Missing woman, 50, found dead inside freezer with a pillow and blanket on balcony

 A woman reported missing has been found dead inside a freezer with a pillow and a blanket. The unnamed woman, 50, was found on the balcony of her flat inside a chest freezer, authorities said.

She had been reported missing "several weeks ago" and was the subject of a public appeal issued by police in Strasbourg, France, local media reports. The grim discovery was made on Wednesday in the Neuhof district of the city.

Police officers reportedly found a suicide note at the scene earlier this month. Post mortem examinations suggested she was suffering from an undisclosed illness.

Police launched an appeal after she had not been seen or heard of for weeks, it was reported. Officers scoured her apartment block and eventually came across the chest freezer on her balcony, which they opened.

The Strasbourg public prosecutor's office is said to be favouring a theory of suicide, but an investigation has been opened to determine the exact cause of her death.

The grim find comes weeks after an elderly woman in Japan was found storing her daughter's body in their family freezer for 20 years. Keiko Mori, 75, handed herself into the police in Tokyo to confess.

She was arrested on suspicion of abandoning a body after cops found her daughter's body curled up, wearing nothing but a T-shirt and some underwear, sitting in the freezer, in an advanced state of decomposition.

In 2020, convicted sex offender Zahid Younis was jailed for life after he was found guilty of murdering two women whose bodies were found in his freezer.

The remains of Henriett Szucs and Mihrican Mustafa were discovered at his flat in Canning Town, east London, in April 2019. Prosecutors at Southwark Crown Court said Younis preyed on the vulnerable women, subjecting them to "very significant violence".

The four-week trial heard police made the "grim discovery" when looking for the defendant at his home following a call about his welfare. He was not in but officers gained entry and noticed the lockable freezer, around which flies were gathering.

Ms Szucs, 32, originally from Hungary, was last seen alive in 2016 and was killed shortly before the defendant bought the freezer in November that year, the court heard. Younis's second victim, 38-year-old Ms Mustafa, was last heard from in May 2018.