Man Imprisoned Daughter for 24 Years in Cellar



You’ve probably heard of this incredibly bizarre and sad story when it broke a couple of days ago: Josef Fritzl is an Austrian man who locked his daughter Elizabeth in a cellar beneath his house for 24 years and fathered 7 children with her.

All this time, Josef’s wife (and Elizabeth’s mom) lives upstairs not knowing that her daughter, whom she was told ran away to join a religious cult, was held captive.

What’s even more bizarre is that three of Elizabeth (and Josef’s) children were allowed to live in the house (they told the wife that Elizabeth couldn’t keep the kids at the cult) and lived normal lives. Three more children (1 died shortly after birth) spent all of their lives in the cellar - and had never seen daylight before the police freed them.

Josef’s crime was uncovered when one of his "dungeon" child was deathly ill and had to be taken to the hospital:

Psychiatrists believe he was obsessed with power and must have been insane to have kept them incarcerated for so long and to have managed to keep it a secret.

Elisabeth is said to be white-haired, mentally and physically frail and traumatised, while Kerstin, 19, is fighting for her life. It was Kerstin’s collapse that prompted the discovery of the dungeon in the basement of Fritzl’s home in Amstetten.

The teenager is in critical condition and in an artifically-induced coma after suffering from cramping fits caused by lack of oxygen. Like her mother, and her siblings, she had been forced to live in the windowless cellar for years.

Because she and two of her brothers were kept there their whole lives, they had never seen sunlight until they were released. [...]

Three other children - Lisa, 16, Monika, 14, and Alexander, 12 - were adopted and brought up by Josef and his wife Rosemarie, 78.

Leopold Etz, a regional police official, says Fritzl apparently chose which of the children would live upstairs with him and his wife according to whether they were "crybabies."

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Posted on April 29, 2008 at 11:46 am by Alex
Category: Crime & Law



36 Comments to "Man Imprisoned Daughter for 24 Years in Cellar"

  • kid_icarus
    April 29th, 2008 at 1:01 pm

    but was he a weaver?

  • NiteWhite
    April 29th, 2008 at 1:36 pm

    Wow so he is actually crazy to go with his psychopath looks. I have a feeling the wife was knowledgeable of the dungeon but had a case of ‘learned helplessness’, and just survived by turning off her will to persevere.

    Or, she might’ve been a nutcase, too. Whatever the case may be, I’m having a hard time conjuring up a punishment to equal the crime.

  • John Hats
    April 29th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

    Damn does austria spawn evil guys. This guy, the otherone who kipnapped Kampbush, and even Hitler!

  • Tempscire
    April 29th, 2008 at 2:28 pm

    Psychiatrists believe he was obsessed with power and must have been insane…

    No shit?

  • Ali S.
    April 29th, 2008 at 2:36 pm

    @ NiteWhite

    That’s what I can’t wrap my head around! How can anyone be oblivious about the basement. But it maybe infact she was a participant in this or she truely didn’t want to know. Either way this is just heartbreaking. I’m just glad they were found because what would have happened if that crazy guy died one day and those trapped in the dungeon had no way of knowing or how to get out!?

  • Video Game Dork
    April 29th, 2008 at 2:41 pm

    So THATS what Vincent Price has been up to!

  • Debuhtts
    April 29th, 2008 at 2:42 pm

    This guy is Legit

  • Toby B
    April 29th, 2008 at 3:01 pm

    Legit? Really? I would say he’s insane, but to pull off a feat such as this, you’d have to know what you were doing. I just hope he doesn’t get off on the insanity defense.

  • otterly
    April 29th, 2008 at 3:23 pm

    This is Unspeakable. There’s a special little corner of hell reserved for people like this.

  • Badjuk
    April 29th, 2008 at 3:26 pm

    Austrian people are sick? :/

  • sam
    April 29th, 2008 at 3:27 pm

    I say this guy should either get the death penalty or, at the very least, life in prison. He has already caused the death of one child due to neglect - and ruined the lives of several other people.

    If they turn out anything like the child found in a similar situation in the 60s (discovered in 1970), they’ll probably be mentally handicapped and incapable of joining society. Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_%28feral_child%29

    In my opinion, 13 years of torture - or in this case - 24 years of torture - is worse than just killing someone. Adding rape of his own daughter to the charges should get him put away forever.

    Here’s Genie’s story - and enough to convince you to agree with me about the death penalty: http://youtube.com/watch?v=4I5mZIFxSlk

  • Raaaage Monkey
    April 29th, 2008 at 3:34 pm

    It’s like something straight from a philosophy textbook. Wonder what their view of the world was like.

  • OddNumber
    April 29th, 2008 at 4:25 pm

    I can’t imagine the psychological damage to that guy’s daughter and their children. I can’t help but hope that his stay in jail is similar to what he put her through.

  • Persephone
    April 29th, 2008 at 4:25 pm

    And the most jail time he can receive is 15 years if convicted? Just wrong. He should get 15 years chained in that basement, in the dark, at the least, with Bubba the Cornholer visiting him every day.

  • BenG
    April 29th, 2008 at 4:42 pm

    In most situations I’m a big fan of exile. In his case it’d have to be a pretty horrible place.

  • cuimhne
    April 29th, 2008 at 5:08 pm

    This is in all the newspapers at the moment. He was an engineer or something and the place where they were kept had a huge cement door that hid it from the main basement. I don’t think that the wife was as ignorant of it all as she claims though. The poor daughter had to give birth 7 times with no medical assistance.

  • Persephone
    April 29th, 2008 at 5:16 pm

    The wife had to know. The latest story I read says the basement addition was inspected by local authorities. It has been reported that she and the other children knew it was there, but Fritzl was such an authoritarian that they just obeyed him.

    I believe she knew. She knew. She had to know. And she had to know he was abusing their daughter before this. She chose to turn a blind eye. She should be prosecuted.

  • Ben B.
    April 29th, 2008 at 5:22 pm

    Ok.

    I have a question.

    How — exactly — is this… “neat” ???

    This is neat-o-rama, right? The blog of neat things?

    It sure seems to be devolving.

  • haribo
    April 29th, 2008 at 6:27 pm

    Couldn’t agree more Ben B.

  • consciousj
    April 29th, 2008 at 6:32 pm

    so THAT’S what donald sutherland has been up to

  • Lea
    April 29th, 2008 at 7:11 pm

    I agree with Persephone.
    There are no words to describe the gut-churning awfulness of this whole situation.
    And I don’t believe it. There is no way the wife knew nothing for 24 years. That’s some BIG TIME denial or she’s just as evil as he is by doing nothing.

    And the point of neatorama is not to be neato-o-happy-go-lucky-joy-joy. I think Alex (and all the other posters/writers/bloggers of the Neatorama community) want people to think and discuss and become aware.
    You can’t JUST be aware of the pleasant things.

    But that’s really beside the point.
    I’d say what this bastard deserves beside my agreement with Persephone, but then I wouldn’t be allowed on the Internet anymore.

  • Yosh
    April 29th, 2008 at 7:15 pm

    Imagine not seeing the sun for 20 years. Then imagine kicking this a*hole so hard in his nuts that he dies. That’s justice.

  • Louisa
    April 29th, 2008 at 8:27 pm

    I doubt this “person” has a conscience or feels much of anything so what punishment is ever going to truly hurt him? That’s the problem. We want him to hurt but is he really capable of feeling pain equivalent to that of his victims?

    Sadly, I’m sure there have been and are others like this in other areas of the world.

  • ted
    April 29th, 2008 at 8:46 pm

    Depends on what you want the justice system to be: a system of rehabilitation, or a system of revenge.

    Ah, Austria: The hills are alive…

  • anathema
    April 29th, 2008 at 9:13 pm

    What I still don’t get is how the girl who collapsed was found.

  • xander
    April 29th, 2008 at 10:10 pm

    I’m glad someone else noticed the unneatness too.

  • just a guy
    April 30th, 2008 at 1:09 am

    i think… last time i mentioned ‘unneatness’ of a post, commenters scolded me and said ‘this isn’t rosecoloredgalsses.com’ or something like that. oh well :c

  • Pol x
    April 30th, 2008 at 4:29 am

    This all came to light due to the 19 year old being very sick.

    Take a moment and think.

    She’s a 19 year old girl, the child of icest between grand father and daughter.

    Do you think she somehow escaped the predations of that evil old man?

    2nd generation incest?

    What was she sick with?

    My guess would be a home done abortion gone wrong.

  • Cupcake
    April 30th, 2008 at 9:41 am

    There is a word to describe it. Sexual abuse and rape. For 24 years. By a father, on his daughter. It’s not “fathering” children. It’s rape.

    And it’s horrific, and certainly not “neat.”

  • Donga
    April 30th, 2008 at 12:03 pm

    Its sick but also like a sick fantasy sex movie except not your daughter but a hot clone of some celebrity in your basement

    I’m not australian

  • sarah gibson
    April 30th, 2008 at 12:58 pm

    those austrians are going to insist that she encouraged her father and that it was consentual — they are backwards and totally without compassion — it is in their blood, unfortunately — i heard about austrians who iron their underwear and they have spotless tidy homes at all times — they have a whole different agenda than we do — but most importantly i feel that mr. fritzl’s has more crimes in his background — his other children — they need to be brought in and his dna could be matched with other unsolved crimes — The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it –albert einstein –

  • ted
    May 1st, 2008 at 9:07 am

    Albert Einstein said all that about Austrians ironing their underwear?

  • Cupcake
    May 1st, 2008 at 12:07 pm

    We live in a sick, sick, highly misogynist, pro-violence, and anti-woman world when locking a woman in a dungeon to be a sex slave to rape at will can be anyone’s fantasy (sick or not).

  • Louisa
    May 1st, 2008 at 8:49 pm

    ted, You’re turning into my new favorite. lol

  • James Mac
    May 4th, 2008 at 4:55 am

    Why is this story on neatorama? It’s out of place.

  • Moodindigo
    May 9th, 2008 at 6:35 am

    Poor Madeline McCann. One year into her hide and go seek world record attempt and this chick from Austria turns up with 24 years under belt.

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