Fritzl Admits All Charges

By Jess Kilby,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 18, 2009 5:55 AM CDT
Fritzl Admits All Charges
Josef Fritzl, center, is escorted prior to the second day of his trial at the provincial courthouse in St. Poelten, Austria, on Tuesday, March 17, 2009.   (AP Photo/Robert Jaeger, Pool)

Josef Fritzl has pleaded guilty to all counts in the indictment against him, reversing his earlier denial of the most serious counts of enslavement and murder, Reuters reports. Fritzl, who no longer hid his face in the third day of his trial today, said his daughter’s harrowing 11-hour video testimony yesterday made him change his plea. “I’m sorry,” he added.

The 73-year-old Austrian faces life in prison for the 1996 murder by neglect of the infant boy he fathered with his daughter Elisabeth, one of the seven children she bore him during her 24-year imprisonment in Fritzl’s cellar. The trial was originally scheduled to conclude tomorrow, with sentencing the same day.
(More Josef Fritzl stories.)

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