and arranged to meet.
German police allege they stopped with the victim in a forest and stabbed her over 50 times.
Shahraban reportedly made the effort to disfigure the victim's face to make it more difficult for the body to be accurately identified.
She had told her parents she was meeting her ex-husband in Ingolstadt and when she didn't return to Munich they started looking for her and found the body in the back of the Mercedes.
The car was not far from Sheqir's flat, with several knives found nearby.
Shahraban and Sheqir were arrested last week and face life in prison if convicted.
A police spokesperson said: “During the return journey, the victim was lured out of the vehicle as planned under a pretext and killed in a wooded area with a large number of stabs in the body.
“The accused then continued their journey to Ingolstadt, where the body was found on the evening of August 16. It was found lying in the vehicle.”
Another police spokesman told Bild: “The victim was killed with more than 50 stab wounds and her face was badly injured. That was brutal in the extreme.
“It was an extraordinary case that required all the investigators’ skills. We don’t have a case like this every day, especially with such a spectacular twist. On the day we found the body, we did not expect it to develop like this.”
READ NEXT:
Mentally ill woman beheaded her brother and 'put his severed head in plastic bag'
Mum ordered £20k hitman to kill ex-colleague from site charging £16k for 'arson'
'Lawless' UK town 'smells like Amsterdam' and ruled by gangs 'prepared to kill'
'Beautiful' school girl, 15, stabbed to death in Hexham named as tributes flood in
Swinging pastor shot dead by wife's lover after she got sick of 'extreme' threesomes
Source: Read Full Article
