Estibaliz Carranza was born in Mexico. She graduated from the University of Barcelona with honors and moved to Germany.
Estibaliz met Holgar Holz, a refrigerator salesman. They married a few weeks later and moved to Austria where they opened an ice cream shop.
Estibaliz accused Holgar of being an abusive tyrant who kept every penny she earned as a waitress at the ice cream shop. She claimed he constantly criticized her looks and told her she wasn’t attractive enough for him.
The final nail in the coffin was when Holgar stopped having sex with Estibaliz because it was her dream to become a mother. She asked him for a divorce but he refused, so she took matters into her own hands.
On April 27, 2008, Estibaliz grabbed her .22 caliber pistol and fired three bullets into the back of Holgar’s head while he was playing video games.
Estibaliz left for a date with Manfred Hinterberger — an ice cream machine salesman — leaving Holgar’s body slumped over his desk. A few days later, she lit Holgar on fire and dismembered him with a chainsaw.
Estibaliz and Manfred moved in together almost immediately.
I then realized I was going to have to cut it into pieces, so I purchased a chainsaw. The salesperson looked at me strangely when I told him I wanted to operate it myself. He told me you better watch out, or blood is going to flow. I thought to myself he didn’t know how true that was. I can say to anyone who has seen a horror film that the reality of cutting up a body with a chainsaw is far worse. — Estibaliz Carranza
Estibaliz put the body parts in ice cream tubs and hid them in a freezer in the cellar of the shop. She encased the tubs with cement and tried to cover up the smell of decomposition with perfume and air fresheners.
Two years later, Manfred met the same fate.
Estibaliz became enraged when she caught Manfred cheating. After a drunken argument, she waited for him to fall asleep and shot him four times in the head. She reported him missing four days later, telling his loved ones and the neighbors that she had no clue where he was.
As usual, Estibaliz moved on quickly. After Manfred’s death, she started dating a man named Roland. Estibaliz finally got pregnant but she wouldn’t get the chance to raise her child. Her crimes finally caught up with her.
On June 6, 2011, city maintenance workers broke into the locked cellar of the ice cream shop to fix a burst water pipe and found a gun and a freezer filled with cement. They immediately called the authorities who made a horrific discovery: Holgar and Manfred’s dismembered remains.
Two months pregnant, Estibaliz packed a bag and fled to Italy. The 33-year-old was caught a few days later. She was diagnosed with a personality disorder and a psychiatrist concluded that she would kill again if free.
On November 23, 2012, Estibaliz pleaded guilty to two murders and was sentenced to life in prison. She married Roland while incarcerated and gave birth to their child. She said that her new husband was different from her previous lovers, that he was very gentle, never insulted her looks, and, “would not bring me into such a situation.” They divorced in 2018.
Estibaliz’s crimes made headlines around Austria, quickly dubbing her The Ice Lady. She was transferred to an all-male insane asylum shortly after the release of her 2017 memoir My Two Lives, The True Story of the Ice Lady in which she recounted grisly details of the murders, referring to her victims as the “monsters” who turned her into a “beast.” The cold-blooded murderess was deemed too dangerous to be housed among females.
