Disturbing Find: Bodies of Missing Mum and Daughter Found in Freezing Units in the Alpine Nation
The bodies of a 34-year-old woman and her young daughter, 10 have been located inside freezing appliances in an apartment in western Austria.
The deceased, a Syrian woman and her child, who had been unaccounted for for a number of months, were uncovered on Friday. The freezers were concealed behind a plasterboard wall in the flat, located in the city of Innsbruck.
Two men, a 55-year-old Austrian and his 53-year-old brother, were detained in the month of June. The elder brother, a colleague of the Syrian woman, informed police last week that there had been an unfortunate event—but denied intentional killing.
Speaking to the media previously, a spokesman for the legal authorities stated the two suspects were being kept in custody on "high likelihood of intentional killing".
The identities of those concerned have been withheld by law enforcement, in following Austrian law.
The family's disappearance was first reported by the female victim's relative, who lives in Germany, on 25 July 2024.
Authorities said the woman's colleague told them at the time she had taken an long journey with her child to travel to her relatives in the nation of Turkey.
The mother's debit card was then noted as being active abroad repeatedly.
Yet when investigators entered the woman's home, her cellphone was found.
An individual also stated hearing a commotion in the dwelling, and cries of "mama" on the date the mother and child were thought to have disappeared.
An expanded criminal probe was launched, with officers uncovering several texts sent from the woman's phone—among them a resignation letter to her company and communications to the 55-year-old suspect.
Law enforcement stated a four-figure sum was also sent to the individual.
The head of the State Criminal Police Office told media representatives on that day that a storage unit had been rented out before the mother and child went missing and a cooling unit had been positioned inside.
The two suspects took out the appliance from the unit on the date the woman and her child disappeared, Tersch stated. And a week later, they obtained an additional appliance.
Investigators say they believe this indicates the deaths were intentionally orchestrated.
"How they died remains unclear due to the advanced decay of the bodies," the official stated.
The prosecutor's spokesman—from the legal authorities—said the precise timeline is still unclear, but the remains were carefully placed and went unnoticed during a earlier inspection.
While the suspects were taken into custody in the summer, it was not until the 12th of November that the 55-year-old confessed to an occurrence and to concealing the remains. He denies any plan to cause death, officials said.
Meanwhile, his brother acknowledged a concealment but disputed involvement in a killing.
The pair are at this time in pre-trial detention in prisons in Innsbruck and Salzburg, approximately 189 kilometers away from each other.
Through a combined announcement, the nation's official for women's affairs and the top legal representative said the "alleged double murder... represents the abrupt and violent termination of two human lives and exposes a heartless setup".
"Female individuals are being killed due to the sole reason that they are women and girls," they went on to say.
"Femicides are a strongly established and society-wide problem that we must address decisively."