Tragic Find: Remains of Missing Mother and Child Found in Freezing Units in Austria
The remains of a mother aged 34 and her 10-year-old daughter have been located inside freezing appliances in an flat in western Austria.
The victims, a Syrian woman and her child, who had been unaccounted for for several months, were found on the end of last week. The freezers were placed behind a false wall in the dwelling, located in the city of Innsbruck.
A pair of males, a 55-year-old Austrian and his 53-year-old brother, were detained in June. The older man, a colleague of the Syrian woman, stated to authorities last week that there had been an incident—but rejected murder.
Addressing the media recently, a representative for the public prosecutor's office stated the two suspects were being kept in custody on "serious suspicion of intentional killing".
Personal details of those implicated have not been disclosed by law enforcement, in compliance with local legislation.
Their going missing was first reported by the woman's cousin, who lives in Germany, on July 25, 2024.
Authorities said the woman's colleague told them at the time she had taken an long journey with her child to visit her parents in the nation of Turkey.
Her bank card was then found to have been used abroad several times.
However when investigators searched the mother's apartment, her cellphone was located.
A witness also stated hearing a disturbing sound in the dwelling, and cries of "mama" on the occasion the pair were thought to have disappeared.
An expanded criminal probe was initiated, with officers discovering several texts sent from the mother's device—including a notice of quitting to her workplace and messages to the male associate.
Officials stated a four-figure sum was also sent to the man.
The head of the State Criminal Police Office stated to the press on Tuesday that a storage facility had been secured before the vanishing and a cooling unit had been placed there.
The two suspects extracted the cooling unit from the storage space on the day the mother and daughter vanished, the official stated. And a shortly afterward, they purchased a second unit.
Authorities say they consider this points to the fatalities were intentionally orchestrated.
"How they died was not identifiable due to the state of decomposition of the bodies," Tersch said.
The prosecutor's spokesman—from the legal authorities—said the specific order of occurrences is not yet known, but the bodies were professionally hidden and were not found during a previous house search.
Although the brothers were taken into custody in the summer, it was not until the 12th of November that the elder brother acknowledged an incident and to storing the victims. He denies any plan to cause death, authorities stated.
At the same time, his younger brother acknowledged a cover-up but rejected awareness of a killing.
The brothers are at this time in detention before court proceedings in jails in two Austrian cities, approximately 189 kilometers away from each other.
Through a combined announcement, the nation's official for women's affairs and Justice Minister said the "alleged double murder... constitutes the swift and cruel conclusion of two human lives and reveals a cruel system".
"Female individuals are being murdered due to the sole reason that they are female," they added.
"Murders of women are a deeply rooted and issue affecting all of society that we must address decisively."