Fritzl teen reunited with family
2008-06-11 14:46
Amstetten - The 19-year-old daughter of Josef Fritzl, whose hospitalisation in April brought to light a shocking Austrian incest case, has been reunited with her family, their lawyer said on Wednesday.
"The family is now very happy to all be together for the first time," lawyer Christoph Herbst told a press conference.
"It was an extremely moving moment for all family members, the family can at last come together."
Kerstin Fritzl, who was born from Fritzl's decades-long incestuous relationship with his daughter Elisabeth and spent her entire life locked up in a cellar with her mother and two siblings, woke up from an artificially-induced coma on June 1 and left the hospital last Sunday, doctors said.
"On June 1, she opened her eyes and showed emotions for the first time, we laughed and she laughed," said Amstetten hospital chief Albert Reiter, adding that Elisabeth Fritzl was able to quickly visit her daughter.
"It was important that the mother came to her daughter's bedside," said Reiter, noting the hospital had managed to keep these visits hidden from the media.
Kerstin, who was brought to hospital on April 19 in an unconscious state, later suffering multiple organ failure, but was now walking again.
A new life
"On Sunday, we brought her to Amstetten-Mauer (clinic), sitting in the ambulance and she walked over the threshold of the new flat, the threshold into a new life," said Reiter.
Kerstin is the eldest of seven children born to Elisabeth Fritzl, now 42, during the 24 years she was sequestered in an underground cell of the family home and sexually abused by her father Josef, 73.
The young woman and two of her brothers, aged 18 and five, spent their entire lives in the cellar with their mother, never seeing sunlight, while three other children born from the incest were brought to live with Josef Fritzl and his wife.
A seventh child died shortly after birth.