AUSTRIA:AUSTRIAN POLICE are questioning a 73-year-old man suspected of imprisoning his daughter for 24 years in the cellar of his house, where she allegedly bore him seven children.
The 42-year-old woman, reported by Austrian wire services to be named Elisabeth Fritzl, said 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, he 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.
The 24-year-old mystery, with echoes of the Natascha Kampusch case, began to unravel a week ago when Kerstin, Elisabeth's 19- year-old daughter, was admitted to hospital with an unnamed rare disease.
Josef 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."
Suspicious hospital staff alerted the police and when they called at Josef's home on Saturday, they found Elisabeth.
During questioning she admitted living with Kerstin and two other children, 18-year-old Stephan and five-year-old Felix, in the cellar.
Three other children lived with her parents in the house above.
"Starting in her early teens, she was sexually abused by her father, which resulted in several pregnancies," said chief investigator Franz Polzer yesterday. "As far as we know, the 73- year-old's wife and the three children had no contact with the 42-year-old woman and the other children."
Police were unable to find any secret rooms in the cellar of the three-storey apartment block, where Josef Fritzl kept a workshop and forbade other tenants from entering. Yesterday he showed police the switch which made a heavy bookshelf slide to one side, revealing three windowless rooms behind.
When his daughter disappeared in 1984, Josef Fritzl told his neighbours she had run away to join a cult, returning in 1993, 1994 and 1997, only to leave three young babies on their doorstep.
"He said she left notes that she already had three children and couldn't raise any more," said one neighbour. The six children, three boys and three girls, are now aged 19, 18, 15, 14, 12 and five years old.
Police expect DNA test results which are due this morning will prove or disprove suspicions that they are all the result of Josef's incestuous relationship with his daughter. Five-year-old Felix is believed to have a twin brother who died shortly after birth. Police claim Josef removed the tiny body and secretly burned it in the garden. "We spoke to the suspect for about an hour this afternoon," said a police spokesman yesterday. "He said he is very sorry for his family about the case."
Shocked neighbours leaned out of their windows yesterday, watching police teams and news and television crews milling around the house. "We saw him regularly with the three children," said a neighbour. "They were very well behaved."