Dad Kept Daughter In Cellar 24 Years

Austrian Police Say Elderly Man Held Daughter Captive, Allegedly Fathering Several Children By Her

(AP)  A woman has told police that she was held prisoner in a cellar for almost 24 years by her father, who repeatedly raped her and fathered at least six children.

Lower Austria police said in a statement that the 42-year-old woman, identified as Elisabeth F., had been missing since Aug. 29, 1984. She was found by police in the town of Amstetten on Saturday evening following a tip.

Franz Polzer, head of the Lower Austrian Bureau of Criminal Affairs, told reporters that the 73-year-old father, identified in a separate police statement as Josef F., had been taken into custody.

In a chronology of events outlined in a statement, police said a letter written by Elisabeth F. had apparently surfaced a month after her disappearance asking her parents not to search for her.

Police said that, during questioning, Elisabeth F. told them her father began sexually abusing her when she was 11. Police said she alleged that he sedated, handcuffed and locked her in a room in the cellar on Aug. 28, 1984 in the Lower Austrian town of Amstetten.

During the 24 years that followed, she said she was continually abused by her father and gave birth to six children, the statement said. In 1996, she said she gave birth to twins but one died several days later because it was not appropriately cared for; police are investigating. Josef F. had then apparently removed the corpse from the cellar and burned it, the police statement said. It was not immediately clear if the twin who allegedly died was included in the police tally of the number of children.

On Sunday evening police said investigators found the area where the woman had been held captive along with three of her children.

In an interview with Austrian broadcaster ORF, Polzer said the area had "several" rooms and a "very narrow" hallway.

Police found it after Josef F. gave them a code to unlock a hidden door, Polzer said.

On its Web site, ORF reported that the rooms also were very narrow and at most 1.7 meters (5.6 feet) high.

Police picked up Elisabeth and her father on Saturday close to the Amstetten hospital after they received a tip.

According to the police statement, Josef F. had freed Elisabeth and two of her three children from the cellar, and had told his wife that she had come back to them. The third child in the cellar, Kerstin F., was found unconscious on April 19 in the apartment building where the grandparents live, along with a note from Elisabeth asking that she be taken care of. She was then hospitalized.

Police said Elisabeth F. appeared "greatly disturbed" psychologically during questioning. She agreed to talk only after authorities assured her that she would no longer have to have contact with her father and that her children would be cared for.

One of her children, identified as 19-year-old Kerstin F., is currently hospitalized in Amstetten in very serious condition.

Police said three of the children were registered with authorities and lived with the grandparents.

According to the police statement, Josef F. and his wife, Rosemarie, 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 F. 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, Polzer told reporters in broadcast remarks.

"Elisabeth F. taught them how to speak," Polzer was quoted as saying by the Austria Press Agency.

The agency quoted police as saying Josef F. has been arrested but had not confessed.

The agency also quoted Gerhard Sedlacek, a spokesman for the public prosecutor's office in St. Poelten, as saying that the surviving children — three boys and three girls — are aged between 5 and 20.

DNA tests are expected to determine whether Josef F. is the father of the children.

Sunday's developments are reminiscent of the case of Natascha Kampusch, which shocked Austrians less than two years ago.

Kampusch was 10 years old when she was kidnapped in Vienna on her way to school in March 1998. She was held for the next 8 1/2 years by Wolfgang Priklopil, who largely confined her to a tiny underground dungeon in his home in a quiet Vienna suburb. Priklopil threw himself in front of a train just hours after Kampusch's dramatic escape on Aug. 23, 2006.

[toughone6]

how can this things be happening in this day and age. I feel so sorry for this poor girl. Her whole youth stolen from her. because of this dispicable sick man.
" what about her mother where was she"

[tyeland3]

he''s a very horride man

[boxcar1231]

Like the coward that he is he will probably kill himself before justice can be done

[mercyme884]

If anyone believes there is an iota of truth in newspapers or on television news you are very naive or truly dumb. To believe all the trash you read and hear from the media today is suicidal and truly sad to realize this is what our children are learning from their parents. A hint, read the stories and then wait for the truth to come out, it may eventually.

[jetlizhan]

this man stole his daughter''s life - sick evil b@st@rd. i hope he never sees the light of day again.

[pandagold]

What I am waiting to hear is how the wife explains that in all that time, she did not know, and condone, what was going on.

Also, whether the police accept the explanation.

They have shown a picture of the daughter, who is now a woman. It did not say when the picture was taken, but she looked quite young, very pretty, and quite happy.

From the photo, whatever she is said to have ''suffered'', it did not show. Shee looked happy and healthy.

When we get the full story perhaps all will be revealed, and explained.

[cusefanjapan]

here''''s nothing humane about humanity, never has been, never will be.

Posted by dragonwagon5 at 06:47 AM : Apr 28, 2008
-----------------------------------------------------
Couldn''t have said it better. We are worse than the animals we often accuse each other of being.

[mergatroid_4]

You think this is bad? A couple hundred people with thoughts like this in their heads isn''t too bad, I suppose. Go back to Alexander the Great, and read what the masses were like on a daily basis and, ... yikes!

Over the last four thousand years humanity is getting better, overall. Not perfect, no. But we are getting better, and will continue to get better if the Democratic constituency can be brainwashed back to normalcy. Lethal threats Democrats think like Dodo birds, and would die if not for men and women with their heads and eyes looking forward.

[excoachken]

Sounds like a basic 1-man, Texas style, cult in old Wien.

[pandagold]

If some contributors appear cynical of any news report, it has been made understandable from the many
distortions of truth we have come to detect, and now expect, from the media in all its forms.

We were force fed for a long time with the belief we had a free press. Reality, and truth, is seeping through.

While so much of the ''misinformation'' has been centred on the political news, unfortunately, it has a spill over effect into other areas to where everything dished up by media is suspect.

If the media in general, and I do not confine it to CBS, wish to restore faith from the public, then it has a lot of rethinking to do. It can start with considering the old adage - ''you can fool all of the people some of the time.............'' The media knows the rest.

In respect of this particular story, it does defy credulity. But then, in a world of over six billion, and growing, people, and a news coverage that never sleeps, the odds are that some very weird ''goings on''
are bound to turn up from time to time.

[ahrats]

This Guy should spend the rest of his life like he treated those he held. A small room with no light or ventilation and see how he likes it. His wife is either supid or just let him have his way and should recieve the some punishment.

[formrusmcsgt]

What can be said other than observing that the man defines depravity?

[nonayabiness]

I would find it hard to believe that anyone would willingly be locked in a basement for 24 years, unseen by the public, while bearing several children.
I would also find it nearly impossible to believe that in 24 years the wife never once entered the cellar or that there were no repairs, etc. I think both parents might be responsible for this horrible abuse, the father for actually doing it, and the mother (his wife) for allowing it to be covered up. JMHO, based on this story.

[sear1ngtruth]

"Human nature has traversed the highest spire and deepest abyss.
And yet at times the depth of its depravity still astonishes even me.
Posted by Humanavance at 12:26 AM : Apr 28, 2008"

"When one cannot understand human nature, and the socialist causes of which they render their most deplorable crimes against each other, than that person has lost all wisdom."

[termtex01]

"Are we sure she wasn''''t on a Christian Compound in Texas?

Posted by FloydZepp at 04:34 AM : Apr 28, 2008"

We''re sure. She was in a country that promotes socialist and liberal policies, just like the rest of Europe, and the Democrats.

[alaughasorus]

Sounds like next weeks line up for Howard Stern...

[bequialife]

to: pfd572 - you watch. It is all a farce, like the Durham Dirt Bag who accused the rugby team of rape, and the Rocky Mountain White trash, who said Kobe raped her..you watch.

[pfd572]

bequialife: You are also disturbing. Are you the type of human who blames everything on the victim? Or just female victims? She sure would have to be a spectacular houdini, manipulator and biological miracle worker. The story on CNN, MSNBC has stated that they have matched the DNA of the father with the hospitalized daughter/granddaughter. The cellar rooms are real, the locked doors are real, the children are real. What do you think, she was some kind of co-conspirator with her father? Why do people like you find it necessary to denounce the facts? Does this hit close to home? Are you so distant from humanity or so cynical that you can''t feel empathy? You are a very sad, little person.

[bequialife]

This sounds like rubbish. Probably a disturbed woman seeking attention.

[deacon20081]

I hope the old man ends up in a Dark Cold Cell with no windows or light for the remainder of his life.