Disturbing Find: Bodies of Vanished Mother and Child Found in Freezers in Austria

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

The deceased, a Syrian woman and her daughter, who had been missing for a number of months, were found on Friday. The cooling units were concealed behind a drywall partition in the flat, situated in the city of Innsbruck.

Two men, a Austrian man, 55 and his 53-year-old brother, were arrested in June. The 55-year-old, a work associate of the Syrian woman, told authorities last week that there had been an accident—but denied homicide.

Informing reporters earlier, a spokesman for the legal authorities stated the pair were being held on "high likelihood of intentional killing".

The identities of those concerned have been withheld by police, in compliance with Austrian law.

The family's disappearance was initially flagged by the cousin of the mother, who lives in Germany, on the 25th of July last year.

Police revealed the 55-year-old suspect informed them at the time she had gone on an extended trip with her daughter to visit her parents in Turkey.

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

However when investigators entered the victim's residence, her mobile phone was found.

An individual also stated overhearing a commotion in the dwelling, and cries of "mother" on the occasion the pair were presumed to have gone missing.

A wider police investigation was started, with investigators finding various messages transmitted via the victim's mobile—including a job termination message to her employer and communications to the male colleague.

Law enforcement said a four-figure sum was also sent to the individual.

A senior police official informed the press on Tuesday that a storage unit had been secured before the victims' disappearance and a freezer had been placed there.

The male siblings extracted the appliance from the storage space on the very day the woman and her child vanished, the official revealed. And a week later, they obtained an additional appliance.

Officials say they consider this indicates the fatalities were premeditated.

"How they died was not identifiable due to the condition of the remains," she stated.

Mayr—representing the state—stated the exact sequence of events is still unclear, but the victims were professionally hidden and not discovered during a earlier inspection.

While the suspects were detained in the summer, it was not until November 12 that the elder brother confessed to an incident and to storing the victims. He disputes any plan to cause death, investigators stated.

In a related development, his brother admitted to a cover-up but rejected knowledge of a killing.

The pair are at this time in pre-trial detention in detention centers in two Austrian cities, around 117 miles (189km) apart.

Through a combined announcement, the nation's official for women's affairs and the top legal representative declared the "alleged double murder... represents the abrupt and violent termination of a mother and child and uncovers a brutal scheme".

"Women and girls are being murdered due to the simple reality that they are female," they went on to say.

"Femicides are a profoundly embedded and issue affecting all of society that we must combat firmly."