Disturbing Discovery: Remains of Vanished Mother and Child Located in Freezing Units in the Alpine Nation
The bodies of a mother aged 34 and her 10-year-old daughter have been found inside freezers in an apartment in the western part of Austria.
The deceased, a Syrian woman and her child, who had been missing for several months, were detected on the end of last week. The freezers were placed behind a drywall partition in the apartment, situated in the city of Innsbruck.
Two individuals, a Austrian man, 55 and his brother aged 53, were arrested in the month of June. The older man, a colleague of the Syrian woman, stated to law enforcement last week that there had been an unfortunate event—but rejected intentional killing.
Speaking to reporters recently, a official for the legal authorities announced the brothers were being held on "serious suspicion of intentional killing".
Personal details of those implicated have not been released by police, in accordance with Austrian law.
The family's disappearance was first reported by the woman's cousin, who resides in Germany, on the 25th of July last year.
Investigators said the woman's colleague told them at the time she had gone on an extended trip with her child to visit her parents in Turkey.
The victim's bank card was then found to have been used in foreign locations repeatedly.
However when officers examined the woman's home, her smartphone was discovered.
Someone also stated hearing a loud noise in the dwelling, and screams of "mum" on the day the mother and child were believed to have vanished.
An expanded official inquiry was initiated, with investigators uncovering multiple communications transmitted via the woman's phone—among them a resignation letter to her company and communications to the male colleague.
Officials confirmed a four-figure sum was also sent to the man.
A senior police official told reporters on that day that a storage facility had been rented out before the mother and child went missing and a cooling unit had been placed there.
The brothers extracted the freezer from the facility on the day the mother and daughter went missing, Tersch said. And a shortly afterward, they obtained a second unit.
Officials say they consider this points to the deaths were planned in advance.
"The cause of death could not be determined due to the state of decomposition of the victims," Tersch stated.
The prosecutor's spokesman—from the legal authorities—noted the exact sequence of events is not yet known, but the victims were professionally hidden and went unnoticed during a previous house search.
Although the brothers were detained in June, it was only on November 12 that the 55-year-old admitted to an event and to concealing the remains. He disputes any plan to cause death, officials stated.
In a related development, his 53-year-old sibling acknowledged a attempt to hide evidence but denied involvement in a homicide.
The brothers are currently in pre-trial detention in jails in Innsbruck and Salzburg, situated at a distance.
In a joint statement, Austria's Minister for Women and the top legal representative said the "alleged double murder... constitutes the sudden and brutal end of a mother and child and uncovers a heartless setup".
"Women and girls are being murdered due to the simple reality that they are women and girls," they continued.
"Murders of women are a deeply rooted and widespread concern that we must combat firmly."