Ever see the movie Oldboy? Well, the plot to this real-life story is easily 1,000 times more horrific. A 73 year old Austrian man was arrested this weekende, accused of holding his daughter hostage in a windowless basement cell for 24 years, raping her and fathering seven children, three of which he ‘adopted” to live with he and his wife upstairs.

From the New York Times:

AMSTETTEN, Austria — Austrian police have arrested a 73-year-old man who they say kept his daughter locked in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her, three of whom never emerged into daylight from their prison until now.

The lurid nature of the alleged crime, first reported on Sunday, so horrified the Austrian press that the local media on Monday dropped usual procedures of withholding the full names of defendants in criminal cases. They identified the man as Josef Fritzl, an electrical engineer. The name matched the nameplate on the door of the defendant’s home in this quiet Austrian town.

Mr. Fritzl, who was arrested on Sunday, had initially kept silent but has now said he is prepared to confess to the crimes and give an account of his actions over the past 24 years, Franz Polzer…

Mr. Fritzl’s daughter, identified by the police as Elisabeth, was released by her father last week after her eldest daughter, 19, became ill and was taken to a hospital. She had for several years suffered from severe attacks of convulsions. After she had been taken to hospital, her mother spoke to doctors and Mr. Fritzl was picked up by police over the weekend. The authorities said the daughter still in serious condition.

Elisabeth, 42, told the police that in 1984, her father drugged, handcuffed and dragged her into a basement, accessible only through a hidden door with an electronic code. She said she spent close to the next quarter-century imprisoned there, a constant victim of sexual abuse and incest by her father.

Elisabeth gave birth to seven children during that time, one of whom died shortly after birth, the police said. Her father ordered her to give up three of the children, who were then adopted or cared for as foster children by Josef and his wife, Rosemarie, the mother of Elisabeth.

The police said Rosemarie apparently did not know of her daughter’s ordeal, believing that she had left the children on her parents’ doorstep because she was unable to care for them herself. When Elisabeth disappeared in 1984, her father claimed that she had written a letter asking her parents not to search for her.

Three of the children born in the basement — now 19, 18 and 5 — never left it, the police said.

When Josef brought Elisabeth and the others out of confinement to go to hospital, he told his wife that their “missing” daughter had returned. He is in police custody, charged with abduction and incest. Elisabeth told the police that she had been sexually abused by her father from the age of 11.

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Tags: 24 years | 7 children | abuse | austria | austrian | Elizabeth | engineer | fortytwo | hostage | incest | Josef Fritzl | rape | seven | twenty four

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