🔗 Share this article

The deceased of a mother aged 34 and her 10-year-old daughter have been found 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 uncovered on the end of last week. The cooling units were hidden behind a drywall partition in the flat, located in the city of Innsbruck.

A pair of males, a Austrian man, 55 and his brother aged 53, were arrested in the month of June. The elder brother, a colleague of the female victim, told police last week that there had been an incident—but rejected homicide.

Addressing the media previously, a spokesman for the public prosecutor's office announced the pair were being kept in custody on "high likelihood of intentional killing".

The identities of those implicated have not been disclosed by law enforcement, in following national regulations.

The family's disappearance was initially flagged by the cousin of the mother, who is based in Germany, on July 25, 2024.

Police said the 55-year-old suspect informed them at the time she had gone on an long journey with her child to travel to her relatives in Turkey.

Her bank card was then noted as being active abroad on multiple occasions.

But when officers searched the woman's home, her smartphone was discovered.

An individual also stated listening to a commotion in the flat, and cries of "mum" on the day the mother and child were thought to have disappeared.

A broader criminal probe was launched, with investigators discovering multiple communications originating from the victim's mobile—including a resignation letter to her company and texts to the male associate.

Law enforcement said a four-figure sum was also transferred to the man.

Katja Tersch informed reporters on that day that a storage facility had been rented out before the vanishing and a freezer had been positioned inside.

The two suspects took out the freezer from the facility on the very day the victims disappeared, the official revealed. And a week later, they obtained a second unit.

Officials say they think this points to the deaths were intentionally orchestrated.

"The cause of death was not identifiable due to the state of decomposition of the victims," Tersch commented.

Mayr—of the public prosecutor's office—stated the specific order of occurrences is not yet known, but the victims were expertly concealed and went unnoticed during a earlier inspection.

While the suspects were arrested in June, it was only on November 12 that the elder brother acknowledged an event and to hiding the bodies. He disputes any plan to cause death, investigators stated.

At the same time, his 53-year-old sibling admitted to a attempt to hide evidence but rejected knowledge of a killing.

The brothers are presently in pre-trial detention in detention centers in separate locations, situated at a distance.

Through a combined announcement, Austria's Minister for Women and the top legal representative stated the "suspected killing of two... represents the sudden and brutal end of two human lives and reveals a cruel system".

"Females of all ages are being murdered due to the simple reality that they are female," they went on to say.

"Femicides are a deeply rooted and society-wide problem that we must combat firmly."