BRADLEY KLAPPER
AMSTETTEN

The wife of accused father Josef Fritzl never believed her husband was involved in the 24-year disappearance of their daughter, even though he had served an 18-month sentence for a 1967 rape conviction, her sister said yesterday.

The sister-in-law of the man accused of imprisoning his daughter in a dungeon for more than two decades, repeatedly raping her and fathering her seven children, has told of a life of oppression in the Fritzl home.

The woman, Christine R, 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 under their home - hinting at a motive for the crime.

She described the father as a tyrant who instilled a culture of fear. This helped him create an elaborate cover story, which no-one questioned, of Elisabeth running away to join a cult and abandoning three children on their doorstep in 1993, 1994 and 1997.

"When he said it was black, it was black, even when it was 10 times white," she said. "He tolerated no dissent."

If wife Rosemarie had challenged Fritzl, "we don't know what he would have done to her. Maybe he would have slapped her," the sister said. "In any case, he was a tyrant. What he said was good and the others had to shut up."

Christine R portrayed her sister as a woman who fought to hold together a troubled family, yet never suspected the cause of so much pain was in her own home. "She never believed him capable of it," she said of her 68-year-old sister.

Police have no evidence Rosemarie was complicit in her husband's alleged atrocities. They say the 73-year-old electrician confessed to the imprisonment and rape, and to incinerating a baby he had with his daughter after it died.

Fritzl is accused of concocting the cult story and impersonating his daughter in a phone call to convince his wife of its truth. He is also accused of forcing his daughter to write letters to explain the three children apparently found at their doorstep. Police say he brought the children from the cellar for fear they were "cry-babies" who would give away the dungeon.

"Every person that looked in his eyes was fooled by him," Christine R said.

She said Rosemarie had no idea her daughter was in the basement and did, for a while, frantically look for her in train stations and where homeless people gathered.

Christine R said her sister devoted her life to her children, even more so after her husband was jailed.

A newspaper printed an excerpt of a 1967 court record from Linz, in which a Josef F was accused of breaking into the flat of a 24-year-old nurse and raping her.

Christine R said her sister reacted with "shock" but focused on keeping her family healthy. "You can surely imagine that a woman in such a situation would have been utterly broken and shocked over something like this."

The relationship between Fritzl and his wife soured, she said. Still, there were no disturbing signs about the relationship between the father and Elisabeth, who police say may have been sexually abused when she was as young as 12.

The story began to unravel on April 19, when Elisabeth's eldest daughter was admitted to hospital.

Doctors, unable to find medical records, appealed on TV for her mother to come forward. Fritzl then took Elisabeth to the hospital on April 26 and opened up to police.

Christine R said she spoke to her sister last about "four or five days" after 19-year-old Kerstin's hospital admission, about a day or two before Fritzl's arrest.

"My sister is apparently doing very badly and Elisabeth is not in the best shape either," she said. "I know my sister and when something is wrong with her children, the world collapses.

"For sure, the world has collapsed for her."-AP