Elisabeth Fritzl kept captive 24 years by dad, has seven children
April 28, 2008
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A 73-year-old man is accused of locking his daughter in a windowless cellar for 24 years and fathering seven children with her.
Three of the children were locked up with their mother since birth and had never seen sunlight or received any education, police said.
The father entered the basement prison through a small hidden door, operated by a secret code which only he knew.
Daughter drugged
His daughter Elisabeth Fritzl, now 42, told Austrian authorities her father Josef lured her into the basement of the block where her family lived in 1984, and drugged and handcuffed her before locking her up in the dungeon.
“There is not only one, but a number of rooms: one room to sleep in, one to cook, and there are also sanitation facilities,” Franz Polzer, head of the criminal investigations unit in the province of Lower Austria, told broadcaster ORF.
Elisabeth gave birth to seven children during her ordeal, one of whom died shortly after being born, police said.
Her plight only came to light after her oldest child had to go to hospital and suspicious doctors alerted police.
Missing person
Josef’s wife Rosemarie had been unaware of what happened to her daughter and it was assumed Elisabeth had disappeared voluntarily when her parents received a letter from her saying they should not search for her.
Interpol had opened a file on her disappearance and local authorities believed she had fallen into the grip of a religious sect.
Police said three of Elisabeth’s younger children were abandoned at the family home, the first accompanied by a letter saying Elisabeth was unable to care for the baby herself.
All were taken in by Josef and his wife as foster or adopted children.
But the two oldest children, aged 18 and 19, and the youngest, aged five, remained locked up with their mother.
Medical drama
The case only came to light when the oldest child became seriously ill and was taken to hospital in the family’s home town of Amstetten. Josef said that the child had also been left unconscious on his doorstep, according to media reports.
A 19-year-old girl, who was seriously ill and is still fighting for her life, was last weekend dropped off at the hospital in Amstetten, a town of around 22,000 some 130km west of the capital Vienna.
Doctors appealed for the girl’s mother, who at that time was believed to have disappeared, to come forward to provide more details about the daughter’s medical history.
Josef then brought Elisabeth and her remaining two children out of the dungeon, telling his wife that their “missing” daughter had chosen to return home, police said.
Years of abuse
“This is not a mother abandoning her child which then had to be admitted to hospital in a serious condition … We know that she herself has been kept imprisoned by her own father for 24 years in the basement and furthermore she obviously was also subjected to sexual abuse,” Mr Polzer said.
After questioning and assurances that she would have no further contact with her father - who she said abused her from the age of 11 - Elisabeth agreed to make a “comprehensive statement”.
Rosemarie, as well as Elisabeth and her children were receiving psychological counselling. DNA samples of all those involved were taken and would be analysed, police said.
Life in captivity
Two other spectacular cases of captivity have emerged in Austria in recent years.
Natascha Kampusch was locked up by a man in the basement of a house in a Vienna suburb for eight years before she escaped.
Ms Kampusch was 10 when Wolfgang Priklopil abducted her on her way to school in 1998. The 44-year-old kidnapper killed himself just hours after she fled by throwing himself under a train.
In another case, three young girls were locked up for seven years by their mentally ill mother near the city of Linz.
Comments
5 Responses to “Elisabeth Fritzl kept captive 24 years by dad, has seven children”
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Oh My! What a VERY Sick Person. Sick. Sick. Sick.
GOOD! I leave at Brazil. Here, the foreighs sad that we are too invaters, but to know to care about your neigborshood is lovely life…the people need to know that we leave in society. Rething about what privacity life is really are. Excuse about my english mistakes. Bye.
It’s just so creepy and mysterious. How come Elisabeth’s mother Rosemarie does’nt know anything about it. And how come that three person at the age of 42, 19 and 18 could’nt escape from a 73 year-old man…
This monster’s wife says she had no idea of what was going on, yet three of the children lived upstairs with them. Where did the wife think the children came fron? The stork?
Vermin like this are a good reason to reinstate the auto-da-fe’.
My wish for Elizabeth and her children is that they will be able to leave all the bad in the past and have a positive pleasant life onwards.
They will be in my prayers!
How is it possible that any one can be so cruel and evil to his own flesh and blood! Not even God can help this evil bastard!