Mother arrested over beheading of daughter

A woman was arrested today over the grisly killing of her 21-year-old daughter, whose charred body – its head and hands chopped off – was fished out of the Danube River earlier this month, Austrian authorities said.

The mother, whose name and age were not released, was being held in a psychiatric clinic in the northern province of Upper Austria and was unfit for questioning, police said in a statement.

The victim’s body was found floating in the Danube on January 16, and investigators later determined that her killer had doused the body with petrol and set it on fire after using a saw and a garden spade to cut off the head and hands.

Police said they found the petrol can and spade at the mother’s home and traces of the victim’s blood in the trunk of her car.

Police said the suspect suffered a nervous breakdown after investigators questioned her initial account of having last seen her daughter on January 9.

They said they became suspicious because the victim had left her mobile phone in the family home, which made it unlikely she had run away as the mother suggested. There was no apparent motive for the murder, authorities said.