Candlelight vigil held for incest victims

AMSTETTEN, Austria, April 30 (UPI) -- Residents of Amstetten, Austria, gathered for a candlelight vigil to show support for the woman held captive by her father for two dozen years.

In addition, townspeople wanted to stress "Amstetten is not a town for criminals," the mayor told the Austria Presse Agentur.

Investigators said DNA evidence confirmed Josef Fritzl's statement in which he said he fathered his daughter Elisabeth's six surviving children, the APA reported Wednesday.

Officials said Elisabeth, 42, and two of the children living with her in the cellar reunited with three other children living with Fritzl and his wife. One child who lived in the cellar is in a coma at another facility.

Elisabeth also reunited with her mother, APA reported.

"It was astonishing how easily it happened -- how the mother and grandmother came together," said Berthold Kepplinger, director of the psychiatric clinic where Elisabeth Fritzl and five children are being treated.

Fritzl could be sentenced up to 15 years in prison if he is convicted charges that include raping and beating his daughter, officials said. Officials said they were considering a "murder through failure to act" charge after Fritzl admitted he burned one infant's body after the baby died.