A Case of Austrian Incest

Josef Fritzl’s family has broken its silence, the Daily Telegraph reports, with a hand-painted sign hung in a window of their Austrian home. The family thanks the public for its support: “We hope that there will be a time when we can return to normal life,” it says, in text surrounded by rainbows and handprints with messages from family members. More »

Tourists are flocking to Amstetten, Austria, and snapping pictures at the site where Josef Fritzl kept his daughter imprisoned as a sex slave for 23 years, the Telegraph reports. "It is bad enough that journalists and TV crews have beleaguered our town, but now there is this ghoulish tourism," complains one resident. 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 »

Josef Fritzl complained today about receiving bad press since admitting to keeping an incestuous second family locked in his Austrian cellar, the Telegraph reports. "I am no monster," Fritzl said through his lawyer, calling his treatment “unfair” and calling the media's narrative “entirely one-dimensional” because it neglected the fact that he kept his dungeon family alive for over 20 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 »

Josef Fritzl was a regular at a brothel near his Austrian town and the prostitutes there feared him and shunned him whenever they could, the Scotsman reports. His domineering, "perverse" demands terrified the women, said a bartender. Among customers "95% are normal and 3% are a bit weird. Fritzl belongs to the remaining 2% that are definitely mentally ill," the man added. 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 »

Josef Fritzl's attorney is bonding with his client and painting a new picture of him for the press, Der Spiegel reports. “Josef Fritzl is being portrayed as a horrific monster and sexual tyrant," said Rudolf Mayer, a renowned Viennese lawyer. "My job is to show him as a human being." Mayer said he looked into Fritzl's eyes and gleaned much of his psyche in their first meeting. 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 »

It seems Josef Fritzl’s daughter wasn’t the only woman he abused. Fritzl was a known sex offender even before his basement of horrors came to light, with prior convictions for a rape, an attempted rape, and public exposure, the Times of London reports. It’s a major embarrassment for Amstetten police, who had claimed Fritzl had no criminal record.   More »