Good God - this story beggers belief.

[Notalone]

How could this have been allowed to happen?

uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080427/tts-uk-austria-abuse-62c696a.html

I was quite shocked to see the house on the news. I was expecting an isolated farmhouse, but it was an apartment block with a shared entrance, right on the street.
how on earth something like this could have been kept secret in a place like that is staggering

On the news it said that the basement was so far down, that you would never hear any screaming or shouting.

Such wickedness really is incomprehensible. He could have died at any time and they would all have starved to death. And he chose to risk that. And was happy to let a child die, presumably because of not having access to medical help.

Re his wife, I don't think you can over-estimate the power of denial. It is an extraordinarily strong self-defence mechanism.

This is one of the most disturbing and confusing stories I can remember. Is there any doubt as to the truth of it? In a way, I hope so, as the thought of those children and their mother locked away from the sunshine for 20 years and denied all human contact except regular sexual abuse is just too sickening.

Littlebella, I was just going to say the same. Makes me feel sick to think of what would have happened if anything had happened to him while they were locked down there.

what worries me is what if this wasnt his only celler sick bastard that poor woman and her children

Have you seen the pictures of the cellar? There are little drawings and star shapes and things stuck up on the walls - it's so sad - all those years growing up (Elisabeth too) with no sunshine or fun.

the five year old might have some chance of a childhood with a lot of help but the poor older ones never will,i dont beleive the wife never knew how could she not?

me too! of course she bloody knew

It is nigh-on impossible to manage these circumstances without outside help. I haven't seen what he did for a living, or what "support" network he had, but this will undoubtedly be a community thing. Where folks 'knew' something was dreadfully wrong,if not the detail, but either facilitated it, or chose to not ask questions.

whats with the picture with the story here?!

we are getting a bit confused on some of the details. The father started raping Elisabeth when she was 11. When she was 18 and presumably ready to leave home, he lured her into the cellar on a pretext and locked her in. The cellar had an electronic safety mechanism which could only be opened using a code. The wife would have had no access to the cellar which was not under a detached house as such but below the apartment building. I think it is quite possible she had no idea what went on down there.

The father reported Elisabeth to the police as missing and spread the rumour she had got involved in a sect. She gave birth to 7 children as a result of his repeated rapings. Kerstin (19), Stefan (18) and Felix (5) lived with their mother in the prison-cellar. One died shortly after birth due to lack of medical care. Three dc born after Stefan were "found on the doorstep" with a note supposedly from Elisabeth saying she could not bring them up. Who knows how but the dp brought them up as foster/adopted dc, managed to send them to school etc without any official body showing any interest, beggars belief.

According to the police, it seems that thankfully none of the grandchildren were raped.

When Kerstin became dangerously ill she was admitted to hospital and that is how it all came out.

Lisa (15), Monika (14) and Alexander (13) lived with their grandparents

One of the most terrifying aspects of all is that he appears to be the only person who knew about the cellar. He's in his 70s, and could easily have popped his clogs leaving his prisoners to starve to death.

Incomprehensibly evil.

How was Kerstin admitted to hospital? Presumably he was involved?

I don't understand really Buda.I've just read that a gravely ill teenager "was found" in the apartment building where the grandparents lived. How found? THat the hospital requested the mother to come forward because it would help them analyse what was wrong with the girl. Acting on a "tip" they arrested the grandfather and Elisabeth near the hospital.

according to the BBC on a timeline article she was admitted to hospital but no comment on how she got there and after that the grandfather released Elisabeth and her two other dc from the cellar, telling his wife that Elisabeth had decided to return home. Apparently she was in so much fear of her father that she did not dare say anything.

I don't know who tipped the police off. Presume the grandfather and Elisabeth were on their way to visit Kerstin in hospital when they were apprehended and questioned.

It is all so very strange SSSandy.

It makes you wonder how many other poor women there are locked away as sex slaves by maniacs in our society, doesn't it Buda? Horrific. Trying to imagine spending the entire 19 years of your life locked away in 60square meters with 3 other people. Don't know what is worse, never having known the world outside like those 3 dc or having known it for 18 years and then being locked away for 24.

BBC: "It was the doctor treating Kerstin who first raised the alarm.

Albert Reiter said that he found it strange that she had been found unconscious outside the building where her grandparents lived, and he alerted the police."

The father must have carried her out and left her in the street outside the house then. The Austrian police say he shows no remorse.

No remorse? What a totally evil bastard.

so the basement was actually under an apartment building as opposed to just underneath a house? They did say on the news that the cellar was so deep that no cries would ever have been heard, so it's quite conceiveable that this could have happened without anyone else's knowledge.

As for the three children that the family raised, apparently the mother would write letters to explain why she was unable to take care of them, so the wife would have been convinced by those? esp if it was the kind of family where the man was the head of the house etc and controlled what went on there.

And i think it's naive to think that she wouldn't have given birth without outside intervention - women in the third world have been doing it for centuries.

theysaidthe basement was slowly made bigger over the years, and sanitary facilities added.

so no one noticed that he ordered a bathtub, a sink, and a toilet, that then never turned up in any of the household toilets? what about who did the plumbing? or did he attach the toilet to the sewage works all by himself?
the icture of that bathroom showed a samall,but clean colourful, well kept place. cleaning products, and groceries for four people cost a lot of money. they dont just appear out of no where. someone somewhere would have noticed, and i think the entire community is to blame. not just the sick bastard who did this

wannabe, women in the third world have not been giving birth on their own. their is, except in extreme circumstances, always a midwife present. this midwife may not have gone to medical school, and may not have the sort of qualifications the western hopitals would recognise, but if she manages to lose many of her patients, then she wont be practising midwifery for much longer.
and that is not counting the mother, sisters, aunts, daughters,and other women who will be on hand to help.

however, in this case i do beleive that it is not outside teh reams of possibilty that she did give birth alone.
the sick bastard.