An Austrian girl held captive for eight years after being kidnapped as a 10-year old has been found in Vienna.
The young woman was found wandering in a Vienna suburb yesterday and claimed she was Natascha Kampusch, whose abduction in 1998 while she was on the way to school led to one of the most intensive police investigations in Austrian history.
She has been identified by her parents, Brigitta Sirny and Ludwig Koch, as the kidnapped girl, but police are awaiting the results of DNA tests for additional confirmation of her identity.
Her presumed captor, 44-year-old telecommunications technician Wolfgang Priklopil, apparently committed suicide late yesterday by throwing himself under a train in the city.
It was not immediately clear if Natascha had been sexually molested but an investigation is under way into the motive for the kidnapping.
Extremely pale but apparently in good health, the young woman says that she listened to the radio and read newspapers during her captivity, but was never allowed by her captor to leave the compound where she was sequestered, in the village of Strasshof.
Her captor had apparently tutored her and kept up her schooling.
Police said she was held captive in a small chamber under the garage of Mr Priklopil's cottage-like house, and has been questioned about the conditions of her captivity.
