Police: Bodies of 3 Babies Found in Austrian Home During Construction

INNSBRUCK, Austria – Workers remodeling a house in western Austria found the bodies of two infants, and police discovered a third set of remains after a search, authorities said Saturday.

Officials said the discovery was made Friday at an apartment building in the alpine city of Innsbruck.

Workers were excavating the building's cellar when they came upon the bodies, which had been stuffed into plastic bags and buried, police said.

The ages of the three infants were not immediately clear. Investigators said they were awaiting the results of autopsies on the remains to determine the cause of death, but police spokesman Walter Pupp said two of the newborns appeared to have been boys.

The Austria Press Agency quoted an unidentified official as saying the evidence suggested the bodies had been in the cellar "for years."

Pupp said Saturday that investigators were trying to track down former tenants as part of their effort to find the infants' parents and determine whether the babies were stillborn or whether foul play was involved.

Although a search turned up no other bodies, Pupp said police could not rule out the possibility of unearthing more remains.

Friday's discovery was reminiscent of a 2005 case in the southern Austrian city of Graz, where the bodies of four infants — two in a freezer, the other two entombed in cement-filled buckets — were found at a home.

The mother is serving a sentence for murder after pleading guilty to the slayings.