Dad Does Daughter For a Quarter of a Century

Austrian incest suspect Josef Fritzl faces justice

Published - Mar 14 2009 01:09PM CST

By VERONIKA OLEKSYN - Associated Press Writer


(AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

A security man stands in front of the court in St. Poelten, where Josef Fritzl will stand trial in St Poelten, Austria, on Friday, March 13, 2009. The trial against Josef Fritzl, who is accused of imprisoning his daughter for 24 years and fathering seven children with her in a windowless cell, starts on Monday, March 16.

For almost a quarter of a century, Josef Fritzl allegedly held his daughter as a sex slave in a cramped, rat-infested cellar where he fathered seven children with her.

This week, the notorious Austrian with icy blue eyes faces justice in what is being billed locally as the "trial of the century." The question is what justice will mean in the case of a 73-year-old who has confessed to imprisoning and repeatedly raping his daughter Elisabeth for 24 years in a windowless dungeon he built beneath the family's home.