The boss flagged this one, and with good reason: the case of Estibaliz Carranza is one of those stories where the most ordinary setting imaginable conceals something deeply horrific. For years, a small ice cream shop in Vienna’s Meidling district served customers who had no idea what lay beneath the floor. The woman behind the counter, known to regulars as “Esti,” was hiding two bodies in the cellar, encased in concrete. This is the story of the ice cream killer.
A Shop Called Schleckeria
Goidsargi Estibaliz Carranza Zabala, born in 1978, held joint Spanish-Mexican citizenship. She arrived in Germany as a young woman, working as an au pair, before eventually settling in Vienna and opening a small ice cream parlor called Schleckeria in the city’s 12th district. To neighbors and customers, she was an unremarkable small business owner. That image concealed a far darker reality.
In 2008, Carranza killed her ex-husband, Holger Holz. In 2010, she killed her boyfriend, Manfred Hinterberger. Both men were shot in the head with a .22-caliber Beretta pistol. Both bodies were hidden in the cellar of her shop. The remains went undiscovered until June 2011, when construction workers installing pipes in the building stumbled on human remains sealed in concrete.
Ice Cream Killer: Two Murders, One Method
Carranza’s first victim was her ex-husband Holger Holz. She told the court that Holz had become verbally abusive after their marriage, mocking her poor German, and that he joined the Hare Krishna movement and refused to work. Even after their divorce, he refused to move out. One Sunday in 2008, after yet another argument, she shot him as he sat at his computer.
Two years later, Carranza was in a new relationship with Manfred Hinterberger, an ice cream machine salesman some 20 years her senior. She suspected him of cheating. After a drunken argument one night in November 2010, he went to bed. She shot him in his sleep with the same pistol.
In both cases, she concealed the bodies beneath her shop and continued running the business as if nothing had happened. The remains were only found by accident during routine maintenance work in June 2011.
Flight, Capture, and Trial
When workers discovered the remains, Carranza fled to Italy. She was arrested several days later and extradited to Austria. At the time of her arrest, she was two months pregnant by a third man, whom she later married in prison.
Her trial opened in Vienna in November 2012. Carranza pleaded guilty to both murders. Prosecutor Petra Freh described her as “a singularly cold-blooded and unscrupulous killer” and warned the jury: “Do not be fooled.”
Court psychiatrist Heidi Kastner, who had spent over 30 hours with Carranza, diagnosed her with a “grave, comprehensive, multi-faceted personality disorder“ and estimated she had a one-in-three chance of killing again without treatment.
On November 23, 2012, Carranza was sentenced to life imprisonment in a secure mental institution. Judge Susanne Lehr acknowledged her confession and psychological damage as mitigating factors, but held that her careful planning and post-murder behavior justified the sentence. The verdict was unanimous.
Aftermath
Carranza’s defense lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, who had also represented Austria’s notorious Josef Fritzl, announced an appeal, but the sentence was later upheld on appeal.
In 2014, Carranza published a memoir from prison titled Meine zwei Leben (My Two Lives), co-written with journalist Martina Prewein. In it, she wrote that she did not seek understanding or a pardon, but acknowledged that she had turned her partners into “monsters and finally they made me a beast.”
In 2017, she was transferred from a women’s prison to a specialized psychiatric facility at Justizanstalt Asten in Upper Austria, where she continues to receive treatment under Austria’s system for mentally abnormal offenders.
What the Case Reveals
The Carranza case stands out not for its body count but for the sheer duration of the deception. For roughly three years, she served ice cream to the public while two dismembered bodies lay in concrete beneath her feet. The juxtaposition unsettled Austria far more than the violence itself: the idea that someone could maintain such an ordinary facade over something so grotesque.
It also exposed gaps in how missing persons cases were handled. Neither Holz nor Hinterberger was reported missing in a way that triggered serious investigation. Holz’s disappearance was attributed to his transient lifestyle; Hinterberger, estranged from family, simply faded from notice. Without the accidental discovery during plumbing work, the crimes might never have come to light.
Carranza remains in psychiatric detention. Austria has no death penalty and abolished capital punishment decades ago. Under the country’s MassnahmenvollzugAustria's legal system for placing mentally abnormal offenders in indefinite psychiatric detention until they are no longer deemed a danger to society. system, she will remain institutionalized for as long as she is deemed a danger to society.
The boss flagged this one, and with good reason: the case of Estibaliz Carranza is one of those stories where the most ordinary setting imaginable conceals something deeply horrific. For years, a small ice cream shop in Vienna’s Meidling district served customers who had no idea what lay beneath the floor. The woman behind the counter, known to regulars as “Esti,” was hiding two bodies in the cellar, encased in concrete. This is the story of the ice cream killer.
This version contains graphic details from court testimony. Reader discretion advised.
A Shop Called Schleckeria
Goidsargi Estibaliz Carranza Zabala was born on September 6, 1978, and held joint Spanish-Mexican citizenship. She arrived in Germany as a young woman, working as an au pair, where she met her future husband, Holger Holz. The couple eventually settled in Vienna, where Carranza opened a small ice cream parlor called Schleckeria in the city’s 12th district, Meidling.
According to her court testimony, the marriage deteriorated rapidly. Carranza told the Vienna Regional Court that Holz had changed completely after their wedding: he became verbally abusive, mocked her poor German, joined the Hare Krishna movement, and refused to work. When they lost their apartment and moved into the ice cream shop, tensions escalated further. Even after their divorce, Holz refused to leave.
The First Murder: Holger Holz (2008)
One Sunday in 2008, after yet another argument about Holz refusing to move out, Carranza shot him with a .22-caliber Beretta pistol. She told the court she fired twice into the back of his head and once in the temple as he sat at his computer.
“I never thought I would be able to go through with it,” she testified. “It was 3 pm. There were children outside, it was nice weather, someone must have heard. I thought the police would come. Then my mobile phone rang. It was the ice-cream parlour, saying they needed me to come over.”
After several failed attempts to dispose of the body, including what she described as the “crazy idea” of setting fire to it, Carranza used a chainsaw to dismember the corpse. She stored the parts in a deep freezer at the shop, then gradually encased them in concrete in the cellar below.
“I cleaned and cleaned in the days afterwards,” she told the court.
Ice Cream Killer: The Second Murder, Manfred Hinterberger (2010)
Carranza began a relationship with Manfred Hinterberger, an ice cream machine salesman approximately 20 years her senior. Hinterberger had left Carranza shortly after her divorce, but returned roughly a year and a half later after being thrown out by his own girlfriend, showing up at the shop doorstep with a suitcase.
The relationship deteriorated. Carranza said she felt “like in a prison… like my head was in a plastic bag.” She found messages on his phone from other women and discovered his profile on a dating site.
Before the second killing, Carranza took courses in both marksmanship and concrete-mixing. The court also heard that she had joked with a friend about her murder fantasies.
In November 2010, after a night out during which Hinterberger flirted with another woman, the couple argued on the way home. He went to bed.
“He turned his face to the wall and started snoring,” Carranza told the court. “I was so angry. I had the gun under the mattress. I took it out, loaded and shot.” She fired four times into the back of his head with the same Beretta she had used to kill Holz.
In the morning, she told the court, she “asked him to forgive me for what I had done.” She then dismembered his body and buried it alongside Holz in the cellar. After disposing of the remains, she booked an “urgent manicure appointment” to repair her nails, damaged by the labor. The detail came directly from the charge sheet.
Three Years of Concealment
For roughly three years, between 2008 and 2011, Carranza operated the Schleckeria as if nothing had happened. She hung air fresheners to mask any odor. Neither Holz nor Hinterberger triggered a serious missing persons investigation. Holz’s absence was attributed to his transient lifestyle; Hinterberger, estranged from his family, simply faded from notice.
The concealment ended by accident. In June 2011, construction workers installing pipes in the building discovered human remains sealed in concrete in the cellar beneath the shop.
Flight and Capture
When the discovery was made, Carranza fled Austria by taxi, heading to Italy. She was arrested several days later and extradited back to Austria. At the time of her arrest, she was two months pregnant by a third man. She married this man in prison in March 2012. Their son, named Roland after his father, was born in January 2012 but was immediately taken from her and placed in the care of her parents in Barcelona.
Of her new husband, Carranza told the court: “He is totally different. He is very gentle, the opposite of macho. He would not bring me into such a situation.”
Trial and Sentencing
The trial opened on November 19, 2012, at the Vienna Regional Court. Carranza pleaded guilty to both murders. The proceedings lasted four days, with dozens of witnesses and experts called to testify.
Prosecutor Petra Freh described Carranza as “a singularly cold-blooded and unscrupulous killer” and told the jury: “This woman has two faces. She will try to play here the part of someone well-behaved, who would never do something like this. My task is to show you her other side. Do not be fooled.”
Court psychiatrist Heidi Kastner, who had spent more than 30 hours with Carranza before the trial, diagnosed her with a “grave, comprehensive, multi-faceted personality disorder“ and estimated she had a one-in-three chance of killing again without treatment. The psychiatric report described her as a “princess who just wants to be ‘rescued’ by a man.”
Carranza wept as she delivered her final statement: “All I can say is that I’m sorry I took the lives of Holger and Manfred.”
On November 23, 2012, the jury returned a unanimous verdict. Judge Susanne Lehr sentenced Carranza to life imprisonment in a secure mental institution. The judge acknowledged Carranza’s confession and psychological damage as mitigating factors, but held that her meticulous planning and her calculated behavior after each murder justified the maximum sentence.
Aftermath and Psychiatric Detention
Defense lawyer Rudolf Mayer, who had also represented Austria’s notorious Josef Fritzl, immediately announced an appeal, but the sentence was later upheld on appeal.
Carranza was initially held at the women’s prison in Schwarzau, Lower Austria. In 2014, she published a memoir from prison titled Meine zwei Leben (My Two Lives), co-written with journalist Martina Prewein. In it, she wrote that she did not seek understanding or a pardon, but acknowledged: “I made my lovers into monsters and finally they made me a beast.”
In 2017, Carranza was transferred to the Justizanstalt Asten, a specialized psychiatric facility in Upper Austria. She was the first female prisoner housed at the facility, which at the time held 91 men. The institution provides round-the-clock psychiatric and psychological care.
What the Case Reveals
The ice cream killer case stands out not for its body count but for the sheer duration of the deception. For roughly three years, Carranza served ice cream to the public while two dismembered bodies lay in concrete beneath her feet. The juxtaposition unsettled Austria far more than the violence itself: the idea that someone could maintain such an ordinary facade over something so grotesque.
It also exposed gaps in how missing persons cases were handled. Neither victim’s disappearance triggered an investigation that might have uncovered the crimes earlier. Without the accidental discovery during plumbing work, the bodies might never have been found.
Carranza remains in psychiatric detention. Austria has no death penalty, having abolished capital punishment decades ago. Under the country’s MassnahmenvollzugAustria's legal system for placing mentally abnormal offenders in indefinite psychiatric detention until they are no longer deemed a danger to society. system for mentally abnormal offenders, she will remain institutionalized for as long as she is deemed a danger to society. Given Dr. Kastner’s assessment of her risk, that may well be the rest of her life.
