Tragic Find: Bodies of Vanished Mum and Daughter Located in Freezers in Austria
The remains of a 34-year-old woman and her young daughter, 10 have been located inside freezing appliances in an flat in western Austria.
The victims, a woman from Syria and her child, who had been missing for a number of months, were found on Friday. The freezers were concealed behind a drywall partition in the flat, situated in the Innsbruck area.
Two men, a Austrian man, 55 and his 53-year-old brother, were arrested in the month of June. The 55-year-old, a colleague of the Syrian woman, told police last week that there had been an incident—but rejected intentional killing.
Informing the media previously, a spokesman for the state prosecutor stated the brothers were being held on "strong suspicion of intentional killing".
Personal details of those implicated have been withheld by police, in following local legislation.
The vanishing of the mother and child was first reported by the woman's cousin, who resides in Germany, on the 25th of July last year.
Investigators revealed the 55-year-old suspect claimed at the time she had embarked on an long journey with her daughter to travel to her relatives in Turkey.
The mother's debit card was then noted as being active abroad repeatedly.
Yet when police searched the mother's apartment, her smartphone was found.
Someone also reported hearing a commotion in the apartment, and screams of "mama" on the occasion the pair were presumed to have gone missing.
A wider criminal probe was initiated, with investigators uncovering several texts transmitted via the woman's phone—including a resignation letter to her workplace and texts to the male associate.
Law enforcement stated a four-figure sum was also transferred to the individual.
The head of the State Criminal Police Office stated to reporters on that day that a rented space had been rented out before the mother and child went missing and a freezer had been installed within.
The two suspects removed the cooling unit from the storage space on the date the mother and daughter disappeared, the official said. And a shortly afterward, they purchased another freezer.
Investigators say they consider this suggests the demise were planned in advance.
"The cause of death was not identifiable due to the advanced decay of the remains," she commented.
A legal representative—of the public prosecutor's office—said the specific order of occurrences is still unclear, but the victims were expertly concealed and not discovered during a previous house search.
Although the brothers were detained in the summer, it was not until the 12th of November that the elder brother acknowledged an event and to concealing the remains. He disputes any plan to cause death, authorities confirmed.
In a related development, his brother admitted to a attempt to hide evidence but denied involvement in a killing.
The brothers are presently in detention before court proceedings in prisons in separate locations, approximately 189 kilometers away from each other.
Via a shared communication, Austria's Minister for Women and the top legal representative stated the "alleged double murder... constitutes the sudden and brutal end of two human lives and uncovers a brutal scheme".
"Female individuals are being killed due to the sole reason that they are of the female gender," they continued.
"Murders of women are a strongly established and society-wide problem that we must combat firmly."