For 24 years, this man held his own daughter captive in a secret underground room, where she was repeatedly raped and gave birth to seven of his children

 For 24 years, this man held his own daughter captive in a secret underground room, where she was repeatedly raped and gave birth to seven of his children. After giving birth, he would bring the children upstairs to live with him and his wife. 

In August of 1984, Josef Fritzl called his daughter into the basement of the family’s home. He was re-fitting a door to the newly renovated cellar and needed help carrying it. As Elisabeth held the door, Josef fixed it into place. As soon as it was on the hinges, he swung it open, forcing Elisabeth inside and knocking her unconscious with an ether-soaked towel.

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The Fritzl case emerged in 2008, when a woman named Elisabeth Fritzl (born 6 April 1966) told police in the town of Amstetten, Lower Austria, that she had been held captive for 24 years by her father, Josef Fritzl (born 9 April 1935). Fritzl had assaulted, sexually abused, and raped his daughter repeatedly during her imprisonment inside a concealed area in the cellar of the family home.

The abuse resulted in the birth of seven children: three of them remained in captivity with their mother; one died shortly after birth and was cremated by Fritzl; and the other three were brought up by Fritzl and his wife, Rosemarie, having been reported as foundlings.

Josef Fritzl was arrested on suspicion of rape, false imprisonment, manslaughter by negligence, and incest. In March 2009, he pleaded guilty to all counts and was sentenced to life imprisonment

On 19 April 2008, Fritzl agreed to seek medical attention after Kerstin, Elisabeth's eldest daughter, fell unconscious. Elisabeth helped him carry Kerstin out of the chamber and saw the outside world for the first time in 24 years. He forced her to return to the chamber, where she remained for a final week.

 Kerstin was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, the Landesklinikum Amstetten, and was admitted in serious condition with life-threatening kidney failure. Fritzl later arrived at the hospital claiming to have found a note written by Kerstin's mother. He discussed Kerstin's condition and the note with a doctor, Albert Reiter. 

Medical staff found aspects of Fritzl's story puzzling and alerted the police on 21 April. The police broadcast an appeal on public media for the missing mother to come forward and provide information about Kerstin's medical history. The police reopened the case file on Elisabeth's disappearance. Fritzl repeated his story about Elisabeth being in a cult, and presented what he claimed was the "most recent letter" from her, dated January 2008, posted from the town of Kematen. The police contacted Manfred Wohlfahrt, a church officer and expert on cults, who raised doubts about the existence of the group Fritzl described. He noted that Elisabeth's letters seemed dictated and oddly written.

Elisabeth pleaded with Fritzl to be taken to the hospital. On 26 April, he released her from the cellar along with her sons Stefan and Felix, bringing them upstairs. He and Elisabeth went to the hospital where Kerstin was being treated on 26 April 2008. Following a tip-off from Reiter that Fritzl and Elisabeth were at the hospital, the police detained them on the hospital grounds and took them to a police station for questioning.

Elisabeth did not provide police with more details until they promised her that she would never have to see her father again. Over the next two hours, she told the story of her 24 years in captivity. Elisabeth recounted that Fritzl raped her and forced her to watch pornographic videos, which he made her re-enact with him in front of her children in order to humiliate her. Shortly after midnight, police officers completed the investigation. Fritzl, aged 73, was arrested on 26 April on suspicion of serious crimes against family members.

During the night of 27 April, Elisabeth, her children and her mother Rosemarie were taken into care. Police said Fritzl told investigators how to enter the basement chamber through a small hidden door, opened by a secret keyless entry code. Rosemarie had been unaware of what had been happening to Elisabeth.

On 29 April, it was announced that DNA evidence confirmed Fritzl as the biological father of his daughter's children. His defence lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, said that although the DNA test proved incest, evidence was still needed for the allegations of rape and enslavement.

In their 1 May daily press conference, Austrian police said that Fritzl had forced Elisabeth to write a letter the previous year indicating that he may have been planning to release her and the children. The letter said that she wanted to come home but "it's not possible yet."

Police believe Fritzl was planning to pretend to have rescued his daughter from her fictitious cult. Police spokesman Franz Polzer said police planned to interview at least 100 people who had lived as tenants in the Fritzl apartment building in the previous 24 years.