🔗 Share this article

The deceased of a mother aged 34 and her young daughter, 10 have been discovered inside freezing appliances in an apartment in western Austria.

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

Two men, a Austrian man, 55 and his 53-year-old brother, were taken into custody in June. The elder brother, a work associate of the female victim, informed authorities last week that there had been an accident—but disputed murder.

Informing the media recently, a spokesman for the legal authorities said the pair were being detained on "high likelihood of murder".

The names of those implicated have not been released by authorities, in accordance with Austrian law.

The vanishing of the mother and child was initially flagged by the woman's cousin, who resides in Germany, on the 25th of July last year.

Authorities stated the 55-year-old suspect informed them at the time she had taken an prolonged visit with her daughter to travel to her relatives in Turkey.

Her bank card was then found to have been used abroad on multiple occasions.

However when police entered the victim's residence, her mobile phone was discovered.

A witness also reported listening to a loud noise in the flat, and cries of "mother" on the date the mother and child were believed to have vanished.

A wider police investigation was launched, with authorities finding several texts transmitted via the victim's mobile—including a notice of quitting to her workplace and communications to the 55-year-old suspect.

Law enforcement confirmed a four-figure sum was also moved to the suspect.

Katja Tersch informed the press on that day that a storage facility had been secured before the victims' disappearance and a cooling unit had been installed within.

The brothers removed the cooling unit from the facility on the day the woman and her child went missing, she revealed. And a shortly afterward, they purchased another freezer.

Investigators state they believe this points to the fatalities were premeditated.

"How they died could not be determined due to the state of decomposition of the bodies," she said.

Mayr—from the legal authorities—noted the specific order of occurrences is still unclear, but the victims were expertly concealed and went unnoticed during a previous house search.

While the brothers were detained in the summer, it was not until the 12th of November that the suspect confessed to an incident and to hiding the bodies. He disputes any plan to cause death, investigators confirmed.

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

The pair are currently in detention before court proceedings in detention centers in separate locations, around 117 miles (189km) apart.

In a joint statement, Austria's Minister for Women and the top legal representative declared the "reported homicide of mother and child... represents the swift and cruel conclusion of two human lives and reveals a cruel system".

"Women and girls are being killed due to the sole reason that they are of the female gender," they continued.

"Murders of women are a profoundly embedded and widespread concern that we must fight resolutely."