 | | 'Dungeon dad' admits he abused and imprisoned daughter Austrian dad burnt baby in "house of horror"  | Josef Fritz, 73, confessed to beating and repeatedly abusing his daughter since 1984 |
Amstetten, AUSTRIA (AFP) An Austrian man who admitted that he drugged, sexually abused and imprisoned his daughter in a "dungeon" for 24 years also confessed to burning the body of a baby which died at birth, police said Monday.
Josef Fritzl, 73, currently being questioned by police, confessed to having an incestuous relationship with his daughter, to fathering the seven children, one of whom died after birth, and to burning the body of that baby.
Fritzl "admitted building the dungeon and to holding his daughter and three children there," prosecution spokesman Gerhard Sedlacek told AFP.
Fritzl "insisted there was no force involved," said Sedlacek.
"He admitted ... to moving her (into the cellar) by force, hitting her, locking her up against her will and he also admitted to repeatedly abusing this young woman -- his own daughter – sexually," chief investigator Franz Polzer told a press conference.
Elisabeth Fritzl, now 42, alleged she was drugged by her father in August 1984 and was imprisoned in the dungeon-like cramped rooms in a cellar in the family home in Amstetten, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Vienna. |  | "House of horror" The doorway to the underground room in the Fritzl family house Residents of the Austrian town were outraged and shocked as details of what the Austrian press have dubbed "the house of horror" continued to emerge.
"The family never attracted attention. We still can't believe what happened," said Mathilde Streukellner, a pensioner who lives a few blocks from the home of Josef Fritzl and his family.
Hildegarde Huber, a woman in her 60s, said she had visited the "house of horror" after the Fritzls put out a notice for an apartment to let.
"I was looking for a flat for my daughter who has just turned 18," Huber said.
"I was greeted by the wife, and didn't notice anything suspicious. The house seemed to be well-maintained but we didn't take the flat in the end because it was too dark and the furniture didn't fit."
Fritzl's wife Rosemarie "was regarded as an excellent mother who took great care of her children," said Helma Kratsehner, a former classmate of one of the Fritzl daughters.
Maria, 14, a local schoolgirl, said she was "in a state of shock" after learning that one of her former classmates, whose name was only given as M, was one of the three incest children that Fritzl adopted, claiming they were deposited on his doorstep.
"It's terrible," Maria said, describing the Fritzl as a "very nice family," even if M "never talked about his mother."
"We're all speechless here in Amstetten," said Helga Aberger, who owns a sausages stand in the town. | | The "dungeon" Photographs of the rooms, measuring "50-60 square meters in all," with a ceiling just 1.70 meters (5.5 feet) high, according to Sedlacek, were released by police. They showed a well-furnished living area, with sink, shower, a small kitchen area and two small bedrooms.
The cellar was hidden behind a reinforced concrete door which could only be opened with a numbered code. There were no windows and the prisoners' only contact with the outside world were a radio, television and VCR.
This ironically helped Elisabeth escape, after she saw the hospital's appeal on television for more background information on Kerstin and persuaded her father to let her out, Polzer said.
Kerstin was "critical but stable," doctors at the hospital where she was being treated, said, without giving more details. | | Unanswered questions Polzer said there was "a wide range of questions that still need answering" such as how Fritzl supplied the woman and children with food, how the babies were born and cared for in such cramped conditions, and how he could have incarcerated his victims for so long without his wife knowing.
Fritzl legally adopted three of the children -- two boys and one girl -- when they were still babies. He is said to have told his wife Rosemarie, 69, -- with whom he had seven children -- and local authorities that his daughter had left the babies on the doorstep.
Each delivery was accompanied by a letter purportedly signed by her saying she could not support the child because she already had others to care for.
Elisabeth also told investigators her mother knew nothing about the sexual abuse she had endured since the age of 11, some seven years before she was locked away.
The trio went to school as normal, seemingly unaware that their mother and three other siblings were trapped underground. |
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