Austrian 'admits daughter abuse'

Police said Josef F admitted sexually abusing his daughter repeatedly

A 73-year-old Austrian man has confessed to imprisoning his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathering her seven children, police have said.

Police said Josef Fritzl also admitted burning the body of a baby that died at the house in Amstetten, Lower Austria.

Mr Fritzl has been taken to court while authorities are caring for the woman, now 42, and her six surviving children.

Photos of the man's basement show a concealed network of tiny windowless chambers which were soundproofed.

Prosecutors say Mr Fritzl is expected to be taken into protective custody after appearing before a magistrate.

The woman, Elisabeth, disappeared aged 18 on 28 August 1984 when, according to her testimony to police, her father lured her into the cellar, drugging and handcuffing her before locking her up.

She is reported to have been made to write a letter which made it look as if she had run away.


The head of the criminal affairs bureau in Lower Austria, Franz Polzer, said Mr Fritzl had admitted sexually abusing his daughter repeatedly during the time he imprisoned her.

Mr Polzer said Mr Fritzl told investigators Elisabeth had given birth to seven children, including twins in 1996, but one died shortly after being born and that he had thrown the body into an incinerator in the building.


Pictures of Josef Fritzl's house and cellar
The surviving children are now aged between five and 19 years.


The cellar rooms, covering an area of approximately 60 sq m (650 sq ft), were equipped for sleeping and cooking, and with sanitary facilities.

A reinforced concrete door was built into the wall that separated the "dungeon" from the house and electronically locked - the code known only to the suspect, who provided his captives with food and necessities, police said.


Elisabeth had not been seen in public since August 1984


Three of the children were kept in the cellar with their mother and had never seen daylight, police told a news conference.

The other three children were adopted or fostered by the suspect, after he forced Elisabeth to write a letter saying she could not look after the baby, according to police.

His wife, Rosemarie, with whom he had seven of their own children, appears to have been unaware of the alleged crimes.

The security chief for Lower Austria, Franz Prucher, said he had been down into the cellar where it was easy to understand how the abuse was not discovered.

"The cellar is very deep," he said. "There you can cry and nobody will hear, nobody. There you can cry as loud as you can, you can hear nothing."

The alleged abuse and Mr Fritzl's apparent double life came to light when the eldest of the children in the cellar, 19-year-old Kerstin, became seriously ill earlier this month and had to be taken to hospital.

KEY FACTS IN CASE

Elisabeth reappeared at home after disappearing 24 years ago
Six children she says are hers have been found and placed in care
One of the children, aged 19, is seriously ill in hospital
Elisabeth's father Josef Fritzl, 73, has been arrested on suspicion of incest and abduction
Police say Mr Fritzl confesses to imprisoning Elisabeth and fathering her seven children


Profile: Josef Fritzl
In pictures: Abuse scandal
Q&A: Austrian abuse case

A television appeal by medical staff for the patient's mother was seen by Elisabeth on a TV set in the cellar and she urged her father to let her go to hospital.

Police arrested Mr Fritzl shortly afterwards and took all the children into care.

"If you look at him today, you would hardly believe he was capable of doing these things. This man led a double life for 24 years," said Mr Polzer.

He said it was incredible that it had been kept secret for all that time.

Both the father and Elisabeth say no one else had access to the cellar, according to police, who are appealing to anyone with information about Mr Fritzl to contact them.

Asked why the captives had not tried to escape before, Mr Polzer said one had to consider the fact that the woman was small and weak and even the eldest boy, now 18, was "a small boy, a weak boy".

"You have to put yourself into the situation of these people," he said. "They led a completely different life to ours, they do not know what we know. These children were born into the jail, they knew nothing else."

Illness

Kerstin is said to be in a coma in hospital.

The head of the intensive care unit at the Amstetten hospital, Albert Reiter, said the impact of her experiences would eventually become clearer.



Aerial shots of the investigation scene
"The connection between the effects of 20 years without daylight, the incest and other illnesses, we will research in the coming hours and days," he said.

The media were told the other children who had been kept in the cellar were in surprising physical health, but very pale.

The region's district governor, Hans-Heinz Lenze, said he had spoken to the five-year-old boy.

"He even told me how happy he was and how fantastic it was to ride in a real car," he said.

Help offer

Journalist Andreas Wetz, of the daily newspaper Die Presse, told the BBC the suspect's neighbours in Amstetten, a small town about 130km (80 miles) west of Vienna, were in shock at the revelations.

"The man who is said to have done this, they said he was funny, he talked to neighbours, he might be a little introverted, but they had no idea that this person could do this," he said.

The BBC's Bethany Bell says the case is reminiscent of that of Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian teenager held captive in a cellar in a house in a Vienna suburb for eight years, who ran to freedom in 2006.

While police are not connecting the two cases, many Austrians are asking how such matters went undiscovered, she says.

Miss Kampusch, now 20, has offered to help the victims. She told Austria's ORF radio: "I can imagine that it is very difficult both for the mother of the children as well as for the wife of the perpetrator to get through this."

what's a cella?
[Edited 4/28/08 14:17pm]

what's a cella?
[Edited 4/28/08 14:17pm]

Can they just spare everyone on the planet and kill this bastard like right the hell now?

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Death is not enough really. But of course, not even that will happen.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Death is not enough really. But of course, not even that will happen.

thesexofit said:

It won't happen as we don't have the death penalty here .

thesexofit said:

Dispose of the mother too. No way after 24 years you have no idea you are married to a psychopath or that something like this is happening in your house.

thesexofit said:

Dispose of the mother too. No way after 24 years you have no idea you are married to a psychopath or that something like this is happening in your house.

Serious said:

While I generally disagree with the death penalty, in clear cut cases like this that sick fuck should be fried in the public square.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

That wouldn't help anybody.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

That wouldn't help anybody.

Serious said:

That an enlightened opinion but I don't believe in allowing something like this to happen and nothing happens in return. The least these people deserve is to have him erradicated from their lives but he's destroyed many lives and deserves his life to be destroyed.

Serious said:

Iam not sure where I stand on such matters as this. A part of me wants him to die, but the moral side agrees with you that killing anyone is wrong, no matter what they have done.

Neighbours said he was quite funny etc.., its amazing what sick secrets people have, with this one being one of the sickest I have read in a long time.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

I doubt that the victims would feet better.
Natascha Kampusch who was the other "famous" Austrian victim who had been kept away in a cellar for years was devestated when the man who had kept her comitted suicide. This man in this case is also the father and grandfather of the victims and as crazy as it sounds I think they might feel guilty for his death if he would be executed.

thesexofit said:

I don't believe in killing somebody as a revenge. He is an old man and he cannot cause any more harm. IMO it is no that unlikely that he might kill himself anyway .

Serious said:

Yeah, I think in a fucked up way, Natascha felt for him because he was pretty much her whole life, and thus, she must of felt someone when he died.

Being brainwashed by such abusers for years on end, must make you in some weird way, feel for your abuser. Remember these are children and you know no better when you have had that kind of torture for years on end.

Serious said:

He was abusing as an old man. Being old doesn't make you incapable.

thesexofit said:

According to Natascha it was her free will to have a sexual relationhip with him.

Serious said:

Its so sad she said that. But, none of us can understand the stuff she and these other kids have gone through.