As the world reacts with shock to the news that a man held his daughter captive for 24 years and fathered her seven children, police, medical professionals and those who know Josef Fritzl have begun to piece together just what sort of man he is.
What is evident is that Fritzl, a 73-year-old retired electrician was somehow able to lead a double life for more than two decades.
At his home on Ybbsstrasse in the quiet town of Amstetten, east of Vienna, he lived with his wife Rosemarie and their three children.
But with them also lived three of the children Fritzl fathered by his daughter Elisabeth, imprisoned in a basement dungeon with another three of the children she bore after being raped by her father.
Fritzl told his wife that his missing daughter had dropped the unwanted children off at the house because she could not take care of them, police said, forcing his daughter to write letters to strengthen his case.
It was a deception he maintained from 1984 until just days ago.
Police spokesman Franz Polzer said that Rosemarie Fritzl was unaware of the deception. "Let me also add that we know the suspect not only possessed an increased sexual potency, he's also very dynamic, imperious and quite authoritarian in his conduct and relationship to his existing family," Polzer told a news conference Monday.
Polzer added that Fritzl made clear to his wife and the children living with them that the basement area was out of bounds. He bought food for his captives and took it to them in evening.
Medical professionals have also offered their interpretations of the character of Fritzl.
Clinical psychologist Dr. Kristina Downing-Orr told CNN: "What is chilling about this case is the cold, sociopathic detachment that Josef F[ritzl] went through year after year, decades even, to hide his crimes.
"It was as if there was no remorse, no empathy for his daughter, for his grandchildren, for his wife. That's what's chilling."
She said that Fritzl, who his daughter has said abused her since the age of 11, possibly didn't want the relationship to end when she turned 18 -- the age at which he first imprisoned her.
"Perhaps she would go out and have boyfriends of her own," Downing-Orr told CNN, "perhaps he was a bit afraid he would be caught, that she would go out and tell people, and that led him to imprison her in this dungeon basement."
"It's that chilling sociopathic methodology, that kind of logic, that I find particularly chilling. But fortunately it's very rare, we rarely see that kind of behavior."
Meanwhile Austrian psychiatrist Reinhard Haller told The Associated Press: "This man must have been insane and must have felt he was far superior to others."
Haller added that the retired electrician seemed to have a pronounced narcissism and desire to wield control that might go some way to explaining why the imprisonment of her daughter and children carried on for so long.
Meanwhile Sigrun Rossmanith, a court psychiatrist, said in comments reported by AP that Fritzl consisted of two personalities, "the underground one, and the one that existed above."
"If someone has power and forces it on someone else, then his word is like the word of God," added Rossmanith.
CNN's Phil Black, reporting from Amstetten, said: "People here say this is difficult to understand or accept because their [the Fritzls} reputation in this community was as the kindly grandparents for taking in these children and raising them."
A woman in Amstetten , identified only as Gabriele H., told Austria's Kurier newspaper she thought Fritzl was a devoted grandfather doing his best to look after his abandoned grandchildren, "one who looks after their grandchildren whilst their mother just ran away. We were all asking ourselves what kind of mother would do that to their children?," she said.
"Mr. Fritzl and I grew up together" Erika Manhalter, who lives a few meters away from the Fritzl home, told Kurier. "We thought this would be a family just like others, but you cannot look through people."
Fritzl "was friendly -- that's why this is so unbelievable," Franz Redl, 56, who owns a shop across the street, told The Associated Press. "I'm sure the authorities did all they could. He planned everything so perfectly."
From Fritzl himself there has been no word on why he did what he did. At a news conference Monday, police said they were currently only interested in the facts of the case.
Rudolf Mayer, Fritzl's lawyer, asked if his client had demonstrated any regret, said in comments reported by AP: "I cannot say at this point."
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