Father Confesses to Horrific Crime (most.horrifying.story.ever)

[Wretched Excess]

this story has been developing for a few days;  I am trying to catch up to it, but this sounds
like the most horrifying story ever.

Father Confesses to Horrific Crime

He held his daughter prisoner and abused her for decades. In the most spectacular kidnapping and incest case in Austrian history, a man has confessed to having held his daughter hostage for 24 years and siring seven children with her.

A man believed to have held his daughter captive in a basement for 24 years -- along with three of their children -- reportedly confessed his crimes to police on Monday.

Josef F., 73, "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," Franz Polzer, head of the Lower Austrian Bureau of Criminal Affairs, told the Associated Press. "He also admitted that he had burned one of the children in the building's furnace." The infant apparently died several days after birth because it had not been given proper care.

With a confession now in hand, Polzer told the media that investigators were also looking at other factors in the case which might implicate other people. Who provided for the kidnapping victims? he asked. How were the infants in the basement cared for?

Three of the children lived upstairs with F. and his wife, though his wife says she knew nothing about the incest because of an elaborate story Josef F. had spun. The other three children were forced to live with their mother in the windowless cellar, which had apparently been laid out at the time the home was built. The complex had a floor area of 80 square meters (about 860 square feet) and included a kitchen, several sleeping areas, a bathroom and a padded cell.

"We are confronted with an unfathomable crime," Austrian Interior Minister Günther Platter said. Coming less than two years after another Austrian, Natascha Kampusch, escaped from a similar dungeon where she had been held for eight and a half years, many in the stunned country are asking how a crime like this could have happened again.

Following his arrest on Saturday, Josef F. is being held on remand, and a DNA test is expected to confirm whether he is the childrens' father. Meanwhile, 42-year-old Elisabeth F. and her children are being given psychiatric treatment.

The Austrian news agency APA has reported that neither the mother nor her children had been provided with any medical care during their years of imprisonment. The suspect is believed only to have provided his victims with clothing and food.

Neither Josef F.'s wife, nor the three children living upstairs, have admitted to knowing about the dungeon. When F. took his daughter hostage he built an elaborate maze of lies, saying Elisabeth had run off to join a cult. He later placed three of their children at the door upstairs -- at least one with a note from their mother, claiming she had abandoned them and asking for help in raising them. Josef F. and his wife registered these children without local authorities detecting any foul play.

The three children who lived upstairs were in normal health, according to police.

link

[Wretched Excess]

more details.  my God, I can't believe this isn't the lead international story in all 
major news outlets.

Cellar father refuses to explain

Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who is accused of keeping his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years, refuses to answer further questions, police say.

They said he had signed a statement admitting imprisoning and raping his daughter and fathering her seven children, but refuses to explain.

The daughter, Elisabeth, has told police she was sexually abused even before being incarcerated.

The case of the 73-year-old Josef Fritzl has drawn world media attention.

Describing the "abominable events" as linked to one individual case, Austria's Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer said he planned to launch an image campaign to restore the country's reputation abroad.

Psychiatric tests

Franz Prucher, head of police in Lower Austria, said police would be investigating whether Mr Fritzl had committed any further crimes.

"We have to bring light to every aspect of the suspect's life. It is our duty to investigate the concurrent circumstances that made it possible that such crime, which shocked all of us deeply, could happen," he told a press conference in Amstetten.

Mr Fritzl faces up to 15 years in prison if he is convicted of raping his daughter, among other offences.

   

Officials are also considering charges of "murder through failure to act" which carries a longer sentence, in connection with the death of one of the seven children he fathered with Elisabeth.

Mr Fritzl has admitted to disposing of the body of the newborn in an incinerator shortly after the birth.

His lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, has told the BBC his client will undergo a series of psychiatric and psychological tests.

He says the tests will be crucial in determining the extent of Mr Fritzl's guilt and his penalty.

"This case certainly requires a thorough psychiatric and psychological examination. We need to establish if he can be considered responsible for his actions," Mr Mayer told BBC News.

Children playing

Elisabeth and three of the children were held captive in a windowless cellar under the family home.

Mr Fritzl's alleged crimes came to light when Elisabeth's eldest daughter Kerstin, 19, became seriously ill.

Lower Austria police chief Franz Polzer describes the cellar

She was allowed out of the cellar and admitted to hospital in Amstetten.

Police then issued an appeal to Elisabeth Fritzl to contact them about her daughter, and later picked up Mr Fritzl and Elisabeth near the hospital.

Kerstin remains in a coma, and doctors describe her condition as serious but stable.

The other children who were not confined to the cellar lived an apparently normal life with Mr Fritzl as his "grandchildren" in the upper sections of the same house.

Officials said Elisabeth, now 42, and two of the three children who had lived with her in the cellar - the 18- and five-year-old brothers - had an "astonishing" reunion with her other children on Tuesday.

They are now being cared for in a psychiatric clinic in Amstetten-Mauer. Berthold Kepplinger, the director of the clinic, said their psychological state had stabilised:

"The young people can play, they can run around, they have their personal toys, they have everything that they are used to, and a number of our team are looking after them and are caring for them."

link

[Wretched Excess]

I know I am bouncing around a bit on this story chronologically as I search for details, but this is just . . . unspeakable. 

Dungeon children speak in animal language

The Austrian children kept in a cellar for their entire lives speak their own language using animalistic noises rather than words.

Stefan Fritzl, 18, and his brother Felix, five, learned to talk by watching a television in the dungeon where they were held with their mother Elisabeth Fritzl, 42. But their form of communciation is only partly intelligible to Austrian police officers.

Police chief Leopold Etz, 50, who has met the two boys, said: “It is only half true that they can speak. They communicate with noises that are a mixture of growling and cooing.

“If they want to say something so others understand them as well they have to focus and really concentrate which seems to be extremely exhausting for them.

“Felix prefers to crawl but he can walk upright if he wants.”

Dr Berthold Kepplinger, who examined the brothers at a neuropsychiatric clinic near their home town of Amstetten, said: “They communicate between each other but this is far from a normal way of expressing oneself.

“Their mother taught them to read and write a bit but Elisabeth had lost much of her childhood knowledge after her imprisonment from the age of 18.

“They had no books and the main source of education was the television.”

When he was rescued Felix pointed to the moon, which he was seeing for the first time, and said: “Is that God up there?”

He then made excited gurgling noises when he saw a cow.

Doctors said that since he emerged from his prison he is constantly excited and keeps trying to hit the air with his hand.

When he saw the sun for the first time he was even more excited than when he discovered the moon.

He made a squeaking noise and tried to look directly at the sun. When he realised he couldn’t he kept covering his face with his hand.

When police took him in a lift at the hospital he was petrified and clung on to his mother as the floor moved.

Police said he was stunned when one officers started talking into a mobile phone.

Felix was also excited about the police officer's mobile phones. He was stunned by the ring tones and even more when one of the policemen used his mobile phone to talk.

The youngster also often hums an unknown tune to himself which police believe his mother used to get him to sleep.

Stefan and Felix’s sister Kerstin, 19, became ill in the dungeon and is in a coma.

All three have weakened immune systems, are suffering from vitamin D deficiency and are anaemic.

None of them had ever been seen by a doctor or a dentist and Kerstin has already lost most of her teeth.

The low ceilings in their prison left them all with cramped physical posture.

Elisabeth has aged so much she looks like a sister to her mother Rosemarie, 68.

Austrian psychotherapist and university professor Rotraud Perner said: “A lot will depend on what the children have been told, whether the mother explained to them their life in captivity.

“They may have created their own illusory world. However, a normal life could be possible for them.”

The children will need to wear sun-block cream as their skin gets used to sunlight.
link

[Wretched Excess]

this story has gotten to me.  I don't see how this guy got away with something of this
magnitude for such an incredibly long period of time.

Austrian police probe Fritzl 'murder link'

Police are investigating whether the Austrian Josef Fritzl was involved in the murder more than 20 years ago of a young woman who bore an “incredible” similarity to the daughter he was already holding captive in his own cellar.

Mr Fritzl, 73, has already confessed to having fathered seven children by his daughter, Elisabeth, now 42, after locking her in a home-made dungeon under the family home in Amstetten in 1984.

Officers revealed today that they were searching for a possible connection between Mr Fritzl and the murder of Martina Posch, 17, who was found near the shore of a lake in western Austria two years later.

Ms Posch disappeared from her home on November 12, 1986, and her tied-up body was found ten days later on the Mond Lake, near the spot where Rosemarie Fritzl, 68, Josef's wife, had a campsite and guesthouse.

Police at the time believed that the murder had a sexual background, as the girl appeared to have suffered a sexual assault before she was murdered.

Inspector Alois Lissl of the Upper Austria police said that the investigation was made more difficult by the fact that sophisticated DNA collection techniques had not been developed at the time of the crime, making it hard to cross-check any evidence.

He told Times Online that a witness statement obtained this morning suggested that Ms Posch could have been picked up in a car by an unknown person, but that person appeared to be younger than Mr Fritzl.

"We are investigating the possible connection, but at this stage the probability is not very large," he added.

more

[DixieBelle]

I know WE. It's just mind boggling. I really can't fit this much evil in my head. I just can't. There are so many questions!

[Wretched Excess]

I know WE. It's just mind boggling. I really can't fit this much evil in my head. I just can't. There are so many questions!

this is as difficult to grasp as the abortion artist, except this one is obviously true.  I know better than to ask if they have the death penalty in austria.

[Miss Mia]

This is really a horrific story.  Man, I can't imagine never going outside.

[Wretched Excess]

I was speachless when this story broke... 

....children raised in dungeons to adulthood NEVER seeing the light of day or anyone but their mother and a devil

...a poor mom, thinking her daughter ran away... not knowing that she was being tortured in their basement for decades by her husband

...the poor woman....

All we can do is pray and hope that some way, some how, it might be possible these people will one day find peace, joy, love, and serenity... it just might not be possible 

at least it is over now.  this is something you expect to see at a movie, MAYBE, and a bad one at that.

[Wretched Excess]

The scary thing WE, is this ISN'T the first time in recent history, a horror like this was discovered in Austria.  I think it was just last year when they discovered a guy kidnapped a young girl and kept her caged for a decade or so.

I missed that one.  I am trying to refrain from making a gratuitous and overly general statement about the country that gave us hitler, because I know I am just angry right now.

[Miss Mia]

The scary thing WE, is this ISN'T the first time in recent history, a horror like this was discovered in Austria.  I think it was just last year when they discovered a guy kidnapped a young girl and kept her caged for a decade or so.

You know, a few years ago, in Hutchins, TX these parents locked up their daughter in a closet.  She was in there for years.  When CPS got her out, it was covered in feces and urine and they had hardly fed her or anything all those years. 

The worst part of the ordeal, was that when the woman had the baby she had given it up for adoption.  And this nice family had taken her in and loved and cherished her.  Then a year or so later (I don't remember all the details) she contested it to get the girl back.  Then she proceeded to lock her up.

The one happy thing in this whole story, is that the original family got that girl back.  Now she's with a family that'll treat her right and love her like she should always have been. 

[DixieBelle]

The scary thing WE, is this ISN'T the first time in recent history, a horror like this was discovered in Austria.  I think it was just last year when they discovered a guy kidnapped a young girl and kept her caged for a decade or so.

I missed that one.  I am trying to refrain from making a gratuitous and overly general statement about the country that gave us hitler, because I know I am just angry right now.

I know. I'm just flabbergasted and upset.

I have a friend who lived in Austria. She said the Viennese people were generally hostile to visitors and didn't care for foreign residents much.

There's also been several stories of Austrian women having multiple babies, killing them, and burying them in their yards.  One woman killed 8!  I'm not sure what the problem is there....

She told me that the Austrians had a general dislike of children and were mean to hers on several occasions.  They took their dogs into restaurants and fed them at the table, and then elbowed one of the kids in the face and trampled them in crowds without even an "I'm sorry!"  She once had to shove a man for a seat on the tram when she was 8 months pregnant.

Her obstetrician was known as Dr. Abortion because in a Catholic country that didn't allow abortion, he did them by the dozens.  He even tried to talk me her into one because she was 36 and had two kids already.

I'm not generalizing about the country either but you do the math.

I'm guessing too that because Austrian people stay to themselves and don't get to know their neighbors, it allows things like this to go on.

[delilahmused]

I'm just having the hardest time wrapping my mind around this story. The fact that the guy will only serve 15 years. I mean I know he's 73 but the idea the 15 years is the maximum. And how the heck could the wife not know? Wouldn't she notice that those kids looked uncannily like her husband and/or her daughter?

Cindie

[DixieBelle]

Oh. My. God. Words. Fail. Me.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23481334-details/Tenant+who+lived+in+incest+house+for+12+years+heard+knocking+from+sex+dungeon+'but+did+nothing'/article.do

More details have emerged - read link

[jtyangel]

I'm just having the hardest time wrapping my mind around this story. The fact that the guy will only serve 15 years. I mean I know he's 73 but the idea the 15 years is the maximum. And how the heck could the wife not know? Wouldn't she notice that those kids looked uncannily like her husband and/or her daughter?

Cindie

I'm with you Cindie...I simply...I haven't commented because I just can not imagine such a thing.

Dixie, I had to do a pretty extensive paper on Austria and their cultural..umm..norms. I concur with some of the attitudes you have mentioned, although they are painted far more 'frilly' in writings, but it's not hard to read between the lines of what is being said.

[Chris_]

I was speachless when this story broke...  

....children raised in dungeons to adulthood NEVER seeing the light of day or anyone but their mother and a devil

...a poor mom, thinking her daughter ran away... not knowing that she was being tortured in their basement for decades by her husband

...the poor woman....

All we can do is pray and hope that some way, some how, it might be possible these people will one day find peace, joy, love, and serenity... it just might not be possible  

^^^That one don't add up....I ain't buying.  Even DUmmies aren't that stupid.

[jtyangel]

I was speachless when this story broke... 

....children raised in dungeons to adulthood NEVER seeing the light of day or anyone but their mother and a devil

...a poor mom, thinking her daughter ran away... not knowing that she was being tortured in their basement for decades by her husband

...the poor woman....

All we can do is pray and hope that some way, some how, it might be possible these people will one day find peace, joy, love, and serenity... it just might not be possible 

^^^That one don't add up....I ain't buying.  Even DUmmies aren't that stupid.

Neither do I...I mean almost a quarter of a century and she doesn't even go down to look? I'm guessing the 'mother' has been turning a blind eye in forever to protect her lifestyle...her daughter had been being molested apparently since she was 11...several years before she was imprisoned. YOu have to work to be that oblivious.

[Chris_]

I was speachless when this story broke... 

....children raised in dungeons to adulthood NEVER seeing the light of day or anyone but their mother and a devil

...a poor mom, thinking her daughter ran away... not knowing that she was being tortured in their basement for decades by her husband

...the poor woman....

All we can do is pray and hope that some way, some how, it might be possible these people will one day find peace, joy, love, and serenity... it just might not be possible 

^^^That one don't add up....I ain't buying.  Even DUmmies aren't that stupid.

Neither do I...I mean almost a quarter of a century and she doesn't even go down to look? I'm guessing the 'mother' has been turning a blind eye in forever to protect her lifestyle...her daughter had been being molested apparently since she was 11...several years before she was imprisoned. YOu have to work to be that oblivious.

...and how did three "grandchildren" suddenly appear and live with them if the daughter "ran away"?

[Miss Mia]

Oh. My. God. Words. Fail. Me.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23481334-details/Tenant+who+lived+in+incest+house+for+12+years+heard+knocking+from+sex+dungeon+'but+did+nothing'/article.do

More details have emerged - read link

It just gets worse and worse.

[DixieBelle]

From what I can piece together - the mother may be senile and the three children that he allowed to live upstairs (that he fathered *shudder*) were passed off as "dumpees". He told everyone (and I assume the wife as well) that the daughter was involved in a cult/drugs/something along those lines and that she would show up on their doorstep for a very brief amount of time with a newborn and then leave. Also, the cellar was concealed so it's entirely possible for someone to not know it's down there. But, I don't buy into the wife not knowing SOMETHING. There is so much more to this.

[Chris_]

There's more...

'Second man' at Austrian cellar

A lodger at the Austrian house where a father allegedly imprisoned and abused his daughter says he saw another man go to the cellar where the abuse happened.

Alfred Dubanovsky told the BBC the man was introduced as a plumber.

His claim contradicts those of investigators who say the father, Josef Fritzl, had no accomplice.

[Wretched Excess]

Oh. My. God. Words. Fail. Me.

link

More details have emerged - read link

It just gets worse and worse.

Even if he is convicted of the worst offence of rape, he can only be jailed for a maximum of 15 years - nine years less than the sentence he inflicted on his own daughter.

unbelievable.

[DixieBelle]

^Yes, their liberal penal system is coming back to haunt them.

[Chris_]

I can't believe it... there's more.  This guy was convicted of rape and only served 18 months.

Police files revealing that Josef Fritzl had previous convictions and charges for rape emerged today as his victims came forward to speak about their ordeals.

Officials in Linz, Upper Austria, found files from 1967 showing that Fritzl was a known sex offender. His record contains a conviction for a rape and an attempt rape as well as an arrest for public exposure.

Fritzl served only 18 months for the rape, allegedly because a judge considered he should be reunited with his wife and four children.

Amstetten police and prosecutors had claimed that Fritzl had no criminal record. Even if he had been convicted, they said, Austrian law demanded that all records on sex offences are destroyed after ten years.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3861227.ece

[Wretched Excess]

I can't believe it... there's more.  This guy was convicted of rape and only served 18 months.

Police files revealing that Josef Fritzl had previous convictions and charges for rape emerged today as his victims came forward to speak about their ordeals.

Officials in Linz, Upper Austria, found files from 1967 showing that Fritzl was a known sex offender. His record contains a conviction for a rape and an attempt rape as well as an arrest for public exposure.

Fritzl served only 18 months for the rape, allegedly because a judge considered he should be reunited with his wife and four children.

Amstetten police and prosecutors had claimed that Fritzl had no criminal record. Even if he had been convicted, they said, Austrian law demanded that all records on sex offences are destroyed after ten years.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3861227.ece

oh
my
God.

when will this story hit bottom?

[Chris_]

Another lodger knew about the children.     Includes a weird description of the Fritzl's home.

A lodger who once lived in Josef Fritzl’s House of Horrors claimed yesterday that he had known that the Austrian electrician was sexually abusing his daughter Elisabeth.

Sepp Leitner, who lived in Mr Fritzl’s house for four years in the early 1980s, said in a television interview that a female neighbour had told him that her friend Elisabeth had been raped by her father.

According to Mr Leitner, the neighbour even helped Elisabeth to run away to Vienna but the teenager was tracked down by police and brought back to Amstetten at her father’s behest. “Elisabeth was repeatedly raped by her father. She could not take it to live at home anymore and tried to escape,” Mr Leitner told the Austrian private television channel ATV.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3863885.ece