Background: Austrian captives

Lower Austria police said in a statement that the 42-year-old woman, identified as Elisabeth F, who had been missing since August 29, 1984, was found by police in the town of Amstetten on Saturday evening following a tip-off.

Franz Polzer, head of the Lower Austrian Bureau of Criminal Affairs, told reporters that the 73-year-old father, identified in a separate police statement as Josef F, had been taken into custody.

"It is one of the most remarkable criminal cases in Austria," Polzer said.

Timeline

• Elisabeth F went 'missing', aged 18, in 29 Aug, 1984. In a statement to police Elisabeth alleges that her father sedated and handcuffed her in a basement room on this date.
• Elisabeth tells police that he subsequently repeatedly raped her and went on to father six children with her. She alleges Josef F began sexually abusing her when she was 11.
• The search for Elisabeth was called off after Josef and his wife Rosemarie received letters at their address from Elisabeth asking for them not to search for her. Letters arrived every following month, seemingly from Elisabeth but allegedly written under duress.
• Three children were left on the doorstep of Josef and Rosemarie's home in 1993, 1994 and 1997. All three were accompanied by notes allegedly from Elisabeth saying she could not cope with the raising of the child. They were subsequently raised by Rosemarie and Josef.
• On 19 April, another of Elisabeth's children, Kerstin aged 19 is found at the parent's apartment block. She is unconscious and a note accompanies her from Elisabeth, asking for Kerstin to be taken care of. She is taken to local hospital.
• The hospital calls for Kerstin's mother to come forward to reveal more about her medical history. Kirsten remains in serious condition in hospital.
• Josef F 'frees' Elisabeth and two other children, aged between 5 and 18. He tells wife Rosemary that Elisabeth had decided to return to them.
• After questioning and being assured she would have no contact with her father, Elisabeth makes a "comprehensive statement".
• Austrian police detain Josef F on Saturday 26 April 2008.
• Father tells police how to enter a secret basement room via a hidden door using a secure entry code. Police say they find a series of rooms, including cooking and cleaning areas in the windowless basement.
• Rosemarie, Elisabeth and her children continue to receive psychological counselling. DNA samples of all those involved are taken and analysed, police say.

Police statement

"We found behind the first entrance door in some kind of work room there is a small, very small door, where you have bend your head (to get through). Behind that there is a very narrow corridor and then some rooms which were used for sleeping, where you could cook on small hot-plates and there you also have some sanitary (installations).

"The whole thing is somehow integrated in the usual cellar. It (the floor) is not level. It goes up and down, that is what the investigators told me. Everything is very, very narrow and the victim herself, the mother of these six or seven children, told us that this was being continually enlarged over the years.

"It is one of the most remarkable criminal cases in Austria, of which details came to light towards midnight.

"We now know that a mother did not abandon her child, which was brought in a critical condition to hospital, but we know that she herself was held captive for 24 years in a cellar by her father, and furthermore, was also the victim of sexual assault, sexual abuse that led to this woman, who is today 42 years of age, bringing six children into the world in captivity.

"They all apparently share the same father."

- Franz Polzer, head of the Lower Austrian Bureau of Criminal Affairs

Natascha Kampusch

The story has echoes of another Austrian child hostage, Natascha Kampusch who escaped in 2006 after being held for eight years.

In an extraordinary television testimony, the abducted Austrian teenager Natasha Kampusch gave an interview about her captivity.

She was composed and mature in the interview and the long-awaited television appearance of the girl who spent eight years in captivity had Austria enthralled.

7 Sep 2006: Austrian hostage TV interview

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