A German-Iraqi woman killed a look-alike she found on social media to fake her own death, police said, as new details emerge of the bizarre case that first came to light last year.
The body of a 23-year-old woman was found in a car in August in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, with multiple stab wounds.
Police initially said they believed the victim owned the car, but the next day identified her as someone else who looked “remarkably similar”.
The 23-year-old German-Iraqi and a 23-year-old Kosovar were arrested on manslaughter charges.
However, police are now working on the theory that the pair killed the victim after tracking her down online because she resembled the Iraqi-German woman.
“Investigators now believe the female suspect wanted to go into hiding and fake her death due to family problems,” they said in a statement, reports RTE.
She contacted several women who looked like her on social media and tried to lure them into meeting with “false promises,” police said.
She contacted the victim in early August and made an appointment to meet with her on August 16.
The German-Iraqi and the Kosovar went to the victim’s home in Heilbronn near Stuttgart to pick him up.
On her way back to Ingolstadt, they lured her out of the vehicle into a wooded area and killed her, inflicting “a large number” of stab wounds on her.
The suspects then made their way to Ingolstadt, where the body was found lying in the car in the evening.
According to the Süddeustche Zeitung newspaper, the German-Iraqi was a beautician who set a trap for the victim via Instagram by offering her cosmetics.
Both women have “long brown hair, a dark complexion and a heavily made-up face”, according to the paper, reports RTE.
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