Stacey1403
Where it all began....
Member since 5/05 24065 total posts
Name:
|
Girl kidnapped 8 years ago found alive
Kidnap girl: Family never gave up
Thursday, August 24, 2006; Posted: 10:03 a.m. EDT (14:03 GMT)
VIENNA, Austria -- The family of a young Austrian woman believed to have been found 8 years after she was kidnapped has said it always believed she would one day come back.
Police were on Thursday conducting DNA tests but said they were "almost certain" the woman found near Vienna was Natascha Kampusch, whose disappearance in 1998 gripped Austria.
The woman said her name was Natascha Kampusch and told police she had been kidnapped and held in a house for years. Her alleged kidnapper committed suicide on Wednesday night, police said.
In remarks broadcast on Austrian television Kampusch's sister said her mother almost had a breakdown when police notified her Wednesday afternoon.
She added that her mother always held onto the hope that her daughter would come back one day. "She always said she was still alive," said the sister, identified by the broadcaster as Sabina Sirny.
Kampusch, then aged 10, vanished in Vienna while walking to school on March 2, 1998. Her disappearance triggered a massive, fruitless search that extended into neighboring Hungary.
But on Wednesday afternoon, police said they found the young woman in a yard in a residential area north of Vienna.
Armin Halm, spokesman for Austrian's federal police, said on Thursday Kampusch had been identified by a scar on one of her arms from an operation she had when she was younger.
Results of a DNA test were expected later Thursday, but "we are quite sure it's her," Halm said, according to The Associated Press.
The woman told authorities she had been kidnapped and kept in a house by a man for years, Austrian television cited police as saying. Halm said police had found Kampusch's passport in the house.
The alleged kidnapper -- identified by Austrian media as 44-year-old Wolfgang Priklopil, a technician -- committed suicide by jumping under a train in Vienna, Halm said.
Halm said the woman spent the night in "a secure location" with a female police officer specialized in psychological training. She ate breakfast this morning and was due to undergo more questioning throughout the day, he said.
A police photo of suspect Wolfgang Priklopil is presented at a news conference in Vienna.There were no indications the woman suffered sexual abuse, investigators told Austrian news agency APA, according to Reuters.
The woman, pale but apparently in good health, said she had escaped earlier Wednesday from a house where she had been confined in a garage equipped with a bed and wardrobe.
But she said her captor occasionally let her walk with him in the village and allowed her access to radio, television, newspapers and books, according to police and local media.
Asked why the woman had not tried to flee, BKA investigator Erich Zwettler said she seemed to have had "Stockholm Syndrome," a psychological condition in which captives identify with their captors.
"She is white-pale, looking as if she had been out of the light of day for a long time, but she articulated well and could read and write," APA quoted a police investigator as saying.
|
that poor girl!
