Shocking Find: Bodies of Vanished Mum and Daughter Found in Freezing Units in Austria

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

The victims, a woman from Syria and her daughter, 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 flat, situated in the city of Innsbruck.

A pair of males, a 55-year-old Austrian and his 53-year-old brother, were taken into custody in the month of June. The older man, a colleague of the Syrian woman, informed authorities last week that there had been an incident—but denied intentional killing.

Speaking to the media previously, a official for the public prosecutor's office announced the brothers were being kept in custody on "serious suspicion of murder".

The identities of those involved have been withheld by police, in following national regulations.

Their going missing was initially flagged by the female victim's relative, who resides in Germany, on July 25, 2024.

Police said the 55-year-old suspect told them at the time she had taken an prolonged visit with her child to visit her parents in Turkey.

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

However when investigators examined the victim's residence, her cellphone was located.

An individual also stated listening to a disturbing sound in the dwelling, and cries of "mother" on the date the pair were thought to have disappeared.

A wider police investigation was initiated, with officers discovering several texts sent from the woman's phone—among them a job termination message to her company and messages to the 55-year-old suspect.

Authorities said a significant cash transfer was also moved to the man.

Katja Tersch told the press on that day that a storage unit had been rented out before the mother and child went missing and a freezer had been installed within.

The male siblings removed the appliance from the storage space on the very day the woman and her child went missing, she said. And a shortly afterward, they purchased an additional appliance.

Investigators say they think this suggests the deaths were planned in advance.

"How they died was not identifiable due to the state of decomposition of the bodies," the official stated.

The prosecutor's spokesman—of the public prosecutor's office—noted the specific order of occurrences is yet to be determined, but the remains were professionally hidden and not discovered during a earlier inspection.

While the men were taken into custody in the summer, it was only on the 12th of November that the elder brother admitted to an event and to storing the victims. He rejects any murderous intent, investigators confirmed.

At the same time, his 53-year-old sibling confessed to a concealment but disputed involvement in a killing.

The brothers are at this time in custody awaiting trial in jails in two Austrian cities, situated at a distance.

Through a combined announcement, Austria's Minister for Women and the top legal representative said the "reported homicide of mother and child... 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 sole reason that they are female," they went on to say.

"Gender-based killings are a profoundly embedded and issue affecting all of society that we must address decisively."