Woman comes forward with family details about Austrian man who raped daughter in captivity for 24 years
Quick Facts:
1. This woman (pictured here) came forward saying she is the sister-in-law of Josef Fritzl who is accused of raping his daughter for 24 years.
2. Woman wants to be referred to as Christine R, says she is Josef's wife's sister
3. Christine R. says Josef's wife had no idea.
4. She describes Josef as a tyrant
In this photo:
(AP) The sister-in-law of Austria's accused "horror father" Josef Fritzl said in an exclusive television interview with the Associated Press Sunday May 4, 2008 he served 18 months in prison for a 1967 rape conviction. The woman, who asked only to be identified as Christine R. because of the wide attention the story has received, said incest victim Elisabeth ran away from home as a 17-year-old, about six months before police say she was locked into the soundproofed, windowless cellar beneath their apartment _ hinting at a motive for the crime. But the woman says Rosemarie never believed her husband was involved in the 24-year disappearance of their daughter or the three children that mysteriously turned up at their doorstop.
An Austrian woman has come forward claiming to be the sister-in-law of Josef Fritzl who confessed to locking his daughter in the basement for 24 years and fathering 7 of her children.
The woman spoke exclusively to the Associated Press, and asked to be identified only as Christine R.
According to Christine, she is the sister of Fritzl's wife Rosemarie. Christine says Rosemarie had no clue what was going and was just trying to keep her family together.
Christine R. told the AP more than anyone else has ever been able to publicly reveal about Rosemarie. She said Fritzl convinced the family that their 17-year-old daughter ran away to join a cult. Instead, he really locked Elizabeth in a windowless cellar beneath their apartment.
"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."
Skeptics believe that Rosemarie may have known something about the crime, because she accepted the cult story so easily. Christine R. says that isn't the case.
Cops say the 73-year-old electrician even 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 everyone feared.
"When he said it was black, it was black, even when it was 10 times white," said the woman. "He tolerated no dissent."
"Listen, if I myself was scared of him at a family party, and I did not feel confident to say anything in any form that could possibly offend him, then you can imagine how it must have been for a woman that spent so many years with him," she said.
Josef Fritzl is accused of concocting the cult story and even impersonating Elisabeth in a phone call to convince his wife of its truth. He is also accused of forcing his daughter to write letters that were used to explain the three children apparently found at their doorstep.
Authorities first began to unravel the complex story on April 19, when Elisabeth's eldest daughter was admitted to a hospital suffering from an unidentified infection.
Doctors, unable to find any medical records for the girl, appealed on TV for her mother to come forward. Fritzl then accompanied Elisabeth to the hospital April 26 and confessed to police.
