On Aug- 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.įor the next 24 years, she was constantly raped by her father, resulting in the six surviving children, she said, according to the police statement. 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.Įlisabeth said her father began sexually abusing her at age 11. 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.Īmstetten police say they were put on Fritzl's trail following an anonymous tip off. Watch police describe the captives' jail » 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. Watch a report on details of the case »ĭetectives 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.Ī 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. He bought food and took it to his captives in the evening. 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. "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 the prison was hard to find, even if someone was looking for it, and had been soundproofed. The entrance was via a small door, hidden behind cupboards in the basement, controlled by an electronic keyless-entry system. 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. 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. She went missing in 1984, when she was 18 years old, police have said. 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.Įlisabeth 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.Įlisabeth is described as "very disturbed" and having trouble talking to police about her ordeal, reports CNN correspondent Fred Pleitgen. 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?įritzl 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. "The mother had memories and got used to the situation," Polzer told a press conference Monday afternoon. 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.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |