Harley Young
A woman living in Germany has been accused of killing someone who looked like her in order to fake her own death.
Shahraban K is suspected to have stabbed a beauty blogger she found on Instagram more than 50 times, resulting in her death.
Beauty blogger, Khadidja O was left with a completely disfigured face and died of her injuries after being lured into meeting Shahraban K in Ingolstadt, Germany in August 2022.
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24-year-old German-Iraqi, Shahraban K is also a beauty blogger herself and allegedly tried to make it look like she was the one who had been killed in the attack, leaving Khadidja O's body inside of her Mercedes and marking it near her friend, Sheqir K's flat. Sheqir K is believed to have been an accomplice in the murder.
Local reports have claimed that even Shahraban K's parents believed the body was hers when asked to identify, until an autopsy the following day caused doubt.
The German press have already dubbed the unusual case as the 'doppelgänger murder' and the incident is due to go to trial to charge Shahraban K and Sheqir K with the murder of Khadidja O.
When discussing the motive behind the attack, prosecutors think that Shahraban K was trying to get away from trouble at home and was looking for a way to disappear.
Veronika Grieser, of the Ingolstadt public prosecutor’s office, told German newspaper Bild that: “After the investigation, it can be assumed that she wanted to go into hiding due to internal family disputes and fake her own death."
Shahraban K was living in Munich at the time and had allegedly set up fake social media profiles on Instagram to try and lure women who looked like her into meeting up. This is how she eventually stumbled upon 23-year-old Khadidja O, an Albanian citizen who lived just 100 miles away.
Shahraban K and her 24-year-old Kosovan boyfriend, Sheqir K, had allegedly made Khadidja O an offer regarding beauty products and arranged for them all to meet in Ingolstadt.
Here, Khadidja O was picked up by the couple and drove out to a forest beyond the city where she was stabbed over 50 times, according to prosecutors.
Shahraban K had reportedly told family members that she was going to meet her ex-husband in Ingolstadt, but when she didn't return home her parents went looking for her and found her car near the Danube river not far from Sheqir K’s flat.
Shahraban K's parents saw the body of a familiar-looking young woman on the back seat who had been brutally murdered and were under the assumption that this was their daughter.
Police have since found several knives in nearby surrounding area to where Khadidja O's body was found, but they are yet to find the one that was used to kill her.
Andreas Aichele, a police spokesman, said: “The murder weapon has still not been found, but the burden of proof is overwhelming. The victim was killed with more than 50 stab wounds and her face was badly injured. That was brutal in the extreme.”