🔗 Share this article

The bodies of a 34-year-old woman and her 10-year-old daughter have been located inside freezing appliances in an apartment in the western part of Austria.

The victims, a Syrian woman and her child, who had been missing for a number of months, were uncovered on the end of last week. The freezers were concealed behind a plasterboard wall in the flat, located in the Innsbruck area.

Two individuals, a 55-year-old Austrian and his 53-year-old brother, were arrested in June. The 55-year-old, a colleague of the Syrian woman, stated to authorities last week that there had been an unfortunate event—but disputed homicide.

Informing journalists previously, a spokesman for the state prosecutor announced the brothers were being kept in custody on "serious suspicion of intentional killing".

Personal details of those involved have not been released by authorities, in following Austrian law.

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

Police said the 55-year-old suspect told them at the time she had embarked on an extended trip with her daughter to visit her parents in the nation of Turkey.

Her bank card was then found to have been used overseas several times.

However when police entered the mother's apartment, her mobile phone was located.

An individual also reported overhearing a commotion in the flat, and screams of "mother" on the day the two were thought to have disappeared.

A broader police investigation was launched, with officers finding multiple communications sent from the woman's phone—such as a job termination message to her company and communications to the male colleague.

Authorities stated a amount in the thousands was also moved to the suspect.

A senior police official stated to the press on recently that a storage facility had been leased before the victims' disappearance and a cooling unit had been positioned inside.

The male siblings removed the freezer from the unit on the day the woman and her child vanished, the official said. And a seven days after, they acquired a second unit.

Officials believe they consider this points to the deaths were intentionally orchestrated.

"How they died remains unclear due to the state of decomposition of the victims," Tersch stated.

The prosecutor's spokesman—of the public prosecutor's office—said the specific order of occurrences is yet to be determined, but the remains were carefully placed and were not found during a previous house search.

While the brothers were detained in June, it was not until November 12 that the elder brother admitted to an incident and to hiding the bodies. He rejects any murderous intent, officials confirmed.

At the same time, his 53-year-old sibling admitted to a concealment but denied involvement in a homicide.

The two suspects are currently in pre-trial detention in detention centers in Innsbruck and Salzburg, approximately 189 kilometers away from each other.

Through a combined announcement, Austria's Minister for Women and Justice Minister declared the "suspected killing of two... constitutes the sudden and brutal end of two individuals and reveals a cruel system".

"Females of all ages are falling victim to homicide due to the mere fact that they are of the female gender," they went on to say.

"Femicides are a profoundly embedded and widespread concern that we must combat firmly."