Austrian wife clueless of daughter's captivity: Interview

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In an exclusive television interview with The Associated Press, a woman who identified herself as Josef Fritzl's sister-in-law provided intimate details of the oppression inside the Fritzl home, describing him as a "tyrant."

The woman, who has pictures of herself with the family, asked only to be identified as Christine R. to avoid public attention and throngs of journalists seeking interviews.

Christine R. painted the most complete picture to date of her sister Rosemarie and her belief that daughter Elisabeth ran away from home as a 17-year-old to join a cult. That was about six months before police say she was locked into the windowless cellar.

"We spoke about it often when we met," the woman said of her 68-year-old sister. "And I would say, 'Rosemarie, where can Elisabeth be-' I even told her myself, she is definitely in a cult where you can only have a certain amount of children, or they don't want sick children."

The sister, 12 years Rosemarie's junior, recalled searching for Elisabeth in train stations and where homeless people hang out. "We really did detective work all around as to where the cult could be," Christine R. said.

But why was the cult story so easily accepted- Such questions have puzzled Austrians, who have grappled with whether Rosemarie might have had knowledge of the crime.

Police say they have no evidence that Rosemarie was complicit in her husband's alleged atrocities. They say the 73-year-old electrician confessed to the imprisonment, fathering his daughter's seven children and incinerating the body of one of the children who died in infancy.

Christine R. described Josef Fritzl as a "tyrant" who instilled a culture of fear at home, which helped him create an elaborate cover story that no one questioned of Elisabeth running away to join a cult and abandoning three children on their doorstep. He was just as tough on his wife as the children, she said.

"When he said it was black, it was black, even when it was 10 times white," said the woman, who was interviewed Saturday evening at her home in Austria. "He tolerated no dissent.

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