A 73-year-old man accused of holding his daughter captive underground for 24 years often spent entire days and nights in the cellar where he kept a secret family imprisoned, his sister-in law said in an interview published Thursday. Police say Josef Fritzl confessed to keeping his daughter Elisabeth in his basement for 24 years, where he repeatedly raped her and fathered seven children with her -- six of whom survived."Every day at nine in the morning Joseph would go into the cellar. He said he was drawing engineering plans that he would sell to companies," Fritzl's sister-in-law -- identified as Christine R. as told Austria's Oesterreich newspaper.
"Often he would stay there all night" and his wife was not even allowed to bring him coffee, said the woman that the newspaper identified as Christine R. She is the sister of Fritzl's wife.
Austrian authorities said the imprisoned children, who for years had not seen the light of day, were slowly adapting to sunlight. Officials also debunked reports in a few British newspapers that some of the children could not walk or speak in sentences.
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