A 23-year-old German-Iraqi woman has been indicted for murder after allegedly seeking out a lookalike on Instagram and killing her with an accomplice, in an effort to fake her own death.
The woman, identified as Shahraban Kh-B, was initially thought to have been the murder victim when the blood-soaked body of a young woman was found last August in a parked Mercedes in Ingolstadt, southern Germany.
Several members of her family had even identified her body, but an autopsy report the following day raised questions over its identity due to tattoos that were not identifiable. The victim was subsequently named as Khadidja O, a 23-year-old beauty blogger of Algerian origin from Heilbronn in the neighbouring state of Baden-Württemberg.
The two women had looked strikingly similar, both having long black hair, similar complexions and sporting heavy makeup, leading to the case being called the “Doppelgängerinnenmord” – or the murder of the doppelgangers.
Announcing the indictment, state prosecutors in Ingolstadt said that Shahraban Kh-B was also charged with having offered a man, identified as A, €10,000 to kill her husband’s brother. She allegedly paid him an advance of €5,000, but he took the money without acting on her repeated demands to carry out the killing. She has admitted the charge.
A 24-year-old Kosovan man, named as Sheqir K, who stands accused of acting as Shahraban Kh-B’s accomplice and assisting with the murder, will also stand trial.
Sheqir K is also charged with incitement to murder, having handed a list of names of potential witnesses in the case to a fellow inmate he met in prison after his arrest and tried to persuade him to murder them, assuring him of payment if he did so. The prisoner rejected the offer. Sheqir K denies the charge.
Shahraban Kh-B and Sheqir K are both due to stand trial for murder and attempted incitement to murder. Both deny the murder charges.
According to Veronika Grieser of the Ingolstadt state prosecutor’s office, a yearlong police investigation had led to the case now being ready to be brought to court. “According to the investigation, the accused, Kh-B, together with the accused K, whom she had only known fleetingly at that point, had made the decision that she would disappear and fake her own death, in order to begin a new life,” Grieser said.
Shahraban Kh-B’s motivation is thought to have been the desire to escape from a family row.
According to the state prosecutor, she wrote to a number of women, via their Instagram accounts, choosing those who looked similar to her. On 9 August 2022, she offered Khadidja K the opportunity to take part in a music video, supposedly with the rapper Lune, writing to her: “You don’t have to do much. I’d be happy if you got in touch … The filming will take place in Offenburg.”
Suspicious of the request, Khadidja K contacted the rapper Lune, who warned her that the invitation was fake.
Two days later Khadidja received a new request from Shahraban K, writing from another Instagram account, offering her a free treatment in her cosmetic studio, in return for which she should give her salon publicity on Instagram. The two arranged to meet on 16 August in Eppingen.
Shahraban Kh-B and Sheqir K picked her up from her house in a black Mercedes Coupé, and during the journey stopped in woodland. Having persuaded Khadidja to get out of the car, “they proceeded to carry out their plan … striking her on the back of her head at least once, so that she fell to the ground, before killing her with 56 stabs of a knife,” Grieser added. She said that the body had been completely disfigured. A murder weapon has yet to be found.
The two accused then parked the car in a street close to Shahraban Kh-B’s home, near the banks of the River Danube, where her parents discovered the woman they initially thought to be their daughter, the same evening.
More than 190 witnesses are available to be called in the case. DNA traces and telephone chats formed the main body of evidence that led to the charges, Grieser said.
The pair face life sentences if convicted. A date has yet to be set for a trial.
