�
 |
|
 |
|
|
| Fritzl: Articles - Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Next |
| View previous topic
:: View next topic |
gwen
 Posted:
Tue May 06, 2008 1:12 pm |
|
|
|
Thanks Perry for all the updates!
This just keeps getting worse and worse! 
Report: Austrian 'Horror House' Dad May Have Raped GranddaughterTuesday, May 06, 2008
Police are investigating claims that an Austrian man accused of imprisoning his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathering her seven children also raped one of his granddaughters, a U.K. newspaper reported Tuesday.
Cops believe Josef Fritzl, 73, may have kept his granddaughter Kerstin as a sex slave in the dungeon he built under his home in the village of Amstetten, the Daily Mail reported.
Police are waiting to interview the 19-year-old, who is in a medically induced coma after she emerged from the basement dungeon on April 19.
The news comes as a prosecutor announced plans to meet Fritzl on Wednesday, an official said.
The meeting between prosecutor Christiane Burkheiser and Fritzl is to take place in the prison in the Lower Austrian city of St. Poelten, where the man is being held, prosecution spokesman Gerhard Sedlacek said.
Sedlacek said it is unclear if Fritzl would agree to answer questions. Authorities say he confessed to locking up and raping his daughter Elisabeth and has since remained silent.
Fritzl has not been charged and remains in pretrial detention. His lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, has said he is preparing an insanity defense.
Chief investigator Franz Polzer said experts are continuing to sift through Fritzl's property for evidence, adding there may be more "hollow spaces" that need to be examined. It is unlikely investigators would find anything "dramatic" in such areas, he said.
Doctors, unable to find medical records for Kerstin, appealed on television for her mother to come forward. Fritzl then accompanied the mother, Elisabeth, to the hospital on April 26 and confessed to police.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354286,00.html
|
|
AKA Gagal_05
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 22409
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
| gwen
Posted:
Tue May 06, 2008 5:05 pm |
|
|
|
Austrian Incest Victim May Sue Father
Elisabeth Fritzl's Lawyer Tells Reuters She May Sue Her Father for Compensation
By Alexandra Zawadil
May 6, 2008
VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian Elisabeth Fritzl, who was imprisoned by her father for 24 years and gave birth to seven of his children, may sue her father for compensation, her lawyer said on Tuesday.
Fritzl, 73, kept Elisabeth and three of her six surviving children in a windowless basement prison for nearly a quarter of a century, while raising three of their children as his own upstairs.
Lawyer Christoph Herbst said he was looking into claiming compensation from Fritzl, who had four or five real estate assets in his name, for those who had been locked in the basement.
"There is the possibility of claiming compensation for imprisonment and the damage that has been incurred by it," Herbst told Reuters in an interview.
Fritzl's assets also have debt attached to them and it is unclear how much money will be left in the end, he said.
"Now it is all about evaluating his financial circumstances. Does he actually have any wealth so that it pays off to start proceedings?"
Herbst said he had the impression that the victimized family had a loving relationship when he met them.
"My experience of the family was a very positive one. Looking at the way they treat each other, it is really very loving, they are open towards each other and they play together," he said.
United for the first time just over a week ago, Elisabeth Fritzl, five of her children and her mother Rosemarie are now in the care of a hospital in Amstetten, some 130 km (80 miles) west of the capital Vienna.
"If you see the family with your own eyes, it makes you feel much better than looking at the whole case in theory and from afar," he said.
The case came to light when the eldest child of the incestuous relationship, a 19-year-old daughter, became seriously ill and was taken to hospital more than two weeks ago.
She remains in an artificial coma and needs artificial respiration, according to her doctor.
One baby died shortly after being born and Fritzl, who also has seven children with his wife Rosemarie, burnt its remains in a furnace.
Prosecutors are investigating Fritzl for rape, incest, coercion and the death of the baby.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=4797182
|
|
AKA Gagal_05
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 22409
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Wed May 07, 2008 9:41 am |
|
|
|
Ain't he sweet?
Josef Fritzl: I deserve credit, I'm no monster
telegraph.co.uk
By Andreas Sam in Amstetten
Last Updated: 2:29PM BST 07/05/2008
Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who fathered seven children with his daughter while keeping her imprisoned in his cellar, has complained of receiving a bad press and not being given credit for keeping his dungeon family alive for more than two decades.
Fritzl, 73 claimed that media coverage was “unfair” and “entirely one-dimensional”, given the fact that he did not kill his daughter and the children he produced with her during 24 years of sexual abuse in a subterranean bunker in Amstetten.
“I am no monster,” Fritzl said though his lawyer Rudolf Mayer, according to the German tabloid newspaper Bild.
“I could have killed all of them, and no one would have known. No one would have ever found about it.”
Fritzl locked his daughter Elisabeth, 42, beneath his house and fathered seven children with her.
Three of the children – Kerstin, 19, Stefan 18, and Felix, five – had not seen sunlight until they were released by police last month after Kerstin was taken to hospital with an undiagnosed illness.
“Kerstin would not be alive today if it wasn’t for me. I have made sure that she gets to a hospital,” Fritzl said via his lawyer, according to Bild.
Fritzl, who is going to be questioned by a prosecutor for the first time today, is currently in a remand prison and will appear in court for a closed hearing on Friday.
His lawyer Mr Mayer is trying to get a certificate of insanity for his client, in order to be able to declare him unfit to stand trial.
Mr Mayer said: “My client doesn’t belong in a prison; but rather in a closed psychiatric hospital.”
Mr Mayer also complained about receiving death threats from Austria and abroad, including Britain.
Reinhard Haller, one of Austria’s leading forensic psychiatrists, challenged the claims that Frizl was insane and therefore not responsible for his actions.
Dr Haller said: “His main motivation was the exercise of power. It is not a sign of mental illness, but rather of an extreme personality disorder.” Meanwhile, the Fritzl case has reached the Austrian parliament, where MPS will debate today (WED) on whether to introduce lengthier prison sentences for sex offenders and change laws to allow the criminal records to be preserved for a longer period.
The move comes after it was revealed that Fritzl had previous convictions for rape and attempted rape, as well as charges for arson, but was nevertheless awarded care over three children born out of the incestuous relationship with his daughter, as according to Austrian laws files on sex offences are being removed from the records after ten to 15 years.
The Austrian Justice Minister Maria Berger has admitted that authorities have mishandled the Fritzl case for the first time and said that police and social services had acted “somewhat gullibly”. She said that the disappearance of Elisabeth in 1984, when her father kidnapped her but told authorities she had run away to join a religious cult, was “not sufficiently investigated”.
“Today, we would surely go about it differently and conduct a detailed investigation,” Mrs Berger said.
http://tinyurl.com/4tgo52
|
|
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1600
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Wed May 07, 2008 10:42 am |
|
|
|
Austrian prosecutor holds Fritzl talks
Elizabeth Stewart, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday May 7 2008
An Austrian prosecutor today met Josef Fritzl, who confessed to imprisoning his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathering her seven children, for the first time.
During the two-hour interrogation, Fritzl provided the prosecutor, Christiane Burkheiser, with information about his background, career and family.
Officials said the 73-year-old did not talk about the imprisonment and rape of his daughter.
The St Pölten prosecution spokesman, Gerhard Sedlacek, said no further questioning was planned for another two weeks.
Fritzl has not yet been charged and remains in pre-trial custody. Rudolf Mayer, his lawyer, said his client had access to a television and was watching coverage of his crimes.
Mayer said Fritzl told him: "I'm only being portrayed as a monster and not as someone who committed monstrous acts."
Fritzl's son-in-law told today's Mirror of the "terrible ordeal" of discovering the secret life of the relative he had believed to be a "normal family man".
Horst Herlbauer described the "mental torture and anguish" unleashed by revelations that his father-in-law had imprisoned Elisabeth in the cellar beneath the family home in Amstetten.
"It's a terrible ordeal beyond words," said Herlbauer, who is married to Fritzl's second eldest daughter Rosemarie, 47.
The 46-year-old told the paper that he had frequently visited the house but "never had any reason" to suspect that his sister-in-law and three of her children were being held captive.
Claiming that Fritzl seemed like a "normal dad and family man," he said he believed his story that Elisabeth had left home to live with a cult.
"We always believed Elisabeth had run away and not come back - everybody did," he said. "That was the truth to us … we didn't question it, even when some of her children appeared and were adopted into the family."
He admitted it had been difficult for the family to come to terms with the revelations, saying Fritzl had been "outgoing, friendly and popular with the neighbours".
Since the disclosures of Fritzl's crimes, Herlbauer's wife has left their home in Traun, Austria.
"It's impossible to describe the mental torture and anguish she's been through," he said. "It's beyond words. It's unreal. The whole family needs time to get over this.". . . .
http://tinyurl.com/6eylas
|
|
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1600
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Thu May 08, 2008 8:42 am |
|
|
|
Josef Fritzl: ‘The Nazis were to blame’
By Andreas Sam in Amstetten
Last Updated: 1:53PM BST 08/05/2008
Josef Fritzl has blamed the Nazis for fostering the twisted morality which led him to imprison his daughter in a cellar for 24 years.
In a bizarre attempt to defend his conduct he said Hitler’s Germany had instilled “a high regard for decency and uprightness” in him.
He claimed he had “rescued” Elisabeth, who was then 18, to keep her from “going out to seedy bars” and “drinking and smoking”.
Fritzl said he had never intended to rape her - as he was “not a man to abuse children” - but felt an “overpowering” desire for “a taste of the forbidden”.
The Austrian added he had raped her while thinking of his own “lonely” childhood and said he “wanted them [the other children] to always have someone to play with”.
He said he knew his daughter, who he described as a “superb housewife and mother” was suffering as he raped her but could not stop himself.
Fritzl also admitted incestuous feelings for his mother - who he described as “the greatest woman in the world”.
The claims came in notes written from his cell and released through Fritzl’s lawyer Rudolf Mayer, who claimed they revealed the extent of his client’s insanity.
Fritzl wrote: “I have always had high regard for decency and uprightness. I was growing up in Nazi times, when hard discipline was a very important thing.
“I belong to an old school of thinking that just does not exist today.
“I grew up in the Nazi times and that meant there needed to be control and the respect of authority. I suppose I took on some of these old values with me into later life, all subconsciously, of course.”
He claimed he kidnapped the teenage Elisabeth to keep her away from alcohol and bad company.
"When she got into puberty she stopped obeying any rules,” he said. “She was going out to seedy bars and would spend whole nights there drinking and smoking.
“I only tried to rescue her from that life. She even ran away from home twice and associated herself with some bad people that were not right for her. I would bring her back home each time, but she would run away again each time.
“I tried to rescue her from the swamp and I organised her a trainee job as a waitress, but sometimes there were days when she would not go to work.
“I was forced to act and do something about it. I had to create a place where I could keep Elisabeth separated from that world, and I was ready to use force.”
In letters written by Elisabeth, who was then 18, in the weeks before she was imprisoned, she spoke of enjoying going to nightclubs with friends and getting drunk.
She wrote to a friend about going out one weekend.
“Of course I went out on Saturday. Can you imagine how hammered I was? At first we went to a couple of clubs. At about 5am we all went to my place to get a coffee because we’d had so much fun, and they all slept at my place.
“That was a mess. It took me half a day to clean up the flat.”
It now appears that such typical behaviour was condemning her to her imprisonment.
It emerged today that Fritzl is known as 'Satan' among the other inmates of the remand jail where he is being held.
He described the complicated electronic devices used to seal the concrete walls of her underground prison and said he began building the cells in 1981 - three years before he locked her in them.
He also confirmed the lies he told to police and social workers to mask his acts and mentioned travelling hundreds of miles in order not to be recognised when he was buying groceries, medicines and clothes for Elisabeth and her children.
According to Mr Mayer, who was speaking to an Austrian magazine, Fritzl said: “I wanted to have children with her.
“I was my dream to have another normal family, in the cellar, with her as a good wife and several children.
“I knew she didn’t want me to do the things I did to her. I knew she was in pain.
“But the urge to have a taste of the forbidden was overpowering. It was an obsession.”
Fritzl locked up Elisabeth in 1984, but claims he never abused her before that, as he was “no a man to abuse children”.
He admitted he first raped her in early 1985, which continued until her release.
He said: “The urge to have sex with Elisabeth was only increasing. There was no way out; not for Elisabeth, but also not for me.
“At first I was thinking about whether I should release her. But I kept delaying that decision, for fears that I would be arrested and that my crime would be exposed to my family and to the whole world.”
He said he saw himself as a father figure to the captive family in the dungeon.
He said: “I always wanted to have many children and I dreamed about a large family since I was a little boy. I didn’t want my children to grow up alone like I did, but I wanted them to always have someone to play with.”
Fritzl admitted to having had incestuous fantasies about his mother, who is said to have been a strict woman who separated from his father in 1939 and raised their son on her own.
“She was the greatest woman in the world. She was in charge at home, but I was the only man in the house. In a way, I was like a husband to her,” he said.
“I loved her across all boundaries. I was totally in awe of her. Completely and totally in awe.
“That did not mean there was anything else between us though, there never was and there never would have been.
“I was able to keep my desires under control.”
Mr Mayer, Fritzl’s lawyer, claimed that the account proved that his client was suffering from a mental illness and was not accountable for his actions.
Mr Mayer said: “Someone who is able to imprison their own daughter in a cellar for 24 years and have children with her cannot be counted as a normal person.
“But even though the crimes of my client are monstrous, he is not a monster. He could have killed his hostages and sealed the dungeon, but he didn’t. He never intended to hurt them”
But according to police and relatives, Fritzl was a “despot”.
Austrian police spokesman Colonel Franz Polzer said: “The whole was subjected to his domineering authority. Members of the family have described him as a tyrant.”
Fritzl will go to court tomorrow where a judge will consider whether to keep him in detention as the first 14 days of investigative custody expire.
http://tinyurl.com/49nkoo
|
|
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1600
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Thu May 08, 2008 3:56 pm |
|
|
|
Now I really want to vomit:
Austrian dungeon dad: I was 'addicted' to incest
Fritzl says he shared meals with imprisoned daughter, brought her flowers
MSNBC News Services
updated 11:33 a.m. ET, Thurs., May. 8, 2008
VIENNA, Austria - Austrian Josef Fritzl said he became addicted to incest with his daughter, who bore him seven children, and had imprisoned her in a cellar to save her from the outside world.
But in comments published Thursday, Fritzl said he tried to care for her and their children by bringing them flowers, toys and books.
"I constantly knew, during the entire 24 years, that what I did was not right, that I must have been crazy because I did something like this," the Austrian magazine News quoted Fritzl as saying through his lawyer.
The lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, confirmed Thursday to The Associated Press that Fritzl made the remarks during a series of conversations with him at a prison in St. Poelten, west of Vienna, where he is being held in pretrial detention.
Since the case came to light last month, Fritzl has confessed to locking up daughter Elisabeth, 42, in 1984, repeatedly raping her and fathering her seven children. He said three of the children were raised in a cellar in his home in Amstetten, never seeing the light of day; three were raised above ground by him and his wife, and one died in infancy.
Charges have not yet been filed against him.
Fritzl said he started raping his daughter in 1985 when she was aged 19. Elisabeth has told police that Josef started sexually abusing her when she was 11.
'I knew I was hurting her'
"My drive to have sex with Elisabeth grew stronger and stronger," Fritzl was quoted as saying.
"I knew Elisabeth didn't want me to do what I did to her. I knew that I was hurting her. ... It was like an addiction ... In reality, I wanted children with her."
Fritzl, who also has seven children with his wife Rosemarie, said he had locked up Elisabeth after she started to "break all the rules" following the onset of puberty.
She went to bars, drank alcohol and smoked, and ran away a couple of times, the 73-year-old said.
"I tried to get her out of that swamp, organized her an apprenticeship to become a waitress.
"I needed to take precautions, I needed to create a place in which I could at some point keep her away from the outside world, by force if necessary."
Nazi discipline
Fritzl said he found himself trapped in a inescapable cycle once he had locked up Elisabeth. He told his wife their daughter had joined a sect.
He referred to Elisabeth's underground world as his "empire" and described himself as a man who valued decency and good manners. He said the emphasis on discipline in Nazi times, when he grew up, might have influenced him.
"Nonetheless, I am not the beast the media depicts me as.
"When I went into the bunker, I brought flowers for my daughter, and books and toys for the children, and I watched adventure videos with them while Elisabeth was cooking our favorite dish," he said.
"And then we all sat around the table and ate together."
Fritzl's double life began to disintegrate when Elisabeth's oldest child, a 19-year-old woman, was hospitalized with a severe infection.
Unable to find medical records for the woman, doctors appealed for her mother to come forward. Fritzl accompanied Elisabeth to the hospital on April 26.
'Only man in the house'
In other comments published by the News, Fritzl said he grew up an only child in "humble circumstances" and that his mother, whom he "admired very much," threw his father out of the house when he was 4.
"She was the boss at home, and I the only man in the house," Fritzl said of his mother.
Fritzl, who always wanted to have a large family, said he was happy about the children Elisabeth bore him. To prepare her for labor, he brought her medical books, towels, disinfectants and diapers, he said.
"Elisabeth was, of course, scared of the delivery," he said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24520340/
|
|
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1600
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Fri May 09, 2008 8:26 am |
|
|
|
Josef Fritzl: In his own twisted, depraved and chilling words
scotsman.com
Published Date: 09 May 2008
By Allan Hall in Berlin
THE twisted mind of Josef Fritzl has been laid bare in a prison interview in which he defends the 24-year imprisonment and rape of his daughter Elisabeth.
Fritzl maintains he acted out of love in imprisoning Elisabeth when she was 18 and keeping her in his cellar dungeon, where she was tortured and raped, giving birth to seven children.
The 73-year-old, who authorised his lawyer to give his side of the story to the Austrian magazine News, will today be arraigned before magistrates – the first step in a legal process that will determine whether he goes to jail or a psychiatric hospital for the rest of his life.
But if the interview was an attempt to win sympathy for Fritzl – he is known as "Satan" among the other inmates of the remand jail where he is being held – then he has deeply deluded himself.
Despite claims from neighbours in Amstetten that he was a brutal tyrant at home, he told his lawyer, Rudolf Mayer: "I always put a lot of value on good behaviour and respect, I admit that. The reason for this is I belong to an old school of thinking that just does not exist today.
"I grew up in the Nazi times, and that meant the need to be controlled and respect authority. Yet, despite that, I am not the monster that I am portrayed as in the media."
Asked how he would describe someone who kidnapped his own daughter, locked her in a cellar for 24 years and subjected her to a brutal regime and repeated rape, he said: "On the face of it, probably as a monster."
He disagrees with his daughter that he had assaulted her as a child, saying: "That is not true. I am not a man that has sex with little children. I only had sex with her later, much later. It was when she was in the cellar by then, when she had been in the cellar for a long time."
Asked if much planning had gone into the crime, he said: "Two, three years beforehand, that is true. I guess it must have been around 1981 or 1982 when I began to build a room in my cellar as the cell for her. I got a really heavy concrete and steel door, that worked with an electric motor and a remote control that I used to get into the cellar. It needed a number code to open and close. I then plastered the walls, added something to wash in and a small toilet, a bed and a cooking ring, as well as the fridge, electricity and lights.
"Perhaps some people did notice what I was doing, but they really did not care. Why should they? The cellar of my house, at the end of the day, is my house. It belongs to me, it is my kingdom – only I can enter."
Explaining how he came to imprison his daughter, he said: "Ever since she entered puberty, Elisabeth stopped doing what she was told. She just did not follow any of my rules any more. She would go out all night in local bars and come back stinking of alcohol and smoke.
"She even ran away twice and hung around with persons of questionable moral standards, who were certainly not a good influence on her. I always had to bring her home, but she always ran away again. That is why I had to arrange a place where I gave her the chance – by force – to keep away from the bad influences of the outside world."
On the 28 August, 1984, he locked her in the cellar. Her indescribable pain, suffering, humiliation and degradation would last 8,516 days.
Fritzl denies handcuffing Elisabeth and keeping her on a lead in the early days of her incarceration. "That was not necessary; my daughter had no chance to get away anyway." On that much, at least, they agree: Elisabeth has said she screamed and banged on the walls, but nobody came. Gradually, she had to accept nobody other than him could help.
On her father's orders, she wrote letters to her family, telling them of a new life and saying she had no desire to return. She asked them not to look for her. Her mother, her siblings and officials believed the letters, and the search for missing Elisabeth was wound down. The master of the cellar knew he was safe.
"I guess after the kidnap I got myself in a vicious circle, a vicious circle not just for Elisabeth but also for me from which there was no way out," he said.
"With every week that I kept my daughter prisoner, my situation just got more crazy, and, really, it is true, I often thought of whether I should let her out or not. But I just was not capable of making a decision, even though, and probably because, I knew that every day that passed made my crime that much worse.
"My desire to have sex with Elisabeth also got much stronger as time went by. We first had sex in spring 1985. I could not control myself any more."
Every two or three days, he went into the cellar to take her food, clothes and blankets and tell her of his life outside, his work with property and of her mother, who was so sad about the daughter that had run away.
He told her how the garden was going, about films on the television and trips he had made, and how well her brothers and sisters were doing in school.
She became pregnant for the first time in 1988. "Elisabeth was, of course, very worried about the future, but I bought her medical books in the cellar, so that she would know when the day came what she had to do, and I arranged towels and disinfectants and nappies."
In 1988, Elisabeth gave birth to Kirsten alone in the cellar; in 1990, again alone and unaided, Stefan was born.
Fritzl said: "I was delighted about the children. It was great for me to have a second proper family in the cellar, with a wife and a few children."
Asked what would have happened if he had been killed in a car accident, he said: "I prepared well in this eventuality. Every time I left the bunker, I switched on a timer that would definitely have opened the door to the cellar after a set time. If I had died, Elisabeth and the children would have been free."
In 1992, Lisa was born, and she screamed so much and was so ill so often that Fritzl arranged for her to be released into the outside world. On 18 May, 1993, Elisabeth wrote a letter to introduce Lisa to her family, and Fritzl produced the little girl upstairs, saying she had been left on the doorstep. He said: "Elisabeth and I planned everything together, because we both knew that Lisa, because of her poor health condition and the circumstances in the cellar, had no chance to live had she remained there."
Fritzl used the same ploy with Monica, born in 1994, and Alexander, in 1996. He said there were "complications" caused by their arrival that he did not want to deal with – and, in any case, they would be safe upstairs with his wife, Rosemarie, "the best mother in the world".
Fritzl confirmed that an unknown side-effect of the children was that, with every new baby, he gained more control over his daughter. Her own life had no longer become important to her, but she had every reason to do everything he wanted, for the sake of her children.
He said: "I tried really as hard as possible to look after my family in the cellar. When I went there, I bought my daughter flowers and the children books and cuddly toys. I used to watch videos and adventure stories with them, while Elisabeth used to cook for me and the children. We used to sit at the table with each other. We celebrated birthdays and Christmas in the cellar – I even took a Christmas tree secretly into the cellar, and cakes and presents."
Despite his surface affections, Fritzl admits the cellar environment impacted badly on the health of his incest brood.
The emotional stress of being locked up – even though they did not know they were locked up – the poor-quality air in the badly ventilated cellar and the mould on the walls affected all three children.
They suffered from infections including flu, coughing fits and heart and circulation problems. There were also epileptic attacks. He brought medicine, but none of it was prescription medicine – they were all things he could get over the counter of an ordinary chemist's without any questions being asked. The most common "cure-all" was aspirin, but it did not help – the children had inherited from their grandmother an allergy to it. Felix and Kirsten seemed to suffer most, the little boy shaking for hours all over his body and the girl sometimes screaming uncontrollably.
In January this year, Elisabeth finally arranged with her father to act as the fits worsened, and she wrote the letter to the hospital that started the final trip to freedom.
Asked if he wanted finally to release them, he said: "I wanted to free Elisabeth, Kirsten, Stefan and Felix and to bring them back home. That was my next step.
"The reason is that I was getting older, I was finding it harder to move and I knew that in the future I would no longer be able to care for my second family in the cellar. The plan was that Elisabeth and the children would explain that they were kept by a sect in a secret place."
Did he think this was realistic – would they not betray him? He said: "That was my hope, however unbelievable at that time. Despite that, there was always the risk that Elisabeth and the children would betray me. That did happen rather sooner than I expected, as the problem with Kirsten escalated."
He denied having threatened the children with gas if they tried to escape, but admitted: "I am sorry to say I did tell them that they would never get past the door because they would be electrocuted and they would die."
Asked if he wanted to die, he said: "No. I only want one thing now – to pay for what I did."
'Fairytale' world on tv
JOSEF Fritzl told how he extended the bunker into another two rooms in 1993. He put in a television and radio, as well as a video recorder, table, chairs, carpets, cupboards, plates, tables and pots. He also bought more kitchen utensils and coloured pictures to put on the wall.
He said: "After the birth of Felix at the end of 2002, I even gave Elisabeth a washing machine as a present so she did not have to wash her own clothes and that of the children by hand.
"I always knew over 24 years what I did was not correct, and that I must be mad to do something like this. Yet despite that, at the same time, it just became a matter of course that I lived my second life in the cellar."
Upstairs, the three children he had with Elisabeth called him daddy, even though they knew he was their grandfather, whereas downstairs his three children used to call him grandfather, as their mother never told them anything different.
She taught her children, showing them how to write and read using books Fritzl provided. She cared for them even when she was ill, reading fairy stories of princesses and knights but saying the cellar world they lived in was the only reality and that the fairy stories she read, like the pictures on the TV, were just a fantasy.
And she never spoke to her children about how much she was suffering.
THE interview reveals Fritzl's mother-fixation, every bit as strong as that which gripped Norman Bates, the fictional motel-keeping killer from Alfred Hitchcock's murder thriller Psycho.
"I come from a small family and grew up in a tiny flat in Amstetten," he said. "My father was somebody who was a waster. He never took responsibility and was just a loser that always cheated on my mother.
"When I was four she quite rightly threw him out the house.
"After that my mother and I had no contact with this man; he did not interest us. Suddenly there was only us two.
"My mother was a strong woman; she taught me discipline and control and the values of hard work. She sent me to a good school so that I could learn a good trade and she worked really hard and took a very difficult job to keep our heads above water.
"When I say she was hard on me, she was only as hard as was necessary. She was the best woman in the world. I suppose you could describe me as her man, sort of. She was the boss at home and I was the only man in the house.
"It's complete rubbish to say my mother sexually abused me. My mother was respectable, extremely respectable. I loved her over across all boundaries. I was in awe of her. Completely and totally in awe.
"That did not mean there was anything else between us, though. There never was and there never would have been."
Asked by his lawyer if he had ever fantasised about a relationship with his mother, he pauses in the dialogue and thinks for a long time for answering.
"Yes, probably. But I was a very strong man, probably as strong as my mother, and as a result I was capable to keep my desires under control.
"I became older and that meant that when I went outside I managed to meet other women. I had affairs with a few girls and then a short while later I met Rosemarie."
Asked if his wife, Rosemarie, had anything in common with his mother, he said: "Absolutely nothing. She had nothing in common with my mother – well, perhaps there were a few similarities.
"I mean Rosemarie was also a wonderful woman, is a wonderful woman. She is just a lot more shy and weaker than my mother.
"I chose her because I had a strong desire then to have lots of children. I wanted children that did not grow up like me as single children. I wanted children that always had someone else at their side to play with and to support."
"The dream of a big family was with me from when I was very, very small. And Rosemarie seemed to be the perfect mother to realise that dream. But it is also true to say that I loved her and I still love her."
Asked how it happened that in 1967, after having four children with his wife whom he loved, he had then betrayed her by climbing into a flat and raping a young nurse, he said: "I do not know what drove me to do that."
After 18 months in jail he went back to his wife and had three other children with her. He said: "It's really true I do not know why I did it. I always wanted to be a good husband and a good father."
http://tinyurl.com/6lo36c
|
|
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1600
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Fri May 09, 2008 11:20 am |
|
|
|
Josef Fritzl 'should be tried for murder'
By Andreas Sam in Vienna
Telegraph.co.uk
Last Updated: 2:24PM BST 09/05/2008
Josef Fritzl, who was today detained for a further month by an Austrian court, is likely to face a murder charge over the death of one of his children.
Fritzl 73, has confessed that one of the seven children he fathered with his daughter Elisabeth, 42, died shortly after birth in the underground dungeon.
Austrian prosecutors who are preparing the charges against Fritzl, who kept Elisabeth as a sex slave in a bunker beneath his house for 24 years, said that it was now likely that he would be charged with murder out of negligence for not summoning a doctor for the newborn that died.
Fritzl has confessed to hurling the baby’s body into a heating oven after it died three days after it was born on April 28, 1996. The baby was called Michael; its twin brother Alexander, now 12, survived and is being treated together with the rest of the family in a special clinic near Amstetten.
An Austrian court today ordered that Fritzl be kept in custody for a further month, a court spokesman said. Lawyer Rudolf Mayer, representing Fritzl, made no objection at a 15-minute closed hearing.
“We have read the interview and will question Mr Fritzl in the next days. If he was able to see that the child was severely ill but still did not bring in help, than there are ground for murder out of negligence charges,” Gerhard Sedlacek, spokesman for Austrian prosecutors, said. [emphasis added]
Fritzl’s daughter Elisabeth also told police that the child died shortly after birth.
Meanwhile, Austrian police investigating Fritzl’s house announced that they will use bloodhounds in order to determine whether there were any corpses buried in the garden.
Officers have also requested the help of archaeologists, who will use sonar equipment to probe the area around the three-storey house and check whether there are any graves or other underground rooms.
Police spokesman Colonel Franz Polzer said that investigators found two previously unknown rooms in the cellar next to the dungeon where the captive family were kept, but that both were “sealed off” with concrete and not used for years.
The rooms were filled with rubbish and building material and officers assume that they were once used as storage magazine.
Forensic experts will examine both rooms in the upcoming week, as well as the upper floors of the house, which total over 1000 square meters.
Authorities have also announced that they would take legal action against all journalists attempting to penetrate the prison where Fritzl is in remand custody, as well as against dozens of reporters and photographers who are trying to get a glimpse of his family who are being treated the Amstteten Mauer psychiatric clinic near Amstetten.
The Fritzl family — his wife Rosemarie, 68, his daughter Elisabeth, and her children Stefan, 18, Lisa, 15, Monika, 14, Alexander, 12, and Felix, five, are all recovering and their condition is improving “faster than expected,” a hospital spokesman said.
Cristoph Herbst, the lawyer hired by the state of Austria to represent the Fritzl family, said he was trying to determine whether Fritzl was “bankrupt or a millionaire”.
He also said that he would ask a court to freeze all of Fritzl’s assets, in order to be able to claim damages for his clients. http://tinyurl.com/57vbe4
|
|
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1600
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| CherokeeKid
Posted:
Fri May 09, 2008 11:49 pm |
|
|
|
Fritzl incest case
The Fritzl incest case emerged in late April 2008 when a 42-year-old Austrian woman, Elisabeth Fritzl, told police that she had been sexually abused, raped, and physically assaulted by her father, Josef Fritzl, since 1977 and had been imprisoned by him since 1984.[1] Austrian police say her father kept her for 24 years in a small soundproofed cellar with four beds and a bathroom. It extended beneath the family house in a village near the town of Amstetten in Lower Austria. In that cellar, she gave birth to a total of seven children (including twins, one of whom died) all of whom had been fathered by Josef.[2] Three of them had been imprisoned with their mother their whole lives when they were found—daughter Kerstin and sons Stefan and Felix, who were aged 19, 18, and 5, respectively. The other three (Lisa, Monika, and Alexander) were cared for by Josef and his wife Rosemarie in the house upstairs[2], after Fritzl engineered their appearance to make it seem that they had been left, at the doorstep, as infants by Elisabeth.
Background
Josef Fritzl
Josef Stefan Fritzl was born on 9 April 1935 in Amstetten, Austria. His sister-in-law, Christine R., states that he grew up without a father, and that his mother severely beat him almost daily.[3] In 1956, Fritzl married Rosemarie; with her, he had seven children. Trained as an electrical engineer, Fritzl often worked away from the couple's home, but returned at night. In nearby towns and villages, he owned several other properties, which he rented out and occasionally needed to visit.[4][5]
Criminal record
Police files show that Fritzl was first recorded as a criminal sex offender in 1967. His record includes a conviction for raping a young woman in the city of Linz, a crime for which he served an 18 month sentence in prison,[6] another attempted rape and an arrest for indecent exposure.[7][8] The revelation of his criminal record led to renewed criticism of the Austrian Police and Social Services systems: critics demanded to know why a man with two previous convictions was allowed to adopt children, even if the assumption had been that they were his grandchildren.[9]
Martina Posch
It was reported on, April 30, 2008, that Austrian police were investigating whether Fritzl was connected to a murder case unsolved for more than 20 years. In 1986, the body of 17-year-old Martina Posch was discovered near a hotel and restaurant owned by Fritzl. Ten days after her disappearance, her corpse was found on the shore of the Mondsee, a lake near Salzburg; she was believed to have been raped.[10] On May 1, Austrian police spokesman Franz Polzer denied media reports that authorities were looking into Fritzl's ties to the unsolved murder and said that, although they may investigate possible links in the future, there was no investigation as at present.[11]
Josef Fritzl's statement
The Austrian weekly News[12][13] obtained a statement that Fritzl had made to his lawyer in which he stated that he "knew all the time, during the whole 24 years, that what I did was not right, that I must be crazy to do something like that", but that "it became a matter of course for me to lead a second life in the basement of my house". Regarding his treatment of his basement family, he stated "I am not the beast the media depicts me as", and explained that he brought presents and toys into the bunker and often watched television with the children and ate meals with Elisabeth and the children. Fritzl decided to imprison Elisabeth after she started to "break all the rules". "I needed to take precautions, I needed to create a place in which I could at some point keep her away from the outside world, by force if necessary". He suggested that the emphasis on discipline in the Nazi era, during which he grew up, might have influenced his views about decency and good manners. Critics have said his statement may be a ploy to prepare an insanity defence.[14]
Case history
Fritzl is suspected of having begun abusing his daughter Elisabeth in 1977 when she was 11 years old. At 15 Elisabeth started a training course to become a waitress. In January 1983, Elisabeth ran away from home and, together with a friend from work, went into hiding in Vienna. She was found by the police within three weeks and returned to her parents. After her return, the abuse by her father continued, according to Elisabeth's statement. She re-entered her training course and, upon completion in summer 1984, was offered a job in the city of Linz. On 24 August 1984, Fritzl lured her into the cellar of the family home by asking her to help him carry a door into the basement.[15] It was then that he is alleged to have drugged and handcuffed her. Elisabeth stated that she was initially handcuffed to a column and left alone for two days. Afterwards, she was later attached to a leash so that she was able to go to the bathroom. He kept her imprisoned and repeatedly raped her, until the events of April 2008. He told her that she would be gassed if she tried to escape. Technicians have not yet found out if this was more than a threat.[citation needed] Fritzl denies these accusations.[15]
The day after Elisabeth's disappearance, her mother filed a missing persons report. In September 1984, a letter appeared, in Elisabeth's handwriting, telling her parents and the police to stop searching for her. The letter was postmarked in the town of Braunau am Inn. She stated that she was living with a friend and was tired of living with her family. She warned her parents not to look for her or she would leave the country.[15]
Elisabeth's parents adopted Lisa and became Monika's and Alexander's foster caretakers, with the knowledge of the local Social Services department. Officials said that nothing appeared to be suspicious about the family, and that Fritzl managed to explain "very plausibly" how three of his infant grandchildren had turned up on his doorstep. Amstetten's local governor, Hans-Heinz Lenze, later commented that the children had received regular visits from social workers, who never heard any complaints or noticed anything to arouse their suspicions.[4]
The cellar
The Fritzl property in Amstetten consists of two parts: an old building dating from around 1890 and a new building which was added later, between 1978 and 1983. In 1978, around the time Fritzl raped Elisabeth for the first time, he applied for a building permit for an "extension with basement". In 1983, building inspectors visited the site and verified that he had built the new extension in accordance with the building permit. However, the Austrian police currently assume that Fritzl had created additional room for the dungeon by excavating space for a much larger basement and concealing it from the building inspectors by erecting walls. In 1984, Elisabeth was imprisoned in this concealed dungeon and lived there, first on her own and later with two of her children, until 1993 when Fritzl enlarged her prison with another room. To this purpose, he apparently dug a passageway to a pre-existing basement under the old part of the property, which nobody knew of apart from him. According to the Austrian police there is no indication that earth was removed from this area to create more space.[3][16] The entire cellar was insulated with expanding foam.[17] The ceilings measured 5 feet 6 inches high at most, with narrow passageways connecting the rooms. Two of the rooms were equipped with two beds each.[17]
At a press conference, police spokesman Franz Polzer described the access to the hidden space as follows: there were two access points, both secured with electronic locks and concealed from view: one was a hinged door that weighed 500 kg and is thought to have become unusable over the years because of its weight, and the other one was a metal door, reinforced with concrete and on steel rails that weighed 300 kg. It measured 1 m high and 60 cm wide. In order to reach this main access door, five cellar rooms, which were all locked and to which access was forbidden for the residents of the house, had to be crossed. The door was located behind a shelf filled with paint in Fritzl's basement workshop, protected by an electronic code known only to Fritzl, which he entered using a remote. The door led to a narrow passageway that was followed by another door and a further electronically secured door giving access to the living area of the captives. All the locks were modern high quality cylinder locks. To get to the area where Elisabeth and her 3 children were held, eight doors would need to be unlocked, and after the third door from the end there were also electronic locking devices.[16]
Life in the cellar
Elisabeth only had a single room in the basement until 1993. According to her, Fritzl visited, approximately, once every three days in the beginning, to rape her and bring her food. At first, they were alone, but eventually Fritzl would rape her in front of her children. She was to give birth to seven children during her 24 years in captivity:[15][18][19]
The captives had a television, radio, and video recorder at their disposal and were provided with food cooked on hot plates, clothes, and paper and glue for drawing and entertainment; drawings were hung on the bathroom wall in the cellar. The children were taught to speak by Elisabeth.[17]
According to his sister-in-law Christine R, Fritzl would go into the cellar every morning at 9 a.m., apparently to draw plans for machines, which he sold to firms. Often he stayed down there for the night - his wife was not even allowed to bring him coffee. Alfred Dubanovsky, who rented a ground floor room in the Fritzl house for 12 years, said he heard noises coming from the cellar but Fritzl passed it off as the gas heating system.[20]
Investigation
On 19 April 2008, Elisabeth's daughter Kerstin fell unconscious, and it was when she was near death that Fritzl agreed to seek medical attention. Fritzl needed Elisabeth's help to carry Kerstin out of the dungeon, and it was then that Elisabeth saw the outside world for the first time in 24 years. After she helped bring Kerstin to ground level, she returned to the dungeon where she would remain for her last week. [15] Kerstin was taken by ambulance from the Fritzl residence to the Amstetten Community Hospital (Landesklinikum Amstetten) and admitted with life-threatening kidney failure. In Kerstin's pocket was a note written by her mother asking for help. Fritzl arrived at the hospital and discussed Kerstin's condition and the mother's note with Dr. Albert Reiter.[4] Medical staff found aspects of the story to be peculiar and alerted the Austrian Police on 21 April. Using the resources of Interpol, Austrian police started an appeal via a public media campaign to find the missing mother to gather additional information about Kerstin's medical history.[19][21] The missing case of Elisabeth was reopened. Fritzl stuck to his story about Elisabeth being in a sect, and then brought out the "most recent letter" from Elisabeth, dated January of 2008. This letter was postmarked in the city of Kematen an der Krems, giving police a false lead to investigate. At this point the question arose whether the sect even existed. [15]
This led police to speak with Manfred Wohlfahrt, a church officer in charge of information on religious sects. It was Wohlfahrt's investigation that resulted in the police concluding that this "sect" may not even exist. Elisabeth's letters seemed dictated and oddly written. The news covered some of these issues and Elisabeth watched the story on the television in the dungeon. [15]
Elisabeth pleaded with her father to be taken to the hospital. On 25 April, Fritzl then released Elisabeth from the cellar along with her sons Stefan and Felix, bringing them upstairs. Fritzl told his wife that Elisabeth had decided to come back after a 24-year absence.[19] Governor Lenze told ORF that Fritzl had telephoned and thanked him and the social services for looking after his family during his granddaughter, Kerstin's illness.[4] Fritzl and his daughter Elisabeth went to the hospital where Kerstin was being treated on 26 April 2008. Following a tip-off reporting that the two were present in the hospital, the police stopped Elisabeth and her father in the vicinity of the hospital and took them to a police station for further interrogation. Elisabeth did not provide police with more details until they assured her she would be safe from her father. She then revealed the details of her father's crimes. Fritzl was arrested on suspicion of sexual abuse, incest and abduction. The following day, Elisabeth and her children were taken into care.
Fritzl confessed on 28 April to imprisoning his daughter in a windowless cellar for 24 years and fathering her seven children. Police said Fritzl, an electrical engineering technician, had told investigators how to enter the basement prison through a small hidden door, opened by a secret keyless entry code. Concerned by information from Elisabeth and her children that her father had told them that the concrete door was wired to explode, and that poisonous gas canisters were also part of the security system, the police took Fritzl to the cellar door when they first entered the cellar.[17] Fritzl's wife, Rosemarie, had apparently been unaware of what had been happening to Elisabeth. It is believed she assumed, due to the letters in her handwriting, that her daughter had run away from home to join a religious cult.[19][22]
On 29 April, it was announced that DNA evidence confirmed that Fritzl is indeed the father of all of his daughter's children.[23]
Subsequently Fritzl's defence lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, said that, although the DNA test proved incest, evidence was needed for other allegations. "The DNA traces are clear and this would prove the incest but the rape has not been proven at all, let alone the enslavement and the murder that have been talked about. Nothing has been proven there... We need to reassess the confessions made so far." [24]
In their daily press conference, Austrian police said on 1 May that Fritzl had forced Elisabeth to write a letter, the previous year, indicating he may have been planning to release her and their children. In it, she wrote that she wanted to come home but "it's not possible yet".[25] Police believe Fritzl intended to pretend he had rescued his daughter from her fictional sect.[26] In the same press conference, police spokesman Franz Polzer said the investigation would probably last a couple of months, as police plan to interview at least 100 people who lived in the same apartment building as the Fritzls over the past 24 years.[11]
Investigators are only allowed to work in the cellar for an hour at a time due to the lack of oxygen. [27]
Time frame
The time frame of key events, in this case, is, as follows:[15]
On 28 August 1984, Fritzl lured the 18 years old daughter, Elisabeth into the basement and imprisoned her.
Around 1989, the first child, Kerstin, was born, who was to live in the cellar until 2008.
Around 1990, Stefan was born. He, too, was to stay in the cellar until 2008.
In 1992, Lisa was born. In May 1993, when she was nine months old, she was discovered outside the family home in a cardboard box, allegedly left there by Elisabeth, along with a note asking for the child to be cared for.
In December 1994 the fourth child, ten-month-old Monika, was found in a stroller outside the entrance of the house. Shortly afterwards, a phone call was made to Rosemarie Fritzl, apparently from Elisabeth. The caller asked Rosemarie to take care of the child. However, it is assumed that Fritzl was able to use a recording of Elisabeth's voice to make the call. Rosemarie reported the incident to the police, expressing her astonishment that Elisabeth knew of their new and unlisted phone number.
In May 1996, Elisabeth gave birth to twins. One died after three days and Fritzl is alleged to have removed the body from the cellar and cremated it. The surviving twin, Alexander, was taken upstairs when he was 15 months old. He was "discovered" in circumstances similar to those of his two sisters.
In 2003, a new note was received allegedly from Elisabeth stating that she had given birth to a son, Felix, in December 2002. He remained with her and the two eldest, Kerstin and Stefan, in the cellar. According to a statement made to the police by Fritzl, Rosemarie could not handle another child upstairs and that is the reason why he did not take Felix up to the house.
On 19 April 2008, Fritzl arranged for the critically ill 19-year-old Kerstin to be taken to a local hospital.
On 26 April 2008, after a visit to the hospital , Fritzl and Elisabeth were taken into police custody where she revealed her decades-long imprisonment during questioning.
Aftermath
Elisabeth and her children
After being taken into care, Elisabeth and her children were housed in a treatment facility that could be locked from the inside to shield them from the outside world. The authorities proposed changing the names not only of Elisabeth and her six children, but also Elisabeth’s adult brothers and sisters.[28]
Due to their lack of exposure to sunlight, the former captives are extremely pale and cannot endure natural light. The captives all have vitamin D deficiencies and are anaemic. They are likely to have underdeveloped immune systems, although it is yet to be determined whether their immune systems have suffered permanent damage. Due to the low ceilings, Stefan walks with a permanent hunch and Kerstin is described as having a "cramped physical posture". The youngest child prefers to crawl, although he can walk. The children communicate with each other through a combination of speech and animal sounds, including growling and cooing,[29] while the concentration required to make themselves intelligible to others appears to have an exhausting effect. Elisabeth is reported to appear far older than her 42 years.[29] The oldest, Kerstin, currently hospitalized, has lost most of her teeth.[30] Doctors report that she is in an artificially induced coma but her condition is no longer life threatening.[31]
Government response
Describing the "abominable events" as linked to one individual case, Austria's Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer said he planned to launch an image campaign to restore the country's reputation abroad.[32]
See alsoMore on link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Fritzl
|
|
Joined: 11 May 2006
Posts: 9753
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Sat May 10, 2008 6:44 am |
|
|
|
Felix Fritzl is making an amazing recovery
By Jeremy Armstrong And Emily Miller 10/05/2008
mirror.co.uk
Cellar boy Felix Fritzl is making an amazing recovery - aided by the daily miracle of the breaking dawn.
The five-year-old who spent his entire life caged underground by his father and grandfather Josef Fritzl has stopped communicating by grunts and is walking normally.
A source said: "The grunts and growls it was suggested he and his brother Stefan used appear only to have been the excitement of their release."
Felix is also entrancing doctors with his ready wit and enthusiasm for everything new in his transformed life.
But the most heart-warming feature of his freedom is something the rest of the world takes for granted. Before he was released from his windowless dungeon beneath Fritzl's house in Amstetten, Austria, two weeks ago Felix had never seen daylight.
Now each morning, wearing special protective goggles, he beams a radiant smile of joy that once again the darkness that has haunted him all his life has gone away.
As Felix recovers with his mother Elisabeth and his five siblings doctors say they are watching the birth of a new family.
Felix, his sister Kerstin, 19, and Stefan, 18, lived all their lives in the cellar never knowing that brother and sisters Alex, 12, Monika, 14, and Lisa, 16, lived upstairs with Fritzl and wife Rosemarie.
Rapist Fritzl fathered all six children on Elisabeth, 42, as he held her a helpless captive for 24 years.
Under the eye of Elisabeth and Rosemarie, 69, they are now all bonding well. Dr Berthold Kepplinger, senior consultant at the Landesklinikum in Mauer, outside Amstetten, said: "A completely new family is slowly coming into existence here in the ward."
Stefan and Felix are eating well and their physical development and size are "according to age". And the pasty skin tone of all those held captive is changing.
Dr Kepplinger said: "Only Elisabeth and Felix have increased photosensitivity and need goggles. The boys are making a good recovery, especially Felix. Both are polite and seem to have had respect instilled into them.
"They do exactly what their mother tells them and have the basics of reading and writing. Felix has a keen intelligence which shows with his enthusiasm for everything. We love his wit and outgoing personality."
Stefan and Felix, however, are noticeably weaker than the other children. They also need more sleep.
Both still like to watch TV, their only entertainment in their dungeon hell. But they are shielded from the news. Kerstin is still in intensive care in an artificially induced coma. There has been no change in her condition since she was taken to hospital after her system collapsed, leading to the discovery of the cellar family.
It emerged last night that Lisa, Monika and Alexander called Rosemarie and Fritzl "Mama and Papa" until worried teachers intervened.
Rosemarie brought up the children believing her husband's story that they were abandoned by Elisabeth who had left home to join a cult.
A friend who lives in Amstetten and asked not to be named, said: "Rosemarie was desperate to give the children a normal start in life, with a proper mum and dad.
"She was deeply hurt and embarrassed about Elisabeth supposedly running off.
"Lisa called the Fritzls 'mama and papa' when she started school. But teachers told Rosemarie she had to come clean or the children would be totally messed up when they discovered the truth years later." In summer 2000 Rosemarie explained the adoption to the youngsters. The friend said: "She hired a counsellor to sit them down and talk about it.
"Then she threw a party to make them feel positive about the new family set-up. From then on she and Fritzl were 'Omi and 'Opi' - Grandma and Grandad."
Unaware of the real family truth, Alexander became petrified that his mother would return to kidnap him from his bed.
The friend said: "He had visions of her creeping into the house in the middle of the night and snatching him. He was so frightened he almost stopped speaking."
Alexander and Lisa were constantly tense due to Fritzl's bullying, the friend added.
She said: "Their eyes had a look of sheer terror even when he wasn't there. Rosemarie said he was incredibly domineering."
Lisa became so desperate to escape life under Fritzl's roof she successfully begged him to let her go to a boarding school near Amstetten.
. . . .
http://tinyurl.com/52jwnn
|
|
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1600
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Sat May 10, 2008 10:57 am |
|
|
|
Josef Fritzl: Doctor's one-man campaign that exposed the truth
telegraph.co.uk
By David Hill in Amstetten
Last Updated: 1:44PM BST 10/05/2008
The Austrian doctor who helped expose the secret life of Josef Fritzl has admitted he had no idea what he would uncover when he started a one-man campaign to track down the mother of a seriously ill patient.
Dr Albert Reiter’s refusal to believe Fritzl’s lies about a bizarre sect led directly to the exposure of the plight of the Amstetten cellar family.
Speaking for the first time about his personal campaign, Dr Reiter said his suspicions were first aroused when a critically ill teenage girl was brought into the hospital by her grandfather.
The unconscious girl was immediately hooked up to life support.
Article continuesadvertisement
Dr Reiter said: "Her grandfather came up with the story that he had found the girl on his doorstep.
"He said that she had been abandoned by the mother who was part of a bizarre sect.
"I did not like his tone and something did not seem right. What made me particularly suspicious was that he did not seem to think it important the answer any of my questions, simply demanding we make Kerstin better so that he could take her away again."
A closer examination of Kerstin, 19, revealed more mysteries.
The teenager had almost no teeth, and a letter apparently left by the mother in the girl’s clothing did not fit with the grandfather’s claims that the mother was not concerned about her child.
"I could not believe that the mother of a seriously ill 19-year-old girl would simply load her off at the hospital and disappear. From the tone of the letter the mum had sent it was clear that she cared very deeply for her child."
As Kerstin’s condition worsened the doctor decided to act outside of the medical sphere - and to start a one man campaign to track down the mother.
He said: "I was certain of only one thing, that the mother was the only one that could help.
"I contacted the grandfather again, and told him we desperately needed to speak to the mother.
"I was convinced she had information that was the key to the mystery illness. I could not understand why he was so reluctant to help, but he did agree."
The doctor alerted the hospital’s public relations department to notify all the local media, and even managed to get a photograph of missing mother Elizabeth Fritzl from her reluctant father, which was published in local media.
Because the appeal for help was a personal initiative from Dr Reiter, he included his personal mobile telephone number at the bottom of all the reports, asking for people to call him directly with information about the mother, or in the hope that Elizabeth would get in touch.
He said some people had been in touch backing up the story about the sect and gradually he had gathered together the full story built up by Josef Fritzl over the years to explain his daughter’s disappearance, and the later return of three of her children.
Dr Reiter continued to pressure for answers and arranged for specialists to be sent to Amstetten from Vienna to look at the teenager.
As Kerstin battled for survival on the hospital’s life-support machine, a local television station agreed to include a short news item on the critically ill teenager and the mystery of the vanished mother, including an appeal for Elizabeth to get in touch, an appeal that she saw on her television in the cellar dungeon at Ybbstrasse 40 - together with a copy of a photo of her from 24 years before.
What she said to her father to persuade him to let her go is not known, but he agreed to let her out on the condition she not betray him.
Fritzl himself has admitted that at the age of 73 he was finding it harder to care for the cellar family, and had already made arrangements for them to be released in a few months anyway - on the condition they backed up his story about having escaped from a sect.
Kerstin’s condition had forced him to rush matters, but he still hoped that his story would be believed.
In 24 years Elizabeth had only once been out of the cellar dungeon when she carried her delirious daughter to her father’s car. A week later she made her second trip as she journeyed to the hospital, her only thoughts for her daughter.
Josef Fritzl thought he had prepared the ground well, but had reckoned without Dr Reiter.
He called in advance to warn the doctor, saying: "Elizabeth has returned. I am bringing her to the hospital and she wants to see her daughter. But we do not want any trouble, do not call the police."
The doctor immediately alerted the authorities. They arrested Fritzl and his daughter as they were walking from the hospital, separating the pair of them.
It was only then that they heard the full story from Elizabeth about her 24 year ordeal.
http://tinyurl.com/4p4prj
|
|
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1600
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Sat May 10, 2008 7:16 pm |
|
|
|
Police to quiz Josef Fritzl's wife again
Rosemarie Fritzl is not a suspect but questions about what she knew remain
Matthew Campbell in Amstetten
From The Sunday Times,May 11, 2008
The wife of Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter for 24 years beneath their house and had seven children with her, is to be questioned again by police to determine whether she knew about his secret life in the cellar.
Detectives are to conduct a forensic search of the upper floors of the “house of horrors” where Fritzl, 73, lived with Rosemarie, his 68-year-old wife, while their daughter Elisabeth was locked in the basement.
“We think Fritzl acted alone but cannot exclude the possibility that someone else was aware of what was going on downstairs,” said Frank Polzer, the chief investigator, in an interview with The Sunday Times.
Fritzl last week urged his wife to visit him in jail. It is not known if she intends to do so. Her claim to have known nothing about her daughter’s ordeal has raised eyebrows, as has the collective blindness of Amstetten, a town 75 miles west of Vienna, to what was unfolding beneath one of its main streets.
Fritzl kept Elisabeth, now 42, as a sex slave in a warren of sound-proofed, windowless rooms. She and three of the children were rescued two weeks ago. Another three children born in captivity were brought up by Rosemarie, who was told that the babies had been abandoned on the doorstep. The seventh child died shortly after birth.
Police want to ask Rosemarie, who had seven children with Fritzl before he started his second family in the cellar, how she accounted for her husband’s long stints below ground and whether she ever helped him to manage the dungeon.
Polzer, a dapper figure in a blue blazer and striped tie, does not regard Rosemarie, described by one neighbour as a “perfect grandmother”, as a suspect: “What woman,” he said, “would stay silent if she knew that her husband had seven children with his daughter and was holding her prisoner in the cellar?”
He added, however, that she and other family members would be questioned again to determine if there was any degree of complicity. Psychologists have speculated that Rosemarie may have subconsciously “suppressed” knowledge of her husband’s double life.
Coming so soon after the ordeal of Natascha Kampusch, the schoolgirl held prisoner for eight years in a basement at Strasshof, near Vienna, until her escape in 2006, the case has shamed Austria. It has focused attention on failures by local authorities whose singular lack of curiosity about Elisabeth’s disappearance in 1984, when Fritzl locked her in the cellar, helped him to maintain the fiction that she had run off to join a sect.
Just as surprising was the community’s failure to intervene before the kidnapping, when Elisabeth was being sexually abused and beaten by Fritzl. Two former friends of Elisabeth said last week that she had sometimes avoided gym classes for fear that the teacher would ask about bruises all over her body.
“We learnt to take the beatings,” said Christa Gotzinger, 42, who said she had, in common with Elisabeth, a violent father. “We learnt how to pull ourselves together when the pain was unbearable.”
Another friend of Elisabeth, who refused to be identified, claimed that Fritzl punched his children. “He didn’t slap or spank them,” said the friend. “He hit them with his fists. Her brother once told me, ‘The pig will beat us to death one day’.”
It turned out that friends had always been sceptical about Elisabeth’s disappearance. At school reunions, when the talk turned to how Elisabeth had run away to join a cult, “I would always say, ‘Don’t be crazy, she would never do such a thing’,” said Christa Woldrich, 42, another former schoolfriend.
Letters from “Lisi” to friends just weeks before she was kidnapped revealed a chirpy teenager looking forward to leaving home for a flat she was planning to share with a sister. According to a sister of Rosemarie, all of the Fritzl children moved out as soon as they could because of their father’s brutality.
Polzer said Elisabeth had told police that her father had begun sexually abusing her at the age of 11. In comments to his lawyer last week, Fritzl denied this.
He claimed he had raped his daughter only after locking her in the cellar in 1984, when she was 18. The “urge to taste the forbidden fruit was too strong” for him to resist, he said.
He claimed he had been forced to lock up his daughter because of her “drinking alcohol and smoking”. She had run away to Vienna for three weeks to escape what she described in a letter to a friend as “this hell”. A worse hell awaited her, however.
“I had to do something,” her father said. “I had to create a place where I could keep Elisabeth, by force if necessary, away from the outside world.”
Fritzl, who is planning to plead insanity at his trial, said that being an only child had influenced him, as had the Nazi-era mania for order and discipline.
“In reality, I wanted to have children with her [Elisabeth],” he said. “I was looking forward to the offspring. It was a beautiful idea for me, to have a proper family, also down in the cellar, with a good wife and a couple of children.”
He went on: “I always wanted to have many children. Not children that would have to grow up alone as I did, but children who would always have someone to play with. I had dreamt about a large family ever since I was a little boy.”
He got his wish, but it was a grotesque travesty of family life. “When I went into the bunker, I brought flowers for my daughter, and books and stuffed animals for the children,” Fritzl said. They watched films while Elisabeth cooked their favourite meals. “And then we all sat around the table and ate together,” he said.
Striking an even more sinister tone, he said he could easily have killed his daughter and children and disposed of the bodies without anyone knowing: “I am not a beast,” he said, complaining of his portrayal in the press.
Last week his wife, daughter and children were undergoing therapy in a clinic not far from Amstetten. Doctors said that they were making “remarkable” progress.
“They are leading a surprisingly normal life given the circumstances,” said Christophe Herbst, the family’s lawyer.
In one sense, however, they have exchanged one prison for another. “The original plan was to let them walk outside in the grounds, a tranquil and secluded place,” said Klaus Schwertner, a spokesman for the clinic. “But they cannot go outside. We’re under siege from the press. They’re climbing the trees to try to see in. They’re literally storming the clinic.”
One newspaper was reported to have offered €1m (£800,000) for a photograph of Elisabeth and 17 photographers have been detained by police for trying to enter the clinic. One of them was dressed as a policeman.
Remaining confined might not be so much of a burden for Stefan, 18, and five-year-old Felix: they had never tasted fresh air or seen the sun before being rescued two weeks ago from the cellar after Elisabeth persuaded Fritzl to take 19-year-old Kerstin to hospital. Until then, their only glimpse of the outside world was on television.
Their three “upstairs” siblings, however, had led relatively normal lives until the arrest of their father and being shut up in the clinic was harder for them.
“It is a very frustrating situation,” said Schwertner, adding that instead of returning to school, the children would receive private tuition in the clinic. “They will probably be here for months.”
He denied press reports that the cramped conditions of the cellar had been recreated so that the “downstairs” children would feel more at home in the clinic. It turned out that newspaper accounts of Fritzl brutalising prostitutes in a brothel cellar in Linz were just as much fantasy.
Fritzl was remanded in custody for another month on Friday. The investigation into how he managed to run his private concentration camp under the noses of neighbours was expected to take six months and his trial could be held before the end of the year.
Prosecutors said Fritzl was likely to face charges of manslaughter – as well as rape and unlawful imprisonment – for not providing proper care for Michael, the baby who died in the cellar in 1996. Fritzl incinerated the corpse in the basement furnace.
Polzer is unsettled by the thought that there might be other men like Fritzl who have imprisoned their children in secret bunkers. “It is a real possibility,” he said with a sigh.
http://tinyurl.com/5ayazs
|
|
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1600
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Sun May 11, 2008 9:37 am |
|
|
|
Exclusive: Dungeon girl Elisabeth Fritzl first words revealed
By Kate Mansey In Amstetten, Austria
Sundaymirror.Co.Uk
11/05/2008
Dungeon victim Elisabeth Fritzl, the woman caged for 24 years by her rapist father, has told her family: "I never want to see his face again."
Elisabeth - who gave birth to seven of depraved Josef Fritzl's children - fell into her mother Rosemarie's arms when she was finally released and said: "I can't believe I'm free - is it really you?"
Weeping and clinging to her mother, Elisabeth told her: "I can't believe I'm out. I didn't think I would ever see you again. It's all too much for me. I don't ever want to see him again."
When she met the three children who were taken away from her in the dungeon to live a normal life upstairs, she held them close to her, stroked their faces and said: "My babies. You are so beautiful."
Her sister Gabriele Helm, speaking for the first time, revealed Elisabeth's dramatic first words.
Gabriele, 36, told how she broke down when she met her sister after she was freed from the windowless dungeon beneath her family home in Amstetten, Austria.
Elisabeth, now 42, vanished when she was 18. Warped Fritzl told his family she had run away to join a cult. Gabriele, who is undergoing therapy after the revelations, said: "None of us can believe how normal Elisabeth seems. She is healthy and very chatty and doing very well.
"Every day she gets a bit stronger. I can't say what the family is going through. It's more than anyone can believe. It has devastated us.
"We are working together to support Elisabeth. She is overjoyed to see her children. She told them they were beautiful and she is spending all the time getting to know them."
The family say she now longs to feel rain on her skin after her long captivity. But experts warned it may be months before Elisabeth and the dungeon children can be released from the clinic where they are receiving specialist treatment.
She is being cared for in a darkened flat with five of her children and her mum. Kerstin, 19, is still critically ill in a separate hospital in an induced coma.
They spend their time watching Disney DVDs and have been allowed to see letters of support from all over the world.
Elisabeth and her youngest son Felix, five, have to wear dark glasses because their eyes are so sensitive to light. But while Elisabeth says she can never come face-to-face with the monster who raped and abused her for years, sources close to the family said she still loved her father in a twisted version of the Stockholm syndrome, where hostages come to identify with their captors.
Her lawyer Christoph Herbst said: "Elisabeth is very happy to be re-discovering the world. She is very keen to go outside and feel the rain on her skin. But it is important for them to adjust slowly.
"For now they just talk to each other. But Elisabeth and her children who lived in the cellar have no concept of time and of the future. Some people who hear the story think Elisabeth is like something from a horror film. But rumours that she has no teeth and cannot talk are not true. If you met her you would not realise what she has been through, as she seems just like every normal person.
"She tells her family that all she longs for is a normal life - or as normal a life as they can get. That's her only wish."
Life is also difficult for the three children who were living upstairs because they are now in darkness at the clinic.
Mr Herbst said: "But they are all happy and there is a lot of laughter, which you might not expect. Felix makes everyone laugh. They are teaching him to run because inside the cellar he could not run.
"It is really brilliant how Elisabeth has reacted to the outside world. They are all rather fine. Elisabeth is really an impressive person. She is very strong. She's happy now for the first time."
Local priest Peter Boesendorfer said: "No one can believe how normal she appears but I suspect it hasn't really hit her yet."
Rosemarie is still reeling over what happened to her daughter. Frank Polzer, the officer in charge, said: "When she found out her daughter was in the cellar she had a nervous breakdown."
Prosecutor Gerhard Sedlacek said they were gathering evidence to charge Fritzl with murder - he incinerated a baby who died after being born in the cellar.
THE HERO DOC'S STORY
The doctor who blew the whistle on Fritzl has spoken for the first time - to reveal how he saw through the monster's web of lies.
Dr Albert Reiter refused to believe Fritzl's explanation when he took his critically-ill granddaughter Kerstin to hospital.
He told how Fritzl had claimed that he had found the girl on his doorstep. He said that she had been abandoned by her mother who was part of a bizarre sect.
"I did not like his tone and something did not seem right," said Dr Reiter.
"What made me particularly suspicious was that he did not seem to think it important to answer any of my questions, simply demanding we make Kerstin better so that he could take her away again."
The Austrian medic launched a campaign to track down Kerstin's mother Elisabeth - which eventually revealed the shocking truth that she had been held in a cellar for 24 years and that her children had been fathered by her rapist dad Fritzl.
Dr Reiter said: "I am amazed this all finally came out. I obviously had no idea this would be the end result - who could have predicted that - but I'm glad I followed my instincts." He revealed that on Saturday April 19 he received the emergency phone call which would spark the beginning of the end for Fritzl.
He was told that a critically-ill teenage girl had been brought unconscious into the hospital by her grandfather.
Dr Reiter noticed that Kerstin was deathly pale, not just from her illness but with an unnatural pallor that suggested something more sinister. A closer examination revealed that the teenager had almost no teeth, and Dr Reiter found a secret letter written by Elisabeth stashed in the girl's clothing.
He realised it did not tally with what Fritzl had told him about how her mother had abandoned the sick girl.
He said: "I could not believe that the mother of a seriously ill 19-year-old girl would simply load her off at the hospital and disappear. From the tone of the letter the mum had sent it was clear that she cared very deeply for her child."
As Kerstin's condition worsened, the concerned doctor launched a media appeal for the mother to come forward.
"I was certain of only one thing, that the mother was the only one that could help," he said. "I contacted the grandfather again, and told him we desperately needed to speak to the mother. I was convinced she had information that was the key to the mystery illness. I could not understand why he was so reluctant to help, but he did agree."
The doctor asked the hospital's public relations department to put out an appeal to the local media and even got Fritzl to provide a photograph of Elisabeth from before she went missing.
Dr Reiter also gave out his personal mobile number so that anyone with information could get in touch.
When journalists arrived at Fritzl's house expecting his co-operation in the appeal, they were stunned to be turned away.
One said: "I was shocked. Instead of being the concerned father I expected, he told me to clear off. He was shouting and swearing and really furious.
"He said he had wanted nothing to do with the appeal, but that the 'bloody doctor' had forced him into it."
Special police officers were dispatched to Vienna in a desperate bid to track down Elisabeth. But she was just a few miles away - watching the evening news from her dungeon.
She begged Fritzl to let her go to her daughter. He agreed only on condition she did not betray him. But worried that his evil regime would be revealed, Fritzl called ahead to the doctor and said: "Elisabeth has returned. I am bringing her to the hospital and she wants to see her daughter.
"We do not want any trouble - do not call the police."
But the suspicious doctor immediately did call the police, and when Fritzl led disoriented Elisabeth into the hospital to see Kerstin, they were waiting for him.
In dramatic scenes, officers swooped, handcuffed him and forced him into a police car while a separate team took Elisabeth off to safety.
Only after two hours of careful persuasion did she tell them her incredible story.
The following day police frogmarched Fritzl to his house where he was forced to show them the cellar.
Kerstin is still in an induced coma. The biggest fear now is that a lack of oxygen caused by severe cramps may have led to brain damage.
Doctors are giving her time to regain her physical strength before they try to wake her.
http://tinyurl.com/3rmey5
|
|
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1600
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| chance
Posted:
Sun May 11, 2008 12:27 pm |
|
|
|
Josef Fritzl: 'I'm worried how kids are coping without me'
11/05/2008
(What's this?)Evil dungeon dad Josef Fritzl has whined about feeling "isolated" in prison - and has written a letter to wife Rosemarie begging her to visit him.
Incredibly, his lawyer says he's now worried how his children are coping WITHOUT him.
Fritzl, 73, is sharing a cushy cell with one other inmate in Austria's St Polten prison as he awaits trial. But his room is a world away from the dingy windowless dungeon where he imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth for 24 years, repeatedly raping her and fathering seven children.
Inside the bright and airy cell he shares with a 36-year-old man arrested on GBH charges, there is a television, a stereo, loads of magazines and books and even a pretty plant.
A prison insider said: "There are clean sheets on the bed and a table with two chairs. There's an ashtray so they can smoke in the cell and even a cake on the table.
"They've got a striped rug on the ground and bedside tables by the bunk beds with reading lights.
"Fritzl is terrified someone will kill him. The other prisoners call him Satan and the only reason he's sharing a cell is so that his room mate can report on him and check he doesn't try to commit suicide."
Unlike his victims, Fritzl is allowed out for an hour a day to exercise but prefers to stay in due to threats on his life. Inmates bang on the wall of his cell and call in the night: "Hey Satan, come on out, we are going to get you."
Fritzl has asked his lawyer Rudolf Mayer: "Have none of my family asked about coming to visit me? Have you heard from Rosemarie?" He added: "Rosemarie was a wonderful woman, is a wonderful woman. I loved her and I still love her."
Mayer said: "Psychologically, my client is in a very bad way, but he does not complain. His appearance is far from what is known from those Thailand holiday pictures.
"His biggest fear is how his children are faring without him. He wants to know how they're coping with it all."
|
|
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 3376
Location: Deep in the heart of Texas
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| chance
Posted:
Sun May 11, 2008 12:52 pm |
|
|
|
I GUESS FRITZL ISN'T THE ONLY SICK ONE IN AREA.
Dad dubbed Scotland's Josef Fritzl keeps daughter prisoner while making her pregnant six times
May 11 2008 Exclusive by Norman Silvester
John McMillan
TO her neighbours, Anne Marie Wilson was a normal, happy child in a normal, happy family.
But behind closed doors she suffered 16 years of terror at the hands of her evil father who raped her from the age of 11.
John McMillan, 62, made Anne Marie pregnant six times in a calculated attempt to claim extra benefit cash.
His vile campaign of abuse has chilling echoes of Austrian monster Josef Fritzl, who kept his daughter Elisabeth as a sex slave in an underground dungeon for 24 years, forcing her to give birth to seven of his children.
Brave Anne Marie, 38, waived her right to anonymity to reveal the unimaginable terror she experienced at the hands of her father. She told the Sunday Mail how:
Evil McMillan first made her pregnant when she was only 15.
She endured four miscarriages and one tot was stillborn while baby girl Jennifer died aged eight months.
McMillan said he wanted to have kids with her to claim additional benefits.
Like Fritzl's wife Rosemarie, she believes her mum, also named Jennifer, was unaware of the abuse.
Anne Marie said: "I have lived in fear of him all my life and probably always will until he dies.
"Like the neighbours of Fritzl, no one suspected anything untoward was going on at any of the homes where we lived."
McMillan is serving three years in Edinburgh's Saughton prison after admitting sex with Anne Marie and fathering baby Jennifer.
He was convicted thanks to a DNA sample from the baby's post mortem.
The abuse began in 1981 when the family moved from Glasgow to Bradford and continued when they moved back to Scotland.
Anne Marie first fell pregnant at 15 then in 1988 son Benjamin was stillborn in Bradford when she was 18.
She gave birth to Jennifer when she was 25 but the infant died from a brain condition in Glasgow in 1997.
McMillan - who has five sons and two other daughters - kept Anne Marie a virtual prisoner, forcing her to watch hardcore pornography before abusing her. He enslaved her mother Jennifer, leaving Anne Marie to look after her younger brothers and sisters.
Anne Marie eventually broke free after Jennifer's death and contacted the SundayMail after reading of Fritzl's evil crimes.
Anne Marie believes incest is more common than people think.
She said: "On the outside we were a normal family and my father had many friends and a good social life. No one suspected anything.
"I don't know if my mother ever suspected what was going on or was too terrified to do anything. I could never pluck up the courage to tell her. She was probably terrified too as he regularly beat her.
"He kept weapons in the house - axes and replica guns. He told me that if I ever went to the police he would kill me and my mother and cut us up into bits.
"He would abuseme whenmy mother was out visiting friends or at the shops. If I didn't give in to his demands he would threaten to hurt me or my mother.
"He wanted sex all the time, sometimes he used protection but other times he would not bother.
"After Benjamin was born in 1988 social workers asked me if my dad was the father and suggested a DNA test but I denied it because I was so frightened of him.
"He was a control freak who would never let me out of his sight. I wasn't allowed any friends back to the house and did not have a normal childhood.
"I was often kept out of school and had to spend my time looking after younger brothers and sisters.
"My father seldom worked and lived off the benefits he could claim for eight children.
"He never let any strangers in the house in case they suspected what was happening.
"As soon as I was 16 he made me sign on for benefits then took the money off me. I never had a job."
One day in 1997 - shortly after baby Jennifer died - McMillan sent Anne Marie to collect his benefits and she did not return.
She took a train from Glasgow to Edinburgh and went to live with her brother.
Eventually she managed to pluck up the courage to go to the police in Clydebank, where she had settled.
McMillan pleaded guilty to having sex with his daughter in October 1995 at their home in Parkhead, Glasgow, Jennifer was born nine months later.
Last September he was given three years and nine months in prison. He was placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely.
A police source said: "The investigating team were able to trace some tiny samples which had been kept from the original post mortem carried out on Jennifer at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow.
"They were then submitted for DNA testing and a sample was obtained from McMillan. The tests proved he was the father.
"The results were so conclusive he was left with no option but to plead guilty. This was an exhaustive inquiry and no stone was left unturned to get Anne Marie justice."
Anne Marie's mother died of organ failure, aged 62, on Christmas Day, 2006, while McMillan was awaiting trial on remand.
He was locked up after he failed to turn up for trial hearings.
McMillan had changed his name to John Thompson, his wife's maiden name, to avoid justice and even signed his wife's death certificate using the fake name.
He tried to ban Anne Marie from the funeral but she defied him and paid her last respects.
Anne Marie said: "I don't know what my mother's reaction was whenmy father was charged with abusing me because he would not allow her to see me.
"She spent most of her time running after my dad - that is why I had to look after my younger brothers and sisters."
Since she left home Anne Marie married and had two children but the marriage broke down and they are divorcing.
She now has a new partner in her life and they have a young son together.
'He kept an axe in the house and told me if I went to the police he would kill me and my mum.. he was a real control freak'
ABUSE VICTIM ANNE MARIE
SUNDAY EMAIL
n.silvester@sundaymail.co.uk
http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2008/05/11/dad-dubbed-scotland-s-josef-fritzl-keeps-daughter-prisoner-while-making-her-pregnant-six-times-78057-20413325/
|
|
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 3376
Location: Deep in the heart of Texas
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| SavannahStar
Posted:
Sun May 11, 2008 1:53 pm |
|
|
|
Ummmmmmmm, NOTE title of thread. NO discussion. Articles only.
|
|
**SuperStar**
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 23937
Location: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| yankee-in-france
Posted:
Sun May 11, 2008 2:37 pm |
|
|
|
What is it about "no discussion, please" that isn't understood. Come on, Refs, help out a bit.
If you want to comment on one of the articles, copy it and start a thread and discuss it all you want but NOT here.
Thanks,
YIF
|
|
YIF
Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 10456
Location: France
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Sun May 11, 2008 4:41 pm |
|
|
|
This is a somewhat less sensationalized version of Josef Fritzl's statement as to why he did what he did than the one I posted earlier and it differs slightly:
Why he did it: Joseph Fritzl's statement
Following is the full text of a statement given by Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who kept his daughter captive in a dungeon for 24 years, via his lawyer, Rupert Mayer:
From Times Online May 8, 2008
“I grew up in a poor family. My father was a no-good scoundrel who always cheated on her and my mother threw him out of the house when I was four – and she was quite right to do so.
“After that, it was only the two of us.
“My mama was a strong woman. She taught me discipline, order and diligence. She enabled me good education and job training and she constantly worked hard and would take difficult jobs only to support the both of us.
“She was as strict as it was necessary. She was the best woman in the world. And I was her husband, in some way. She was the boss at home, but I was the only man in the house."
When asked whether he was sexually abused by his mother, he said: “No, never. My mother was decent, most decent. I loved her over everything.
“I have admired her. I admired her very much. But I have naturally not done anything. There was nothing there."
When asked whether there were any fantasies about her mother, he said: “Yes, probably, but I was strong, almost as strong as my mother, and I have therefore managed to suppress my urges.
“Later, I got older and I started going out and I had several amorous affairs. And than I found Rosemarie.
“She had nothing in common with my mother. But, however, there were some similarities.
“She was also wonderful, but wonderful in a different ways. She was much more shy and weaker than my mother.
“I always wanted to have many children. Not children that would have to, like I had, grow up alone, but children that would always have someone to play with. I had a dream about a large family ever since I was a little boy.
“And Rosemarie appeared to be a suitable mother. That motive [for marrying her] was not a bad one. And it is true: I always loved her and I will always love her."
When asked what happened when he raped a woman in 1967, he said: “I don’t know what came into me.
“But this is also true: I always wanted to be a good husband and father.
“I admit I have always valued decency and good behaviour. I grew up in the Nazi era and strictness and discipline were very important then. I have probably subconsciously picked up some of that, which is only normal.
“But I am not the beast the media make me to be."
He rejected the claims, made by his daughter Elisabeth, that he started abusing her when she was 11, and said: “That is not true. I am not a man who would molest children.
"It only started later, much later, when she was already underneath."
He also admitted to having planned the crime for a long period of time: “It was approximately two, three years before. It must have been 1981 or 1982 when I started to turn a room in my cellar into a cell. I brought in a heavy door of steel and concrete and equipped it with a remote-controlled electrical motor, which would open it only after a numeric code was entered.
“I isolated the whole bunker to become sound-proof. I installed a wash basin, a toilet, a bed, a cooker and a refrigerator. Electricity and light were already installed.
“Perhaps someone noticed the construction works. But it would have not made any difference, whether they did or not. The cellar of my house belonged to me and to me alone, it was my kingdom to which only I had access to. Everyone who lived there knew that. My wife, my children, my lodgers. And no-one would have dared to enter my realm or even to ask me what I was doing there.
“I told everyone that my office was there, full of private files that were my business alone and that was enough – everyone adhered to my rules.
Speaking about Elisabeth, he said: “Ever since she entered puberty she did not adhere to any rules any more, she would spend whole nights in dingy bars, drinking alcohol and smoking. I only tried to pull her out of that misery. I got her a job as a waitress but she would not go to work for days. She even escaped twice and hung out with bad people during this time and they were not a good company for her. I would bring her back home each time, but she would try to escape again.
“That is why I had to do something; I had to create a place where I could keep Elisabeth, by force if necessary, away from the outside world.”
He denied handcuffing her or keeping her on a dog leash, as she told police, and said: “That would not have been necessary. My daughter had no chance of escape. It was a vicious circle, a circle from which there was no exit – not only for Elisabeth, but also for myself.
“With every passing week in which I kept my daughter captive my situation was getting crazier. I really was thinking about whether I should let her go or not. But I was not able to make that decision, although - or maybe exactly because of that - I knew that with every passing day what I had done would be more severely judged.
“But I was afraid of being arrested and of having my family and everyone out there find out about my crime – and so I postponed my decision again and again. Until one day it was really too late to free Elisabeth and take her upstairs.”
He said he then begun to compare his daughter to his mother: “But the urge have sex with Elisabeth was growing stronger and stronger.
“I knew that Elisabeth did not want the things I did to her. I knew that I was hurting her.
“But the urge to finally be able to taste the forbidden fruit was too strong. It was like an addiction.
“In reality, I wanted to have children with her.
“Elisabeth naturally had fear of giving birth but I brought her medical books to the cellar, so she could prepare for the Day X. I brought her towels, disinfectants and nappies.
“I was looking forward to the offspring. It was a beautiful idea for me, to have a proper family, also down in the cellar, with a good wife and a couple of children.
“I made preparations for all possibilities. Every time I left the bunker, I would activate a time lock, which would make sure that the doors to the dungeon would open if I would not return after a certain period of time.
“Had I died, Elisabeth and the children would have been freed."
”After [the youngest boy] was born at the end of 2002 I even gave Elizabeth a washing machine so that she could wash the clothes and bed sheets of the children and not have to hand wash them in the basin.
”I always knew during the whole 24 years that what I was doing was not right that I must have been crazy to do such a thing, but still it became a normal occurrence to lead a second life in the cellar of my house.”
When asked about whether he saw his captives as a second family he said: “It was exactly that was the case.”
He also said that Elizabeth never told the children that they were a product of incestuous relationship. The children in the dungeon always had to call him grandpa.
He said: ”Elizabeth has always taken care of things for the sake of the family.
”I have tried to provide for my family in the cellar as best as possible. Whenever I went to the bunker I would bring my daughter flowers and cuddly toys as well as books for the children. I would watch an adventure film on video with them while Elizabeth would prepare our favourite food and then we would all sit together at the kitchen table and eat together.”
He also said that the children were often suffering from infections, coughing attacks, chest pain and epileptic attacks.
He claimed he planned to integrate his dungeon family into his upstairs family.
He said: “I wanted to take Elizabeth, [and the children] to my home. I have grown old in the meantime, I was not so agile anymore and I simply knew that in the near future I would not have been able to provide for my second family in the bunker.
"Elizabeth and the children were supposed to tell the story that they had been at a secret location with a cult until they were set free.”
He also said that he hoped to be able to get away with his crime.
”Of course this is what I hoped for even if that hope was weak. There was always the danger that Elizabeth and the children could have betrayed me but I accepted that risk and I have done that as the tragedy [with the oldest daughter] escalated.”
Speaking of the oldest girl's illness he said: “She tore the clothes from her body and threw them in the toilet.”
When asked how did he manage to prevent his daughter and her children from escaping he said: “It was not difficult. I did not need to use physical violence. Elizabeth and the children fully accepted me as the supreme head of the family, they would have never dared to attack me.
"Apart from that they also knew that I was the only one who had the numeric code for the remote control that could open and close the doors to the dungeon.”
When asked about whether he threatened them with gas poisoning if they attempted to escape he said: “I have only explained to them that they should not fiddle with the dungeon door or else they could receive an electrical shock and die.”
When asked whether he now was looking forward to death he said: “No, I only want redemption.”
http://tinyurl.com/5pultq
|
|
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1600
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Tue May 13, 2008 11:52 am |
|
|
|
Fritzl lawyer files privacy suit
Published: May 13, 2008 at 12:13 PM
AMSTETTEN , Austria, May 13 (UPI) --
The lawyer representing the family of Josef Fritzl, who kept his daughter as a sex slave, filed privacy suits Tuesday against several Austrian media outlets.
Austrian investigators in April discovered Josef Fritzl fathered seven children with his daughter, Elizabeth, while he kept her in a sound-proof, windowless room for 24 years.
Family lawyer Christoph Herbst said Tuesday he filed multiple lawsuits against various media publications that revealed private conversations with Elizabeth and pictures of her children, The Daily Telegraph said.
Austrian legal experts said the media violated her right to privacy. Herbst said he will expose Elisabeth to the media coverage so she understands the legal proceedings.
http://tinyurl.com/5763ns
|
|
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1600
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Tue May 13, 2008 4:59 pm |
|
|
|
This article is a bit more expansive and explanatory than the one above:
Legal action to be taken over violation of Elisabeth Fritzl's privacy
By Andreas Sam in Amstetten
AFP/GETTY Last Updated: 3:18PM BST 13/05/2008
The Austrian incest victim Elisabeth Fritzl will today be exposed to media coverage of her case for the first time, as her lawyer launches legal action against newspapers for violating her privacy.
. . . .
She and her six surviving children – one died shortly after birth and Fritzl burned its body in an oven – are being cared for in a local clinic, together with Fritzl’s wife Rosemarie, 68.
They are undergoing extensive medical examinations and are receiving psychiatric counselling and have therefore been completely sheltered from all the media coverage on their case.
But the family’s lawyer, Christoph Herbst, has now revealed that he will launch multiple lawsuits against publications that have committed a breach of privacy and published private pictures and documents related to the Fritzl family, such as Elisabeth’s private mail correspondence and pictures of her children.
For the purposes of the lawsuits, Mr Herbst is to introduce Elisabeth to the details of the media coverage of her case from which she has previously been shielded.
Mr Herbst said: “We will take legal action against some media already this week, as in order to counter the perpetual sensationalist reporting. For the purpose of getting Elisabeth Fritzl’s approval for the legal measures, she will be now be updated with the current state of affairs regarding the coverage.”
In the past two weeks Austrian media law experts have criticised the publication of private documents such as Elisabeth’s letter to a school friend and private pictures of the family and her children, some of whom are underage.
A spokesman for the Amstetten-Mauer psychiatric clinic, where the family are being treated, said: “They have been kept in therapeutic isolation ever since they arrived, for fears that the media reports could interfere with their recovery. Their condition is currently good and improving.”
http://tinyurl.com/69yzrb
|
|
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1600
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| PerryPeabody
Posted:
Wed May 14, 2008 10:01 am |
|
|
|
Josef Fritzl's dungeon family speak of joy of being free
mirror.co.uk
By Andy Rudd 14/05/2008
The dungeon family of evil pervert Josef Fritzl have spoken of their joy of being free and hopes of returning to a "normal life".
Hand-painted posters drawn by the family were put on display in the Austrian town of Amstetten, saying: "We, the whole family, would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you for sympathy at our fate.
"Your compassion is helping us greatly to overcome these difficult times, and it shows us that there also are good and honest people here who really care for us.
"We hope that soon there will be a time where we can find our way back into a normal life."
Elisabeth . . . wrote that she hoped for a quick "recovery of my daughter Kerstin, the love of my children, protection of our family" and "people with a lot of heart and understanding".
Doctors said that Kerstin was now in a more stable condition despite still remaining in a coma.
Kerstin sparked the massive police investigation when Josef Fritzl took her to hospital to get emergency treatment on April 19.
Elisabeth's children, Lisa, Stefan and Felix also talked about their hopes for the future.
Lisa, 16, who was not locked in the dungeon, wishes for "love, happiness, health" and "that everything turns out well again".
She misses the sister she has never known, Kerstin, as well as "school and friends."
Stefan, 18, says he’s happy about his new-found freedom but misses his sister Kerstin. He likes “the sun, the fresh air and nature”.
Felix, 6, says he dreams of being driven in a car again and sledging. He had his first ride in a car when he was taken by police after he was freed two weeks ago. He says he wants to “run across a meadow” and play with other children.
Clinic director Berthold Kepplinger explained that although the family were progressing it would still be a long time before they would be allowed out of the clinic.
He said: “What is now clear is that the family will need to remain here for several more months.
"In order to give them a good start in their new life they all need to be very carefully protected and very slowly reintroduced to the real world, and to each other.
"In particular Elisabeth and her two children from the cellar need to have further therapy to help them adjust to the light after years in semidarkness.
"They also needed treatment to help them cope with all the extra space that they now had to move about in.
"This will be achieved with further physiotherapy and Ergotherapy.
"If the treatment is to work properly then it is especially important that we get respect their privacy, the need to this cannot be underestimated.
"We are doing everything we can to protect the family from external stress and stop the risk of the secondary trauma."
He added that family reunion had "gone extremely well" and that the family were all settled into a new daily routine.
The children are playing and enjoying activities like painting. They had also been given a computer which most of the time they were using to play games on.
Dr Kepplinger said: "We are making every effort to give them what they need as a group or as individuals, and we are carefully monitoring progress.
"Eventually we hope to merge all the individual therapies so they work together."
http://tinyurl.com/3o59s3
There are eight pictures of the handdrawn and handprinted poster that Elisabeth and the children drew on this site. I don't know how to bring them to this forum; if someone can do that, I thank that someone. 
|
|
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1600
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| SavannahStar
Posted:
Wed May 14, 2008 10:10 am |
|
|
|
|
|
**SuperStar**
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 23937
Location: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| SavannahStar
Posted:
Wed May 14, 2008 10:11 am |
|
|
|
|
|
**SuperStar**
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 23937
Location: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| SavannahStar
Posted:
Wed May 14, 2008 10:11 am |
|
|
|
|
|
**SuperStar**
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 23937
Location: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| SavannahStar
Posted:
Wed May 14, 2008 10:12 am |
|
|
|
|
|
**SuperStar**
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 23937
Location: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
�
Jasidogdotcom template v.1.0.4 © jasidog.com
Powered by phpBB
© 2001, 2004 phpBB Group
|
