Update To Austrian Kidnap Victim Story

Police have still not definitively identified the 18 year old woman who claims to have escaped from eight years in captivity. However, her family is quite sure it is her, citing a surgery scar on her arm. The DNA tests are due any time now. The police say that her alleged kidnapper killed himself by throwing himself in front of a train. That one is definitely waiting on a DNA test.

The man who allegedly held the woman killed himself Wednesday a few hours after she sought help at a home on the quiet, small-town street where she says she was held.

While expressing confidence in the women's identity, investigators said they were still waiting for DNA verification of the identity claim by the young woman, who turned up in a garden near the man's house.

But the missing girl's parents met with the woman and said they also were sure she is the daughter who disappeared on her way to school in nearby Vienna eight years ago. Police said she had a surgery scar like Natascha and reported finding the missing girl's passport in the house.

Police, who confirmed the identity of the alleged kidnapper as Wolfgang Priklopil, a 44-year-old communications technician, said he killed himself by throwing himself in front of a commuter train in Vienna.

They cordoned off the street where Priklopil lived in Strasshof, less than 10 miles northeast of Vienna, and released photos of the hiding place in his house where the young woman purportedly was held.

One photograph appeared to show a small, cluttered room and narrow concrete stairs leading down to it from an entrance so small it would have to be crawled through. Another photo showed a metal hatch that sealed the windowless, underground room.

Federal police spokesman Armin Halm said there was a bed and a toilet in the cramped space. Images on TV showed a small television in the room, which also had a sink and was littered with piles of books. Police said the woman was occasionally allowed to watch videos.

A female police officer, Sabine Freudenberger, said the young woman told of spending her days with her captor and even doing gardening. She described the woman as "quite chatty."

Freudenberger, one of the first officers to have contact with the woman Wednesday, told Austrian television the man apparently threatened her, saying that was probably the reason she didn't try to flee sooner.

Police said the young woman had been examined by a doctor and did not have signs of injuries, but added that her condition was still being studied.

Freudenberger said she believed the young woman had been sexually abused but didn't realize it. "It won't become clear to her … She did everything voluntarily, she said," Freudenberger said.

As I said when I originally posted about this, there are some crimes that deserve harsh punishment. As far as I am concerned, Priklopil got off far too lightly.