Austrian police trawl for evidence in "horror house"

The case unfolded when a 19-year-old girl -- the oldest of the three -- became seriously ill and was hospitalised, prompting doctors to appeal for the girl’s mother to come forward to provide more details about her medical history.

Fritzl then brought Elisabeth and her remaining two children out of the basement, telling his wife -- who thought their "missing" daughter had chosen to return home, police said.

Elisabeth agreed to make a "comprehensive statement" detailing her ordeal to the police after receiving assurances she would have no further contact with her father, who she said abused her from the age of 11.

"This is not a mother abandoning her child who had to be admitted to hospital in a serious condition," Franz Polzer, head of the criminal investigations unit in the province of Lower Austria, told broadcaster ORF.

"We know that she herself has been kept imprisoned by her own father for 24 years in the basement and furthermore she obviously was also subjected to sexual abuse."

Newspaper headlines called the case the "crime of a monster" and the "worst crime of all time". Media asked how authorities and residents of Amstetten, 130 km (80 miles) west of Vienna, could have failed to notice what was happening in the "horror house".

SHAME

The case was especially shocking because it was reminiscent of that of Austrian Natascha Kampusch who spent eight years locked up in a windowless cell before escaping in August 2006.

"The community of Amstetten should drown in shame ... The neighbours are turning a blind eye," the Oesterreich newspaper wrote in an editorial.

The daily Der Standard wrote: "The whole country must ask itself what is really, fundamentally going wrong."

Police have said they believe Josef’s wife Rosemarie had been unaware of what happened to her daughter when she disappeared in 1984 and it was assumed Elisabeth had left voluntarily when her parents received a letter from her saying they should not search for her.

But all the while Elisabeth was being held in what Polzer described as a sophisticated network of chambers with facilities for sleeping, cooking and washing.

Elisabeth gave birth to seven children, one of whom died shortly after being born, police said.

Three of the younger children were brought up by Josef and his wife after they were left at the building where the couple lived. The first child was accompanied by a note from Elisabeth saying she was unable to care for the baby herself.

Three others, including the two eldest aged 18 and 19, and the youngest, aged 5, had been locked up in the basement with their mother since birth.

After Elisabeth and her children emerged, Josef, a trained electrical engineering technician, told investigators how to enter their basement prison through a hidden door operated by secret code, police said.

"There was a shelf with plenty of cans and containers, and behind the shelf was a door made of reinforced concrete, secured electronically and running on steel rails, and only the suspect knew the code," said local official Heinz Lenze.

Rosemarie, as well as Elisabeth and her children, were receiving psychological counselling. DNA samples of all those involved were taken and would be analysed, police said.

(Writing by Karin Strohecker; Editing by Charles Dick)