Tragic Find: Bodies of Vanished Mother and Child Located in Freezing Units in the Alpine Nation
The remains of a mother aged 34 and her young daughter, 10 have been located inside freezers in an flat in the western part of Austria.
The deceased, a Syrian woman and her child, who had been missing for a number of months, were detected on the end of last week. The cooling units were placed behind a plasterboard wall in the dwelling, located in the city of Innsbruck.
Two men, a Austrian man, 55 and his 53-year-old brother, were arrested in the month of June. The older man, a colleague of the Syrian woman, informed authorities last week that there had been an unfortunate event—but denied intentional killing.
Addressing the media recently, a representative for the public prosecutor's office said the pair were being detained on "serious suspicion of intentional killing".
The names of those implicated have been withheld by law enforcement, in compliance with national regulations.
The vanishing of the mother and child was initially flagged by the female victim's relative, who is based in Germany, on 25 July 2024.
Authorities said the woman's colleague claimed at the time she had gone on an long journey with her daughter to travel to her relatives in the nation of Turkey.
The victim's bank card was then noted as being active in foreign locations on multiple occasions.
Yet when officers examined the victim's residence, her smartphone was discovered.
A witness also stated overhearing a disturbing sound in the flat, and shouts of "mama" on the date the two were presumed to have gone missing.
An expanded official inquiry was started, with investigators finding various messages transmitted via the woman's phone—including a resignation letter to her company and texts to the 55-year-old suspect.
Authorities said a amount in the thousands was also transferred to the man.
A senior police official informed media representatives on Tuesday that a storage unit had been secured before the mother and child went missing and a cooling unit had been installed within.
The two suspects extracted the appliance from the unit on the very day the mother and daughter disappeared, the official said. And a week later, they obtained another freezer.
Officials state they think this points to the fatalities were planned in advance.
"How they died remains unclear due to the advanced decay of the bodies," Tersch commented.
The prosecutor's spokesman—of the public prosecutor's office—stated the specific order of occurrences is not yet known, but the remains were professionally hidden and were not found during a earlier inspection.
Although the men were detained in June, it was not until November 12 that the 55-year-old admitted to an incident and to hiding the bodies. He rejects any plan to cause death, authorities confirmed.
In a related development, his younger brother admitted to a concealment but rejected awareness of a killing.
The pair are at this time in pre-trial detention in jails in two Austrian cities, approximately 189 kilometers away from each other.
Via a shared communication, Austria's Minister for Women and Justice Minister declared the "suspected killing of two... represents the swift and cruel conclusion of two individuals and reveals a brutal scheme".
"Females of all ages are falling victim to homicide due to the simple reality that they are female," they continued.
"Gender-based killings are a strongly established and issue affecting all of society that we must fight resolutely."
