Cops Plan to Quiz Fritzl's Wife Again

She swallowed tale that teen joined cult

(NEWSER) - The wife of the Austrian grandfather who kept their daughter imprisoned in a basement under their apartment for 24 years never suspected she was there, her sister tells the AP. Rosemarie Fritzl believed her husband's tale that the daughter he kept as a sex slave ran away from home to join a cult. The two women even “did detective work” to search for the cult, the sister said. More»

Jury to decide case today

(NEWSER) - Monster dad Josef Fritzl apologized "from the bottom of my heart" today for keeping his daughter locked in a cellar as a sex slave for 24 years, then added: "I can't go back and change it." Fritzl, 73, made his remarks as an Austrian jury was about to decide his fate. A verdict and sentencing are expected later today. Prosecutors called for the maximum life sentence for Fritzl in their closing remarks, CNN reports. More»

(NEWSER) - Austrian incest dad Josef Fritzl defended his imprisonment of daughter Elisabeth as necessary to stop her abuse of household chemicals, the Daily Mail reports. “She had been sniffing cleaning fluids and I decided I should talk with her in my cellar,” Fritzl said of the day in 1984 that marked the beginning of her captivity. “She reacted to my accusations with a couldn’t-care-less attitude.” More»

Didn't plan incest; gave in to taste for 'forbidden'

(NEWSER) - In jail-cell notes released by his lawyer, Josef Fritzl goes to bizarre lengths to defend the rape and imprisonment of his daughter, citing his Nazi upbringing for instilling “a high regard for decency and uprightness,” and a need to save the 18-year-old Elisabeth from drinking and dissipation. “She was going out to seedy bars and would spend whole nights there drinking and smoking," he wrote. "I only tried to rescue her from that life." More»

Incest daughter Kerstin, 19, still in coma, but likely to live

(NEWSER) - Josef Fritzl might not have stopped at raping his daughter, Austrian police now say, fearing now that Fritzl raped granddaughter Kerstin, the oldest incest child born in his cellar dungeon, the Daily Mail reports. But police aren't able to question the 19-year-old because she is still in an induced coma, though she is now stable and expected to live. More»