Woman arrested for keeping daughters captive for years

A Swedish woman who allegedly kept her daughters captive indoors for several years has been arrested.

Police officers suspected that the 59-year-old “restricted her children’s freedom ... for quite a few years”.

One of the now adult children managed to briefly leave the apartment in the small southern town of Bromölla and convince a neighbour to raise the alarm.

She said they had been locked up for more than a decade, according to a newspaper report.

“One of the young women was led out of the apartment – she could barely walk by herself,” an eyewitness said.

One neighbour said: “The blinds were always pulled down there and we haven’t heard any noise from the apartment.”

Investigators were questioning the woman and her children – thought to now be aged 32, 24 and 23 – at a police station in the nearby town of Kristianstad.

Prosecutor Pär Andersson said he would decide on Friday morning whether to release the woman or ask a court to detain her.

The report suggested that the woman had moved her children to different locations over the years in a bid to keep them away from their father.

A man claiming to be the father of the three women told a Swedish newspaper that he had been searching for them for 17 years.

Guardian