Woman held in cellar for 24 years

Subject: Woman held in cellar for 24 years Mon Apr 28, 2008 4:21 am

Austrian woman says father held her in cellar for 24 years

By VERONIKA OLEKSYN – 3 hours ago
VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Police have found a woman missing since 1984, who told authorities that her father had kept her in a cellar for almost 24 years and that she had given birth to at least six children after being repeatedly raped by him.
The 73-year-old father was taken into custody, said Franz Polzer, head of the Lower Austrian Bureau of Criminal Affairs, on Sunday.
Authorities found the woman Saturday evening in the town of Amstetten following a tip, Lower Austria police said in a statement.
The 42-year-old woman told police that her father began sexually abusing her when she was 11 and locked her in a room in the cellar on Aug. 28, 1984.
During the 24 years that followed, she said she was continually abused and gave birth to six children, the statement said. She said she gave birth to twins in 1996 but one died several days later; police said they were investigating.
Police said in the statement the woman appeared "greatly disturbed" psychologically during questioning. She 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.
DNA tests are expected to determine whether the man is the father of the six surviving children, according to police.
Police said three of the children were registered with authorities and lived with the grandparents. The other three children were apparently held captive in the cellar with their mother, Polzer told reporters in broadcast remarks.
The Austria Press Agency said the three boys and three girls range in age from 5 and 20. One of the children, a 19-year-old woman, was being hospitalized in very serious condition, according to Austrian broadcaster ORF.
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Subject: Re: Woman held in cellar for 24 years Mon Apr 28, 2008 4:52 am

That is so sick shit!! I hope that they hang the old bastard.
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Subject: Re: Woman held in cellar for 24 years Mon Apr 28, 2008 5:01 am

yeah that si really sick, I don't know how some people can be so evil especially to your child. Does anyone know if the children were held in the celler with her or where they allowed to lead "normal lives"?

Subject: Re: Woman held in cellar for 24 years Mon Apr 28, 2008 6:49 am

I think 3 lived up top with the pervert, and 3 lived in the cellar with the captive daughter/mom.

I can't fatham it at all. Since 1984 living in that hell.

DAMN.
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Subject: Re: Woman held in cellar for 24 years Mon Apr 28, 2008 7:28 am

I am willing to bet that the 3 that lived up top were more than likely the boys he would want to keep all the girls together in case he got tired of his eldest daughter.

Subject: Re: Woman held in cellar for 24 years Mon Apr 28, 2008 8:14 am

Just saw this on CNN. It's just insane.

I don't buy that his wife had no idea, though.
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Subject: Re: Woman held in cellar for 24 years Mon Apr 28, 2008 10:26 am

How could his wife have no idea, that's just insane.
I couldn't imagine. The police said she seemed "greatly disturbed"...well no shit.
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Subject: Re: Woman held in cellar for 24 years Mon Apr 28, 2008 10:33 am

Exactly, she'd been caught out, so she was upset...

But, seriously, her daughter had 6 kids in that basement, apparently... that's the kind of shit you hear happening, right? A woman screaming like all hell? I would think so.

The story itself is just crazy though. Just... how... just... wh... tsk, I don't know where to begin.
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Subject: Re: Woman held in cellar for 24 years Mon Apr 28, 2008 10:42 am

I know, there is just so much messed up in that story.
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Subject: Re: Woman held in cellar for 24 years Mon Apr 28, 2008 1:49 pm

And three of the children lived with them... so, what's the wife like, "Oh, my husband just brought these kids home one day, and we've been raising them. Don't know whose children they are... but, I just went along with it. And as for the screaming in the basement... well, my husband just told me that it was ghosts. I believed him."

How in the bloody hell can she just not know anything? PLEASE!!!!
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Subject: Re: Woman held in cellar for 24 years Mon Apr 28, 2008 2:55 pm

73 years old though... I mean... I reckon a 43 year old lady could take a 73 year old in a fair fight.

Though she may be seriously malnourished, and her mental state must be... just... spoinked out.
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Subject: Re: Woman held in cellar for 24 years Mon Apr 28, 2008 3:01 pm

true, but she does have 3 kids with her too, one was 19, you'd thinkmaybe the 4 of them could do something, but that's the thing, we don't have many details so who knows.
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Subject: Re: Woman held in cellar for 24 years Mon Apr 28, 2008 7:33 pm

She'd have developed Stokholm Syndrone for sure by that time. The daughter probably thinks its perfectly normal to live in a basement, people held captive for that long are totally brainwashed and will believe anything the captor tells them, they end up loving and needing the person who's kidnapped them.

The way that news article has phrased what she said has made it sound like the daughter was saying the experience was horrible, but I bet she never used the words "raped" or "sexually abused". They said that the "woman appeared "greatly disturbed" psychologically" but that stress could be at the stress of being taken from the only life she's known in 24 years.

That kind of thing seriously f**ks people up. That takes YEARS of therapy.
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Subject: Re: Woman held in cellar for 24 years Mon Apr 28, 2008 11:22 pm

Stockholm syndrome is very difficult to cure it's not uncommon for those who have it to actauuly lash out at those that have come to get them and sometime you can't be cured.

I am just wondering about the guys wife and wether she knew but was to scared to do something I just think that it's not beyond the realms of possibility that if this guy was willing to rape and beat up his daughter that his wife may have got the same treatment as well for all we know she may have been held against her will in that house.

Subject: 'House of Horror' children never saw daylight Tue Apr 29, 2008 4:08 am

AMSTETTEN, Austria (CNN) -- Three children freed from a cellar in which their mother had been imprisoned and raped by her own father for 24 years had never seen daylight, police in Austria have confirmed.

Police spokesman Franz Polzer told CNN that 73-year-old Josef Fritzl admitted holding his daughter, Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, hostage in the windowless cell and fathering seven children by her.

"The mother had memories [of the outside world] and got used to the situation," Polzer told a press conference Monday afternoon. "The others knew nothing else."

The main question reverberating from the small Austrian town: how could a man keep his daughter locked in his basement for 24 years, where she gave birth to seven of his children while her mother and three of those children lived upstairs without an inkling of the horrors in the cellar?

Fritzl explained Elisabeth's disappearance by saying she had run away from home, a story backed up by letters he forced Elisabeth to write, including one that begged her parents not to look for her.

Other letters made it seem the missing daughter had left the three children on the parents' doorstep -- when in fact they had been born in captivity in the family's basement.

Elisabeth told police that she and her three children Kerstin, 19; Stefan, 18; and Felix, 5, did not see the light of day during their entire time in captivity underneath the building in Amstetten, a rural town about 150 km (93 miles) west of Vienna.

Elisabeth is described as "very disturbed" and having trouble talking to police about her ordeal, reports CNN correspondent Fred Pleitgen. She went missing in 1984, when she was 18 years old, police have said.

More details also emerged at the news conference about the basement dungeon in which the daughter and her children were kept -- and how her father managed to keep them captive for more than two decades.

The authorities have revealed that the prison, constructed in the basement of the 1960s building, ran underneath both the building itself and the garden outside.

The entrance was via a small door, hidden behind cupboards in the basement, controlled by an electronic keyless-entry system. Polzer said that the prison was hard to find, even if someone was looking for it, and had been soundproofed.

"Even though they shouted and called they were not in a position to let anyone hear them," Polzer told the press conference.

Polzer said that Fritzl made clear to his wife and other children that the area was out of bounds and they were not to go into the basement. He bought food and took it to his captives in the evening.

Detectives made the grim discovery about the cellar earlier this month after Kerstin was hospitalized in Amstetten after falling unconscious and taken to a hospital in Amstetten by her grandfather with a SOS note from her mother hidden on her.

A DNA test was later carried out which revealed her grandfather, Josef Fritzl, was also her father, according to ORF, Austria's state-run news agency.

That sparked a police investigation, which revealed that Fritzl fathered at least six children with his daughter, forcing her and three of the surviving children to live in the cellar of his house, according to ORF's Peter Schmitzberger.

On Sunday, police searched the hidden rooms where Fritzl admitted he kept his daughter and their children, including sleeping quarters, a kitchen and a bathroom, which Fritzl told police he built, Polzer said.

Amstetten police say they were put on Fritzl's trail following an anonymous tip off. They apprehended the pair on Saturday near the hospital and once police assured the daughter that she would never have contact with her father again, "she was able to tell the whole story," Schmitzberger said.

Elisabeth said her father began sexually abusing her at age 11. On August 8, 1984 -- weeks before she was reported missing -- her father enticed her into the basement, where he drugged her, put her in handcuffs and locked her in a room, she told police.

For the next 24 years, she was constantly raped by her father, resulting in the six surviving children, she said, according to the police statement.

She also told police she gave birth to twins in 1996, but one of the babies died a few days later as a result of neglect, and Fritzl removed the infant's body and burned it in an oven.

She told police that only her father supplied her and her children with food and clothing, and that she did not think his wife knew anything about their situation.

Fritzl lived upstairs with his wife, Rosemarie, who police said had no idea about her husband's other family living in the cellar. The couple adopted three of the children that Fritzl had with his daughter, according to police. He told his wife that his missing daughter had dropped the unwanted children off at the house because she could not take care of them, police said.

When Kerstin fell ill, Fritzl apparently told his wife and the hospital that his "missing" daughter had dropped off the sick girl on his doorstep.

In an effort to find out about Kerstin's condition, the hospital and police asked the media to put out a bulletin requesting any information about the girl or her missing mother, attorney general Gerhard Sedlacek told NTV.

Sometime later, Fritzl brought Elisabeth out of the cellar, telling his wife that she had returned home with her two children after a 24-year absence, police said.

He took Elisabeth to the hospital to talk with doctors about Kerstin's condition, and at that point, authorities became aware of her situation, Sedlacek said.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen, Ben Brumfield and Nadine Schmidt contributed to this report.

Copyright 2008 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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