The remains of a 34-year-old woman and her 10-year-old daughter have been discovered inside freezing appliances in an residence in the western part of Austria.
The victims, a Syrian woman and her child, who had been missing for several months, were uncovered on Friday. The cooling units were placed behind a plasterboard wall in the apartment, situated in the city of Innsbruck.
Two individuals, a 55-year-old Austrian and his 53-year-old brother, were detained in June. The 55-year-old, a colleague of the Syrian woman, stated to police last week that there had been an unfortunate event—but denied homicide.
Speaking to reporters earlier, a spokesman for the public prosecutor's office announced the brothers were being detained on "high likelihood of homicide".
The names of those concerned have not been disclosed by police, in following local legislation.
Their going missing was first reported by the cousin of the mother, who resides in Germany, on 25 July 2024.
Investigators said the woman's colleague claimed at the time she had embarked on an extended trip with her child to travel to her relatives in the nation of Turkey.
The mother's debit card was then found to have been used overseas repeatedly.
Yet when investigators examined the victim's residence, her cellphone was located.
Someone also stated listening to a commotion in the dwelling, and shouts of "mum" on the day the two were believed to have vanished.
A broader police investigation was initiated, with authorities discovering multiple communications originating from the woman's phone—including a job termination message to her employer and communications to the male colleague.
Authorities stated a four-figure sum was also sent to the individual.
The head of the State Criminal Police Office stated to reporters on recently that a storage facility had been leased before the vanishing and a cooling unit had been installed within.
The male siblings extracted the cooling unit from the storage space on the date the woman and her child vanished, Tersch revealed. And a seven days after, they purchased another freezer.
Officials believe they think this suggests the fatalities were intentionally orchestrated.
"How they died was not identifiable due to the state of decomposition of the remains," Tersch commented.
Mayr—of the public prosecutor's office—noted the exact sequence of events is not yet known, but the bodies were expertly concealed and were not found during a prior examination.
Although the brothers were taken into custody in June, it was only on November 12 that the suspect acknowledged an incident and to storing the victims. He denies any plan to cause death, investigators stated.
At the same time, his brother admitted to a attempt to hide evidence but denied involvement in a homicide.
The pair are currently in pre-trial detention in jails in Innsbruck and Salzburg, around 117 miles (189km) apart.
Via a shared communication, the nation's official for women's affairs and the top legal representative said the "alleged double murder... symbolizes the sudden and brutal end of two individuals and exposes a cruel system".
"Female individuals are being killed due to the sole reason that they are of the female gender," they added.
"Murders of women are a profoundly embedded and society-wide problem that we must combat firmly."
