Is there something about Austria that I don't know about? Or is it just so startling because they were kept in cellars, while here in the US, they probably would have been killed.


An Austrian man (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7369851.stm) allegedly held his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years and fathered four children with her, reports say.

The existence of the woman, believed missing since 1984 and now 42, emerged after one of the children was found in the house in a "serious condition".

A search was begun by the authorities for her mother after she was found, Austrian broadcaster ORF reports.

The 19-year-old is now in hospital in the Lower Austrian town of Amstetten.

An investigation has been launched, a police source told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

ORF identified the father as a 73-year-old man and said the teenager had been found unconscious in his house.

The discovery of another Austrian woman, who was held captive in a cellar by an abductor for more than eight years, gripped the country in 2006.

Natascha Kampusch finally escaped from her kidnapper, 44-year-old Wolfgang Priklopil, who killed himself shortly afterwards.

Ms Kampusch was abducted at the age of 10 in 1998 and held in a small, windowless cellar beneath Priklopil's garage in the commuter town of Strasshof, 25km (15 miles) outside Vienna.

How could they be in there that long and not just kill themselves?

Ain't the world a lovely place.. ?

What did you mean by "Or is it just so startling because they were kept in cellars, while here in the US, they probably would have been killed." ?

Ain't the world a lovely place.. ?


Only in Austria. This is the 3rd same type of case in recent years.

If I remember well, an infamous dude was also from Austria, but he becamse famous in Germany....

horrifying.

I think I saw a Law and Order episode similar to that situation.

What is this world coming to?

Or, what has it came to, more to the point.

This is a horrible story. This poor girl thought to have run away has actually been locked in the basement since 1984! She has given birth to 7 children by her father in that period of time.
http://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1673312.jpghttp://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1673278.jpg
Police in Austria have entered a cellar where a man allegedly held his daughter captive for 24 years, during which time he may have fathered seven children by her.

The basement area consists of a very narrow hallway and several rooms, said Franz Polzer, head of the Lower Austrian Bureau of Criminal Affairs, on Austrian TV.

Authorities accessed the area after the father told them how to unlock a hidden door using a code only he had known.

Detectives say Elisabeth Fritzl had been missing since August 29, 1984.

Now aged 42, the woman was found after a tip-off to police. Her 73-year-old father Josef Fritzl has been arrested and is being held in custody.

Speaking from outside the house, Sky's Greg Milam said: "The fact that police have been able to get inside that cellar is significant.

"It means they have a better idea of what Elisabeth Fritzl was going through.

"But it also means the father is talking to police."

The case came to light after one of the children was taken to hospital in the town of Amstetten.

The youngster, 19-year-old Kerstin, was said by police to be "gravely ill".

Elisabeth told police her father began sexually abusing her when she was 11 and he locked her up in a room in the cellar on August 28, 1984.

During the 24 years that followed, she said she had six children by him.

The seventh child was a twin who died shortly after birth. Josef Fritzl removed the body and burned it.

The two oldest children, aged 18 and 19, and the youngest aged 5, had been locked up with their mother since birth and had never seen sunlight or received any education, police said.

Josef's wife Rosemarie had been unaware of what happened to her daughter and it was assumed she had disappeared voluntarily when her parents received a letter from her saying they should not search for her.

Three of Elisabeth's younger children were each left on her parents' doorstep, the first accompanied by a letter saying she could not look after the baby herself.

All were taken in by Josef and his wife as foster or adopted children and went to school as normal. http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1314185,00.html

yes i herd that on the news, its an apaling story. Wonder how he will like a 6x6 cell for the next 25-50 years (i hope he gets AT least 2 for every one she was locked away)

MOD HAT: There is a duplicate thread to this one in EM&J so i will be moving this to there and asking tiassa to merge the two

yea i sent that one to Ethics as well so these could be merged

thing is...at his age...he already had his "fun" so even if the jail him...he will die soon anyways

Actually I know that in Austria and Switzerland they lure in Russian women and do the same locking up deal...

There are no words to bring justice to this story. Horrible and awful just does not cut it.

To be honest, I cannot even wrap my mind around what this man has done. It is surreal... Locking up his own daughter in the basement, installing a sophisticated hidden entry system, fathering 7 children with her, burning the child who died at birth, keeping three children hidden in the basement, the eldest for 19 years, the youngest, for 5 years.. those children have never seen sunlight.. This doesn't happen in real life. This is the stuff of horror movies. Dean Koontz would have had a field day with a plot line like this. But this isn't fiction. It is all together real and that is what gets me. How can no one have known? How can the mother not have suspected something.

It is all just so elaborate. How could his wife not have known? Not have had some inkling? How did he get away with all of this?

"There was a shelf with plenty of cans and containers, and behind the shelf was a door made of reinforced concrete, secured electronically and running on steel rails, and only the suspect knew the code,'' local official Heinz Lenze said.

The hideout itself was a sophisticated network of chambers with facilities for sleeping, cooking and washing, Franz Polzer, head of the criminal investigations unit in the province of Lower Austria, told broadcaster ORF.

Authorities were still searching the cellar early today, the Austrian press agency APA reported, adding that some of the rooms were no more than 1.7 metres high.
(Source) (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23608542-38200,00.html)


How could the mother not have suspected that something was not quite right? Did she question why he was installing that kind of hardware in their basement?

As I said, there are no words that can do justice to what that poor woman and her children were made to endure during that time.

geeese Bells...to you everything is surreal. Wait till you see war, than everything will be flowers and real.

Goddamn. The world is an ugly place full of fear and hatred. The only peace is on our selves.

Goddamn. The world is an ugly place full of fear and hatred. The only peace is on our selves.

yeah well once you realize that we are this world and there is no true peace...were will you hide than?

Will he get all his child benefit backdated though?

geeese Bells...to you everything is surreal. Wait till you see war, than everything will be flowers and real.

No. Not everything is surreal. But this is. So many things do not add up in this story.

No. Not everything is surreal. But this is. So many things do not add up in this story.

Bells what does not add up to this story? :mad: Stop insinuating the morality everywhere like it is the rule by which this universe is governed. The man had a sexual drive, he obviously did not control it, he commited a crime and hid this sexual crime and decided to keep it so for years, he obviously got what he wanted from her and treated her like an animals. Now what does not add up? huh? everything adds up, he should be locked up in psychiatry jail because his treatment of her was animalistic.


Are you are saying this is not human of him to do? Well he is a human just like you and me, and we all are capable of what he did but luckelly we are sane individuals and without chemical imbalance.

yeah well once you realize that we are this world and there is no true peace...were will you hide than?

Space.
It's eternal depths.

Space.
It's eternal depths.

youll freeze there...but before that happens you will loose yourself there. Space will become you and you will no longer be unique and have a consciousness to separate yourself from the rest...So you cannot hide in space because you will not be anymore

Bells what does not add up to this story?

Every question that might arise about this story, then, is answered?

Try it this way: If you just watched this movie, would you have seen all there is?

The answer, of course, is no. We never see all there is, even with fiction. What questions, then, remain? There are a few that are obvious.

As Bells pointed out, the experience of Rosemarie Fritzel is something of a story in itself. Three children raised in prison under the house? How exactly did that go? "Oh, he's just off to his workshop. It makes him so happy to spend time down there."

Was it religious faith or a psychiatric condition that compelled her to care for three "adopted" children? Is infant abandonment a common thing in Europe, so that, by the third child "left" at the doorstep, she didn't even question the issue? Did these children look remotely alike? Did Rosemarie suspect, and live in acute denial, or did she legitimately have no freakin' clue?

Your attempt to close the philosophical chapter on this is almost exactly as inadequate as saying that the police came and rescued the girl and her children and everyone lived happily ever after.

Bells what does not add up to this story? :mad: Stop insinuating the morality everywhere like it is the rule by which this universe is governed. The man had a sexual drive, he obviously did not control it, he commited a crime and hid this sexual crime and decided to keep it so for years, he obviously got what he wanted from her and treated her like an animals. Now what does not add up? huh? everything adds up, he should be locked up in psychiatry jail because his treatment of her was animalistic.


Are you are saying this is not human of him to do? Well he is a human just like you and me, and we all are capable of what he did but luckelly we are sane individuals and without chemical imbalance.
You can't see what doesn't add up?

Lets see, the fact that he was able to go to such lengths to keep her and their children in the cellar for 24 years, without anyone noticing that he was up to something a bit fishy? Primarily his wife? The other children?

How does someone install that kind of security and hardware.. a hidden concrete reinforced door to access the basement, with electronic security.. without his wife even noticing? Didn't she question why he was doing it? Didn't anyone else? Did he get workmen in there to actually install the door and the plumbing and electricity at some point in time? Did she notice his dragging down a TV and other pieces of furniture at one point or another? Didn't she raise questions when the 3 children appeared on her doorstep? How did he come to access the drugs he used on his daughter in the first place? And that's just for starters..

I understand you are hung up on the "sex" aspect of this story. But that is, just one part of it. That does add up. The guy was a sick bastard who kept his own daughter and other children hidden and locked up in a basement for his own amusement. What does not add up is how he was able to go to such lengths and not be noticed by anyone in his near vicinity.

This is why we have capital punishment.

I fail to see what that would actually accomplish.

I can't imagine spending 24 years without ever seeing daylight. 3 of those kids were raised never having fresh air or grass, birds, sunlight...
I just read the max he could get is 15 yrs. He's been raping his daughter for 31 years. He made her have his children. He made her give birth in a cellar by herself. I'm horrified. Maybe that's why Austria has people who lock other people away for years.

...Fritzl was placed in pretrial detention and faces up to 15 years in prison (http://www.charlotte.com/news/ap_news/story/600277.html) if charged, tried and convicted on rape charges, the most grave of his alleged offenses under Austrian law....

bells, there is one possable answer i surpose. Could it just have been a fall out shelter that was already there?

Of course that doesnt explaine the REALLY fishy thing of 3 children dumped on his wifes doorsteep that she raised without ever checking whos they really were

How could they be in there that long and not just kill themselves?

I read this article before I saw this thread and that's exactly what I thought. 24 years with your father constantly raping you and giving birth to his kids?? How the hell did she not?!:shrug:

I wonder what the kids are like...

I read this article before I saw this thread and that's exactly what I thought. 24 years with your father constantly raping you and giving birth to his kids?? How the hell did she not?!:shrug:

If you were in her position, would you kill yourself and leave your kids in the care of the man who did it to you in the first place? I know I sure as hell wouldn't. Don't forget, not only was he sexually abusing her since she was 11, he then drugged her and locked her up in a basement, continued to rape her for a period of 24 years, made her give birth to his children, one of whom he disposed of by burning it in an incinerator after it died a few days after it's birth. You'd kill yourself and leave your children in his care?

I wonder what the kids are like...
Probably forever scarred and damaged after what they had to endure.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/7371764.stm

i think its awful, what that woman and her children went through, it is said that she had 7 of his children, and none of them saw daylight!

but i guess if your born into that situation then you dont know any differant and you don't ask about the world! :shrug:

but i guess if your born into that situation then you dont know any differant and you don't ask about the world! :shrug:

Right, that's exactly what I mean when I wonder what they're like. Clearly not the social norm, but I'm interested to see if they're at all happy even if not normal, having not known anything else in life. It'd be interesting to see how they view the world.

Right, that's exactly what I mean when I wonder what they're like. Clearly not the social norm, but I'm interested to see if they're at all happy even if not normal, having not known anything else in life. It'd be interesting to see how they view the world.

yes, and i would!

i would not.........after 24yrs, wanted to see the sun for the first time, it must be like an alien world to those kids, and the media should leave them alone after the initial shock is over with and let them deal with life the way they need to, what bugs me though, is the mum was upstairs, why didnt she do somthing about it?

did he beat her, and abuse her aswell, was she scared of him, was she affraid of life alone?

The father made her write letters saying she couldn't handle/afford the kids, pinned a note to them and left them on the front doorstep. He was always the one that 'found them' and they were always too young to tell where their mother was. Why he did this to certain children and not other....????
Here she was in the cellar trying to survive and her family thought she was probably a drug addicted hooker somewhere having kid after kid she couldn't take care of.

Try and imagine what would have happened if he had dropped dead of a heart attack. They would have starved to death and rotted in that cellar.

The father made her write letters saying she couldn't handle/afford the kids, pinned a note to them and left them on the front doorstep. He was always the one that 'found them' and they were always too young to tell where their mother was. Why he did this to certain children and not other....????
Here she was in the cellar trying to survive and her family thought she was probably a drug addicted hooker somewhere having kid after kid she couldn't take care of.

Try and imagine what would have happened if he had dropped dead of a heart attack. They would have starved to death and rotted in that cellar.

That's what I don't understand. How can no one have noticed it? I read somewhere today that he was an authoritarian who had forbidden his wife and other children from ever entering the basement, and that was why his wife did not know. Wouldn't that alone have raised some suspicion that something was not quite right.. that he might have been up to something?

And the children left on their doorstep. They never once did a DNA test to check that they were her children or to see if they could track down the father? How is it so easy to adopt children left on your doorstep with a note attached saying that it was their supposed grandchild? Aren't tests done to establish maternity and/or paternity?

I just don't buy the notion that his wife did not know. How could she not know? No one in his family saw him taking food, clothing, and everything else one needs in one's day to day existence, into the basement.. in 24 years? No one noticed that he would have been buying baby clothes and items for his imprisoned children? No one noticed anything? Why just take out the middle children and leave the rest behind? How could the wife and others living in the building not notice the fairly extensive work that had been done in the basement in the first place? She didn't question when the bathroom fittings were put in? How about when he took the TV into the basement? As I said before, there are so many aspects of this story that simply do not add up.

How old were the children?

We are talking about an old man here, so I am wondering why they did not all jump him to get out?

Then again living in a basement all your life I don't think you could do much but they out number him and he is old, I think they could still have done it.

Also, would be interesting to know how the mother brought them up? Did she tell them about the outside world or just pretend that the basement was all there was?

How old were the children?

We are talking about an old man here, so I am wondering why they did not all jump him to get out?

Then again living in a basement all your life I don't think you could do much but they out number him and he is old, I think they could still have done it.

From what I understand, the oldest was 19 and the youngest was 5 years of age. The eldest two children and the 5 year old had remained with her in the basement, while the others were brought up to the real world. I think they may have had a TV in there with them, if earlier reports are correct. I also read that she taught them to read and write as well. Lets not forget, she was around 18 years of age when she was drugged and taken to the basement. I suspect the shock of what had happened to her and what was happening to her would have preyed on her somewhat. As for the children, who knows what their health was. I doubt being locked up in a small confined space for the whole of your life would do much for muscle strength and what not.

Even if they did manage to injure him or even kill him, how would they have gotten out though? The door to the basement had an electronic keyless entry, which I would imagine he locked each time he came and went from the basement. Unless they knew the code, they would have simply rotted in there. And the door was made from reinforced concrete, so they could not have simply knocked it down. The basement was also apparently soundproofed, so no one would have heard them.

The depth he went into to keep them hidden is ridiculous. It is something that one could not even imagine.. especially in light of the fact that not even his wife knew what he was up to. How does one install that kind of security system and build that kind of hardware without anyone knowing or noticing? It's just bizarre.

Bells the mother was in denial. Its not uncommon really look at Hedda Nussbaum who allowed her husband to physically abuse and finally kill her daughter, or Bonnie the wife of the fallen FBI agent Robert Hanssen. Bonnie actually caught her husband counting thousands of dollars in their basement, he told her it was KGB money and she wagged her finger and told him not to do it again, and then went on baking cookies. She never bothered to ask how he was able to send their kids to expensive private schools or why they had a swiss bank account. She was said to be genuinely shocked when he was finally arrested as a spy. Her husband taped them having sex and shared it with a friend and she simply says 'I love him, I forgive him.' Its all denial. These women become sick in their relationships in an inverted way, its the only way they can exist in the relationship. If they were healthy they wouldn't be there.

How's this for denial:

'On October 17, 1987, Homolka, then 17, met 23-year-old Bernardo at a Scarborough restaurant. Later in the evening they engaged in sex for several hours while their friends were watching a movie in the same room. Bernardo proposed to Homolka on December 24, 1989; Homolka called it "the most romantic moment of her life"

All this before he co-opted her in sexually abusing and killing teenage girls. She was sick when she met him and became sicker because of him.

'During summer 1990, Bernardo became obsessed with Tammy Homolka, peeping into her window and entering her room to masturbate while she slept.[3] In July Bernardo took Tammy Homolka across the border for more beer for a Homolka party; while there, Bernardo later told his fiancee, "they got drunk and began making out".[4] Homolka knew that in all the time he was going out with her, Bernardo was seeing other women and committing rapes, but their trip across the border left her "outraged and humiliated"[5]. Bernardo had told her that if she really loved him she would let him deflower her sister. Homolka agreed, seeing "an opportunity to minimize risk, take control, and keep it all in the family"[6] She also aided him in breaking her sister's window blinds, crushing Valium with which to spike the drinks for her sister and her friends, and planned Tammy's rape as she was planning her wedding. Homolka wanted to "give Tammy's virginity to Bernardo for Christmas" as, according to Homolka, Bernardo had always been upset that she was not a virgin when they met.

Excuse me for saying this but all these weak-assed bitches always claim some form of innocence at the end of the drama, you know, my beau made me do it. I don't hold them in contempt because they're sick I hold them in contempt for being so weak. Imagine allowing someone to make you ILL! I hate this cry of simply 'not knowing' or 'fear of confronting' etc. At least the men were legitimately unrepenting weirdo's. They are more pure.

I'd call it an erosion of self. It is astounding to me that these women can simply sit back and do nothing.

Did his wife know? It's hard to say. She claims she did not. The question that goes begging is how could she not. But she is not alone. While she may be weak and simply not want to know, can we say the same for the rest of the people in that village?

What society would accept the probability of three children being left on the doorstep of Josef Fritzl over a decade and grant him adoption rights without inquiring after the location of the mother?

Perhaps only a cosy, incurious community concerned with Schein nicht Sein, or "appearance, not reality".

"How is it possible that nobody heard or saw anything, that nobody asked questions?" asked Petra Stuiber, columnist of Der Standard in Vienna.

"What does this say about neighbours and the extended family, acquaintances and above all civil servants dealing with the family? A whole country has to ask itself what is going fundamentally wrong."

Colonel Franz Polzer, head of the police investigation team, is also puzzled.

Over decades, Fritzl acquired food and baby clothes for people who did not officially exist. Why did no one notice?

There was an interesting article about the way in which Austria is very much a "look away" (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23620698-2,00.html) society (the quotes in this post are from the same article). Where people simply never question or look further into matters that would otherwise raise a few eyebrows and demand answers.

Every Austrian town has its hierarchies and codes.

Did leaving Fritzl in peace form part of this code of discretion?

It is difficult to believe that he acted without the knowledge of others.

Either way, his crime was made possible by a society that is inclined to look away rather than experience discomfort.

I think what shocked me the most about this crime is that no one ever looked further into anything. No one looked into tracking down the mother when her children were supposedly left on her parents doorstep. No one tried to establish the maternity and paternity of those children before he and his wife adopted them. No one even questioned it. No one seemed to raise a questioning finger as to why he was building out the basement as he did.. after all.. isn't it strange that someone builds that kind of underground rooms and then installs such a strong security system? Did he build it himself? Didn't anyone raise an eyebrow when he ordered the material? How could the neighbours not have noticed, let alone his wife and other children. While ignorance may be bliss, it resulted in the living wrecks that came out of that hole on the weekend.

How can we blame the rest of the people in the village for not knowing what was going on if she didnt even know what was happening in her own basement? Austrians are not the only look away society but hey why are they obligated to mind their neighbors business?

You are shocked because the wife didn't look further into it? She's married to a man who was having sex with her daughter who is sadistically locked away in the basement? If you were her and hadn't already fled the house in fear and horror would you look into it? Think of the psychology here. The wife is COMPLICIT

Lucysnow not nessarly. There are two other explinations for the wifes actions that explain why she wouldnt have investigated at all.

One is battered wife syndrome. If he was that abusive to his daughter how do you think he treated his wife? It would be quite easy for him to dominate her to the point that she was basically a prisioner as well but insted of bars its her mind that becomes the prision

The other is plain old deniel. Some things are just to horible for our minds to comprehend and so they dont. You see this alot when one long term partner dies and the other partner refuses to admit they are dead. They just start acting as if they are on a buiness trip or something because to face reality would be to horible.

Nither of these situations would make her complicit in his crime

Lucysnow not nessarly. There are two other explanations for the wifes actions that explain why she wouldnt have investigated at all.

One is battered wife syndrome.
The other is plain old denial.

Neither of these situations would make her complicit in his crime
Isn't there something called the "reasonable man" standard? Surely, it would have been reasonable for the wife to check out what's going on in the basement once in the past 24 years?

mad nither of those two options fit a "resonable person". The first is related to stockholm syndrom (which is brain washing) and the second is a true mental illness. How can you expect someone suffering that sort of mental trauma to act in a resonable way?

How can we blame the rest of the people in the village for not knowing what was going on if she didnt even know what was happening in her own basement? Austrians are not the only look away society but hey why are they obligated to mind their neighbors business?

You are shocked because the wife didn't look further into it? She's married to a man who was having sex with her daughter who is sadistically locked away in the basement? If you were her and hadn't already fled the house in fear and horror would you look into it? Think of the psychology here. The wife is COMPLICIT

One person living in the building obviously noted something suspicious.

A tenant who lived in the same house as Fritzl in the town of Amstetten also revealed how he'd heard strange noises in the night and saw the retired electrical engineer ferrying wheelbarrows of food under cover of darkness.

Alfred Dubanovsky, 42, who lived in the building for 12 years, said Fritzl spent his days in the cellar but banned anyone from going near it, Britain's Daily Mail reported.

It never occurred to him anything was unusual about his landlord's behaviour but he now says he will regret doing nothing for the rest of his life.
(Source) (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23629259-1702,00.html?from=public_rss)


I agree, I think the wife is somehow complicit. If the tenant noticed the strangeness of his landlord's behaviour, how could his wife and children not have noticed it? The article also notes that one of his friends had caught him buying lingerie while holidaying in Thailand and he admitted to his friend that he had 'someone on the side', then asked him to not tell his wife. Granted, one could say that the friend could not have suspected what was going on. But the wife surely must have realised something was very wrong in her husband's behaviour.

I can't look at it from a personal perspective. If I noticed my husband doing something strange, or acting in such a fashion, I would not sit idly by and do or say nothing. She is obviously a weak woman and her weakness has resulted in the ruined lives of her children and grandchildren.

Bleh..

Details of police interviews, published by the Austrian magazine News, have revealed how Fritzl used to watch car racing for hours on the TV he put in the dungeon he had carefully constructed for Elisabeth.

News also reported that Fritzl's mood would change quickly and he would beat Elisabeth and the children if they did not behave how he wanted.

Police believe he used a padded room in the cellar to rape Elisabeth while the children were locked in another room. Afterwards, he would sit at the kitchen table and make Elisabeth prepare a meal for him, the magazine reported.

Again.. Bleh..

I still cannot understand (denial maybe) how they were able to adopt the three children without the authorities doing any tests to confirm the children's maternity and/or paternity.

It wasn't just the parents who failed that girl and her children, but the system as well.

Did anyone see the TV coverage of the Austrian police investigators who seemed to think that the most important thing was to protect the privacy of the family.
The privacy of a family that had an underground incestuous rape vault?
How much real information will this commitee uncover?

Austria/Zimbabwe no difference.

what really gets me is, they say the mum didnt know anything about it, my point is, so what did she think happened to her daughter what she gave birth to her?

Did anyone see the TV coverage of the Austrian nvestigators who seemed to think that the most important thing was to protect the privacy of the family.
The privacy of a family that had an underground incestuous rape vault?

His daughter and the children involved deserve privacy. The last thing they need is to have TV cameras and people gawking at them. As for him.. he doesn't deserve anything aside from a lifetime in jail.

Just gut instinct, but I suspect that the problems are much deeper.
I wonder if more people are involved, and a that a cover-up is in process.

We had a similar thing in Jersey which has just come to light.
It has taken decades to emerge because many of the guilty people are pillars of society.
These respectable people are protected from scandal because there are a whole ring of equally high standing people involved.

Unfortunately paedophilia is a case where conspiracy really does happen, and it is not just in the crazed mind of some conspiracist.

He had a number of children of his own and then seven more children from his daughter.
He had a wife to support, and had no benefits or tax breaks for most of them.

And yet there are pictures emerging of him well tanned on Holidays.
Where did all the money come from?
And who took care of shielding the dark secrets while he was away?

If the Austrian justice system uncovers it all,
I will be pleasantly surprised.
Lets see what happens.

Asguard: One is battered wife syndrome. If he was that abusive to his daughter how do you think he treated his wife? It would be quite easy for him to dominate her to the point that she was basically a prisioner as well but insted of bars its her mind that becomes the prision

I understand about the battered wife syndrome, but there are many women who refuse to stay with a man who hits, am I right? There is a profile for the type of woman who remains in an abusive situation. At some point the woman is absolutely complicit, she's the one who refuses to press charges after a beating and defends her husband when they try to take her husband away. Its a form of complicity. Denial is also a form of complicity. Its a way of saying I see what is happening but I refuse to confront what I see.

Stole this from another thread (something about brain function). Hope Coberst doesn't mind it just seemed applicable:

As Thomas Kuhn observed:

“Novelty emerges with difficulty, manifested by resistance, against a back drop provided by expectation. Initially, only the anticipated and usual are experienced even under circumstances where anomaly is later to be discovered…Further acquaintance, however, does result of awareness of something wrong…[which] opens a period in which perceptual categories are adjusted until the initially anomalous has become the anticipated.”


Bell: I can't look at it from a personal perspective.

I would have cut his penis off, attached it to five of six helium balloons and set the damn thing free.

Captain Kremmen: The privacy of a family that had an underground incestuous rape vault?

I agree with Bells, for the sake of the children and grand-children privacy is required. The public really doesn't need to know more than required to show the charges justified.

Josef Fritzl 'ruled the house like a dictator'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/austria/1917027/Austria-Josef-Fritzl-'ruled-household-like-a-dictator'.html

Oh, and I've just received a text. Apparently, Fritzl recognised his faults but felt that his paternal skills were improving. He told police he felt that, as a father, he was "coming into his own".

Needless to say, I have now blocked the sender. :(

"Is that God up there?" - Felix Fritzl, 5, sees the moon for the first time since leaving the cellar.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2008/05/thursdays_quote_of_the_day_9.shtml

This story doesn't stop sending shivers down my spine.

If the Austrian justice system uncovers it all,
I will be pleasantly surprised.
Lets see what happens.
Due to wimpy leftist European laws, the most this guy can get is like 12 years! Ridiculous.

Here's an update on the story. One of the kids is suffering from multiple organ failure. One of the little boys is now in an aquarium? because he can barely move or talk. Truly a horrible story.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=563912&in_page_id=1770

.................................................. .................................................. ...................
this story makes my stomach really sick .................................................. ....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=563912&in_page_id=1770

Elisabeth, now 42, had been sexually abused by her father since the age of 11.


She ran away from home at the age of 16 but was dragged back by Fritzl
and locked up when he suspected she was planning to leave again.



......................................:bugeye:

At that time she run away, didn't she report to police or something??? Asking
help to neighbour??? This is extremely bizarre to me :bugeye:

Even at age 8, I think I know how to report to police or people to ask for protection!

Also, there is a photo in the article provided in Madant's post.

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/05_02/cellarDM0405_468x188.jpg

The title in the photo says:

Christening: Elisabeth (circled right) aged nine with her family, including
her mother Rosemarie (circled left) and her brother Josef sitting next to her.


So Elisabeth has a brother? Perhaps her mom is weak, but whatever happened
with her brother???

If you were in her position, would you kill yourself and leave your kids in the care of the man who did it to you in the first place? I know I sure as hell wouldn't. Don't forget, not only was he sexually abusing her since she was 11, he then drugged her and locked her up in a basement, continued to rape her for a period of 24 years, made her give birth to his children, one of whom he disposed of by burning it in an incinerator after it died a few days after it's birth. You'd kill yourself and leave your children in his care?


Probably forever scarred and damaged after what they had to endure.


Actually by staying alive she risks the children staying with her as well (as
what has happened). Had she did suicide, perhaps the evil man will take
the children out of the basement because nobody take care of them (they
did finally managed to get out because one of them was severely ill). Or, had
she did suicide, she would not give birth to 7 children and rise them all in
undiscribebably horrible situation,..




Even if they did manage to injure him or even kill him, how would they have gotten out though? The door to the basement had an electronic keyless entry, which I would imagine he locked each time he came and went from the basement. Unless they knew the code, they would have simply rotted in there. And the door was made from reinforced concrete, so they could not have simply knocked it down. The basement was also apparently soundproofed, so no one would have heard them.


But what if the guy sometime during the 24 years of the imprisonment died?
Wouldn´t the secret will be burried alive with them underground as well?

Is there something about Austria that I don't know about? Or is it just so startling because they were kept in cellars, while here in the US, they probably would have been killed.


An Austrian man (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7369851.stm) allegedly held his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years and fathered four children with her, reports say.

The existence of the woman, believed missing since 1984 and now 42, emerged after one of the children was found in the house in a "serious condition".

A search was begun by the authorities for her mother after she was found, Austrian broadcaster ORF reports.

The 19-year-old is now in hospital in the Lower Austrian town of Amstetten.

An investigation has been launched, a police source told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

ORF identified the father as a 73-year-old man and said the teenager had been found unconscious in his house.

The discovery of another Austrian woman, who was held captive in a cellar by an abductor for more than eight years, gripped the country in 2006.

Natascha Kampusch finally escaped from her kidnapper, 44-year-old Wolfgang Priklopil, who killed himself shortly afterwards.

Ms Kampusch was abducted at the age of 10 in 1998 and held in a small, windowless cellar beneath Priklopil's garage in the commuter town of Strasshof, 25km (15 miles) outside Vienna.I told the fucker, 'don't take her out of the bunker!!!!'
Did he listen?

...Even at age 8, I think I know how to report to police or people to ask for protection!...

But she was raised that her dad was the law, the ultimate authority. He was the police. At 8 it never would have crossed my mind to doubt him. Especially if everyone in your house went along with it.

And at 16 she left and was drug back. Why didn't anyone help her?

I told the fucker, 'don't take her out of the bunker!!!!'
Did he listen?

Poor bastard, you didn't even make it the full twelve hours that I predicted.

Do you ever just get completely depressed and overwhelmed at your own ironic addiction?

And at 16 she left and was drug back. Why didn't anyone help her?

They "didn't want to get involved", thought "it's her problem, not ours".

But she was raised that her dad was the law, the ultimate authority. He was the police. At 8 it never would have crossed my mind to doubt him. Especially if everyone in your house went along with it.

And at 16 she left and was drug back. Why didn't anyone help her?

Would you have stepped in back then though?

Lets imagine your neighbour's 16 year old daughter runs away from home, her father manages to track her down and makes her come home. Would you go over there and try to help her or demand why she was forced to return home? You need to realise that this all happened in a small village/town where everyone minded their own business. No one was going to interfere with a father forcing his daughter to return home after she ran away. And when she disappeared again 2 years later, no one in the village would have dared question it, since she had done it before.

I don't know if I would have helped either. I do know its not fair to blame the victim and say 'why didn't she...' She was a child being raised by a monster. I'm surprised she's still alive and not bar shit crazy. She was a victim, now she's a survivor.

I don't know if I would have helped either. I do know its not fair to blame the victim and say 'why didn't she...' She was a child being raised by a monster. I'm surprised she's still alive and not bar shit crazy. She was a victim, now she's a survivor.

She is still a victim. She survived her imprisonment and all the horrors that went with it. But she is still a victim and will most probably be so until she dies. She was robbed of her life, made a prisoner and a virtual sex slave for 24 years, and that's not even figuring in the sexual abuse she suffered at his hands before that. People don't simply bounce back from that. She has been permanently scarred and the same applies for her children. Even the one's who were brought up in the family home by her father and mother. I hate to imagine what finding out that their grandfather is really their father and their mother and siblings were locked up underneath them for their whole life, would do to them. How does one recover from that kind of shock?

And they probably have it easier. They will not have to adjust to life on the outside, having to learn to socialise with others, seeing day to day things we take for granted when we are outside, feeling the sensation of the sun, rain, clouds, hail, sleet, snow on their faces. Having to learn to adapt to their new life will be horribly hard. Not just for those children, but for their mother as well, because she has spent 24 years of her life living in a basement, remembering that there was an outside world.

She's a survivor, but she will always be a victim because what was done to her will scar her for life. The same applies to her children.

She's a survivor, but she will always be a victim because what was done to her will scar her for life. The same applies to her children.

If she and her children would recover and lead normal lives - I wonder if the public would ever forgive her for not being scarred for life.

If she and her children would recover and lead normal lives - I wonder if the public would ever forgive her for not being scarred for life.

One would hope the public would just leave her and her children alone and not judge her either way.

You have brought up an important point though. How would the public react if she did manage to recover from it and lead a normal life with her children.. Would she be judged? Would she be condemned?

One would hope the public would just leave her and her children alone and not judge her either way.

You have brought up an important point though. How would the public react if she did manage to recover from it and lead a normal life with her children.. Would she be judged? Would she be condemned?

yeah i agree! it wasn't her fault, her children and her now deserve to be left alone and left to live life in peace and not to be hounded by the press and the public, he will pay for what he did, (we hope) now the public has a duty to leave them alone and let them recover!

the daughters mum however says.......she knew nothing about it, what a load of crock, wo where did she think her daughter went?

she should be jailed for helping him abuse her all this time!

It always dumbfounds me how mothers offer their children up like that. My step mother was a special little gift from her mother to her father. I just can't get my head 'round it. Well, I understand people suffer from strong delusions but it doesn't make it any easier to accept.

bells its sad that is even a topic but isnt that why rape victoms are never named in court procidings and why when the offender is close to the family they are not named either? (to protect the victom)

bells its sad that is even a topic but isnt that why rape victoms are never named in court procidings and why when the offender is close to the family they are not named either? (to protect the victom)

Child victims are rarely named. Adults sometimes are and do have to give evidence on many occasions. The court will often be closed to the public in such instances.

oh i realised they had to give evidence i was taking about the way rapes are reported in the media. They generally just say "the 20 year old hackham women was alegadly raped by Mr Smith on ....". At least thats the way the reports i have seen were structure

oh i realised they had to give evidence i was taking about the way rapes are reported in the media. They generally just say "the 20 year old hackham women was alegadly raped by Mr Smith on ....". At least thats the way the reports i have seen were structure

Well yes, on most occasions, the victim's name is withheld in the media.

This guy is a sick bastard.

"Natascha Kampusch finally escaped from her kidnapper, 44-year-old Wolfgang Priklopil, who killed himself shortly afterwards."
This would make a good movie.....As long as some shitty director doesn't get a hold of it and it becomes the next teen horror flick with Shia LaBeouf and Sarah Roemer.

I think it is fascinating what people can create for themselves. I think it is fascinating how people can create their own fiction to indulge themselves in, and keep it going for such lengths of time that it truly become reality.