Disturbing Find: Bodies of Missing Mum and Daughter Located in Freezers in Austria
The remains of a mother aged 34 and her young daughter, 10 have been discovered inside freezing appliances in an flat in western Austria.
The victims, a Syrian woman and her child, who had been unaccounted for for a number of months, were detected on the end of last week. The freezers were concealed behind a false wall in the flat, located in the Innsbruck area.
A pair of males, a Austrian man, 55 and his 53-year-old brother, were arrested in the month of June. The elder brother, a colleague of the female victim, informed law enforcement last week that there had been an accident—but disputed intentional killing.
Speaking to reporters earlier, a official for the state prosecutor said the pair were being held on "high likelihood of intentional killing".
The identities of those implicated have been withheld by authorities, in following local legislation.
The family's disappearance was initially flagged by the female victim's relative, who lives in Germany, on 25 July 2024.
Authorities revealed the 55-year-old suspect informed them at the time she had gone on an extended trip with her daughter to see her family in Turkey.
Her bank card was then discovered to be utilized in foreign locations repeatedly.
Yet when officers examined the mother's apartment, her smartphone was found.
An individual also stated listening to a disturbing sound in the apartment, and shouts of "mother" on the occasion the two were believed to have vanished.
A broader police investigation was initiated, with authorities finding multiple communications transmitted via the woman's phone—such as a notice of quitting to her workplace and texts to the male associate.
Authorities confirmed a amount in the thousands was also sent to the man.
Katja Tersch informed media representatives on that day that a storage facility had been rented out before the vanishing and a cooling unit had been installed within.
The male siblings extracted the freezer from the unit on the day the victims disappeared, the official said. And a shortly afterward, they acquired another freezer.
Investigators state they think this indicates the deaths were planned in advance.
"The reason for their demise remains unclear due to the state of decomposition of the remains," she said.
Mayr—of the public prosecutor's office—noted the precise timeline is not yet known, but the bodies were professionally hidden and were not found during a prior examination.
Although the brothers were detained in the summer, it was only on November 12 that the suspect acknowledged an event and to hiding the bodies. He rejects any plan to cause death, officials stated.
Meanwhile, his younger brother acknowledged a concealment but denied knowledge of a killing.
The two suspects are at this time in pre-trial detention in prisons in Innsbruck and Salzburg, approximately 189 kilometers away from each other.
In a joint statement, the nation's official for women's affairs and the top legal representative said the "reported homicide of mother and child... constitutes the swift and cruel conclusion of two individuals and exposes a heartless setup".
"Females of all ages are being murdered due to the sole reason that they are female," they added.
"Murders of women are a profoundly embedded and issue affecting all of society that we must address decisively."
