🔗 Share this article

The bodies of a 34-year-old woman and her young daughter, 10 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 several months, were uncovered on the end of last week. The freezers were hidden behind a plasterboard wall in the dwelling, situated in the Innsbruck area.

A pair of males, a Austrian man, 55 and his brother aged 53, were detained in the month of June. The 55-year-old, a work associate of the female victim, stated to authorities last week that there had been an incident—but rejected murder.

Speaking to journalists previously, a official for the legal authorities announced the brothers were being kept in custody on "strong suspicion of homicide".

Personal details of those involved have been withheld by law enforcement, in compliance with Austrian law.

The vanishing of the mother and child was first reported by the cousin of the mother, who resides in Germany, on the 25th of July last year.

Investigators stated the male associate informed them at the time she had embarked on an prolonged visit with her child to see her family in the nation of Turkey.

The mother's debit card was then noted as being active in foreign locations repeatedly.

Yet when officers searched the woman's home, her cellphone was discovered.

Someone also stated listening to a disturbing sound in the flat, and screams of "mum" on the date the two were thought to have disappeared.

An expanded criminal probe was started, with investigators discovering various messages originating from the woman's phone—such as a job termination message to her employer and messages to the 55-year-old suspect.

Law enforcement said a amount in the thousands was also transferred to the individual.

Katja Tersch told reporters on recently that a storage facility had been leased before the vanishing and a freezing appliance had been installed within.

The male siblings removed the freezer from the facility on the day the victims vanished, the official stated. And a seven days after, they acquired a second unit.

Officials say they consider this points to the demise were intentionally orchestrated.

"The cause of death remains unclear due to the state of decomposition of the remains," she commented.

A legal representative—from the legal authorities—noted the exact sequence of events is still unclear, but the remains were professionally hidden and were not found during a prior examination.

Although the suspects were arrested in the summer, it was not until the 12th of November that the elder brother acknowledged an event and to storing the victims. He denies any plan to cause death, authorities confirmed.

In a related development, his 53-year-old sibling confessed to a attempt to hide evidence but denied knowledge of a killing.

The pair are presently in detention before court proceedings in detention centers in Innsbruck and Salzburg, situated at a distance.

Through a combined announcement, the nation's official for women's affairs and the top legal representative said the "reported homicide of mother and child... constitutes the swift and cruel conclusion of two human lives and reveals a brutal scheme".

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

"Murders of women are a profoundly embedded and society-wide problem that we must combat firmly."