Police: Dad confesses to holding daughter captive 24 years Austrian police say father confesses to holding daughter captive 24 years
By VERONIKA OLEKSYN and WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Monday, April 28, 2008
AMSTETTEN, Austria -- A man has confessed to imprisoning his daughter for 24 years in a windowless cell with a soundproofed door and fathering seven children with her including three who "never saw sunlight," police said Monday.
Josef Fritzl, now 73, also told investigators that he tossed the body of one of the children in an incinerator when the infant died shortly after birth, said Franz Polzer, head of the Lower Austrian Bureau of Criminal Affairs.
"We are being confronted with an unfathomable crime," Interior Minister Guenther Platter said.
The daughter, who is now 42, had been missing since 1984 and was found by police in the town of Amstetten on Saturday evening after police received a tip. She and the children have been placed under psychiatric care in an undisclosed location.
Authorities on Monday released several photos showing parts of the cramped basement cell, with a small bathroom and a narrow passageway leading to a tiny bedroom. Investigators said an electronic keyless-entry system apparently kept the daughter from escaping from the cell, which was made of solid reinforced concrete.
After initially withholding Friztl's full name, police released it along with a photograph at a news conference Monday. Fritzl's identity was widely reported by media in Austria and elsewhere in Europe. He briefly appeared in court Monday in the city of St. Poelten, where he was to be held in pre-trial detention.
"He admitted that he locked his daughter, who was 18 at the time, in the cellar, that he repeatedly had sex with her, and that he is the father of her seven children," Polzer told The Associated Press.
Three of the surviving children lived with the grandparents and were registered with authorities. The other three -- aged 19, 18 and 5 -- were confined during their entire lives to the darkness of their cell, Polzer said.
Hans-Heinz Lenze, a senior local official, said the suspect's wife apparently had "no idea" of what went on and was devastated.
"You have to imagine that this woman's world fell apart," he said.
Austrians -- still scandalized by a 2006 case involving a young woman who was kidnapped and imprisoned in a basement cell outside Vienna for more than eight years -- expressed disbelief at the latest case.
"The entire nation must ask itself just what is fundamentally going wrong," the newspaper Der Standard said Monday in a commentary.
Guenter Pramreiter, who owns a bakery just down the street, told The Associated Press that the suspect and his wife would regularly buy bread and rolls, though never in large quantities.
"They appeared normal, just like any other family," Pramreiter said. "I'm totally shocked, this was next door. It's terrible."
The case unfolded after a gravely ill teenager was found unconscious on April 19 in the building where her grandparents live, and taken to a hospital in the town of Amstetten, about 75 miles west of Vienna. Authorities publicly appealed for the child's mother to come forward to help diagnose the young woman's condition.
After receiving a tip, police picked up the 42-year-old woman -- whom authorities identified as Elisabeth F. -- and her father on Saturday close to the hospital.
Police said she appeared "greatly disturbed" during questioning. She agreed to talk only after authorities assured her she would no longer have to have contact with her father and that her children would be cared for.
On Sunday evening, police said investigators had found the area where Elisabeth and three of the children were held captive. Investigators said the rooms were at most 5 feet 6 inches feet high. The area had a TV and small hot plates for cooking.
In a chronology of events outlined in a police statement, authorities said Elisabeth told them her father began sexually abusing her when she was 11. She told police that some years later in 1984, he sedated her, handcuffed her and locked her in the cellar.
Police said a letter written by Elisabeth had apparently surfaced a month after her disappearance, asking her parents not to search for her.
The Austria Press Agency reported that the surviving children are three boys and three girls. DNA tests were expected to determine whether Fritzl is the father.
Sunday's developments recalled another case that shocked Austrians in the summer of 2006, when a young woman escaped after being largely confined to a tiny underground dungeon in a quiet Vienna suburb for more than eight years.
Natascha Kampusch was 10 years old when she was kidnapped in Vienna on her way to school in March 1998. Her abductor, Wolfgang Priklopil, threw himself in front of a train just hours after her dramatic escape.
Kampusch, now 20, issued a statement Monday saying she wanted to contact Elisabeth to offer emotional and financial help.
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Associated Press Writer William J. Kole reported from Vienna.
AMSTETTEN, Austria (CNN) -- Three children freed from a cellar in which their mother had been imprisoned and raped by her own father for 24 years had never seen daylight, police in Austria have confirmed.
A hidden, narrow bedroom found in the cellar of the house where Josef Fritzl held his daughter captive. 1 of 3more photos »
Police spokesman Franz Polzer told CNN that 73-year-old Josef Fritzl admitted holding his daughter, Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, hostage in the windowless cell and fathering seven children by her.
"The mother had memories [of the outside world] and got used to the situation," Polzer told a press conference Monday afternoon. "The others knew nothing else."
The main question reverberating from the small Austrian town: How could a man keep his daughter locked in his basement for 24 years, where she gave birth to seven of his children while her mother and three of those children lived upstairs without an inkling of the horrors in the cellar?
Fritzl explained Elisabeth's disappearance by saying she had run away from home, a story backed up by letters he forced Elisabeth to write, including one that begged her parents not to look for her.
Other letters made it seem the missing daughter had left the three children on the parents' doorstep -- when in fact they had been born in captivity in the family's basement.
Elisabeth told police that she and her three children Kerstin, 19; Stefan, 18; and Felix, 5, did not see the light of day during their entire time in captivity underneath the building in Amstetten, a rural town about 150 km (93 miles) west of Vienna.
Elisabeth is described as "very disturbed" and having trouble talking to police about her ordeal, reports CNN correspondent Fred Pleitgen. She went missing in 1984, when she was 18 years old, police have said.
More details also emerged at the news conference about the basement dungeon in which the daughter and her children were kept -- and how her father managed to keep them captive for more than two decades. See inside the cellar prison »
The authorities have revealed that the prison, constructed in the basement of the 1960s building, ran underneath both the building itself and the garden outside.
The entrance was via a small door, hidden behind cupboards in the basement, controlled by an electronic keyless-entry system. Polzer said that the prison was hard to find, even if someone was looking for it, and had been soundproofed.
"Even though they shouted and called they were not in a position to let anyone hear them," Polzer told the press conference.
Polzer said that Fritzl made clear to his wife and other children that the area was out of bounds and they were not to go into the basement. He bought food and took it to his captives in the evening. Watch a report on details of the case »
Detectives made the grim discovery about the cellar earlier this month after Kerstin was hospitalized in Amstetten after falling unconscious and taken to a hospital in Amstetten by her grandfather with a SOS note from her mother hidden on her.
A DNA test was later carried out which revealed her grandfather, Josef Fritzl, was also her father, according to ORF, Austria's state-run news agency.
That sparked a police investigation, which revealed that Fritzl fathered at least six children with his daughter, forcing her and three of the surviving children to live in the cellar of his house, according to ORF's Peter Schmitzberger. Watch police describe the captives' jail »
On Sunday, police searched the hidden rooms where Fritzl admitted he kept his daughter and their children, including sleeping quarters, a kitchen and a bathroom, which Fritzl told police he built, Polzer said.
Amstetten police say they were put on Fritzl's trail following an anonymous tip off. They apprehended the pair on Saturday near the hospital and once police assured the daughter that she would never have contact with her father again, "she was able to tell the whole story," Schmitzberger said.
Elisabeth said her father began sexually abusing her at age 11. On August 8, 1984 -- weeks before she was reported missing -- her father enticed her into the basement, where he drugged her, put her in handcuffs and locked her in a room, she told police.
For the next 24 years, she was constantly raped by her father, resulting in the six surviving children, she said, according to the police statement.
She also told police she gave birth to twins in 1996, but one of the babies died a few days later as a result of neglect, and Fritzl removed the infant's body and burned it in an oven.
She told police that only her father supplied her and her children with food and clothing, and that she did not think his wife knew anything about their situation
Fritzl lived upstairs with his wife, Rosemarie, who police said had no idea about her husband's other family living in the cellar. The couple adopted three of the children that Fritzl had with his daughter, according to police. He told his wife that his missing daughter had dropped the unwanted children off at the house because she could not take care of them, police said.
When Kerstin fell ill, Fritzl apparently told his wife and the hospital that his "missing" daughter had dropped off the sick girl on his doorstep.
In an effort to find out about Kerstin's condition, the hospital and police asked the media to put out a bulletin requesting any information about the girl or her missing mother, attorney general Gerhard Sedlacek told NTV.
Sometime later, Fritzl brought Elisabeth out of the cellar, telling his wife that she had returned home with her two children after a 24-year absence, police said.
He took Elisabeth to the hospital to talk with doctors about Kerstin's condition, and at that point, authorities became aware of her situation, Sedlacek said.
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