Austrian police are continuing to question a 73-year-old man who has confessed to imprisoning his daughter for 24 years in the cellar of his house, where she allegedly bore him seven children, reports Derek Scallyfrom Amstetten.
The 42-year-old woman who has been named as Elisabeth Fritzl, has told police she was just 18 when her father, Josef, lured her into the cellar of their home in Amstetten, 130km west of Vienna. After drugging her and handcuffing her to a radiator, Fritzl went to the police and registered her as missing.
She was only rarely allowed out of the cellar and appeared to be "extremely psychologically disturbed" when police discovered her on Saturday.
Josef Fritzl gave police details of the 60 square metre cellar in which Elisabeth had been kept yesterday evening including the security code needed to open a set of hidden electronic gates which he had had installed.
Police have released pictures of where the children were kept
Her whereabouts are not known, although it is thought she is with her 18-year-old daughter, Kerstin, who remains critically ill in hospital where she was admitted over a week ago suffering from an unnamed illness. It was Kerstin’s admission to hospital last weekend which began to unravel the 24-year-old mystery.
Fritzl told hospital staff he had found Kerstin in his garden with a note reading: "Please take care of my daughter, she needs urgent medical assistance."
Doctors subsequently issued an appeal for the girl’s mother to come forward and the appeals were broadcast widely on the Austrian media.
Elisabeth had access to a TV in the cellar and is understood to have put pressure on her father to bring her to the hospital to be with her daughter.
During questioning at the hospital, and only after she was assured she would not have to have any further contact with her father, she admitted that she had been living with Kerstin and two other children, 18-year-old Stephan and five-year-old Felix, in the cellar. Three of her other children lived with her parents in the house above.
As well as confessing to locking up his daughter for 24 years and siring the seven children, Fritzl also admitted to burning the body of the seventh child in the heating system when it died soon after birth, head of criminal investigations in the state of Lower Austria Franz Polzer said at a press conference this afternoon.
Fritzl was an authoritarian who took care never to allow anyone near the cellar, Mr Polzer told reporters.
Police 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.
The suspect was expected to appear in court later today.
“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,” Mr Polzer said.
Speaking to The Irish Timesthis morning, chief investigator Hans-Heinz Lenze outlined the sequence of events which led the woman being freed on Saturday. "We take it that the media pressure worked on Elisabeth, who then put pressure on her father to bring her to the hospital. We also take it that the suspect chose a time when his wife was out of the house to free Elisabeth from the cellar. "
Fritzl's wife Rosemarie is understood to have been completely unaware that her daughter had been imprisoned in the cellar or that the three children she was raising as her own were actually her daughter’s children and had been fathered by her husband.
“Considering the circumstances all the children who were living above ground are doing well, said Mr Lenze. “They were very well taken care of.” He said
Fritzl's wife's “whole world has collapsed” and said there was “no indication that she knew anything about what was happening” in the cellar.
He said he had read reports from a social worker who had visited the house and that in the report “the social worker had spoken about how moved she was by how involved the couple had been in the bringing up the children”.
Mr Lenze said the area had “several” rooms, an uneven floor and a “very narrow” hallway. “Everything is very, very narrow and the victim herself, the mother of these six or seven children, told us that this was being continually enlarged over the years.”
The area also contained sanitary facilities and “small hot plates” for cooking. The rooms were at most 5ft 6ins high.
Police said three of the children were registered with authorities and lived with the grandparents. According to the statement, the grandparents had told authorities they had found those children outside their home in 1993, 1994 and 1997, each time with a note from the mother.
In the first letter, Elisabeth had apparently said she already had a daughter and son. In another letter, she said she gave birth to another son in December 2002, according to the statement.
The other three children were apparently held captive in the cellar with their mother, Mr Lenze said.
The results of DNA tests carried to determine today whether Josef is the father of the children are due to be released.
“We are being confronted with an unfathomable crime,” said interior minister Guenther Platter. This is an appalling crime. I know of no comparable case in Austria," Franz Prucher, head of security for Lower Austria told a news conference.