AUSTRIAN Josef Fritzl, who allegedly kept his daughter Elisabeth captive in a cellar for 24 years, fathered eight children with her, it emerged today.

She miscarried her first child alone in the darkness of the underground chamber in Amstetten - an experience that forced her to contemplate committing suicide.

Fritzl, 74, was accused of a battery of charges this week including murder over the death of a newborn twin boy who died in the cellar in 1996. He burned the child's body in the solid-fuel stove used to heat his house above ground.

Now it emerges the baby, named Michael, was not the only child to die in the dungeon. In November 1986, she miscarried a baby in the tenth week of pregnancy.

The prosecution indictment alleges Elisabeth was drugged in August 1984 and forced into the room that Fritzl had secretly carved out and elaborately hidden behind eight closed doors.

He restrained her with chains attached to posts sunk into the floor - an 18 square metre prison where she remained for the following nine months. One chain went around her stomach and the indictment states that her movement in any direction was strictly limited. In the early stages he raped her usually "several times a day," according to the report.

In 1994 her captor expanded the cellar to 40 sqm. It also meant that for the first time those in the dungeon - daughter Kerstin and son Stefan - had the chance to shower and cook food. Until then they washed every day in icy cold water. The charges also give more detail of life in the cellar - condensation was a constant problem, as were rats attracted by the accumulated rubbish.

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