Austrian man undisputedly world's most evil dad

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Elisabeth Fritzl, now aged 42, had been missing since August 29, 1984. Josef Fritzl, a 73-year-old retired electrical engineer, "admitted building the dungeon and to holding his daughter (Elisabeth) and three children there," Gerhard Sedlacek, the prosecution spokesman said.

Fritzl also confessed to incest "but insisted there was no force involved", the spokesman added.

In what Austrian media have branded "The House Of Horrors", Fritzl had imprisoned his daughter and three of the children in the 60 square meter (645 sq.ft.) wide and no more than 1.7 meter (5ft. 6in.) high cellar which also contained a padded cell, in his nondescript and commonplace two-storey home in Amstetten, Austria as reported by the officials.

The two oldest children, Kerstin, 19, Stefan, 18, and the youngest Felix aged 5, are said to have been locked up with their mother since birth in three cramped windowless basement rooms. They spent their entire lives in the dungeon until being freed at the weekend. All three of them are pale and emaciated. Their eyesight may be permanently damaged. The three have recorded in their statement that they "never saw sunlight".

The other surviving three children Lisa, 15, Monika, 14, and Alex, 12, lived a relatively normal life above ground with Fritzl and his duped wife Rosemarie. They were totally oblivious of their nearby siblings and the fact that their father was also their grandfather.

Fritzl also admitted to burning the body of a seventh child in the incinerator when it died soon after birth.

As the nation reels over a crime which critics said should "drown the community in shame", horrified and disgusted police chief Franz Polzer said, "This is one of the worst cases in Austrian criminal history. We've never seen anything like it before. It's beyond comprehension. The suspect was very authoritarian and in control of those around him. Nobody dared go against his word. There was no escape."

As the house yielded its grim secrets, police said, "It's impossible to imagine their suffering."

Authorities finally got access to the area comprising a narrow hallway and several rooms after Fritzl told them how to unlock a hidden door using a code only he had known. He told Elisabeth and the children that the whole cellar was booby-trapped with explosives.

Fritzl dug out much of the high basement with his hands making regular trips to suppliers for materials. Over the years it was cobbled together and extended. The single entry was through the 3X2ft keyless concrete door concealed by a shelf filled with cans of paint.

Inside, at the end of a narrow 15ft passage there were tiny bedrooms, a cramped bathroom and cooking area and toilet facilities. The only window on the outside world was a TV and video recorder. There was foam insulation throughout to sound-proof any noise made by the captives. A report even said that the basement also contained a padded cell.

Fritzl went out at night to buy groceries for the cellar inhabitants and banned his wife and the other children from entering the basement. He then passed the food through a hatch which was cooked on small hot plates.

Polzer stated, "We're not talking about a prison designed to hurt its prisoners, but something built to fulfill their basic human needs. He got planning permission and gradually built the various rooms in which the children were born and lived."

Now the Austrian police are investigating for answers on how a father managed to imprison a daughter in a windowless cellar for 24 years and have seven children by her without authorities and neighbors knowing. The house itself is situated in a busy street with shops and it is bewildering how everything passed unnoticed for so long even when Fritzl built extensions to the cellar.

But as Fritzl's son-in-law Juergen Helm, 36, said, "I've been in the cellar. I had no idea that a few meters away this family were living. It's incredible," it can be that superficially Fritzl appeared just like an authoritative normal man though the ground reality was rather hard-hitting.

The current case comes less than two years after another Austrian teenager, Natascha Kampusch, escaped after being seized as a child and locked up in a basement for eight years.

Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, says her father lured her into the cellar in 1984 and "drugged and handcuffed" her before imprisoning her.

The whole episode unfolded when the eldest of the children fell seriously ill and was taken to hospital with severe cramps caused due to lack of oxygen. Doctors appealed for her mother to come forward to give details of her medical history.

Fritzl brought Elisabeth and her remaining two children out of the cellar, telling his wife their "missing" daughter had chosen to return home, police said. His wife did not know what happened to her daughter when she disappeared. Fritzl told her that Elisabeth had joined a sect and that she had left the three children on the doorstep. He forced Elisabeth to handwrite letters to prove his claims, a police official stated.

Elisabeth instead agreed to make a thorough and comprehensive statement to the police after being assured that she would have no further contact with her proverbial "father" in which she laid bare the mental, emotional and physical torture she had to bear for each and every day of the 24 prolonged years she was imprisoned. DNA tests are being carried out to determine whether Fritzl is the father.