The plumber entered the basement to repair the broken pipe in one of the apartments. However, when trying to access one of the underground rooms, he ran into a padlocked door. Then, he asked the neighbor of the affected house for help, who gave him permission to break the lock. That had to be open.
Once inside, the men came across two refrigerated chests from which a nauseating odor emanated. Opening them, they were horrified to discover decaying human parts. After alerting the police and sealing off the scene, the officers questioned all but one of the neighbors. EstÃbaliz Carranza, the owner of the ice cream shop on the ground floor, had disappeared without a trace. Three days later, the so-called Ice Lady was arrested and accused of killing and cutting up two of her partners. Her “kind and submissive” appearance clashed with her despicable acts.
Goidsargi EstÃbaliz Carranza Zabala, born on September 6, 1978 in Mexico City, was the eldest daughter of a well-known Mexican writer, expert in indigenous civilizations and esoteric and shamanic themes, Armando Carranza Mendoza López, and of a Spanish native of the Basque Country, Ãngela Zabala.
When the little girl was five years old, she moved with her family to Spain, and more specifically to Barcelona, ​​where years later she studied economics. Little else is known about our protagonist’s childhood and adolescence except what she herself recounted once she was arrested. It seems that EstÃbaliz and her little brother were subject to the orders of her tyrannical father, towards whom she developed murderous fantasies while she was still a child. “We were not allowed to stand out, we were not allowed to exist,†she claimed.
Regarding her sentimental relationships, EstÃbaliz was single until her university days. She there she dated a classmate for five years and after graduating from her, the young man suddenly abandoned her.
That breakup and her feeling of unease led the young woman to put land in between and move to the German town of Munich: she worked as an au pair for a family friend, learned the language and, at the same time, moved to Bavaria and from there to Nuremberg to work in an ice cream parlor.
It was at this time that EstÃbaliz met her first husband, Holger Holz, a man 14 years her senior, a refrigerator salesman and a member of the Hare Krishna. A few weeks after her first date, Holger proposed to her and they were married. It was the year 2002.
From Nuremberg they moved to Berlin, her husband’s hometown, where EstÃbaliz began working as a waitress. However, after a short time Holger’s behavior began to change. He went from being an affectionate, sweet, and attentive husband to a violent and abusive man who physically, psychologically, and financially harassed his wife.
For her part, EstÃbaliz was always “loving, kind and friendly” with her husband and developed a submissive role with him. She always tried to do everything possible to please him, but as the humiliations and beatings increased, she, that young woman, devoted to her partner, began to develop fantasies of revenge.
A vendetta that would not come until years later and once they were divorced. But until then, the still couple moved to Vienna and opened an ice cream parlor called Schleckeria, on Oswaldgasse in the Meidling district. The basement of that place would become, from 2008, the improvised cemetery for the crimes of the Mexican.
In 2007 the couple separated, despite the significant financial debt that EstÃbaliz still had with Holger. In fact, the German used this situation to blackmail her and threaten to take everything from her.
To this was added that the German never left the family home located in the same building as the ice cream parlor, so the woman felt tied hand and foot. On April 27, 2008 all this frustration led to the ruthless murder of the ex-husband.
That night, while the victim was playing a video game on the computer, EstÃbaliz took a Beretta pistol and shot the German from point-blank range and in the back. There were three fatal shots and no possibility of defense: two in the neck and one in the temple.
“I was absolutely defenseless, I thought I would never get my life back,” said the murderer during the trial, who explained how she left her ex-husband’s corpse on the chair for several days until she found a solution to get rid of it.
In the first place, she decided to burn it, but since the smoke was thick, she was afraid of being discovered and gave up on her efforts. So he thought of dismembering the body: he bought a chainsaw at a hardware store and asked the clerk to teach him how to use it. Then, he went to the home, cut up the corpse, put the parts in plastic bags and put them in a freezer.
However, before his imminent transfer to another house in the autumn of that same year, EstÃbaliz had to improvise another plan to eliminate any trace of Holger: he put some parts in buckets and covered them with cement, as well as the head, which was already frozen. in a cold room, he also poured concrete into it. Later, he moved the trays and the freezer to the basement of the ice cream parlor with the help of two acquaintances without suspecting their gloomy content, and closed the door with a padlock.
To justify Holger’s conspicuous absence, the assassin invented that she had joined a cult in India and left. That explanation settled other possible theories. After all, German had always been tied to Hindu beliefs.
At the time of Holger’s death, EstÃbaliz began a romantic relationship with a womanizer, Manfred Hinterberger, an Austrian who invested part of his money in his girlfriend’s ice cream parlor and who was always unfaithful to him. In addition, the man continually pressured her to improve her physical appearance through cosmetic surgery, Botox injections or practicing a lot of sports. The assassin always had to be perfect and “maintain her figure” to satisfy him.
Added to this was Manfred’s refusal to be a father, something that EstÃbaliz greatly desired and for which she once again felt trapped in a relationship that would not let her move forward. “It’s like having a plastic bag over your head. You just have to get out of it, at that moment you just have to get out â€, he came to describe the refrigerator.
And then EstÃbaliz carried out a modus operandi similar to that of the first murder. Of course, on this second occasion he perfected the technique: he did not want to make the same mistakes again. Thus, he gave special classes in a shooting range and covered the walls and the floor with plastic to better eliminate any traces.
The night of November 21-22, 2010, was the date chosen by the murderous refrigerator to carry out her plan. He waited until Manfred was asleep to fire four shots into the back of his head. Next, he dismembered the body with the chainsaw and moved the parts to the basement to cement them with those of his ex-husband. Regarding the whereabouts of the victim, EstÃbaliz assured that he had gone to Thailand.
Meanwhile, the young woman continued with her life in the ice cream parlor, and even began a new romantic relationship with a certain Roland R., with whom she became pregnant a few weeks before being arrested. Her arrest was precipitated on June 6, 2011 thanks to a neighbor’s broken pipe and plumbing work to repair it.
As soon as it came to light that there were three freezers filled with concrete with pieces of corpses under his ice cream parlor, EstÃbaliz emptied his bank and savings account, took his passport and left for the airport to head to Paris. But she, fearing arrest, fled in a taxi to Italy.
On the third day, Italian authorities arrested the two-month-pregnant ice cream maker in Udine, and on June 24, she was extradited to Austria on two counts of murder. After giving birth to her firstborn in January 2012, EstÃbaliz and Ronald were married in a Vienna prison. Six months later, the psychiatrists and forensics prepared an enlightening report after analyzing the detainee.
The experts not only diagnosed different behavioral disorders (narcissism, dependency and histrionics), but also warned of the extremely high risk of recidivism. They were clear that, if they let her go, she would kill again. In addition, they described EstÃbaliz’s conduct as that of a “princess” waiting to “be saved” by a man “who accepts her unconditionally.” Now, when she feels trapped, “her worst part of her takes control.”
“A traditional separation, simply abandoning men who did not make her happy, was not possible for her,†explained forensic psychiatrist Adelheid Kastner. “That path was not viable” for EstÃbaliz, so murder was the “simple solution.” “Her death seemed the best way to get rid of them,” ruled the expert, who also made it clear that the defendant “did not lose her mind.”
That is, he was aware of what he did at all times. “He lost her emotions. It was always very clear to her what was right and what was wrong,” Kastner confirmed.
On November 19, 2012, the trial against Eislady (the Ice Lady), as she was dubbed by the Austrian media, began. The media outpouring was impressive, everyone wanted to see up close the “angel-faced killer refrigerator” accused of killing and dismembering two of her partners.
From the beginning, the Prosecutor’s Office described EstÃbaliz as a woman of “unique coldness and crueltyâ€, who had never shown any sign of repentance. For her part, the defense used strategy and tried to dismantle that image of her, alleging that her sponsor was under the influence of sedatives prescribed by her psychiatrist.
However, the investigators of the case were clear: when EstÃbaliz fled he was not under the influence of any drug. “She killed the victims at home. One shot, then another three until checking that no more blood was coming out of the wounds and thus making sure that the man had diedâ€, recalled one of the agents about how the murder of the German was plotted.
When the defendant’s turn to speak came, she stammered several pearls between sobs: “If I burst into tears, would you say, what kind of theater is this. It’s disgusting what I’ve done. I’m trying to pull myself together and take the blame†or “I can’t say anything other than I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry I murdered Holger and Manfredâ€.
On November 22, the jury found the defendant guilty of two murders carried out “with treachery, malice and in a terrifying manner†and she was sentenced to life imprisonment. In addition, she was ordered to commit herself to a mental institution for delinquents.
The “dangerous, liar and perfect manipulator”, as the prosecutor Petra Freh described her, filed an appeal after disagreeing with the ruling, but the Vienna Higher Regional Court dismissed it and upheld the sentence in March 2013.
If the expectation during the judicial process had been abysmal, once the refrigerator set foot in jail the expectation doubled, becoming a media figure. So much so that she wrote two books. The first of them, under the title My two lives: the true story of the ice lady and published in November 2014, was a bestseller.
Throughout its pages, the convict once again shook readers with her particular confessions. Among them, the following stand out: “I am not asking for understanding or forgiveness. I killed two men I once lovedâ€, “There is no way to make this up, to make it pretty: I stole two children from their mothers†or “I believed that I had to serve men, no matter how they treated me. they will tryâ€.
However, there is one that managed to affect even more, if possible, the relatives of the victims of the Ice Lady. It is the one in which EstÃbaliz assures that she turned her partners into “monstersâ€, but that they in turn finally “transformed her into a beastâ€.
