Stories related to: Elisabeth Fritzl

Two months after being rescued from an Austrian cellar where her father imprisoned her as a sex slave for 24 years, Elisabeth Fritzl isn’t emotionally prepared to testify against him, reports the Guardian . Her doctors have postponed the ordeal for at least three weeks. The 42-year-old woman was scheduled to testify next week in a video hearing during which she would have been able to see her father and face questioning by him . More »

A teenager who spent her life imprisoned in an Austrian cellar will recover fully and “develop normally” after major organ failure, said doctors at the hospital where she was treated. Kerstin Fritzl was recently awoken from an induced coma and reunited with her mother and siblings, who now live in a house on the hospital’s campus, the BBC reports. More »

A teenager held captive her entire life in an underground dungeon with her mother and siblings has awoken from a seven-week coma, reports the Daily Telegraph. Kerstin Fritzl, 19, was reunited with her mother and other family members in a secure medical ward after flickering back to consciousness. There were no immediate details about the reunion or her condition. More »

Austrian authorities are preparing new identities for dungeon dad Josef Fritzl’s entire family, including the daughter he imprisoned in a celler, the six children Fritzl fathered with her, her six adult siblings and her mother. The family members have been hounded by lucrative offers for media interviews, the Times reports. More »

Elisabeth Fritzl, imprisoned by her father for 24 years, will discuss life in the Austrian dungeon in a televised interview, the Daily Mail reports; the appearance on Austria's ORF TV will be broadcast next Monday. It was unclear what, if any, payment was agreed upon for the interview; paparazzi have been pushing the boundaries of decorum in efforts to get photos of the family. More »

The Austrian woman who spent 24 years in a cellar as the sex slave of her sadistic father has said she never wants to see him again, reports the Daily Telegraph . The information was revealed as Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, spent her first Mother's Day with five of her six surviving children. When she was first reunited with the three raised "above ground" by her parents she hugged them, sobbing: "My babies. You are so beautiful," the paper reported. More »

Austrian police want another round of questioning with Josef Fritzl's 68-year-old wife, the Times of London reports. But the chief investigator in the case doesn't count Rosemarie Fritzl a suspect, and asked, “What woman would stay silent if she knew that her husband had seven children with his daughter and was holding her prisoner in the cellar?” More »

An Austrian court today ordered Josef Fritzl to remain in custody for another month while the investigation continues, reports Reuters. In addition, reports the Times of London, prosecutors say Fritzl will probably now face manslaughter charges after admitting in an interview that one of the children he fathered with his daughter died in the cellar where he imprisoned them. More »

In jail-cell notes released by his lawyer, Josef Fritzl goes to bizarre lengths to defend the rape and imprisonment of his daughter, citing his Nazi upbringing for instilling “a high regard for decency and uprightness,” and a need to save the 18-year-old Elisabeth from drinking and dissipation. “She was going out to seedy bars and would spend whole nights there drinking and smoking," he wrote. "I only tried to rescue her from that life." More »

Elisabeth Fritzl intended to leave home just before her father imprisoned her, letters published in the Oesterreich newspaper show. “After the exams … I'm moving in with my sister and her boyfriend,” the 18-year-old wrote to a friend in 1984. “Cross your fingers for me. When you get this letter, it will all be over,” she wrote just weeks before she disappeared. More »

The Josef Fritzl case has spurred Austrian legislators to initiate changes in sex crime laws to prevent child abuse, the BBC reports. As Fritzl kept his daughter imprisoned as a sex slave, he was granted custody for three of the children he fathered with her— despite a rape conviction. His conviction was wiped off the books after 15 years. Austria now wants to keep sex crime records for at least 30 years. More »

Austria's justice minister says local officials were too quick to believe Josef Fritzl's cover story for his daughter Elisabeth's imprisonment, Reuters reports. Fritzl claimed Elisabeth had run away and joined a cult, instead holding her captive and raping her in his basement. "Looking at everything that we know up to now, I can see a certain gullibility," Maria Berger said. More »

Austrian incest victim Elisabeth Fritzl may sue her father for compensation, Reuters reports. "There is the possibility of claiming compensation for imprisonment and the damage that has been incurred by it," said a lawyer for Fritzl, whose father/captor reportedly is deeply in debt. "Now it is all about evaluating his financial circumstances. Does he actually have any wealth?" More »

Josef Fritzl might not have stopped at raping his daughter, Austrian police now say, fearing now that Fritzl raped granddaughter Kerstin, the oldest incest child born in his cellar dungeon, the Daily Mail reports. But police aren't able to question the 19-year-old because she is still in an induced coma, though she is now stable and expected to live. More »

Joseph Fritzl’s plot to imprison his daughter began when the girl was just 12, Austrian police believe, six years before he finally locked her away. Fritzl built an extension to his house between 1978 and 1983, AFP reports. “The intention must have been there to build a secret area, a small dungeon,” said the chief investigator. More »

The wife of the Austrian grandfather who kept their daughter imprisoned in a basement under their apartment for 24 years never suspected she was there, her sister tells the AP. Rosemarie Fritzl believed her husband's tale that the daughter he kept as a sex slave ran away from home to join a cult. The two women even “did detective work” to search for the cult, the sister said. More »

The man charged with imprisoning his daughter for 24 years and repeatedly raping her may not spend long behind bars, reports the Times of London, as Josef Fritzel's lawyer plans to plead insanity to avoid a prison term. “Josef Fritzl is mentally ill and therefore not responsible for his actions," and belongs "in a closed psychiatry ward," Rudolf Mayer said.  More »

Dungeon dad Josef Fritzl is millions of euros in debt, adding to the challenge of his daughter’s recovery from years of sexual abuse and imprisonment, and the children's painful adaptation to the outside world, the Guardian reports. Now in a clinic near their old home, the family’s recuperation will take years, experts say. More »

A tenant who lived in Josef Fritzl's house for 4 years in the early '80s knew the Austrian father was abusing his daughter Elisabeth, the Times of London reports. The lodger said he was told of the abuse by a neighbor, who had helped the teenage Elisabeth escape to Vienna—only for police to track her down and return her to her father, who later imprisoned her in a cellar for 24 years. More »

A former tenant who lived just above the basement where Josef Fritzl imprisoned his daughter recalled wondering why his electricity bills were so high and why food disappeared from his kitchen, AFP reports. Police are tracking down the 100 or so lodgers who lived at the Fritzl house in the last 24 years, hoping to shed more light on what occurred there, the Guardian notes. "We want to talk to all of them," an officer said. More »