USA's 'Josef Fritzl' jailed for fathering 3 children with own daughter

London, July 23 (ANI): A US man, accused of fathering three grandchildren with his daughter, has been jailed.

Charles Shamblin Jr reportedly had an incestuous relationship with his daughter over a 13-year period.

The alleged abuse began when the girl was just seven years old and the torture continued until she was 20.

Police in Charleston, West Virginia, said that the girl gave birth to three children.

An investigation into the incest was launched earlier this year when the woman, now aged 35, told police that her father began abusing her when she was seven years old.

She told detectives she gave birth to her first daughter when she was 14 years old. Further children followed when she was aged 19 and 20.

Investigators say a paternity test was administered at Marshall University in Huntington that confirmed Shamblin to be the father of his daughter's three children, now aged 21, 16 and 15.

The 56-year-old man appeared in Kanawha County Circuit Court on charges of second-degree sexual assault, incest and sexual abuse by a parent or guardian.

His daughter in law told WOWKT that the rural community looked the other way rather than take action.

"The community up there looked the other way," the Daily Mail quoted Shamblin's daughter-in-law, who asked to not be identified, as saying.

"They knew what was going on. They've seen the bruises, they've seen the marks on the children and on their mother and they looked the other direction," she said.

She further said that Shamblin had told them not to say anything.

"He said it's in the past. It's nobody's business. It was between us. Leave it alone, leave it there," she said.

The daughter-in-law claimed police were alerted to incest 20 years ago but the victim refused to co-operate and DNA testing was not available.

"She completely denied it," the daughter-in-law said.

"The state, the prosecuting attorney and the deputy said that they couldn't do nothing," she added.

This case has drawn comparisons with the infamous case of Austrian Josef Fritzl, who held his daughter Elisabeth as a sex slave in a cramped, homemade dungeon for 24 years.

He raped her and fathered seven children with her. He was jailed for life in 2009. (ANI)