Incest victim in a coma
2008-04-30 14:39
Amstetten - The young woman whose hospitalisation triggered the discovery that her family had been imprisoned and terrorised for decades was struggling for her life on Wednesday, as authorities weighed the future of her five siblings.
Kerstin Fritzl's condition was critical but stable, authorities said. The 19-year-old is one of seven children Josef Fritzl fathered with his daughter, who was held captive for 24 years in a dingy dungeon beneath his home.
Kerstin, who is in an induced coma, is undergoing dialysis because of the effects of lack of oxygen. She was brought to the hospital unconscious and later suffered seizures. The fate of her family came to light after doctors, mystified by her ailment, publicly appealed for her mother to come forward because they needed her medical history.
Authorities were providing little information about Fritzl, 73, who has confessed to locking up daughter Elisabeth since she was 18 and repeatedly raping her. He said he incinerated the body of one of her children, who died in infancy.
Leopold Etz, chief of homicide for Lower Austria province, said authorities were confident that Fritzl acted alone.
He said DNA tests confirmed that no other man entered the soundproof cellar rooms Fritzl made into a prison below his home.
Elisabeth "never said that her mother was in the cellar", Etz said.
'Who is Josef Fritzl?'
Amid the sordid details, precious little has been revealed about Fritzl's life or what led him to commit such a crime.
He was born April 9 1935, in Amstetten, a working-class town 120kn west of Vienna. He owned a number of properties in the region and paid his dues at the fisherman's club. Beside that, most neighbours or townsfolk remember only an affable, if unremarkable, fellow.
"Who is Josef Fritzl?" state broadcaster ORF asked in an online article. "All of Austria is asking this question, if not the entire world. What type of life did he previously lead, where did he work, how did he appear in public?"
It compiled a brief biography:
After mandatory schooling, Fritzl studied electric engineering at a polytechnic school and got a first job with steel company Voest. From 1969 to 1971 he worked for a construction material company in Amstetten, where he gained a reputation as an intelligent worker and a good technician. Then he went into the service industry and took over an inn 15 years ago.
Etz said a police team was further investigating Fritzl's past, adding that it could take weeks to develop a clearer profile.
Elisabeth, Rosemarie and the other five children, remained in psychiatric care on Wednesday. Clinic direction Berthold Kepplinger said on Tuesday they were doing "quite well" under the circumstances in the care of a team of specialists.
Authorities, meanwhile, were deliberating the future of Kerstin and her two brothers, aged five and 18, who effectively have no identities. Officials have discussed the possibility of providing new names to the children.
Who provided the tip?
He said Elisabeth has spoken "quite a lot" about what she went through in captivity, but he declined to provide details. "It was definitely dreadful for her and for her children," Kepplinger said.
The case started unfolding on April 19 when Kerstin was found unconscious and was taken to a hospital. After receiving a tip, police picked up Elisabeth and her father on Saturday. Fritzl freed the captive children the same day.
One remaining question is who provided the tip. Authorities have declined to comment.
- AP