AUSTRIA:A RETIRED Austrian engineer has admitted fathering seven children by a daughter he held captive in a hidden cellar for 24 years.
Police in the Austrian town of Amstetten revealed yesterday how Josef Fritzl (73) managed to live a bewildering double life, convincing his wife, children and the authorities that his missing daughter, Elisabeth, had run away to join a cult aged 18.
In fact he had imprisoned her in a windowless, soundproofed cellar below the house, sexually assaulting her on a regular basis and leaving her to raise three incestuous children.
Upstairs, Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie raised a further three children whom he claimed Elisabeth had abandoned on their doorstep.
"By and large, the case is solved," said Franz Polzer, head of the criminal investigations unit in the province of Lower Austria.
"The suspect admitted to committing repeated sexual assaults and violent attacks, but it is not clear why he chose his 18-year-old and locked her in the cellar against her will."
Although the investigation is at an early stage, police have dubbed the Fritzl case "without equal" in Austrian criminal history.
"It shatters the entire framework of what we have known until now," said Franz Prucher, a local police chief.
"He fooled his family, he fooled the authorities, he fooled the judiciary."
At a heated 90-minute press conference yesterday, investigators insisted the confession meant the case was solved.
They dismissed testily journalists' queries about how Rosemarie Fritzl could have known nothing of her husband's frequent trips to the cellar and his regular shopping trips for his secret family.
"This woman had no idea, he kept everything from her. You have to realise that this woman's world has fallen apart," said Hans-Heinz Lenze, a local senior official.
Questioning of the suspect continued yesterday ahead of an evening court appearance; DNA test results have yet to confirm the paternity of the six children.
Fritzl was rigorous about keeping his second life secret. The cellar of the building he owned was out of bounds to everyone but him.
The small entrance to the hidden chamber was hidden behind a bookshelf. Only he knew the code for the remote control to open the electric lock.
He forced Elisabeth to write letters to her parents to reinforce his story that she had run away to a cult. Between 1993 and 1997 he forced her to write three letters asking her parents to take care of three infants.
Social worker reports speak of the couple's "moving devotion" to their young charges.
Police told another story yesterday, after a baby born in the cellar, a twin, died shortly after birth 14 years ago.
"The suspect confirmed that he disposed of it in the incinerator, he just burned it," said Mr Polzer. "It all speaks volumes about his intelligence and his calculating and ruthless nature."
Fritzl's crimes began to unravel 10 days ago when the eldest of Elisabeth's children, 19-year-old Kerstin, began suffering painful cramps, causing her to pass out. Fritzl gave in to Elisabeth's begging and brought her to the local hospital.
"We had no medical records or other information," said Dr Albert Reiter, the doctor on duty at the time. "The grandfather said the woman was deposited with serious cramps in front of his house. We considered that strange so we contacted the police."
The authorities put out a search for Kerstin's mother through the Austrian media and, as the young woman's conditioned worsened, Elisabeth reportedly convinced her father to allow her visit the hospital last Saturday.
An increasingly desperate Fritzl presented the 42-year-old ashen-faced, white-haired woman to perplexed hospital staff as his errant daughter. He said she had returned from her cult.
After leaving the hospital late on Saturday night, the two were detained by police, who had received an anonymous tip-off.
In the Fritzl home, police found the other two children, Felix (5) and Stephan (18), and a distressed Rosemarie Fritzl.
Police began questioning Elisabeth and, after assuring her that she need never see her father again, she began to tell her story.
She is now in psychiatric care, as are her children.
Police say the three children who lived above ground are "in wonderful health".
Kerstin is in a medically induced coma in a critical but stable condition and Felix and Stephan in "good health considering their ordeal in the cell".
"The five-year-old was very cheerful yesterday," said local official Hans-Heinz Lenze.
"He told me how good it felt to drive in a car on Saturday to a real place."
The incident has revived memories in Austria of the case of Natascha Kampush, who escaped after eight years of captivity in 2006.
Yesterday she offered emotional and financial help to Elisabeth Fritzl and her children.