clipped from: www.cnn.com   
Three children freed from a cellar in which their mother had been imprisoned and raped by her own father for 24 years had never seen daylight, police in Austria have confirmed.
Police spokesman Franz Polzer told CNN that 73-year-old Josef Fritzl admitted holding his daughter, Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, hostage in the windowless cell and fathering seven children by her.

Fritzl explained Elisabeth's disappearance by saying she had run away from home, a story backed up by letters he forced Elisabeth to write, including one that begged her parents not to look for her.

Elisabeth said her father began sexually abusing her at age 11. On August 8, 1984 -- weeks before she was reported missing -- her father enticed her into the basement, where he drugged her, put her in handcuffs and locked her in a room, she told police.

For the next 24 years, she was constantly raped by her father, resulting in the six surviving children, she said, according to the police statement.