Man hides daughter in basement for 24 years, siring 7 children. Ugh.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 4/28/08 at 3:39pm

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24337573

AMSTETTEN, Austria - A man has confessed to imprisoning his daughter for 24 years in windowless cell with a soundproofed door and fathering seven children with her, 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.


Authorities said three of the surviving children — aged 19, 18 and 5 — were confined during their entire lives to the darkness of their cell by the suspect, who Polzer said "managed to deceive everyone" until he allegedly confessed in police custody Monday.

Police released Fritzl's full name and photograph at a news conference Monday, after his identity was widely reported by media in Austria and elsewhere in Europe.

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.

Police 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.

Fritzl appeared briefly in court Monday in the city of St. Poelten, where he was to be held in pretrial detention. He faces up to 15 years in prison if charged, tried and convicted on rape charges, the most grave of his alleged offenses under Austrian law, officials said.

He was an authoritarian who took care never to allow anyone near the cellar, Polzer told reporters.

"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 apparently were held captive in the cellar with their mother, Polzer told reporters.

Wife had 'no idea'
Hans-Heinz Lenze, a senior local official, said the suspect's wife apparently had "no idea" of what went on and was devastated. Authorities said the victims and Fritzl's wife were under psychiatric care in an undisclosed location.

"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."

[LePetiteFromage]

Posted: 4/28/08 at 3:44pm

Updated On: 1/23/09 at 03:44 PM

[Unknown User]

Posted: 4/28/08 at 3:46pm

This just isn't my day, is it? Sorry, and thanks Fromage!

[LePetiteFromage]

Posted: 4/28/08 at 3:50pm

Updated On: 1/23/09 at 03:50 PM

[tagiunagi]

Posted: 4/28/08 at 4:54pm

Talked about this in class today. Verrry Oedipus.

What I don't understand is how the mother believed that her daughter would leave 3 kids at their door and say, "Ok! No worries!" Wouldn't you contact the police in hopes of finding your daughter, knowing that she keeps bearing kids she "supposedly" can't take care of?

[thatgirl712]

Posted: 4/28/08 at 8:13pm

Hideous doesn't even begin to describe this.

[roquat]

Posted: 4/28/08 at 10:42pm

This is worse than "The Child Called 'It'". How on earth did the wife not know?

[SweetQintheLights]

Posted: 4/28/08 at 11:43pm

"This is worse than "The Child Called 'It'". How on earth did the wife not know?"


Oh My God. He (Dave Pelzer) has become such a strong man; if I were him, I'd haven given up and been dead a looooooonnnngggg time ago.


I almost wish the book was fabricated (like a Million Little Pieces was).

[lildogs]

Posted: 4/29/08 at 10:48am

I wonder what the kids look like...

[jeniferrenepatricia]

Posted: 4/29/08 at 9:30pm

I hope they put him and the dumb mother in a basement for 48 years

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 5/29/08 at 1:41pm

You truly could not write this sh*t.
"Dungeon Girl" gets her own talk show

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 5/29/08 at 1:44pm

Whoops! Different girl. Getting my Austrian abductees all mixed up.