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The remains of a 34-year-old woman and her 10-year-old daughter have been discovered inside freezing appliances in an flat in the western part of 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 cooling units were concealed behind a plasterboard wall in the flat, situated in the city of Innsbruck.

Two individuals, a Austrian man, 55 and his 53-year-old brother, were arrested in June. The older man, a work associate of the Syrian woman, stated to police last week that there had been an incident—but rejected homicide.

Addressing journalists recently, a spokesman for the public prosecutor's office stated the pair were being kept in custody on "strong suspicion of murder".

Personal details of those involved have been withheld by authorities, in accordance with local legislation.

The vanishing of the mother and child was first reported by the female victim's relative, who is based in Germany, on July 25, 2024.

Police said the male associate told them at the time she had gone on an extended trip with her child to travel to her relatives in the nation of Turkey.

The mother's debit card was then noted as being active abroad on multiple occasions.

But when police entered the victim's residence, her cellphone was found.

Someone also claimed hearing a commotion in the apartment, and shouts of "mama" on the date the mother and child were thought to have disappeared.

A wider criminal probe was launched, with investigators discovering several texts transmitted via the woman's phone—such as a job termination message to her workplace and texts to the male colleague.

Officials stated a amount in the thousands was also moved to the man.

A senior police official informed media representatives on recently that a rented space had been leased before the mother and child went missing and a freezer had been placed there.

The two suspects extracted the appliance from the storage space on the very day the victims disappeared, Tersch stated. And a week later, they acquired an additional appliance.

Investigators say they consider this suggests the demise were premeditated.

"How they died remains unclear due to the advanced decay of the bodies," Tersch stated.

Mayr—of the public prosecutor's office—noted the specific order of occurrences is not yet known, but the victims were expertly concealed and not discovered during a earlier inspection.

While the men were detained in June, it was not until the 12th of November that the 55-year-old acknowledged an event and to hiding the bodies. He rejects any intent to kill, officials stated.

Meanwhile, his younger brother confessed to a attempt to hide evidence but disputed awareness of a murder.

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

In a joint statement, the nation's official for women's affairs and the top legal representative declared the "suspected killing of two... constitutes the abrupt and violent termination of two individuals and reveals a cruel system".

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

"Murders of women are a profoundly embedded and issue affecting all of society that we must address decisively."