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 08 October 2008 00:48 BST

Police reveal shock at 'cellar captor' case

Tuesday, 29 Apr 2008 20:38
More police questions for Josef Fritzl
Police in Austria have outlined details of how a 73-year-old man managed to imprison his daughter in a cellar for almost a quarter of a century.

Josef Fritzl, who according to police has confessed to holding his daughter Elisabeth captive and fathering seven children with her, was earlier detained for 14 days after appearing before a magistrate.

He is yet to be charged by prosecutors and was today subjected to further questioning over the details of the last 24 years in what has been dubbed Austria's house of horrors.

Elisabeth, 42, is in the care of the authorities after being released by her father when her teenage daughter was admitted to hospital.

At a news conference on Tuesday afternoon police confirmed DNA tests had shown Mr Fritzl was the father of Elisabeth's seven children.

Mr Fritzl had no previous convictions, police said, but he had been suspected of rape and arson in the 1960s.

Frank Polzer, head of the Lower Austrian bureau of criminal affairs, said the former electrical engineer had led a double life for the last 24 years and completely deceived his family.

He managed to keep his daughter and their children hidden by forcing Elisabeth to write letters informing everyone that she had run away.

Mr Fritzl decided to release his daughter and admit police into his home's cellar in Amstetten, Lower Austria, when medical staff appealed for the ill girl's mother to come forward.

Kerstin Fritzl is said to still be gravely ill in a local hospital.

Three of Elisabeth's children lived with her in the cellar and never saw daylight until this weekend police have said, while three were adopted by other families and one died as a baby.

In his confession on Monday morning Mr Fritzl also told detectives he burned the dead baby inside the house.

Until last weekend Elisabeth and three of her children had lived in a windowless chamber underneath the family garden.

Mr Fritzl's wife, and Elisabeth's mother, Rosemarie, 78, appears to have been unaware her daughter and three incest-born grandchildren were living under her house.

Mr Polzer, said Mrs Fritzl's "world has fallen apart" over the last few days.

The town of Amstetten is said to be in a state of shock over the alleged crimes, while Austrian media asked on Tuesday how the authorities remained unaware of Elisabeth's captivity for so long.

The case has reminded Austrians of Natasha Kampusch, who escaped in 2006 after spending eight years held captive in a Vienna suburb.End of story


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