Thaindian News

Josef Fritzl, who had imprisoned his daughter in a cellar for decades and had seven children from her, pleaded guilty to incest, imprisonment and a charge of assault at his trial in Austria. About entering a plea on a rape charge, he replied, “Partly guilty.”

Fritzl was charged in November with incest and repeated rape of daughter Elisabeth over 24 years. He is also charged with murder of a child he had with Elisabeth who died soon after birth due to lack of medical care. In the opening statement prosecutor Christiane Burkheiser gave damp-smelling things from the cellar where Elisabeth and her children were locked up to give the jury an idea about how life was for them. It is expected that Fritzl will spend the rest of his life in prison.

The case was first discovered when Elisabeth’s daughter Kerstin first became seriously ill and had convulsions. She then forced her father, Josef, who had also fathered Kerstin, to take the teen to a hospital for treatment. At the hospital, suspicious staff alerted the police who then found the family in the cellar. Fritzl said during interrogation that he had indeed committed incest with Elisabeth, fathered the children and then burnt the dead infant in an oven inside the house. Elisabeth said she was sexually assaulted by her father from age 11 and when she turned 18 he took her to the cellar, drugged her and kept her locked there.

Fritzl confessed he had forced Elisabeth to write a letter saying she wa running away from home when his wife was questioning the disappearance of Elisabeth. Eisabeth lived with three children in the cellar. The others were dropped at the doorstep of the house by Josef who told his wife that the missing Elisabeth had come to drop her children at their door. Meanwhile he threatened Eilsabeth and the other three children with gas and booby traps if they tried to escape.