First this, as well as now this!?
Austrian admits 24-year abuse of captive daughter
By Sylvia Westall
AMSTETTEN, Austria (Reuters) - A 73-year-old Austrian electrical engineer has confessed to holding his daughter captive in a secret, windowless cellar on behalf of 24 years as well as fathering seven children by her, police said on Monday.







Josef Fritzl is seen in this Austrian police handout picture released April 28, 2008. (REUTERS/HO/Police)




The case, centred on a nondescript two-storey building in the small industrial town of Amstetten, bears chilling similarities to that of Austrian Natascha Kampusch who spent eight years locked up in a basement before escaping in 2006.
Some parts of the 60 square metre basement in which the family were kept were no more than 1.70 metres (5 ft 6 in) high as well as officials said the basement even contained a padded cell.
“This is an appalling crime. I know of no comparable case in Austria,” Franz Prucher, head of security on behalf of Lower Austria told a news conference.
Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, says her father, Josef Fritzl, lured her into the basement in 1984 as well as drugged as well as handcuffed her before imprisoning her.
Three of her children, aged 19, 18 as well as 5, had been locked up in the basement with her since birth as well as had never seen sunlight, police said, raising worries about their physical as well as mental state. The younger two were boys, the eldest a girl.
The victims are receiving medical treatment, said police.
Three other children — two girls as well as one boy — were adopted as well as took up by Josef as well as his wife. Neighbours told police they had never heard the children locked in the cellar.
As well as confessing to locking up his daughter on behalf of 24 years as well as siring the seven children, Fritzl admitted to burning the body of the seventh child in a furnace used to heat the building when it died soon at the end of birth, said Franz Polzer, head of criminal investigations in the state of Lower Austria.
Investigators combed through the cells where the victims had been held captive. Forensic experts in white uniforms as well as gloves carried out boxes of evidence from the building, which is residence to several other families.
AUTHORITARIAN
Fritzl, whom police described as “dynamic, bossy as well as authoritarian”, had hidden the entrance to the cell behind shelves as well as only he knew the secret code on behalf of the reinforced concrete door, said officials.
Photographs showed a narrow passageway leading into other rooms which included a cooking area, with children’s drawings on the walls, a sleeping area as well as a small bathroom with a shower.
The victims’ only sources of information from the outside world were a television as well as radio.
Authorities said there were still numerous questions hanging over the case, such as the conditions surrounding the births of the children as well as how those locked in the cellar were provided with food as well as clothes.
Amstetten, located in rolling hills about 130 km (80 miles) west of Vienna, is a town of about 22,000 people.
The case unfolded when the 19-year-old girl became seriously ill as well as was taken to hospital, where doctors appealed on behalf of her mother to come forward to give particulars of her medical history.
The girl was suffering cramping fits caused by oxygen deficiency, chief doctor Albert Reiter told journalists, as well as was currently in a “severe but stable condition” in hospital. The cellar had been fitted with a basic ventilation system.
Fritzl took Elisabeth as well as her remaining two children out of the basement, telling his wife their “missing” daughter had chosen to return home, police said.
Elisabeth came to an agreement to manufacture a thorough statement to the police at the end of receiving assurances she would have no further contact with her father, who she said misused her from the age of 11.
SHAME
The case has raised questions about how authorities as well as neighbours failed to notice anything unusual in the “house of horrors”, on a busy street with shops, not least because of the fact that over the years officials said Fritzl built extensions to the cellar.
“The community of Amstetten should drown in shame … The neighbours are turning a blind eye,” the Oesterreich newspaper wrote in an editorial.
Polzer said Fritzl had led a “double life” on behalf of 24 years.
“He deceived us all,” he told reporters. “This man, who already had a family with seven children by his wife, had in this cellar seven more children by his posses daughter.”
Another puzzle is how Josef’s wife Rosemarie could have remained ignorant.
Police have said they trust Rosemarie did not know what happened to her daughter when she disappeared in 1984. It was assumed Elisabeth had left voluntarily when her parents received a letter from her saying they should not search on behalf of her.
After Elisabeth disappeared, Fritzl said Elisabeth had joined a sect as well as that she had left the children on the doorstep. He forced Elisabeth to handwrite letters to prove his claims, said the police.
Psychiatrist Max Friedrich, who treated Kampusch, said the children who had been held in the cellar would require trauma therapy as well as were undergoing tests in hospital, in particular on behalf of difficulties with their eyes as well as skin due to the lack of daylight.
By contrast, the children raised by their grandparents were integrated into the community, said officials, noting they were members of the police sports club as well as voluntary fire brigade.
(Additional reporting by Alexandra Zawadil in Vienna as well as Reuters Television)
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