CNN
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German police
German police have arrested a woman suspected of murdering a lookalike she looked up online to fake her own death.
The 23-year-old German-Iraqi woman is being held in a prison in Ingolstadt, southern Germany, in connection with the death of a 23-year-old Algerian woman, the police spokesperson told CNN on Tuesday. from Ingolstadt, Andreas Aichele. A 23-year-old man from Kosovo is also in custody in connection with the murder.
The German-Iraqi suspect’s parents reported her missing on August 16 last year. His car was later found in Ingolstadt with the body of a woman inside. She had been stabbed several times and her face was disfigured.
Police and her parents initially identified the body as that of the missing woman. However, an autopsy and DNA analysis revealed that it was not her, but a different woman who looked “strikingly” like her. The victim was later identified as a 23-year-old Algerian.
The German-Iraqi woman was arrested on August 18 after police tracked her to the Kosovar man’s apartment, according to police.
“Investigators now assume the suspect wanted to go into hiding due to family issues and faked her death,” Aichele told CNN.
“The suspects offered to search online for a woman who looked like the German-Iraqi, kill her and place her in such a way that the body was mistaken for the suspect.”
The German-Iraqi woman, who was a beauty blogger and Instagram influencer, searched online for women who looked like her and tried to “persuade them with false promises to meet her”, according to Aichele.
On January 26 and 27, the Ingolstadt District Court issued murder warrants for the two suspects, Aichele said.
Police interviewed several women they contacted as part of their investigation. The two suspects, who cannot be named by police under German privacy laws, are being held in separate prisons.
