Woman Allegedly Tried to Fake Her Own Death by Tracking Down Instagram Doppelgänger and Killing Her

A woman is accused of tracking down a lookalike using Instagram, only to fatally stab the doppelgänger as part of an effort to fake her own death.

Per a report from NBC News on Tuesday, officials in Germany recently detailed the bizarre case, which first became a source of headlines upon the discovery of a body that had been fatally stabbed inside a parked car in Ingolstadt in Bavaria last August. An autopsy quickly spurred questions about the actual identity of the body, which had initially been reported to have been that of 23-year-old Sharaban K. The victim, however, was actually (per the Guardian) 23-year-old Khadidja O.

Bavarian police issued a press release this week, confirming that the alleged perpetrator and an accomplice had both been in custody since last August. Regional investigators, per the press release, “now assume that the suspect wanted to go into hiding due to family problems” and aimed to do so by faking her own death. Both individuals are now accused of murder, with multiple investigations said to still be ongoing.

While this woman is alleged to have been killed, regional police have accused Sharaban K of using multiple aliases as part of an effort to seek out several potential look-alike in the days leading up toe the eventual alleged killing of Khadidja O.

In recent days, the story has grown to garner international attention, including from U.S. tabloid sites and elsewhere. Additional information on the status of the case had not been made public at the time of this writing.