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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Incest dungeon teen wants to see ocean

UPDATE ON THIS CASE:
(CNN) -- The 19-year-old woman whose hospitalization exposed a shocking Austrian incest case is recovering well and wants to see the ocean and a pop concert, her doctors and a family lawyer said Wednesday.

Dr. Albert Reiter, who treated Kerstin, is confident Kerstin will make a full recovery in time.

She and other children who were held captive for years are slowly adapting to modern life, they said. Kerstin Fritzl, whom doctors placed in an artificial coma after she was admitted to a hospital in April for multiple organ failure, is now well enough to speak, stand and walk with assistance, her doctors said. Doctors said that "little novelties" such as seeing a cloud go by are now big events for the former captives.

Kerstin has said she wants to see the ocean and go to a concert by British singer Robbie Williams, said Dr. Berhold Kepplinger, director of the clinic where the family is living. He described how excited Kerstin was to hear Robbie Williams songs in her hospital room and said she was moving around to the music so much that doctors had to quiet her down.

The two parts of her family -- those who were locked in a basement, like Kerstin, and those who lived above ground, apparently unaware of the abuse of their mother and siblings -- are getting to know each other again, the doctors and the family's lawyer said.

"Kerstin is the oldest daughter of an incestuous relationship between Elisabeth, 43, and Elisabeth's father, Josef Fritzl, 73, according to police. He is awaiting trial. Police say he confessed to holding Elisabeth captive since 1984 and raping her repeatedly, fathering seven children with her. Six of the children survived.

Kerstin and two of her brothers, ages 18 and 5, had spent their entire lives trapped in the cellar with their mother, never seeing daylight. A television was their only contact with the outside world.The other three children Josef Fritzl fathered with Elisabeth were taken as infants to live above ground with Fritzl and his wife, who says she had no idea her daughter was being held captive.

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