Fritzl case


The Fritzl case emerged in 2008 when a woman named Elisabeth Fritzl informed investigators in the city of Amstetten, Lower Austria, that she had been held captive for 24 years by her father, Josef Fritzl. Fritzl had assaulted, sexually abused, and raped his daughter countless times during her imprisonment inside a concealed area in the cellar of the family home.
The incestuous rapes resulted in the birth of seven children. Three remained in captivity with their mother; one died shortly after birth and was cremated by Fritzl; and the other three were brought up in the family home upstairs by Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie, after Fritzl convinced her and the authorities that they were foundlings.
Fritzl was arrested on counts of rape, false imprisonment, murder by negligence, and incest by Austrian police one week after Elisabeth's eldest daughter, Kerstin, fell ill in the cellar and was taken to the hospital by Fritzl himself. In March 2009, Fritzl pleaded guilty to all counts and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

History

Background

Josef Fritzl was born on 9 April 1935, in Amstetten, Lower Austria, to Josef Sr. and Maria Fritzl. Josef Jr grew up as an only child raised solely by his working mother, whom he alleges regularly subjected him to physical and emotional abuse throughout his childhood. The father, Josef Sr., a severe alcoholic, deserted the family when Josef Jr. was four years old and never again came into contact with him. The father later fought as a soldier in the Wehrmacht during World War II and was killed in action in 1944. Josef Sr.'s name appears on a memorial plaque in Amstetten.
In 1956, aged 21, Josef Fritzl Jr. married 17-year-old Rosemarie, with whom he had three sons and four daughters, including Elisabeth, who was born on 6 April 1966. Fritzl reportedly began sexually abusing Elisabeth in 1977, when she was aged 11.
After completing his education at an HTL Technical College with a qualification in electrical engineering, Fritzl obtained a job at Voestalpine in Linz. From 1969 until 1971, he held a job in a construction-material firm in Amstetten. Later, he became a technical equipment salesman, travelling throughout Austria. Fritzl retired from active employment when he turned 60 in 1995, but continued some commercial activities. In addition to his apartment building in Amstetten, he rented out several other properties. In 1972, Fritzl purchased a guesthouse and an adjacent campsite at Lake Mondsee, managing the property, together with his wife, until 1996.

Criminal history

In 1967, Fritzl broke into the Linz home of a 24-year-old nurse while her husband was away and raped her while holding a knife to her throat, threatening to kill her if she screamed. According to an annual report for 1967 and a press release of the same year, he was also named as a suspect in a case of attempted rape of a 21-year-old woman and was known for indecent exposure. Fritzl was arrested and served twelve months of an 18-month prison sentence.
In accordance with Austrian law, Fritzl's criminal record was expunged after fifteen years. As a result, more than 25 years later, the local social service authorities did not discover his criminal history when he applied to adopt and/or foster Elisabeth's children.

Suspected murders

On 12 November 1986, at 6:40 a.m., 17-year-old Martina Claudia Posch left her home in Vöcklabruck, Upper Austria, to reach a nearby bus stop. When she did not show up for an agreed meeting with her boyfriend at around 5 p.m., the boyfriend called Posch's mother, who had assumed her daughter was already with him. She later learned that Posch had not shown up for work that day. Authorities soon determined through witness statements that she had not been on the bus that morning either.
On 22 November 1986, two scuba divers found Posch's body wrapped in two olive green tarpaulins on the southern shore of Lake Mondsee. The forensic examination revealed that Posch had been killed by strangulation two hours after leaving her parents' home. After his arrest, Fritzl was investigated for possible involvement, since at the time of the murder, he and his wife ran a campground, which was located opposite where Posch was found. Posch was also very physically similar to his daughter, Elisabeth.
In addition to Posch's murder, Fritzl was looked into as a suspect in the death of Anna Neumayer, aged 17, who was killed with a captive bolt pistol in a field in Linz on 17 August 1966. She had disappeared on her way to Wels, 35 kilometres from where Fritzl worked at the time. Another potential victim was Gabriela Supeková, aged 42, a prostitute who was murdered in August 2007. Her body was found at the Lipno Reservoir near the Austrian-Czech border, at a time when Fritzl was on holiday there. Fritzl was not charged with these murders due to a lack of evidence.

Captivity

After completing compulsory education at the age of 17, Elisabeth started a course to become a waitress. In January 1983 she ran away from home and went into hiding in Vienna with a friend from work. She was found by police within three weeks and returned to her parents in Amstetten. Elisabeth re-joined her waitress course, finished it in mid-1984 and was offered a job in Linz.
On 28 August 1984, after Elisabeth had turned 18, Fritzl lured her into the basement of the family home, saying that he needed help carrying a door. In reality, he had been converting the basement into a makeshift prison chamber. The door was the last thing he needed to seal it. After Elisabeth held the door in place while Fritzl fitted it into the frame, he held an ether-soaked towel on her face until she was unconscious, then moved her into the chamber.
After Elisabeth's disappearance, Rosemarie filed a missing persons report. Almost a month later, Fritzl handed over a letter to the police, the first of several that he had forced Elisabeth to write while she was in captivity. The letter, postmarked in Braunau, stated that she was tired of living with her family and was staying with a friend. She warned her parents not to look for her or she would leave the country. Fritzl told police that she had most likely joined a cult.
Over the next 24 years, Fritzl entered the hidden chamber almost every day, for a minimum of three times a week, bringing food and other supplies, and repeatedly raping Elisabeth. She gave birth to seven children during her captivity. One child died shortly after birth. Three—Lisa, Monika, and Alexander—were removed from the chamber as infants to live with Fritzl and his wife, who were approved by local social services authorities as their foster parents. Officials said that Fritzl "very plausibly" explained how three of his infant grandchildren had appeared on his doorstep. The family received regular visits from social workers, who saw and heard nothing to arouse their suspicions.
Following the fourth child's birth in 1994, Fritzl allowed the enlargement of the chamber, from, putting Elisabeth and her children to work digging out soil with their bare hands for years. The captives had a television, a radio and a videocassette player. Food could be stored in a refrigerator and cooked or heated on hot plates. Elisabeth taught the children to read and write. At times, Fritzl would punish the family by shutting off their lights or refusing to deliver food for days at a time. He told Elisabeth and the three children who remained, Kerstin, Stefan and Felix, that they would be gassed if they tried to escape. Investigators concluded that this was an empty threat to frighten the victims; there was no gas supply to the basement. Fritzl also told them that they would be electrocuted if they tried to meddle with the cellar door.
According to his sister-in-law Christine, Fritzl entered the basement every morning at 09:00, ostensibly to draw plans for machines which he sold to manufacturing firms. He often stayed there for the night and did not allow his wife to bring him coffee. A tenant who rented a ground floor room in the house for twelve years claimed to hear noises from the basement, which Fritzl said were caused by the "faulty pipes" or the gas heating system.

Discovery

On 19 April 2008, Fritzl agreed to seek medical attention after Kerstin, Elisabeth's eldest daughter, fell unconscious. Elisabeth helped him carry Kerstin out of the chamber and saw the outside world for the first time in 24 years. He forced Elisabeth to return to the chamber, where she remained for a final week. Kerstin was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, the Landesklinikum Amstetten, and was admitted in serious condition with life-threatening kidney failure. Fritzl later arrived at the hospital claiming to have found a note written by Kerstin's mother. He discussed Kerstin's condition and the note with a doctor, Albert Reiter.
Medical staff found aspects of Fritzl's story puzzling and alerted police on 21 April. The police broadcast an appeal on public media for the missing mother to come forward and provide information about Kerstin's medical history. The investigation into Elisabeth's disappearance was also reopened. Fritzl repeated his story about Elisabeth being in a cult, and presented what he claimed was the "most recent letter" from her, dated January 2008, posted from the town of Kematen. The police contacted Manfred Wohlfahrt, a church officer and expert on cults, who raised doubts about the existence of the group Fritzl described. He noted that Elisabeth's letters seemed dictated and oddly written.
Elisabeth pleaded with Fritzl to be taken to the hospital where Kerstin was being treated. On 26 April he released her from the cellar along with her sons Stefan and Felix, bringing them upstairs, at which time he and Elisabeth went to the hospital. Following a tip-off from Albert Reiter that the Fritzls were at the hospital, the police detained them on the hospital grounds and took them to a police station for questioning.
Elisabeth did not provide police with more details until they promised her that she would never have to see her father again. Over the next two hours, she told the story of her 24 years in captivity. Elisabeth recounted that Fritzl raped her and forced her to watch pornographic videos, which he made her re-enact with him in front of her children in order to humiliate her. Fritzl, aged 73, was quickly arrested on suspicion of serious crimes against family members.
During the night of 27 April, Elisabeth, her children and her mother Rosemarie were taken into care. Fritzl told investigators how to enter the chamber through a small hidden door, opened by a secret keyless entry code. According to Elisabeth, Rosemarie had been unaware of what had been happening in their home.
On 29 April, it was announced that DNA evidence confirmed Fritzl as the biological father of his daughter's children. His defence lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, said that although the DNA test proved incest, evidence was still needed for the allegations of rape and enslavement. In their 1 May daily press conference, police stated that Fritzl had forced Elisabeth to write a letter the previous year, which indicated that he may have been planning to release her and the children. The letter said that she wanted to come home but "it's not possible yet." Police believe Fritzl was planning to pretend to have rescued his daughter from her fictitious cult. Police spokesman Franz Polzer said police planned to interview at least 100 people who had lived as tenants in the Fritzl home in the previous 24 years.