German woman accused of killing lookalike to fake her own death

And their daughter was suspected of murdering her – potentially to fake her own death, according to police and prosecutors.

The case of the German Iraqi woman living in the southern city of Ingolstadt, named Shahraban K. by the German newspaper Bild, shocked many people in Germany. Her parents had traveled from Munich to Ingolstadt to find her after she stopped responding to their calls – and found her car and body on August 16.

Police began investigating and released an initial statement regarding a homicide, saying it appeared the woman had been the “victim of a violent crime”. But doubts quickly emerged over her identity as the victim’s DNA evidence and fingerprints did not match those of the missing woman, and as police heard ‘rumors’ that the missing woman had been seen to drive in the area, police spokesman Andreas Aichele said in an interview.

A day later, police determined “completely new circumstances” during their investigation and arrested the missing 23-year-old alongside a 23-year-old Kosovar man on suspicion of homicide, it said. the police in a statement.

The victim was named in German media as Algerian Khadija O, also 23, who investigators said looked “strikingly like the missing woman”.

At the time, authorities did not give a motive for the murder.

Now they believe the suspects hatched a plan to find someone who could impersonate the young woman, ‘who wanted to go into hiding because of a family dispute’ and so decided to fake her own death, according to a statement released by the prosecutor on Monday.

Police say they believe the suspect “chatted with several young women” who looked like him online and tried to lure them into a meeting through false promises.

On August 16, the two suspects traveled to the Heilbronn area in neighboring Baden-Württemberg state to pick up the victim from his home, police said. They then took her to a wooded area and stabbed her several times before returning to Ingolstadt, where they left the body in the back of the vehicle.

While the two suspects, now 24, have been in custody since August on suspicion of homicide, a district court issued arrest warrants late last week for them for the more serious crime murder, punishable by life imprisonment.

The investigation is ongoing.