A 73-year-old Austrian is under arrest on suspicion of hiding his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathering seven children with her, police say.

The existence of the woman, believed missing since 1984 and now 42, emerged after a teenage child fell ill and had to be taken to hospital.

Both the woman and teenage girl are receiving medical treatment and the other children are in care.

A police investigation in Amstetten, Lower Austria Province, is continuing.

The suspect, named only as Josef F, was arrested on suspicion of incest and keeping his daughter in captivity. He has not responded to the charges against him, police say.

One of the children the man allegedly fathered died in infancy, police believe.

Three children, including the 19-year-old, were allegedly kept in the cellar with their mother while the other three reportedly grew up with their grandparents.

DNA tests will be taken to establish whether Josef F was indeed their father.

Placed in care

The alleged crimes came to light after the teenager, named as Kerstin F, was dropped off at the Amstetten hospital last weekend.

Finding Kerstin seriously ill, doctors appealed for her mother, who at that time was assumed to be missing, to come forward to provide more details about her medical history.

Josef F allegedly then released the mother and two other children from the cellar, telling his wife Rosemarie that she had chosen to return home, police say.

It was not immediately clear how police were alerted.

The mother, named as Elisabeth F, has been receiving medical and psychological treatment since being discovered.

She appeared "greatly disturbed" psychologically during questioning and agreed to talk only after authorities assured her that she would no longer have to have contact with her father, and that her children would be taken care of, police added.

The six children are three boys and three girls aged between five and 20.

Police spokesman Franz Polzer told reporters they had been taken to a safe location.

"They are all in psychological care in a secure institution in a clinic here in this area," he said.

"They are being cared for individually - those between 12 and 16 years of age who grew up with their grandparents, and two boys who, when they came out yesterday with their mother, saw the daylight for the first time in their lives."

'Dead baby burnt'

The police issued a statement giving details of the alleged abuses Elisabeth recounted to them.

She said she had been sexually abused by her father since the age of 11.

Josef allegedly lured her into the cellar of their house in Amstetten on 28 August 1984, drugging and handcuffing her before locking her up.

It was assumed she had disappeared voluntarily when her parents received a letter from her asking them not to search for her.

"Abused continuously during the 24-year-long imprisonment", Elisabeth bore six children while a seventh, one of a set of twins, died soon after birth.

The dead baby was allegedly taken out of the cellar and burnt by Josef.

Elisabeth said Josef had provided her and three of her children, who were locked up along with her, with clothing and food.

His wife Rosemarie had allegedly not been aware of what was going on.

The discovery of another Austrian woman, who was held captive in a cellar by an abductor for more than eight years, gripped the country in 2006.

Natascha Kampusch finally escaped from her kidnapper, 44-year-old Wolfgang Priklopil, who killed himself shortly afterwards.

Ms Kampusch was abducted at the age of 10 in 1998 and held in a small, windowless cellar beneath Priklopil's garage in the commuter town of Strasshof, 25km (15 miles) outside Vienna.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7369851.stm




Fucking hell

Austria: The Florida of Europe.

nice story

And I've got some swampland in Florida I'd like to sell ya.

That could seriously be the most fucked up story I have ever read.

I can't believe his wife didn't know about what went down in that cellar.

I keep thinking about how many other people must be held captive in cellars without us knowing it...

groetjes,
Mirella

From that article:



You think?

there are so many questions.

1. like someone else posted, how does the wife not know? Did she not go down to the basement to get milk....ever?
2. Where did the kids go? Who delivered them?
3. How was that bunker built with no one knowing?
4. Look up this guy's picture on yahoo news. If i saw that guy on the street, i'd have suspected that he did everything the article said he did. He's one wierd looking man.

this whole story makes silence of the lambs seems so PG and normal.

terrible story, but ... separated at birth?

The New York Times story had some interesting details:

“He was man of stature,” Franz Polzer, the chief of the criminal investigations unit for the Province of Lower Austria, said at a news conference here, holding up a photograph of Mr. Fritzl, a heavyset, gray-haired man dressed in black.

“He led a double life,” Mr. Polzer continued, “with one family of seven children, with his wife, and a second family of seven children, with his daughter.”

The police described Mr. Fritzl as an authoritarian figure who had brooked no dissent.

When Fritzl and his wife began caring for three of the children, social services actually inspected the home:

At the news conference, officials came under sharp questioning about how the situation could have remained unknown to the authorities. After Mr. Fritzl and his wife began taking care of Elisabeth’s children, social workers visited their home several times.

Officials defended themselves hotly, saying that if Mr. Fritzl was able to keep his wife ignorant of his crimes when she lived upstairs from the cellar, how could outsiders have guessed?

Neighbors expressed similar bafflement.

“You’re amazed that something like this could happen in your neighborhood,” said Günther Pramreiter, who runs a bakery next door to the Fritzls’ building. He said the couple, or their adopted children, came in every other day to buy rolls.

Elisabeth's access to television played a role in Fritzl's decision to release her:

Even two of the three children imprisoned in the cellar were surprisingly healthy, if pale, according to the authorities. Elisabeth taught them to speak German, and they had access to a television.

The television played a key role in untangling the case, the police said. After the 19-year-old, Kerstin, was taken to the hospital, authorities appealed for her mother to come forward. Elisabeth saw the broadcast and persuaded her father to release her and the other two children living with her. Officials declined to give a prognosis for Kerstin.

If Kerstin hadn't gotten sick, how long would he have kept them prisoner? How many more years? What if he had died with no one knowing that they were locked in the cellar?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/world ... 1209700800

Someone who was renting an apartment from this guy in the same building said there were suspicious sounds coming from the basement.
The guy was previously charged for rape and arson.
There was a total reconciliation between the victim and her mother.
The children kept in captivity were frightened at the sight of the moon.
The sick child that was 1st released in the hospital and it's still in a coma had a help note in her jacket left there by her mother.

Another interesting note. Natascha Kampusch (the girl from the famous kidnap case in Austria that lasted for 8 years), who offered help, even financial, said they should have been kept in that basement because it's the environment they are familiar with.

Also this person justified his action by saying he did that because he didn't want his daughter to turn in a drug addict because she was a problematic child. Well they do turn that way if you sexually abuse them since they're 11.

Wow, interesting. One thing that amazed me is that he had seven children with his wife. So Elisabeth has six brothers and sisters.

And apparently she's the only victim of sexual abuse.
Also if somebody wonders why 3 children were raised outside the basement it's because it got to crowded downstairs.
And no this person doesn't regret nothing.

Well at least he regrets what he did.

According to the news reports i saw he said he doesn't when interrogated by the police.

Where's the emoticon for "way over your head"

so if this dude would have died, what would have happened to his daughter and the kids left in the cellar? That guy was 73, i think the article said.

i'm still really intrigued by this story.

Yeah, that would've been fucked up. I guess they would've been found dead when his wife died. If someone looked behind that steel door that is.

He went on holidays, so I guess he had a bunch of food in the bunker.