Austrian incest dad Josef Fritzl's children reunited

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April 30, 2008 08:52am
THE two families of a man who kept his daughter as a sex slave in a secret basement for 24 years have had an "astonishing" reunion.

"They met each other on Sunday morning and it is astonishing how easily it worked that the children came together," Berthold Kepplinger, medical director of the Provincial Clinic of Lower Austria, said today.

"The children are quite well," Dr Kepplinger said.

In a case that has shocked the world Josef Fritzl's daughter Elisabeth, 42, emerged from the windowless basement where he had locked her up 24 years ago, while telling his wife the then 18-year-old had joined a cult.

Fritzl told his imprisoned daughter that the cells he kept her in were booby trapped.

It also emerged Fritzl was convicted for a previous sexual offence and allegedly spent time in jail, The Times reported.

His son-in-law, Juergen Helm, 36, said he lived in the house for three years and had no idea people were imprisoned there.

"I was even in the cellar on at least one occasion. It was scattered with junk and I had no idea that a few metres away this family were living," he told online newspaper the Austrian Times.

The reunion between Elisabeth and her mother Rosemarie had been "astonishing", Berthold Kepplinger, medical director of the Provincial Clinic of Lower Austria, said yesterday.

Elisabeth had seven children to Fritzl while in captivity, with three offspring adopted by Fritzl's regular family, his wife her seven children, in their Austrian town of Amstetten.

Fritzl claimed Elisabeth's children had been found on the doorstep with notes from their mother saying she couldn't look after them.

A baby died but three of Elisabeth's other children, a daughter aged 19 and two sons aged 18 and 5, were kept in captivity, without seeing sunlight and without proper education leaving the children largely illiterate.

Elisabeth's daughter, whose medical condition alerted authorities to the shocking situation is in hospital but the two boys joined Elisabeth for the family gathering yesterday.

Around 200 residents of Amstetten, the town where Fritzl constructed his "house of horrors", held a rainy candle-lit vigil in support of the family in the town square.

"The outside world seems to think Amstetten is a terrible town, and that people in the community do not care for one another. We want to show this is not true," organizer Elisabeth Anderson said.

Austria's justice minister presented a Bill yesterday to strengthen the country's "victim protection law", particularly in matters of sexual abuse.

Dr Kepplinger said his clinic had a school where Elisabeth's children could be educated as part of their recovery process, and the three who had been locked up in the cellar could read and write, although not very well.

The reunion between Elisabeth and her mother Rosemarie had also been "astonishing", Kepplinger said.

DNA tests confirmed that Fritzl, a 73-year-old retired electrical engineer, was the father of all six surviving children his daughter had born, police said.

Prosecutors were now investigating him over the death of the seventh child, whose remains he had burnt in a furnace, and said he could be charged in connection with the child's death.

"Josef F. is being investigated for murder by failing to render assistance," prosecutor Peter Ficenc said, adding that the pensioner was also being investigated for rape, incest and coercion.

Detectives were still combing the 60sqm cellar beneath Fritzl's home, Franz Prucher, head of security in Lower Austria, said.

"Down there it is just chaos at the moment. We have to go over every detail very carefully," Mr Prucher said.

Fritzl appeared before a judge in St Poelten, the provincial capital of Lower Austria, yesterday, and was ordered to be held in detention while police inquiries continued.

Officials said Fritzl said nothing on the advice of his lawyer. He was calm and had been put in a cell where he can be monitored in case he tries to commit suicide.

Elisabeth Fritzl says her father lured her into the cellar in 1984 and drugged and handcuffed her before imprisoning her.

Her fate came to light when the 19-year-old daughter became ill and was taken to hospital.

Doctors appealed for her mother to come forward to give details of her medical history.

She was stable but critical yesterday, in an artificially induced coma and breathing with a ventilator.
"Our patient is in a severely life-threatening condition which resulted from a lack of oxygen caused sometime between Wednesday and Friday when she was admitted," Doctor Albert Reiter said.

The case has shocked Austrians less than two years after teenager Natascha Kampusch escaped from the basement near Vienna where she had been locked up by an abductor for eight years.

"There are a million unanswered questions," investigator Mr Polzer said.

"How could he manage to live with what he had done? How did he fool everyone?"

He said he did not blame authorities for missing the case.

"Fritzl was a very cunning man. He not only fooled his wife, but officials, the police, everyone."

Fritzl brought Elisabeth and her remaining two children out of the cellar after the young woman was admitted to hospital, telling his wife their "missing" daughter had chosen to return home.

Elisabeth and three of the children were kept in a complex which was in some places no more than 1.7m high and contained a padded cell, according to authorities.

Photographs show a narrow passage leading to rooms that included a cooking area, with children's drawings on the walls, a sleeping area and a small bathroom with a shower.

Fritzl was due to appear before a magistrate last night to be remanded in custody.

Experts said Fritzl had a "power complex" and other psychiatric disorders.

He appeared to have been driven by narcissism and a need to exercise power over others, said Austrian psychiatrist Reinhard Haller.

"(He) must have been insane and must have felt he was far superior to others," he said.

Court psychiatrist Sigrun Rossmanith said Fritzl essentially had two personalities: "the underground one, and the one that existed above".

"He was obviously a ruler. If the cellar was taboo for his wife and (other) children, and they heard that over and over, then they didn't dare to check on anything," she said.

To deter Elisabeth from trying to escape, Fritzl reportedly told her the dungeon was booby trapped to explode.

Fritzl's wife, Rosemarie, with whom he had seven children, appears to have been unaware of the crimes, police said.

The abuse came to light when one child, Kerstin, 19, was taken to hospital. She is now believed to be in a coma.

Three of Elisabeth and Fritzl's children, aged five, 18 and 19, have been locked up since birth, and had never seen sunlight.

- news.com.au with AFP and Reuters