An Austrian mother accused of horrifically torturing her 12-year-old son after locking him inside a small dog cage is in custody and facing attempted murder charges.
The 32-year-old woman allegedly threw cold water over the young child and exposed him to sub-zero temperatures to torture and starve him.
He eventually fell into a coma and became hypothermic.
The case caused a public outcry in Austria when it was made public earlier this week following a decision by the Supreme Court of Justice in late May to reject the woman’s complaint against being held in custody for several months.
The mother is ‘still remanded in custody and the investigation is expected to wrap up by late summer, with a possible indictment,’ Johann Baumschlager, police spokesman of Lower Austria province told AFP on Tuesday.
The Austrian mother accused of abusing her son has been in pre-trial detention in Krems (pictured), west of Vienna, since November last year
The woman has been in pre-trial detention in Krems, west of Vienna, since November last year, after a social worker had called an ambulance to the house on November 22 to have the boy she found there taken to hospital.
Austrian authorities, which sent the social worker to the house, had reportedly been tipped off by the boy’s father, who lives separately.
The hospital filed a criminal complaint, triggering the arrest of the woman – who has not been named publicly – on the following day.
Authorities didn’t specify where exactly the incident took place.
The woman is suspected of having doused her son with ‘cold water several times a day while opening the apartment’s windows for several hours amid sub-zero temperatures’, causing his body temperature to drop to 26.8 degrees Celsius.
The average normal body temperature is generally accepted as being 37°C, with the definition of hypothermia being a dangerously low body temperature – below 35°C.
The woman is also accused of punching her son and not treating his injuries.
Austrian authorities, which sent the social worker to the house, had reportedly been tipped off by the boy’s father, who lives separately. (file image)
Due to being severely malnourished, the boy fell into a coma, resulting in an ‘acute life-threatening condition’ before rescue services were notified by the social worker, the Supreme court decision said.
The woman allegedly tortured her son from early September to the end of November 2022 by repeatedly beating and starving him, tying him up, locking him in a dog crate, and pouring water over him.
The physical condition of the boy has meanwhile improved, but ‘from a psychological point of view he is still devastated,’ Baumschlager told AFP.
