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27 Apr ‘Austrian man kept daughter in cellar for 24 years’
Reports in Austria said police are investigating claims that a man held his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years and may have fathered seven children by her.
Detectives say the woman, identified only as Elizabeth F, had been missing since August 29, 1984.
Now aged 42, Elizabeth was apparently found after a tip-off to police. Her 73-year-old father, Josef F, is being held in custody. The case came to light after one of the children, a teenage girl, was taken to hospital in the town of Amstetten.
The youngster, Kerstin F, was said by police to be "gravely ill". Elizabeth and five other children are now being looked after by the local authorities. It has emerged the seventh child was a twin who died shortly after birth.
Police sources said Elisabeth F. told her interrogators that her father began sexually abusing her when she was 11 and that he locked her up in a room in the cellar on August 28, 1984.
During the 24 years that followed, she said she had six children by him. In 1996, she gave birth to twins but one died several days later. Josef F removed the body and burned it.
Police said Elisabeth F. only agreed to talk after the authorities promised she would not have see her father again and the children would be taken care of. The six surviving youngsters - three boys and three girls - are said to be aged between five and 20. DNA tests are being carried out to determine whether Josef F. is the father.
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