Austrian/Horror house

[pledm]

Austrians shocked over latest "horror house"

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrians expressed shock and horror on Monday after police arrested a 73-year-old man they say imprisoned and abused his daughter in a windowless basement for 24 years and fathered seven children with her.

Police said on Sunday the woman, identified as 42-year-old Elisabeth F, told them her father Josef lured her into the basement of the block where they lived in the town of Amstetten in 1984, and drugged and handcuffed her before imprisoning her.

Three of her children were locked up since birth in the basement of the drab, grey building along with their mother and had never seen sunlight or received any education, police said.

The case unfolded when a 19-year-old girl -- the oldest of the three -- became seriously ill and was hospitalized.

Doctors appealed for the girl's mother, who was believed to have disappeared, to come forward to provide more details about her medical history.

Josef then brought Elisabeth and her remaining two children out of the basement, telling his wife that their "missing" daughter had chosen to return home, police said.

Elisabeth agreed to make a "comprehensive statement" detailing her ordeal to the police after being assured she would have no further contact with her father, who she said abused her from the age of 11.

"This is not a mother abandoning her child which then had to be admitted to hospital in a serious condition," Franz Polzer, head of the criminal investigations unit in the province of Lower Austria, told broadcaster ORF.

"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."

Newspaper headlines called the case the "crime of a monster" and the "worst crime of all times" and stories questioned authorities and residents of Amstetten, 130 km (80 miles) west of Vienna, for failing to notice "the martyrdom in the horror house" under their feet.

SHAME

The case was the more shocking because it was reminiscent of that of Austrian Natascha Kampusch who spent eight years locked up in a windowless cell before escaping in August 2006.

"The community of Amstetten, including its population, should drown in shame. ... Just like in Strasshofen with Mr Priklopil (the man who kidnapped Kampusch). The neighbors are very thoroughly looking away," the Oesterreich newspaper wrote in an editorial.

"Obviously it was more convenient to look away from the neglected house then questioning its fabulous inhabitant of what he was doing behind his walls," it added.

The daily Der Standard wrote: "The whole country must ask itself just what is really, fundamentally going wrong."

Josef's wife Rosemarie had been unaware of what happened to her daughter when she disappeared in 1984 and it was assumed Elisabeth had left voluntarily when her parents received a letter from her saying they should not search for her.

But all the while Elisabeth was being held in what Polzer described as a sophisticated network of chambers with facilities for sleeping, cooking and washing.

Elisabeth gave birth to seven children, one of whom died shortly after being born, police said.

Three of the younger children were brought up by Josef and his wife after they were left at the building where the couple lived. The first child was accompanied by a note from Elisabeth saying she was unable to care for the baby herself.

Three others, including the two eldest aged 18 and 19, and the youngest, aged 5, had been locked up in the basement with their mother since birth.

After Elisabeth and her children emerged, Josef, an electrical engineering technician by training, told investigators how to enter their basement prison through a hidden door operated by secret code, police said.

"There was a shelf with plenty of cans and containers, and behind the shelf was a door made of reinforced concrete, secured electronically and running on steel rails, and only the suspect knew the code," said local official Heinz Lenze.

Authorities were still searching the cellar early on Monday, the Austrian press agency APA reported, adding that some of the rooms were no more than 1.70 meters (5 ft 6 in) high.

Rosemarie, as well as Elisabeth and her children, were receiving psychological counseling. DNA samples of all those involved were taken and would be analyzed, police said.

What a terrible sick thing to do to anyone especially your own child.

[Summer]

What a horrible thing to do to anyone! Unbelievable that he was not discovered until now! I feel so bad for his daughter and for her children! How could anyone be so cruel?

[pledm]

Just an update;

The evil father who locked up his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathered her seven children was pictured on a 'boys holiday' to Thailand in the 1990s, it has been revealed.

Josep Friztl is believed to have stockpiled food in the dungeon where Elisabeth and her three children were being held.

The four were expected to survive alone for up to two weeks until Fritzl returned. Snaps of the electrical engineer enjoying himself were made public for the first time today.

They come as it was revealed that Fritzl has told police he acted alone.

He has told detectives he was not helped to keep his Elisabeth and their children hidden in his cramped basement.

But police are not yet convinced he is telling the truth and are investigating how he could have bought food and clothes for them without anyone suspecting.

The 73-year-old pensioner, who has now been confirmed as the father of all Elisabeth's children, was today remanded in custody for two weeks.

At a press conference in Austria after the brief hearing, police said: "He is saying that he worked alone, that he acted alone, in making sure his daughter was kept in that cellar but the authorities are not sure that is what happened.

"As a result they are now carrying out further inquiries. They want to know where the food came from to look after those children and where the clothes came from."

Experts have dubbed Fritzl a "ruler" who must have been mad to have carried out such a campaign of abuse against his own family.

Austrian psychiatrist Reinhard Haller said he appears to have been motivated by pronounced narcissism and a drive to exercise his control over others.

He said: "This man must have been insane and must have felt he was far superior to others."

Court psychiatrist Sigrun Rossmanith said Fritzl essentially had two personalities - "the underground one, and the one that existed above".

"He was obviously a ruler. If the cellar was taboo for his wife and children, and they heard that over and over, then they didn't dare to check on anything," she said.

"If someone has power and forces it on someone else, then his word is like the word of God."

The pensioner has not yet shown any remorse for his actions, according to prosecutor Gerhard Sedlacek.

At today's hearing, Mr Sedlacek said Fritzl was "completely calm, completely without emotion".

But his lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, said: "He is really hit by this. He is very serious, but he is emotionally broken.

The bedroom: Narrow corridors divide the family living quarters beneath the grey concrete villa

Captive: This tiny door led to the underground labyrinth where the four were held

Asked whether he showed any remorse, he added: "I cannot say at this point."

The revelation today that Fritzl had a criminal record will increase the anger that his behaviour could have gone undetected by social services for almost a quarter of a century.

It also indicates his wife Rosemarie must have been aware - at least to some degree - of her husband's sinister side.

Incredibly, it is still claimed she knew nothing about the secret dungeon beneath her home and the unimaginable horror going on under her nose.

Police in Amstetten are now trying to unravel why Fritzl, 73, was driven to lock up his daughter and subject her to decades of abuse.

The retired electrician faces charges of incest, abduction and imprisonment and could serve 15 years in jail if convicted.

He appeared in cout today in St Poelten, the provincial capital of Lower Austria, and was detained in investigative custody for two weeks.

During the brief hearing, the pensioner said nothing to the magistrate.

Prison officials said the pensioner was calm last night but that he had been placed in a large, two-person cell as a precaution to try to stop him killing himself.

Investigators were searching the 60-square metre cellar beneath Fritz's two-storey home today.

Forensic experts in white uniforms and gloves have been carrying out boxed of evidence from the building, which is on a busy street with shops and also home to several other families.

"Down there it is just chaos at the moment. We have to go over every detail very carefully," Franz Prucher, head of security in Lower Austria, said.

Reign of terror: Josef Fritzl
Police are desperate to determine how Fritzl's victims could have been hidden away for so long from their neighbours and everyone else in the town, which has a population of just 23,000.

They are said to be examining the padded walls of the cellar to work out whether the children's screams could be heard by neighbours.

Neighbours have told police they heard nothing but many are incredulous that they could have failed to spot anything unusual, not least because over the years Fritzl had built extension after extension to his cellar.

"The community of Amstetten should drown in shame ... The neighbours are turning a blind eye," the Oesterreich newspaper wrote in an editorial.

Meanwhile, residents refuse to believe Fritzl could have acted alone, while others cannot believe that the "normal" family were hiding such a horrendous secret.

Anita Fabian, a teacher in the town, said: "How is it possible that no one knew anything for years? This was not possible without accomplices."

Guenter Pramreiter, who owns a bakery down the street from the Fritzls' home said the couple were regular customers.

"They appeared normal, just like any other family," he said. "I'm totally shocked. This was next door. It's terrible."

Yesterday, Austrian police released details of Fritzl's secret family and the life he forced them to lead in the cramped cellar beneath his home.

His daughter Elisabeth had seven children in all during her 24 years in incarceration, all of whom were delivered by her father at their house.

Police said that when she had twin boys 12 years ago and one died, Fritzl merely tossed the body in a furnace used to heat the grey concrete villa.

He raised three of the children with his 60-year-old wife Rosemarie, while the remaining three lived with their mother behind a steel security door in the basement.

Apart from 42-year-old Elisabeth, he and Rosemarie had another six children of their own, now all grown-up, making him a father of 14.

Chillingly, details have emerged of a second house owned by Fritzl a mile away. It, too has an excavated cellar with stone bath and a 3ft hacksaw on the wall.

The man police described as "dynamic, bossy and authoritarian" faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of raping his daughter. His victims and wife are receiving psychiatric care at a secret location.

Her oldest child, 19-year-old Kerstin, was still fighting for life in hospital last night. It was her arrival there, suffering from a mystery condition, which led to the discovery of the cellar dungeon.

But the youngest of the freed children, five-year-old Felix, told carers of his joy at the simple pleasure of riding in a car after spending his entire life underground.

"He said how happy he was and how fantastic it was to ride in a real car," said Heinz Lenze, the local mayor.

Mr Lenze says he is convinced that Fritzl acted without his wife's knowledge.

"Is it possible she knew?" he asked. "For me it is beyond imagination that she would knowingly put up with her husband having a new family with their own daughter."

Rosemarie apparently accepted her husband's explanation that Elisabeth had run off to join a religious cult at the age of 18 - and that over the intervening years dumped three babies on their doorstep with notes saying she could not cope.

She and her husband formally adopted the three children - Lisa, 16, Monika, 14, and Alexander, 12 - bringing them up as their own.

The three were apparently unaware of their mother's existence, let alone that their siblings Kerstin, 19, Stefan, 18, and Felix were living below them.

It remains a mystery why Fritzl allowed three children to live a relatively normal existence while the others were kept locked up behind a steel doorway.

Neighbours said the three kept above ground were well-balanced and polite members of the police sports club and voluntary fire brigade.

Elisabeth aged 15 in the last picture before she vanished. Now 42, she has spent more than half her life in her parents' cellar being forced to father her own father's children

Their grandmother, according to many, was a pillar of the community, baking cakes for fetes and becoming an active member of the parent teachers' association at their private school.

One of his sons by Rosemarie has told police that he was "tyrannical" and a "very controlling" man who even in his older years ruled the house with a rod of iron.

Franz Polzer, who is heading the police investigation, said Fritzl was "an extraordinarily sexually potent man".

He added: "If you look at him today, you would hardly believe he was capable of doing these things."

Asked why he thought the four in the cellar had not tried to escape over the years, the detective said they were all physically weak.

"You have to put yourself into the situation of these people. They led a completely different life to ours, they do not know what we know. These children were born into the jail, they knew nothing else."

Elisabeth told police that her father began sexually abusing her when she was 11 and some years later, on August 28, 1984, he sedated her, handcuffed her and locked her in the cellar. When she became pregnant, he delivered the babies.

Social workers admit regularly seeing Josef and Rosemarie Fritzl after they adopted three of Elisabeth's children but insist they had noticed nothing unusual during routine visits.

Jiosef Schloegl, who had responsibility for the adopted children, admitted that rules had been broken because they had been formally handed over to Fritzl without the approval of their missing mother Elisabeth.

He conceded that there had been questions over the whole procedure at the time but it had been finally approved after they found no irregularities.

At Fritzl's other property in the town, 80 miles west of Vienna, neighbours said he bought it several years ago and had initially planned to demolish it and build an office block but planning approval was rejected.

One said: "You would see him two or three years ago with the children and they would play in the garden. Sometimes you would see Josef's grown-up children there too."

News of Fritzl's sickening quarter-century of abuse has stunned a nation still shocked by the scandal of Natascha Kampusch, who was held captive by a paedophile for eight years in a Vienna suburb.

Miss Kampusch yesterday offered to help the victims, saying: "I can imagine that it is very difficult both for the mother of the children as well as for the wife of the perpetrator to get through this."

A sick bastard,I saw the pictures of the cellar and they showed the pics of him in Thailand,smilin in a fucking speedo,from what is said he owned the building and had relatives staying there,how can no one know this stuff including his wife,god I feel for the victim(daughter) and her kids,so sad.

[pledm]

Tenant who lived in incest house for 12 years heard knocking from sex dungeon 'but did nothing'

A tenant who lived above the cellar where Elisabeth Fritzl was imprisoned by her father for 24 years described today how he heard strange noises in the night - and saw Josef Fritzl ferrying wheelbarrows of food under cover of darkness.

Alfred Dubanovsky, 42, who lived in the building in the Austrian town of Amstetten for 12 years, said Josef Fritzl spent his days in the cellar but banned anyone from going near it.

It never occurred to him anything was unusual about his landlord's behaviour but he now says he will regret doing nothing for the rest of his life.

Mr Dubanovsky said: "I wish to God that I could turn back the clock. The signs were all there but it was impossible for me to recognise them.

"Who would ever believe something so terrible was going on right under my feet? It is a regret I will have to live with for the rest of my life."

Apartment: Alfred Dubanovsky rented rooms on the ground floor of Fritzl's home, above

Mr Dubanovsky, who moved out a year ago and still works at a filling station near the house, spoke out after 200 residents held a rainy candle-lit vigil in support of the family in the town square last night.

"The outside world seems to think Amstetten is a terrible town and that people in the community do not care for one another. We want to show this is not true," said organiser Elisabeth Anderson.

He told The Sun: "Herr Fritzl banned any of the tenants of the eight flats from going anywhere near the cellar or back yard.

"He told us the cellar was protected with a sophisticated electronic alarm, and whoever went there would have their contract cancelled without notice.

Fritzl gets a massage on the beach in Thailand as his daughter and three children remain locked up in his cellar back in Austria

"He used to take food and shopping down there in a wheelbarrow - always at night. At other times I remember I could sometimes hear a knocking from the cellar that I couldn't explain.

"I never in my wildest dreams thought he was behind anything like this. He spent every day in his cellar but I thought his behaviour was pretty normal."

Evil: Josep Fritzl after his arrest
He added: "He would fly into a panic at the merest mention of the police or the law. When I moved out there was a dispute over who should pay for repairs to a door.

"I threatened to sue. He went pale and caved in immediately."

It also emerged today that Fritzl, 73, first applied for planning permission for a cellar in 1978, saying it was to protect his family in case of nuclear attack.

"Elisabeth would have been 12 at the time - making it about a year after she says her father started abusing her.

In 1983 he was allowed to extend it to proper living quarters with rooms and running water. It was a year later that Elisabeth - now 42 - says her father lured her into the cellar, drugged and handcuffed her before imprisoning her.

An investigator told The Sun: "Not only did Fritzl build a torture den to rape and assault his daughter - he went through official channels to do it.

"What kind of man follows council building laws to the letter only then to commit such a horrific crime? It shows how methodical and detached he is.

National shame: Villagers in Amstetten take part in candle-light village last night

"The picture we are getting is that Fritzl planned his entrapment for years, maybe as soon as he started raping his daughter.

"We understand that Elisabeth was his favourite child because she was so pretty. He didn't want to lose her when she turned 18 so he spent six years building the dungeon to keep her for himself forever.

"It wasn't just a sudden idea to throw his daughter in the cellar - it was plotted for years."

Details also emerged about the condition of the three children held in the cellar with their mother.

Berthold Kepplinger, head of the clinic where they are being treated, said they could read and write, although not very well.

You know its understandable he thought nothing of it most people do.Years ago when I was in my late 20`s I had a job as a superintendent at this condo,I dealt with alot of things and 3 deaths 1 murder and 2 natural all were very dramatic.But to this day where ever I live if I see a door ajar I knock and see if my neighbour is ok,if I hear a noise I ask the super did he/she.The point is stay alert,if something seems wrong pretty much it will be,oh well,sorry for going on but this story is upsetting to me.

[Bob]

What a horrible story. I feel so sorry for the rest of the family members, especially te captivated daughter and her children who were forced to live in that basement for years. 15 years in prison is not enough for that man, after all, his daughter has had MORE than 15 years of inprisonment together with repeated abuse. He deserves to be locked up and repeatedly raped for the same amount of time as she had to put up with.

[Summer]

I don't think that 15 years is enough either! He needs to pay for what he has done to each of them individually!

[Bob]

This could be a good business idea for him so that he can pay for the damages: