Not so much RO as MV - Morbid Voyeurism - another Austrian girl in cellar case

[Martha_Medea]

Not to say I’m not horrified by this story, but rather than launch an expression of outrage I just want to call bullshit on the claim that the wife, who raised three of her “runaway” daughter’s grandchildren, didn’t know, and that the woman gave birth six times unassisted in those conditions.

A 73-year-old Austrian man has confessed to imprisoning his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathering her seven children, police have said.
<snip>
Police have released photos of the man’s basement which showed a concealed network of tiny windowless chambers.
The rooms, covering an area of approximately 60 sq-metres, were equipped for sleeping and cooking, and with sanitary facilities.
<snip>
During her 24-year imprisonment, Elisabeth gave birth to seven children, she said, including twins in 1996. One of the twins died several days later because it had not received adequate care, the police statement said.
<snip>
On Sunday evening, police confirmed they had found the cellar where Elisabeth was allegedly held along with three of her children.
Three other children were adopted or fostered by the suspect. His wife, Rosemarie, appears to have been unaware of the alleged crimes.

OK, one newborn died, but it is truly remarkable that she and her other three children managed to live undetected until the health crisis that resulted in the exposure of this unbelievable situation.

The 19-year-old’s admission to hospital a week ago, after allegedly being hidden in the cellar with her mother and two siblings, sparked new interest in the whereabouts of Elisabeth.

After Kerstin fell ill, doctors appealed for her mother to come forward to provide details about her medical history.

[Martha_Medea]

That should read “daughter’s children”. :smack:

[fessie]

Yaw - wouldn’t those kids be extreeeeemely strange, being deprived in that way? NEVER going outside?

I can’t imagine.

[NinetyWt]

I’ve been mulling over this since the story first broke. Wouldn’t the grandmother have heard the hidden children? I mean, kids are noisy.

And yeah, seven unattended births?

[Zebra]

Seven unattended births with six of the seven living is the weird part.

[Martha_Medea]

Six births - one was of twins, one of whom died.

[Miller]

@NinetyWt

And yeah, seven unattended births?

And no other serious health crisises in 20 years?

[Mama_Tiger]

Apparently the three middle kids were “found” on the father/grandfather’s doorstep one at a time, and he claimed that the mother had left a note saying she couldn’t care for them, so he and his wife were raising them. And they are, by all accounts, surprisingly well-adjusted. But the 19, 18, and 5-year-olds lived in that cellar their whole lives.

The story just gets weirder and weirder.

And who was it who tipped off the authorities that they were there? If he’d kept it secret for 22 years from even his wife, not to mention his neighbors, who found out and tipped them off? One of the freed kids?

[jackelope]

I’ve been reading about this all day, as new facts come out. As for the kids’ being noisy, the BBC reports:

The security chief for Lower Austria, Franz Prucher, said he had been down into the cellar where it was easy to understand how the abuse was not discovered.

“The cellar is very deep,” he said. “There you can cry and nobody will hear, nobody. There you can cry as loud as you can, you can hear nothing.”

Mama Tiger, as for how this all came to light:

The alleged abuse and Mr Fritzl’s apparent double life came to light when the eldest of the children in the cellar, 19-year-old Kerstin, became seriously ill earlier this month and had to be taken to hospital.

A television appeal by medical staff for the patient’s mother was seen by Elisabeth on a TV set in the cellar and she urged her father to let her go to hospital.

Police arrested Mr Fritzl shortly afterwards and took all the children into care.

Apparently his daughter, whom he impregnated six times, refused to talk to the police at all until they promised her that she would never have to see her father again.

What strikes me as odd is that they had a TV down there. These kids, who had never seen sunlight, could actually sit in there and watch TV about the outside world. From the same article:

The region’s district governor, Hans-Heinz Lenze, said he had spoken to the five-year-old boy.

“He even told me how happy he was and how fantastic it was to ride in a real car,” he said.

Amazing. I keep thinking it’s like the horrible flip-side to Blast from the Past.

ETA: There’s a lot in this story that suggests to me that the father was ready for it all to be over. He doesn’t seem to have resisted much, at least not as the stories are reported. He gave the police the passcode to open the door, he told them how he would go to other towns to buy children’s clothing and food, and he appears to have confessed to the entire thing. If he resisted, there’s no indication of it that I’ve seen.

Then again, I don’t know what Austria’s versions of the 4th, 5th, and 6th amendments are like, so maybe the cops just beat it all out of him.