Credit: Austrian Police Handout & Adobe Stock
Depraved Father Who Kept Daughter As Slave May Soon Be Released From Prison
A monstrous father who kept his daughter as a slave could soon be released from prison.
Austrian-born Josef Fritzl kept his daughter imprisoned underground for 24 years.
Elisabeth fell victim to horrific abuse at the hands of her own father when she was just 11 years old.
At the age of 18, Fritzl asked for his daughter’s help to hang the final door on a cellar he’d been building for the purpose of holding her captive.
He held an ether-soaked cloth over her mouth and locked her in the cellar.
Elisabeth’s mother filed a missing persons report when she discovered her daughter was missing, but she had tried to run away before.
Fritzl used this to his advantage, fabricating a story that she’d run away to join a cult, a lie that was accepted to be true when he forced his daughter to write a letter to corroborate his story.
While Elisabeth was imprisoned in the cellar, her father r**ed her countless times.
The horrific abuse meant that she gave birth to seven of her father’s children.
Three of those children were kept in captivity with their mother and three were made to look as though they’d simply ‘appeared’ outside the house, arriving with a note attached to them claiming they were Elisabeth’s children and she was unable to care for them.
They were raised by Elisabeth’s mother, Rosemarie, and Fritzl in their family home.
One of the babies died just days after being born.
Fritzl incinerated the child’s body, later leading to one of his charges of negligent homicide for failing to get medical help for the newborn.
Not only was Elisabeth r**ed by her father, but Fritzl also beat her and forced her to reenact p****graphic acts in front of her children.
He would punish her and the three children by switching off the power for days at a time and threatened them with electrocution if they tried to break out of the cellar.
When she was 42 years old, Elisabeth managed to escape her enslavement.
The catalyst for a series of events that led to Elisabeth’s escape began when her 19-year-old daughter, Kristen, became critically ill.
Fritzl took her to the hospital and doctors became suspicious after seeing Kristen’s condition. She was deathly pale and her teeth were in a terrible state.
The media made appeals for Elisabeth to come forward, believing she had been the one to neglect and abuse her children.
Eventually, Elisabeth managed to convince her father to release her from the cellar.
As Fritzl was growing old and his health was in a state of decline, he agreed.
He took Elisabeth to the hospital, where he told staff that she had ‘appeared’ on his doorstep, just as he claimed her children did years before.
Police whisked Elisabeth away from Fritzl, threatening to charge her with child abuse before she revealed the terrifying abuse she had endured at the hands of her father.
Fritzl was jailed for life in 2009 after being convicted of r***, incest, enslavement, and negligent homicide.
He was held in an institution for mentally disturbed prisoners.
In January 2024, however, a court ruled that Austria’s most notorious criminal could be transferred to a regular prison.
The ruling came about due to Fritzl’s ‘progressive dementia’ and physical frailty.
He was deemed as being ‘no longer likely to commit a criminal offense with serious consequences’ and was therefore seen as someone who doesn’t need to be kept in a psychiatric unit.
This could have paved the way for Fritzl to be released from prison into a nursing home, but that decision was overturned by the Vienna Higher Regional Court in March.
Now, though, Fritzl’s lawyer, Astrid Wagner, has stated that she plans to submit a parole application in March and remains optimistic about his release, arguing that his advanced age and frail health mean he no longer poses a threat to society.
Wagner told the Mirror: “If the court rejects it we will appeal and given his condition, I believe he will be released by next year.”
In an interview with The Sun, Fritzl said: “I miss my family very, very much. I am sure that we are going to be reunited and I think they are going to forgive me for what I have done.”
Elisabeth was given a new name following the trial. She still lives in Austria with her six children.
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