23-year-old German-Iraqi woman, Sharaban K, is facing murder charges for killing a woman who looked strikingly similar to her. The murder, which took place in August 2022, was allegedly carried out with the help of a Kosovan man named Sheqir K. Prosecutors in Bavaria believe that Sharaban wanted to fake her own death in order to hide from a family dispute and was in search of a lookalike on Instagram. Ultimately, she found and killed the victim, identified as an Algerian beauty blogger named Khadidja O.
The murder weapon has not been found, but police say the evidence is overwhelming that Khadidja O was stabbed to death. Khadidja was killed with over 50 knife thrusts, leaving her face disfigured. After killing her, the two accused allegedly put her body in the backseat of their car and drove to Ingolstadt where the car was later found by Sharaban’s parents.
The family of Sharaban had initially identified the body as her but an autopsy report later raised questions. Prosecutors later identified the body as Khadidja. Police say that Sharaban had been trying to contact women who looked like her under various aliases on social media in the week leading up to the murder. Khadidja agreed to meet her, lured by a cosmetics offer. The two accused are believed to have picked her up from her apartment and killed her in a stretch of woodland between Heilbronn and Ingolstadt.
Arrest warrants against Sheqir and Sharaban were issued in January 2023 and the pair face life sentences if convicted. The case has been referred to as the “doppelganger murder” by the German press, as the two women looked strikingly alike with long black hair, similar complexions and heavy makeup.
Andreas Aichele, a spokesperson for the police said, “You don’t get a case like this every day, especially with such a spectacular twist.” “On the day we found the body there was nothing to prepare us for this development,” he added.
