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December 3, 2008 1:43:24 AM CST

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Dungeon Takes Physical Toll on Austrian Kids

Posted Apr 30, 08 4:32 AM CDT in World 

(Newser) – Doctors have begun to tally the physical toll of a lifetime of imprisonment on the three Austrian children locked in a cellar by their grandfather/father Josef Fritzl. The children all have defective immune systems, are anemic and suffer from a vitamin D deficiency from their time in a 650-square-foot cellar. None had ever seen daylight, a doctor or a dentist before their release, reports the Times of London. The oldest, 19, has already lost most of her teeth.

While three of the six surviving children of Fritzl, 73, and his daughter Elisabeth were brought up as normal children by Fritzl and his wife, the other three were confined in spaces hardly higher than 5 feet, and now suffer from stooped posture. Their only contact with the outside world was via television that was on night and day. The children are now being treated at a psychiatric institute.

Source Times (UK)

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Reporters crowd a news conference given by the police on the case of a daughter kept captive by her father for 24 years in Amstetten, Austria, on Tuesday, April 29, 2008.   (AP Photo/Kerstin Joensson)
Forensic officers enter the house of Josef Fritzl in Amstetten, Austria, Tuesday, April 29, 2008.   (AP Photo/Hans Punz)
A policeman stands in the gateway of the house of Josef Fritzl in Amstetten, Lower Austria.   (AP Photo/Hans Punz)
An aerial view of the building in Amstetten, Austria, top right, with green rooftop garden, where 73-year-old Josef Fritzl imprisoned his daughter for 24 years.   (AP Photo/inflight gmbh)
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Josef Fritzl • Austria • incest • Elisabeth Fritzl • Amstetten, Austria


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