Josef Fritzl: a shrewd liar and an obsessive tyrant

But the daughter of a former employer backed up the reports.

"He was hired even though he had a record," said Sigrid Reisinger, who heads the Amstetten construction material firm Zehetner, which employed Fritzl from 1969-71. She said the alleged crime was of a sexual nature but did not recall details.

Calls to Fritzl's lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, went unanswered Friday.

Fritzl then sold machines for a German company in Austria and was often on the road. He bought an inn and campground in Unterach, about 90 miles west of Amstetten, that his wife Rosemarie who police say was unaware of the cellar dungeon ran during summers from 1973 to 1996.

"One day he came to my door and told me that Elisabeth was not coming home any more, that she had left to join a cult," Graf said.

He said Fritzl was so believable that no one was suspicious. "He was so convincing of the sorrow he felt and the suffering of his family," Graf said. "Nobody had any clue."

Graf said Fritzl also told of discovering one of Elisabeth's children on his doorstep and Graf said he never doubted the tale.

Two other children also turned up the same way hand-picked to live upstairs, police say, because Fritzl decided they were "crybabies" who would raise a ruckus in the basement.

Local authorities say Fritzl was twice suspected of arson at the inn, in 1974 and 1982. But Gerhard Neuhuber, an Unterach police official, said Fritzl was cleared because of lack of evidence.

During the second investigation, Fritzl spent a short time in prison, Neuhuber told the AP.