A 73-year-old Austrian electrical engineer confesses to holding his daughter captive in a secret, windowless cellar for 24 years. Austrians react with shock and disbelief at the case. A 73-year-old Austrian electrical engineer has confessed to holding his daughter captive in a secret, windowless cellar for 24 years and fathering seven children by her, police said on Monday (April 28). The case, centred on a nondescript two-storey building in the industrial town of Amstetten, was reminiscent of that of Austrian Natascha Kampusch who spent eight years locked up in a basement before escaping in 2006. Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, had told police on Sunday (April 27) that her father, Josef Fritzl, lured her into the basement of the plain, grey block where they lived with other families in 1984 and drugged and handcuffed her before imprisoning her. Newspaper headlines called the case the "crime of a monster" and the "worst crime of all time". Media asked how authorities and residents of...