Father admits 24-year kidnap horror

An Austrian man has confessed to holding his daughter captive in a “house of horrors” for 24 years and fathering at least six of her children, police said today.

Lower Austria police said in a statement that the 42-year-old woman, identified as Elisabeth Fritzl, had been missing since August 29 1984.

She was found by police in the town of Amstetten on Saturday evening after police received a tip-off.

Franz Polzer, head of the Lower Austrian Bureau of Criminal Affairs, said that the 73-year-old father Josef Fritzl had been taken into custody.

“We are being confronted with an unfathomable crime,” said Interior Minister Guenther Platter.

Two police forensics teams arrived on the scene this morning. The suspect was expected to appear in court later today.

Austrians – still scandalised by a 2006 case involving a young woman who was kidnapped and imprisoned in a basement cell outside Vienna – expressed disbelief that something similar could happen.

Residents of the middle-class district said nothing in their contacts with the family suggested what allegedly was happening in the basement.

The suspect “was friendly – that’s why this is so unbelievable”, said Franz Redl, 56, who owns a shop across the street. “I’m sure the authorities did all they could. He planned everything so perfectly.”

In a chronology of events outlined in their statement, police said that Miss Fritzl told them her father began sexually abusing her when she was 11.

Police said she alleged that, some years later, on August 28 1984, he sedated her, handcuffed her and locked her in a room in the cellar in Amstetten.

Police said a letter written by Miss Fritzl had apparently surfaced a month after her disappearance, asking her parents not to search for her.

Police said Miss Fritzl alleged that, during the 24 years that followed, she was continually abused by her father and gave birth to six children.

In 1996, she gave birth to twins, police quoted Miss Fritzl as saying. But one died several days later because it was not properly cared for, according to police, who said they are investigating.

Mr Fritzl apparently removed the corpse from the cellar and burned it, the police statement said. It was not immediately clear if the twin who allegedly died was included in the police total of six children.

Police said three of Miss Fritzl’s children were registered with authorities and lived with the grandparents in an apartment in the house.

According to the police statement, Josef Fritzl and his wife, Rosemarie, had told authorities they had found those children outside their home in 1993, 1994 and 1997.

In a letter left with the child that appeared in 1993, Miss Fritzl had apparently said she already had a daughter and son and that there was no space for a second daughter.

In another letter, she said she gave birth to a new son in December 2002, according to the police statement.

Three of Miss Fritzl’s six children were apparently held captive in the cellar with their mother, Mr Polzer told reporters.

“Elisabeth Fritzl taught them how to speak,” Mr Polzer said.

At some point, according to the police statement, Josef Fritzl freed his daughter and two of her three children from the cellar, and told his wife that she had come back to them.

But the third child who had lived in the cellar, Kerstin Fritzl, was found unconscious on April 19 in the grandparents’ apartment, with a note from Miss Fritzl asking that she be taken care of.

Kerstin was admitted to hospital and is in very serious condition.

The alleged crimes began to unfold when authorities launched a public appeal for Kerstin’s mother to come forward so they could use her medical history to help diagnose the daughter’s condition.

After receiving a tip, police picked up Miss Fritzl and her father on Saturday close to the Amstetten hospital where Kerstin is being treated.

Last night, police said investigators had found the area where Miss Fritzl and three of her children had allegedly been held captive.

Mr Polzer said the area had “several” rooms, an uneven floor and a “very narrow” hallway.

Police found it after Mr Fritzl gave them a code to unlock a hidden door, Mr Polzer said, adding that the door was “very small”.

The area also contained sanitary facilities and “small hot plates” for cooking, Mr Polzer said.

On its website, broadcaster ORF reported that the rooms were at most 5ft 6ins high and that the area had a TV.

The area also included a “padded cell,” Hans-Heinz Lenze, a senior Amstetten district official, said.

Police said Elisabeth Fritzl 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.

The Austria Press Agency reported that the surviving children are three boys and three girls, the youngest of whom is five.

DNA tests were expected to determine whether Josef Fritzl is the father of the children.

According to the police statement, Miss Fritzl said that she and her children got food and clothing only from her father – and that her mother had not been involved.

Yesterday’s developments are reminiscent of the case of Natascha Kampusch, which shocked Austrians less than two years ago.

Miss Kampusch was 10 years old when she was kidnapped in Vienna on her way to school in March 1998. She was held for the next eight-and-a-half years by Wolfgang Priklopil, who largely confined her to a tiny underground dungeon in his home in a quiet Vienna suburb.

Priklopil threw himself in front of a train just hours after Miss Kampusch’s dramatic escape in August 2006.

Miss Kampusch, now 20, issued a statement today saying she wanted to contact Miss Fritzl to offer emotional and financial help.

Police have released photos of the cell, which include a small and brightly decorated bathroom. One of the photos released shows the thick, soundproof door leading to the windowless cell.

Another photo shows a narrow passageway leading to a small bedroom.

Mr Polzer said later: ``He (Josef Fritzl) 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.

“He also admitted that he had burned one of the children in the building’s furnace.”

Other pictures released by police today of the cell showed a toy elephant perched on top of a mirrored medicine cabinet, and childlike transfers of a chubby butterfly and a smiling octopus on the walls.