Sex Case Family Meets In Austria

AMSTETTEN, Austria — The victims of Austria's "house of horrors" wept as they met the rest of their family in what doctors yesterday called an "astonishing" reunion.

They were brought together at a hospital a few miles from the provincial town of Amstetten, where Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, was imprisoned by her father, Josef, in a windowless dungeon for 24 years.

She and two of her children, Stefan, 18, and Felix, 5, neither of whom had seen daylight before, met three of Elisabeth's other children, Lisa, 16, Monika, 14, and Alexander, 12, who have lived ordinary lives.

The head of the neuropsychiatric clinic at the hospital, Dr. Berthold Kepplinger, said: "They were all very distressed and extremely worried. Felix would jump at the slightest disturbance and remained holding on to his mother. In his whole life he had only ever seen four other people."

Elisabeth's mother, Rosemarie, 60, was also there and broke down as she saw her daughter for the first time in 25 years. Dr Kepplinger said: "She clearly had no knowledge of the terrible fate of her daughter. The two women fell into each other's arms and wept bitterly."

Doctors will attempt to introduce Elisabeth, Stefan, and Felix to the outside world gradually and police said they would be offered new identities. The children's speech patterns are intelligible but not normal.

DNA results showed Mr. Fritzl had fathered six surviving children with Elisabeth in the concrete dungeon, originally built as a nuclear shelter. The eldest, Kerstin, 19, is ill and in a coma. A seventh child, a boy, died in infancy, and Mr. Fritzl has admitted burning the body.

He is on suicide watch in prison and is being investigated for alleged rape, incest, and coercion. He was remanded in custody at a hearing yesterday.