A woman in Germany has been accused of killing a lookalike she found on social media in a scheme to fake her own death.
In what authorities say was part of an elaborate plan to stage her death, a German-Iraqi woman is charged with killing beauty blogger Khadidja O. whom she met online.
Sharaban K. allegedly searched Instagram for female lookalikes before settling on Algerian beauty blogger Khadidja O.
Sharaban K. reportedly sent Khadidja O. several messages about make-up and lured her to meet by promising her a cosmetics kit.
One the victim agreed to meet, Sharaban K. and her boyfriend, Shequir K., picked her up and then drove her to a wooded area, where they fatally stabbed her.
Her body was left in the back of Sharaban’s Mercedes with over 50 stab wounds.
The Times UK reported that Sharaban’s parents went looking for her when she failed to return home that day – she told her family she would meet her ex-husband in the area where the woman’s body was found, prosecutors said.
When the parents arrived at the scene, they found an abandoned car with a deceased woman’s body inside it. Due to the two women’s striking similarities and the difficulty in distinguishing the victim’s face due to the severity of her stab wounds, Sharaban’s family came to believe that she was the victim in the backseat. However, an autopsy revealed that the body actually belonged to Khadidja O.
“It has been confirmed that the accused had contacted several women via Instagram before the act who seemed to look similar to her,” said Attorney General Veronika Grieser. “It can be assumed that the suspect wanted to go into hiding due to internal disputes with her family and fake her own death.”
In August 2022, Sharaban and her boyfriend, Shequir K., were arrested and charged with murder.
“It was an extraordinary case that demanded all the investigators’ skills,” spokesperson Andreas Aichele told Bild. “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.”
Both suspects could face life sentences if found guilty.
