Woman trawled social media to find and kill her doppelgänger in order to fake her own death, prosecutors say

• German prosecutors say a 23-year-old woman trawled Instagram to find a doppelgänger.
• She is accused of murdering her lookalike in an elaborate plot to fake her own death.

Prosecutors in Germany believe a young woman took part in an elaborate murder plot in order to stage her own death.

According to prosecutors, the 23-year-old German-Iraqi woman, identified only as Sharaban K, trawled social media for a lookalike, and then murdered her doppelgänger as part of the scheme, The Guardian reported.

Prosecutors said Sharaban K used fake accounts on Instagram to find the woman, according to German newspaper Bild, and then arranged to meet with her last August.

On August 16, 2022, police found a body covered in blood and with more than 50 stab wounds in the back of a Mercedes in Ingolstadt, southern Germany, The Times of London reported.

Police initially identified the victim as Sharaban K, with her parents believing it to be their daughter, Bild reported.

(In reports, the victims and accused have been referred to by only their first names and an initial, as is customary in the German legal system.)

However, following an autopsy report, police identified the victim as 23-year-old Khadidja O, an Algerian beauty blogger from Eppingen in the neighboring state of Baden-Württemberg, per The Guardian.

Police said Khadidja O and Sharaban K looked "strikingly alike," according to The Guardian, leading the German press to refer to the story as the "doppelgänger murder."

There was speculation in German tabloid papers about the motive of the murder, but Bild's report on Monday marks the first time authorities have weighed in.

"After the investigation, it can be assumed that she wanted to go into hiding due to internal family disputes and faked her own death," said Veronika Grieser of the Ingolstadt state prosecutor's office, per Bild.

Grieser said that on the day of the crime, Sharaban K, along with a friend, Sheqir K, picked up the victim in their car, drove her to a forest near Ingolstadt, and allegedly stabbed her to death, per Bild.

Sharaban K was detained by Bavarian police, along with the man accused of being her accomplice, on August 19, 2022.

Arrest warrants against the pair, which allow criminal proceedings to begin, were issued on January 26 and 27, following an investigation, prosecutors said.

"It was an extraordinary case that demanded all the investigators' skills," Andreas Aichele, a spokesman for the local police force, told German newspaper Bild.

He added: "We don't have a case like this every day — especially with such a spectacular twist. On the day we found the body, we didn't expect it to turn out like this."

If convicted, the pair face life sentences.