![]() The door was the final piece needed to seal the underground prison cell. On August 28, Fritzl told Elisabeth he needed help carrying a door into the basement of the family home, asking her to hold it in place while he fitted it into the frame. By 1984, the bunker was all but complete. His sexual abuse of his own daughter had begun in 1977, when she was just 11 years old. In reality, Fritzl had been keeping his daughter in a hidden cellar, which he had first begun converting into a prison cell decades earlier. To social workers, Fritzl was a man with a runaway daughter who had left three young grandchildren in his lap to raise. The third child, 15-month-old Alexander, arrived in 1997. This time, Rosemarie got a phone call asking her to take care of the child. In 1993, a nine-month-old baby girl, Lisa, was left on the couple's doorstep.Īnother child, 10-month-old Monika, was left in a stroller the next year. Over the following years, more letters would come. Her mother Rosemarie filed a missing persons report – Josef Fritzl, then 49 years old, told the police the girl had likely joined a cult.Ī letter arrived, supposedly from Elisabeth, warning her family against trying to look for her. The year before she had left and gone into hiding in Vienna, only to be returned by the police a few weeks later. When Elisabeth Fritzl disappeared from her home in 1984, it was not the first time she had run away from home.Ī map of the Fritzl home and secret undergound bunker. A 1984 disappearance and a 'cult' cover story Heidi Kastner, who wrote the report, does not share Ms Wagner's opinion about his regrets - Austrian media outlets say she believes he is still trying to whitewash his crime.ĭr Kastner said she was unable to comment on the report for legal reasons. The new report, according to Kronen Zeitung, has found he increasingly suffers from delusions and sometimes believes his daughter will soon marry former German tennis player Boris Becker. In 2022, a regional court deemed he was "no longer a danger" and could be transferred to a regular prison, but this was later disputed by a higher court. Since his sentencing, Fritzl has been held in a high-security psychiatric prison in Krems, a town around 70 kilometres west of Vienna.Ī spokesperson for the Krems regional court told Reuters that Fritzl could be moved from the psychiatric facility to a regular prison, where he would be eligible for parole.Ī conditional release, under the conditions Ms Wagner is calling for, could see him moved into a nursing home. ![]() Victims of Crime Helpline: 1800 819 817.Lifeline (24-hour crisis line): 131 114.Safe Steps Crisis Line (Vic): 1800 015 188.Sexual Assault Crisis Line Victoria: 1800 806 292.It's unclear when a decision will be made about the new report. "And yes, I am firmly convinced that he now deeply regrets his actions." Fritzl 'no longer a danger', says lawyerįritzl was sentenced to life in prison with a possibility of parole after 15 years, meaning he is eligible for parole this year. "In bright moments he now reports a lot about the nightmares that plague him, about his crime," Ms Wagner, who in 2023 published a book about the case, told the newspaper. ![]()
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