Police in Amstetten, Austria are investigating a 73-old-man who they say held his 42-year-old daughter prisoner in a cellar for the last 24 years. Police also allege the man, identified only as Josef Fritzl, fathered seven children with his daughter, Elisabeth Fritzl, one of whom died at birth.
Details remain sketchy, but it appears that the case began to unravel on April 19, when one of the imprisoned children, 19-year-old Kerstin Fritzl, fell seriously ill. According to police, Josef took Kerstin to a local hospital for treatment. He allegedly informed hospital staff that Kerstin was his granddaughter and that her mother had been missing since 1984. However, unbeknownst to Josef, Elisabeth had hidden a note on her daughter, alerting hospital staff that she was being held captive in her father's basement.
While police investigated the case, the hospital issued a public appeal, asking that Elisabeth's mother come forward to help them diagnose Kerstin's ailments. Elisabeth saw the televised appeal Saturday and somehow convinced her father to take her to the hospital. As those events began to unfold, police reportedly received the results of DNA tests that the hospital had conducted which revealed that Kerstin's grandfather was also her father. Shortly thereafter, police intercepted Josef and Elisabeth en route to the hospital.
According to police, Elisabeth appeared "greatly disturbed" and would agree to speak with authorities only after they promised her that she would not have to have any further contact with her father. Once satisfied with the reassurances that she received from the authorities, Elisabeth began to recount a story which police would later refer to in the press as "one of Austria's all-time worst crimes."
Elisabeth told police investigators that her father had started sexually abusing her after her eleventh birthday. The abuse continued on a regular basis and, in 1984, when she reached the age of 18, her father lured her into the basement, where he handcuffed her and locked her inside a room. He later force her to write a note to her mother that stated that she had run off and that her parents should not bother looking for her.
Josef Fritz spent the next 24 years controlling every aspect of his daughter's life. She remained in the basement the entire time, suffering from abuse and repeated rapes, which resulted in the birth of seven children, six of whom survive today. The seventh child, whom Josef allegedly disposed of in an oven, died at birth.
Police say Josef's wife had no knowledge that her daughter was being held in the basement, despite the fact that she was raising some of Elisabeth's children. Police say that Josef had placed each of those three children on the front steps of the house immediately after their births, along with a note that he had allegedly forced Elisabeth to write, stating that she had left the children there because she was unable to raise them herself. The other three children, including Kerstin, were kept locked in the basement with their mother.
"The description [Elisabeth] gave was beyond the belief of the police officers leading the investigation," police spokesman Colonel Franz Polzer told a press conference Monday afternoon. "He pressured her physically to keep her there and sexually abused this young woman, his own daughter, over many years. The result of his criminal activities has been to break this woman.
"This case knows no precedents or comparisons in Austrian history, but I would like to say that in other countries terrible things have happened, as well."
When police searched the basement of Josef's home, they discovered a door with an electric lock. After obtaining the code from Josef, they were shocked to discover several rooms, many of which were less than five-and-a-half feet high. The rooms included a kitchen, a bathroom, and sleeping quarters. Another room, described as a dungeon, with padded walls, was also found in the basement. Police say the walls of the rooms were sound proof, making calls for help futile.
Josef Fritzl is currently being held in police custody, pending the outcome of the investigation. Elisabeth and two of her children, who were held captive with her in the basement, are being treated at a psychiatric hospital. Kerstin remains in a coma. Further details have not yet been released.