Latest / History Dark / He Built a Secret Cellar to Trap His Own Daughter _ Fritzl By Fred Dinenage

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He Built a Secret Cellar to Trap His Own Daughter _ Fritzl By Fred Dinenage · History Dark

0:00
Speaker 1: Joseph Fritzl was the most horrific story I've ever reported
0:03
Speaker 1: in 30 years of journalism. And it was the most
0:05
Speaker 1: touching story, especially when the little children coming out on
0:09
Speaker 1: the daylight for the first time in their life.
0:11
Speaker 2: Joseph Fritzl was one of those offenders who could maintain
0:15
Speaker 2: a public face of respectability, but that public face of
0:20
Speaker 2: respectability merely hid a far darker private reality.
0:25
Speaker 3: Surely the most extraordinary and the most tragic thing about
0:29
Speaker 3: Joseph Fritzl is that he managed to camouflage himself as
0:32
Speaker 3: a respectable member of society, as a pillar of community,
0:35
Speaker 3: while at the same time he was just leading this
0:38
Speaker 3: double life of monstrosity.
0:43
Speaker 4: On the 27th of April 2008, the horrific case of
0:48
Speaker 4: Josef Fritzl sent shockwaves around the world. News report after
0:54
Speaker 4: news report gave details of a quite unbelievable story. For
1:00
Speaker 4: 24 years, Josef Fritzl had kept his own daughter captive
1:04
Speaker 4: in a cellar beneath his house. In that time, he'd
1:08
Speaker 4: used her as a slave and fathered seven children. I
1:12
Speaker 4: have come to Austria to try and discover why Josef
1:16
Speaker 4: Fritzl carried out his terrible crimes and how he kept
1:20
Speaker 4: his secret for so long. I'm standing here in the
1:43
Speaker 4: heart of Vienna, the capital city of Austria. Here in 2008,
1:47
Speaker 4: the world learned the gruesome details of Josef Fritzl and
1:53
Speaker 4: what he did to his young daughter.
1:56
Speaker 5: As a journalist, I find this story extraordinary. As a father,
2:00
Speaker 5: I find it abhorrent. How and why did this happen?
2:07
Speaker 4: By the age of 42, Elisabeth Fritzl had spent over
2:11
Speaker 4: half of her life living in captivity without sunlight and
2:15
Speaker 4: in cramped conditions, controlled.
2:17
Speaker 5: By her father.
2:19
Speaker 4: When the police in Amstetten held a conference and broke
2:22
Speaker 4: the news of Josef Fritzl, the world's press responded. The
2:28
Speaker 4: first journalist to break the story worldwide was British-born Mark Perry,
2:33
Speaker 4: who works for a Vienna-based newspaper called Kronen Zeitung. Tell
2:42
Speaker 4: me about the impact in Austria when the story of
2:47
Speaker 4: Josef Fritzl broke?
2:51
Speaker 1: It actually was a tremendous impact. People were shocked, flabbergasted.
2:56
Speaker 1: Nobody could believe it. Nobody in the whole world could
2:59
Speaker 1: believe it. But people, especially in Amstetten, the neighbors, the
3:03
Speaker 1: police officers, all of them.
3:04
Speaker 6: From the point of view of the criminal police, the
3:08
Speaker 6: missing person case, Elisabeth Fritzl, can now be deemed resolved. Nevertheless,
3:17
Speaker 6: police investigations will be continued.
3:22
Speaker 5: Where were you at the time?
3:24
Speaker 1: I was in the Waldviertel with my kids. Got a
3:27
Speaker 1: phone call by my editor-in-chief. He just told me, we've
3:33
Speaker 1: got a big case unfolding here. I said, ah, big case.
3:38
Speaker 1: It's about Fritzl. I said, yeah, because Elisabeth, she left
3:41
Speaker 1: her children at the doorstep. And he said, no, it's worse,
3:43
Speaker 1: it's worse, it's worse, it's worse. Off I went to Amstetten.
3:46
Speaker 1: And that's where I spent about two weeks.
3:49
Speaker 4: Josef Fritzl had made world headlines. He was born here
3:54
Speaker 4: in the somewhat unglamorous town of Amstetten in Austria on
3:59
Speaker 4: the 9th of April 1935. And it was this town
4:03
Speaker 4: and the house in which he lived that were to
4:05
Speaker 4: make world headlines in 2008. Well, I'm joined here in
4:10
Speaker 4: Austria by Professor David Wilson, Britain's leading criminologist, who's helping
4:15
Speaker 4: me to uncover the real facts behind the headlines. David Wilson,
4:20
Speaker 4: who was Josef Fritzl?
4:23
Speaker 2: You'd imagine in this very ordinary town that Josef Fritzl
4:27
Speaker 2: was going to have a very ordinary childhood and life.
4:29
Speaker 2: In fact, his childhood was extraordinary. Josef Fritzl's childhood is
4:34
Speaker 2: dominated by his mother and his grandmother. Josef's grandmother... Anna
4:39
Speaker 2: is born also in Amstetten, but marries a mill owner.
4:43
Speaker 2: The grandmother and the mill owner were in a very
4:46
Speaker 2: loveless relationship because his grandmother, Josef Fritzl's grandmother, couldn't have children.
4:51
Speaker 2: So the mill owner resolved that particular problem by having
4:55
Speaker 2: a child with three different servants working in his household.
5:01
Speaker 2: One of those children that he had by a servant,
5:03
Speaker 2: therefore out of wedlock, was Maria, Josef Fritzl's mother.
5:09
Speaker 4: The family all lived at Forti Eibstrasse. In 1934, Fritzl's mother, Maria,
5:16
Speaker 4: met a very poor man called Josef and became pregnant.
5:20
Speaker 4: The baby boy was also named Josef. He was given
5:23
Speaker 4: his grandmother Anna's maiden name, Fritzl, ignoring his grandfather and
5:28
Speaker 4: father's involvement. On the 12th of March 1938, when Josef
5:34
Speaker 4: Fritzl was nearly three years old, Hitler's troops marched across
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Speaker 4: the border into Amstetten. Hitler himself followed a few days
5:43
Speaker 4: later to be greeted by a large crowd. Young Josef
5:47
Speaker 4: Fritzl was in that crowd, perched on the shoulders.
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Speaker 5: Of his father to greet the Fuhrer.
5:54
Speaker 4: Bojan Panczewski is a European correspondent who has studied Josef
5:58
Speaker 4: Fritzl's early life.
6:00
Speaker 5: I'm going to meet him.
6:05
Speaker 4: Would it have been difficult at that time in Austria
6:07
Speaker 4: for a child born out of wedlock?
6:09
Speaker 5: Most certainly, yes.
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Speaker 3: I think until very recently it would have been a
6:12
Speaker 3: difficult experience. The child would have been stigmatised by that
6:16
Speaker 3: experience in the local community.
6:19
Speaker 4: In 1938, 99.7% of Austrians voted to become part of
6:21
Speaker 4: the Third Reich. But young Josef Fritzl's mother didn't always
6:29
Speaker 4: conform to the ways of her new leaders. She had
6:33
Speaker 4: a feisty temper and angered the Nazi authorities.
6:37
Speaker 3: During the Second World War, she was arrested and interned
6:40
Speaker 3: to a concentration camp where she spent a few months
6:44
Speaker 3: and Josef was left on his own, so there must
6:47
Speaker 3: have left scars on the young boy's psyche.
6:50
Speaker 4: Nine-year-old Josef was sent to an orphanage during this period
6:55
Speaker 4: and told that his mother was dead. Only as the
6:58
Speaker 4: war ended did he realise she was still alive. Young
7:02
Speaker 4: Josef's father had joined the German army and fought on
7:06
Speaker 4: the Eastern Front until he was taken prisoner by the Russians.
7:10
Speaker 4: He was released in 1948 and returned to Amstetten, where
7:15
Speaker 4: he was shunned by both the boy and his mother.
7:18
Speaker 4: After the war, Fritzl's mother became even more eccentric and aggressive.
7:23
Speaker 4: Her discipline towards her son grew more violent.
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Speaker 2: Fritzl's mother was not a loving mother. She wanted a child,
7:33
Speaker 2: but she didn't have the wherewithal, she didn't have the
7:36
Speaker 2: psychological make-up to understand that she had responsibilities for her child,
7:41
Speaker 2: that she should care for her child, and so she
7:44
Speaker 2: would regularly beat him.
7:46
Speaker 4: The relationship changed when Fritzl turned 15. He finally stood
7:51
Speaker 4: up against his mother's attacks. His own behaviour also changed.
7:56
Speaker 2: We see some really difficult behaviours emerging around the time
8:03
Speaker 2: that Fritzl's going to stand up to his mother. So,
8:05
Speaker 2: for example, he becomes what's known.
8:08
Speaker 7: As a lurker. We would probably call this a peeping Tom.
8:12
Speaker 2: He's going to listen out for young couples having sex
8:18
Speaker 2: in their homes so that he can hear their sexual activity.
8:23
Speaker 2: he's also going to develop from that kind of behaviour
8:27
Speaker 2: to exposing himself to women.
8:30
Speaker 4: In 1951, at the age of 16, Fritzl left his
8:34
Speaker 4: home in Amstetten and came here to the Austrian city
8:37
Speaker 4: of Linz, some 40 miles away from Amstetten, where he
8:41
Speaker 4: became an engineer for Voist. In 1956, he met his wife,
8:46
Speaker 4: Rosemary Byer.
8:48
Speaker 3: They met when he was very young. He was working
8:52
Speaker 3: as a technical assistant in an engineering firm in Linz
8:56
Speaker 3: called First. And her father was a colleague of his.
9:01
Speaker 3: I believe she was 16 or 17 years old. And
9:06
Speaker 3: he was immediately impressed with her. And then he told
9:08
Speaker 3: friends that she would make a good wife, a good housewife,
9:12
Speaker 3: because she seemed to be obedient, you know, accepting of things.
9:16
Speaker 4: By September 1963, after just seven years of marriage, Fritzl
9:22
Speaker 4: and Rosemary had three children, two daughters and a son.
9:27
Speaker 4: Josef Fritzl's job was going well. Engineers were in constant
9:31
Speaker 4: demand in the post-war years. The shabby, illegitimate boy had
9:36
Speaker 4: turned into a confident and authoritative man.
9:40
Speaker 2: He's sent by his employer to Ghana, and he doesn't
9:43
Speaker 2: return from those experiences... until 1965. Meanwhile, his three children
9:49
Speaker 2: are getting older. And so one of the ways he
9:52
Speaker 2: deals with that situation is he's going to be violent
9:55
Speaker 2: and domineering. And quite quickly, Rosemary will fall pregnant again.
10:00
Speaker 2: and give birth to their fourth child.
10:03
Speaker 4: On the 8th of April 1966 Elizabeth was born into
10:07
Speaker 4: an increasingly volatile household. Fritzl was back working as an
10:12
Speaker 4: engineer in Linz and reverted to the predatory habits he'd
10:16
Speaker 4: picked up as a teenager. Here we are in Linz,
10:22
Speaker 4: a not unattractive industrial city in the northern part of Austria,
10:27
Speaker 4: what they call Lower Austria, on the banks of the
10:30
Speaker 4: river Danube, and about an hour's drive from Amstetten. And
10:33
Speaker 4: it was to hear Professor David Wilson that Josef Fritzl
10:37
Speaker 4: would come when he wanted to escape Amstetten.
10:40
Speaker 7: Very pragmatic reasons.
10:41
Speaker 2: This was the closest large city he could escape the
10:44
Speaker 2: scrutiny of a small town. And whilst he was here,
10:47
Speaker 2: of course, he could indulge in this interest because he
10:51
Speaker 2: would visit the red light area.
10:52
Speaker 5: He got into trouble with the law here as well.
10:55
Speaker 2: Yes, in 1967, he was convicted of a rape. He
10:58
Speaker 2: followed a young mother home to her house and then
11:02
Speaker 2: after she had fallen asleep, he broke into her house
11:05
Speaker 2: and at knife point, he put her in her bed
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Speaker 2: as her child was sleeping beside her in a cot.
11:12
Speaker 5: What sentence did he get?
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Speaker 2: Fritzl only received 18 months for the rape of this
11:18
Speaker 2: young mother.
11:19
Speaker 4: But under Austrian law, the sentence doesn't stay on the
11:22
Speaker 4: record forever.
11:23
Speaker 7: No, and that's a very crucial point.
11:25
Speaker 2: After 15 years, any offender's record is wiped clean. And therefore,
11:31
Speaker 2: as far as the state is concerned, after 15 years,
11:34
Speaker 2: that never took place.
11:36
Speaker 5: And as far as Fritzl's wife was concerned... It was forgiven.
11:39
Speaker 2: Yes, she stood by him. She visited him in the
11:42
Speaker 2: prison and she never mentioned the fact that her husband
11:46
Speaker 2: had been convicted.
11:47
Speaker 4: By the end of 1972, the Fritzl family had grown.
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Speaker 4: There were now seven children, four girls and three boys.
11:57
Speaker 4: Fritzl's reputation as an engineer was also growing. He was
12:01
Speaker 4: a respected member of the community.
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Speaker 5: Or so they thought.
12:08
Speaker 4: I've travelled to Austria to retrace the extraordinary case of
12:12
Speaker 4: Josef Fritzl and his 24-year reign of terror over his
12:17
Speaker 4: captive daughter, Elisabeth. In 1973, Fritzl was a wealthy member
12:24
Speaker 4: of the Amstetten community. His reputation was growing. He decided
12:29
Speaker 4: to go into property and purchase the Zeistern Guesthouse next
12:33
Speaker 4: to Monsee Lake, incites Gamakut, a three-story hotel with 40 bedrooms.
12:39
Speaker 3: He owned guest houses. He owned restaurants. He then bought
12:43
Speaker 3: this place in Monse, which included a restaurant and a
12:46
Speaker 3: camping place. And he ran it with a profit for
12:49
Speaker 3: a while, and then when he got financially into trouble,
12:51
Speaker 3: a place caught fire and burned down, and authorities suspected
12:56
Speaker 3: an insurance scam, but never managed to prove anything.
13:02
Speaker 4: In 1978, Josef Fritzl decided to expand the family home
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Speaker 4: at 40 Ebestrasse in Amstetten.
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Speaker 5: He wanted a roof terrace and a new.
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Speaker 4: Extension in which to place nine new flats for tenants.
13:16
Speaker 4: He also applied for permission to build a rather large cellar.
13:21
Speaker 4: The plans were approved and construction began on a major scale.
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Speaker 2: Fritzl's family life is one in which we are having
13:29
Speaker 2: to deal with what the serial killer Ian Brady once
13:34
Speaker 2: described as a house divided. How does this very public
13:39
Speaker 2: face and this private reality. So the public face is
13:46
Speaker 2: of a successful businessman, an engineer who's living a respectable life,
13:52
Speaker 2: bringing up his children, being responsible, sending them to school.
13:57
Speaker 2: But the private reality is that nobody wants to talk
14:02
Speaker 2: about these very problematic behaviors, which are clearly beginning to
14:10
Speaker 2: become more manifest in relation to his behavior towards his children,
14:16
Speaker 2: especially his female children, and especially one particular female child,
14:22
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Fritzl.
14:24
Speaker 4: Elizabeth Fritzl was now 12 years old. Her manner reminded
14:28
Speaker 4: Fritzl of himself as a boy. He believed they had
14:32
Speaker 4: a special connection. Fritzl had become obsessed with his daughter.
14:36
Speaker 4: He spied on her and demanded to know where she
14:39
Speaker 4: was at all times. Elizabeth did have a few close friends,
14:43
Speaker 4: among them twins, Jutta and Christa.
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Speaker 5: Tell me about her. What was she like?
14:52
Speaker 8: Elizabeth actually was a very lovely girl. We became friends
14:56
Speaker 8: from the moment we started going to school. I always
15:01
Speaker 8: say that the right people always come together, and that
15:04
Speaker 8: was the case with Elizabeth and I. We knew that
15:08
Speaker 8: several things in the family were not OK. Well, one
15:11
Speaker 8: sensed it, but you didn't talk about it. She was
15:16
Speaker 8: a calm person, I was also very calm, and that
15:19
Speaker 8: was why we got together. We walked together to school
15:23
Speaker 8: and that way we became closer.
15:27
Speaker 4: Tell me about Joseph Fritzl. What sort of man was he?
15:32
Speaker 4: Can you describe him to me?
15:36
Speaker 8: When I was a child and saw him, I thought, OK,
15:39
Speaker 8: not a good man. Well, his appearance, you sensed it,
15:43
Speaker 8: but we never spoke to him when we were children.
15:45
Speaker 8: We only saw him.
15:47
Speaker 5: How could you tell... He was not a good man.
15:50
Speaker 8: The strictness in the face, the sinister eyes, no smile,
15:55
Speaker 8: no kindness.
15:57
Speaker 4: In September 1981, Elisabeth started a tourism and gastronomy course
16:03
Speaker 4: in Waldeck, a small town 12 miles from Amstetten. She
16:07
Speaker 4: also worked in a petrol station restaurant to support herself.
16:12
Speaker 4: But at home, behind closed doors, Fritzl's obsession grew.
16:17
Speaker 2: In effect, what was happening to Elizabeth Fritzl in private
16:22
Speaker 2: was that her father was exposing himself to her, leaving
16:27
Speaker 2: pornographic magazines under her pillow, and was beginning to abuse her.
16:35
Speaker 4: Did Elizabeth ever speak to you about her father and
16:41
Speaker 4: what her father was doing?
16:46
Speaker 8: No, she didn't really speak about it. Also, it was forbidden.
16:50
Speaker 8: I realised that it was forbidden for her. What happens
16:54
Speaker 8: at home stays at home and is not brought outside.
16:58
Speaker 8: That's why she was a very calm, quiet person.
17:02
Speaker 4: The construction work at the family home was developing. Fritzl
17:07
Speaker 4: had built a labyrinth of rooms beneath the new extensions.
17:12
Speaker 4: The flats above were rented out to tenants but had
17:15
Speaker 4: a high turnover, so nobody asked any questions. On 28th
17:21
Speaker 4: January 1983, Elizabeth ran away from home.
17:28
Speaker 3: She left her home when she was still underage. But
17:31
Speaker 3: then there was a warrant sent out, obviously, because she
17:34
Speaker 3: was a minor, so she got found by police in Vienna.
17:38
Speaker 3: And they called her father and they drove all the
17:40
Speaker 3: way back from Vienna to Amstetten. And in the car already,
17:45
Speaker 3: he promised her that he will never let her run
17:48
Speaker 3: away again, which must have sounded like a terrible sentence
17:51
Speaker 3: to her at the time.
17:53
Speaker 4: By the summer of 1983, the cellar was completed. It
17:57
Speaker 4: had lighting with many interconnecting rooms. It was to be
18:01
Speaker 4: used for storage and as a workshop.
18:04
Speaker 2: He has been desperate to control that space since he
18:08
Speaker 2: was a boy. So he upgrades it, he uses his
18:12
Speaker 2: building skills, he uses his engineering skills, he uses his
18:15
Speaker 2: contacts in the building trade to be able to redecorate,
18:19
Speaker 2: to redesign, cutting up the space in a way that
18:24
Speaker 2: would allow him the maximum control of that space.
18:28
Speaker 4: In May 1984, Elisabeth Fritzl announced she was going to
18:33
Speaker 4: move in with her sister in nearby Linz.
18:36
Speaker 7: Now, you see, here we've got a problem for Fritzl.
18:40
Speaker 7: He likes what he's doing to Elisabeth.
18:43
Speaker 2: He does not want to lose Elisabeth, whom he's been abusing.
18:48
Speaker 2: He wants to control her, he wants to dominate her,
18:51
Speaker 2: and in effect... Elizabeth has revealed to him her escape route.
18:56
Speaker 7: I'm going to leave here. I'm leaving this space.
18:59
Speaker 2: There could be a sense in which Fritzl himself might
19:01
Speaker 2: have been worried that once she was out of that
19:04
Speaker 2: private space, she might publicly talk about what had happened
19:08
Speaker 2: to her.
19:09
Speaker 7: So this is a crisis point for him.
19:11
Speaker 2: He has to stop Elisabeth Fritzl from leaving Fortiibstrasse.
19:18
Speaker 4: On 28 August 1984, Josef Fritzl lured 18-year-old Elisabeth into
19:24
Speaker 4: the cellar of the house, drugging and handcuffing her before
19:28
Speaker 4: incarcerating his own daughter.
19:32
Speaker 2: He has some ruse about carrying a door down to
19:35
Speaker 2: the garage. And then once the door is in the garage,
19:38
Speaker 2: she says to Elizabeth, oh, come into my study. I
19:40
Speaker 2: want to talk about something privately with you. She goes
19:44
Speaker 2: into his study. And whilst her back is turned to him,
19:48
Speaker 2: we now know that he used a chloroplast. infused rag
19:52
Speaker 2: to cover her face to knock her out. He's then
19:56
Speaker 2: going to carry Elizabeth's body into this hidden space that
20:03
Speaker 2: as far as the authorities are concerned doesn't exist and
20:07
Speaker 2: that hidden space is contains simply a bed, a TV,
20:11
Speaker 2: a video, and he chains Elizabeth within that space.
20:18
Speaker 4: Fritzl forced his daughter to write a letter saying she'd
20:22
Speaker 4: run away and joined a cult. He then drove 100
20:27
Speaker 4: miles out of town to post the letter. When did
20:31
Speaker 4: you first report on anything to do with the Fritzl family?
20:37
Speaker 1: That was, I think, in 1984, was it 85? That's
20:43
Speaker 1: when I got a call from the local police station
20:45
Speaker 1: in Amstetten and they asked me, please put a picture
20:48
Speaker 1: of Elisabeth in the paper. We're looking for her desperately.
20:52
Speaker 1: Looks like a crime, but we don't know what happened
20:55
Speaker 1: to her. And that was the first ever item on
20:59
Speaker 1: Elisabeth Fritzl that was ever published worldwide.
21:03
Speaker 5: Josef Fritzl had said, my daughter has run away to
21:06
Speaker 5: join a cult. She's run away.
21:07
Speaker 1: We had an anonymous phone call, although we had a
21:10
Speaker 1: secret number, but she said, oh, yeah, I was phoned
21:14
Speaker 1: and she's in a cult and, Dad, I'm not coming
21:16
Speaker 1: back home. And in reality, she was downstairs and been
21:20
Speaker 1: on a dog's leash and, yeah, that's when I first reported.
21:25
Speaker 4: Fritzl kept his daughter in the secret cellar. He'd beat her,
21:30
Speaker 4: torture her and rape her repeatedly.
21:34
Speaker 2: Elisabeth Fritzl inevitably is going to become pregnant because her
21:38
Speaker 2: father is on a recurring basis. The first child that
21:45
Speaker 2: she has miscarries. So the first child that's actually born
21:50
Speaker 2: is in 1988, and it's a girl called Kerstin. Can
21:56
Speaker 2: we just try and imagine how awful this birth must
22:01
Speaker 2: have been? in fetid, humid, dark, and dank conditions. Fritzl
22:08
Speaker 2: has given his daughter a book on childbirth, a towel,
22:15
Speaker 2: a pair of scissors.
22:16
Speaker 7: And a couple of nappies, and in effect has.
22:19
Speaker 2: Just allowed Elizabeth to deliver her child by herself.
22:26
Speaker 4: In 1990, a second child, Stefan, was born. By 1991,
22:32
Speaker 4: Elisabeth Fritzl had been incarcerated in the cellar beneath No.
22:37
Speaker 5: 40 Ebestrasse for almost seven years.
22:40
Speaker 4: In that time, she'd given birth to two children, Kirsten
22:43
Speaker 4: and Stefan.
22:44
Speaker 5: Now she was pregnant with a third.
22:47
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, upstairs, her mother, brothers and sisters lived on, completely
22:52
Speaker 4: unaware of her plight. I'm exploring the kidnapping and enslavement
23:00
Speaker 4: of 18-year-old Elisabeth Fritzl in Amstetten in Austria in 1984,
23:06
Speaker 4: and the.
23:06
Speaker 5: Man behind the atrocity, her father, Josef Fritzl.
23:12
Speaker 4: There were now two families living at 40 Ebestrasse in Amstetten,
23:17
Speaker 4: one above stairs and one below, and all controlled by
23:21
Speaker 4: Josef Fritzl. In August 1992, Elizabeth and Fritzl's third child, Lisa,
23:28
Speaker 4: was born.
23:29
Speaker 5: She had a heart defect.
23:32
Speaker 2: Pragmatically, I think Fritzl is worried that the so-called sound-proofed
23:38
Speaker 2: cellar is not going to be able to cope with
23:42
Speaker 2: a small baby who is constantly in pain and therefore
23:46
Speaker 2: constantly crying. And one can also presume that Elizabeth herself
23:51
Speaker 2: is saying to her father that there's something wrong with
23:54
Speaker 2: the baby and he has to take action. And the
23:57
Speaker 2: action that he takes is that he puts Lisa on
24:02
Speaker 2: their doorstep of Forte Ibstrasse with a note which again
24:07
Speaker 2: Elizabeth has been forced to write, saying this is her daughter,
24:11
Speaker 2: would her parents please look after the little girl.
24:15
Speaker 7: The little girls.
24:16
Speaker 2: Found on the doorstep and brought into the household.
24:19
Speaker 4: Baby Lisa had emergency surgery to correct the heart defect
24:24
Speaker 4: and began life with her grandparents, Rosemary and Josef. Downstairs,
24:29
Speaker 4: the children had grown considerably and the cellar was becoming cramped.
24:34
Speaker 4: Fritzl started converting more space for Elisabeth, Kerstin and Stefan.
24:40
Speaker 2: Fritzl is beginning to try to normalize this downstairs life.
24:45
Speaker 2: So he's moving in refrigerators. He's moving in things that
24:51
Speaker 2: the children downstairs might want to play with. There's a
24:54
Speaker 2: television there. So they're aware of what the outside world
24:58
Speaker 2: is like.
24:58
Speaker 5: They have pets.
24:59
Speaker 7: There's a goldfish. There's a canary.
25:01
Speaker 2: But Fritzl is responsible for everything that goes into that space.
25:06
Speaker 4: On 16th December 1994, a second child arrived on the doorstep.
25:13
Speaker 4: Another note was found from Elizabeth saying the baby was
25:17
Speaker 4: called Monica. Lisa and Monica were adopted by their grandparents.
25:23
Speaker 4: British-born reporter Mark Perry ran the story of the second
25:27
Speaker 4: baby in the newspaper Kronen Zeitung.
25:32
Speaker 1: When the babies were dropped on the doorstep, the two
25:35
Speaker 1: of them, the police constable phoned me again because I
25:40
Speaker 1: have good contact with them and he said yeah we
25:42
Speaker 1: have this funny case and baby lying in front of
25:46
Speaker 1: the door and we have no suspicions but where's the
25:49
Speaker 1: mother we've got to find the mother because they the
25:51
Speaker 1: children they want to grow up with a mum it's
25:54
Speaker 1: a real mum and granddad is looking for her and
25:57
Speaker 1: he was all the desperate father oh the hell where
26:00
Speaker 1: is she I hope she's not been murdered or anything
26:02
Speaker 1: like that no crime committed Elizabeth please please please as
26:08
Speaker 1: every parent who has a child going missing, because you
26:12
Speaker 1: never know what happens, murder case, kidnapping. And he put
26:18
Speaker 1: forward the story later. Oh, she's in a cult somewhere,
26:21
Speaker 1: a satanistic cult, all with devils and what's-her-name, and all
26:27
Speaker 1: in his sick mind.
26:28
Speaker 5: You weren't suspicious?
26:29
Speaker 1: I wasn't suspicious, and I thought, what a terrible mother.
26:34
Speaker 5: And I feel sorry for that now.
26:36
Speaker 1: Because calling Elizabeth a terrible mother, but in a way,
26:39
Speaker 1: I'm not to blame because everybody believed it.
26:42
Speaker 4: On the 28th of April, 1996, Elisabeth Fritzl gave birth
26:47
Speaker 4: to twins, Michael and Alexander. Jose Fritzl had now fathered
26:53
Speaker 4: six children with his own daughter.
26:56
Speaker 2: Michael is very sick, has breathing difficulties, and Fritzl, in effect...
27:04
Speaker 2: allows the little boy to die. What Fritzl does with
27:08
Speaker 2: Michael is.
27:09
Speaker 7: Burn him in the furnace of the house.
27:13
Speaker 2: So he destroys the body. That leaves the second little boy, Alexander.
27:17
Speaker 2: And again, I think simply pragmatically, Fritzl can't take the
27:21
Speaker 2: risk of Alexander dying. So here's a third foundling that's
27:26
Speaker 2: left on the doorstep of Fortiibstrasse.
27:31
Speaker 4: This is the main street in Amstetten, a small town
27:35
Speaker 4: in Lower Austria. And this is the house where the
27:39
Speaker 4: Fritzl family lived, Forti-Ebstrasse. Professor David Wilson, it is so ordinary.
27:47
Speaker 4: It's just a typical everyday Austrian scene. You cannot believe it.
27:50
Speaker 2: Yes, the banality of evil is a phrase that comes
27:52
Speaker 2: to mind. Amstetten, a very quiet town, but look, this
27:56
Speaker 2: is a very busy street. And yet Fritzl would have
27:59
Speaker 2: us believe, would have the Amstetten authorities believe, that three
28:03
Speaker 2: babies could be left on a doorstep with nobody noticing.
28:06
Speaker 4: Elizabeth Fritzl spent all those years in a cellar at
28:10
Speaker 4: the back of this property.
28:11
Speaker 5: How did she survive?
28:13
Speaker 2: Well, I think the only way we can explain that
28:15
Speaker 2: survival is her own personal resilience and then the psychological
28:19
Speaker 2: concept of the Stockholm Syndrome, whereby the person who's been
28:23
Speaker 2: taken hostage learns to accommodate the hostage taker. In other words,
28:27
Speaker 2: if the hostage wants to survive that experience, they have
28:31
Speaker 2: to do basically what the hostage-taker wants them to do.
28:35
Speaker 5: And Fritzl made her frightened to try and escape.
28:39
Speaker 7: Absolutely.
28:40
Speaker 2: Part of the Stockholm Syndrome is making the hostage feel
28:43
Speaker 2: as if there is literally no escape. He convinces Elizabeth
28:46
Speaker 2: that there's gas traps, that there's electronic doors, that there's
28:51
Speaker 2: no way anybody can hear her cry. It's part of
28:54
Speaker 2: the process of controlling her in that space.
28:58
Speaker 4: Josef Fritzl had control over two families, his upstairs life
29:03
Speaker 4: and his downstairs secret. But this still wasn't enough. Work
29:09
Speaker 4: trips provided him with more opportunities. and left Elizabeth completely
29:14
Speaker 4: alone in the cellar with her two children.
29:17
Speaker 3: He would often be gone for a few weeks at
29:21
Speaker 3: a time, and during that time the family would be
29:24
Speaker 3: left to their own devices. I mean, there would be
29:28
Speaker 3: enough food and water for them to survive, but of
29:30
Speaker 3: course anything could have happened. There could have been a fire,
29:33
Speaker 3: there could have been you know, a case of illness,
29:36
Speaker 3: you know, there could have been an emergency. He didn't
29:38
Speaker 3: seem to much care about that. He would just leave
29:40
Speaker 3: them without any contact to the outside world and then
29:44
Speaker 3: just come back three weeks later after a nice little
29:48
Speaker 3: holiday in the sun.
29:49
Speaker 4: By December 2002, Elisabeth Fritzl had been incarcerated for 18
29:56
Speaker 4: years in the cellar beneath the house. 14-year-old Kerstin and
30:02
Speaker 4: 12-year-old Stefan had never been outside the cellar. They'd never
30:06
Speaker 4: seen the sun. Elizabeth gave birth to a final child,
30:12
Speaker 4: a boy called Felix.
30:14
Speaker 2: Interestingly, there's a kind of mirroring going on here. Fritzl
30:18
Speaker 2: has seven legitimate children and Fritzl, with the birth of Felix,
30:22
Speaker 2: has seven children through his incestuous relationship.
30:25
Speaker 7: So there's a sense of mirroring.
30:27
Speaker 2: And because he's so fond of Felix and wants Felix
30:32
Speaker 2: to inherit his world, you begin.
30:36
Speaker 7: To see Fritzl trying to manage that process.
30:39
Speaker 2: How do I get this downstairs family integrated with the
30:44
Speaker 2: upstairs family?
30:45
Speaker 7: And part of that's pragmatic. He wants Felix to go
30:48
Speaker 7: to school.
30:49
Speaker 2: He realises he can't send Felix to school, and perhaps
30:53
Speaker 2: even by this stage Fritzl had realised there can't be
30:56
Speaker 2: a fourth foundling found on the doorstep.
30:59
Speaker 4: Fritzl started to make plans to free Elizabeth at the
31:03
Speaker 4: end of 2008, but in the middle of March that year,
31:07
Speaker 4: 19-year-old Kirsten became seriously ill.
31:11
Speaker 3: The only medication at their disposal was aspirin, so she
31:15
Speaker 3: had been given aspirin for weeks, but obviously didn't help.
31:19
Speaker 3: And Elizabeth managed to convince Fritz to take Kastin to
31:22
Speaker 3: the hospital. And this was probably the first time in
31:25
Speaker 3: those 24 years where she really put her foot down.
31:28
Speaker 7: She was adamant that she would just.
31:29
Speaker 3: Not go on if he were to allow Kastin to die,
31:34
Speaker 3: which was probably what would have happened.
31:36
Speaker 4: On the 19th of April 2008, Elizabeth helped her father
31:41
Speaker 4: carry Kirsten upstairs before returning to join Stefan and Felix.
31:47
Speaker 4: The doctor at the hospital, Dr Reiter, needed more medical information,
31:51
Speaker 4: but without the mother, no-one could answer his questions. So
31:56
Speaker 4: a television appeal went out looking for Elizabeth, which Elizabeth
32:01
Speaker 4: saw on her television in the cellar. Elizabeth's world changed
32:05
Speaker 4: forever on Saturday 26th April.
32:09
Speaker 2: Elizabeth persuades Joseph that she has to go to the
32:14
Speaker 2: hospital to explain what's been happening to Kirsten and therefore
32:20
Speaker 2: Joseph takes Elizabeth to the hospital Dr. Reiter interviews Elizabeth
32:25
Speaker 2: tries to get as much information as possible and once
32:28
Speaker 2: that interview is finished the police arrest Elizabeth take her
32:32
Speaker 2: into a room and begin to interrogate her and it's
32:36
Speaker 2: only when they threaten to take away her children that
32:40
Speaker 2: Elizabeth reveals for the first time what Josef Fritzl has
32:45
Speaker 2: been doing to her and the police arrest Josef Fritzl
32:49
Speaker 2: and the game is in effect up.
32:52
Speaker 4: Fritzl freed his other two children Stefan and Felix at
32:56
Speaker 4: the same time as releasing Elizabeth. What condition were they
33:01
Speaker 4: in as far as you know when they were released?
33:04
Speaker 3: Well, they were in a very bad condition at the
33:06
Speaker 3: time of their release. You have to know that Fritzl
33:10
Speaker 3: kind of did try to provide as much care as
33:15
Speaker 3: possible for them. He brought them vitamin supplements. He bought
33:22
Speaker 3: them lamps because of the vitamin D deficiency. They were
33:26
Speaker 3: never exposed to the sun. and so on, but they
33:29
Speaker 3: were in an extremely bad condition, obviously. Their skins were
33:35
Speaker 3: all pale. They had all sorts of infections because of
33:39
Speaker 3: the filth of the humidity of the place where they lived.
33:43
Speaker 3: It was infested with bacteria, with insects, and so on.
33:49
Speaker 4: By Sunday, the 27th of April, news of Elizabeth's 24
33:54
Speaker 4: years of enslavement had spread. The press began to arrive,
33:59
Speaker 4: and the forensic experts entered the cellar of Forti-Ebstrasse in Amstetten.
34:05
Speaker 4: The years of abuse and rape had ended, and now
34:09
Speaker 4: the family had to adapt to a strange new world outside.
34:15
Speaker 4: I'm reinvestigating the horrifying incarceration of Elisabeth Fritzl by her father, Josef,
34:22
Speaker 4: and Austria's reaction to his brutal actions. It was at
34:27
Speaker 4: the end of April 2008 when the world realised the
34:31
Speaker 4: horror that was unfolding in the small town of Amstetten.
34:36
Speaker 4: Elisabeth Fritzl had revealed the unimaginable crimes of her father.
34:42
Speaker 4: But the immediate focus, though, was on her first child,
34:46
Speaker 4: 19-year-old Kerstin, who was seriously ill in hospital. Tell me
34:51
Speaker 4: a little about the reaction of, first of all, when
34:57
Speaker 4: she woke up in hospital?
34:59
Speaker 5: Actually, very moving.
35:01
Speaker 1: I talked to the doctors. She just, like in a film,
35:05
Speaker 1: just slowly opened her eyes, looked around, and the first
35:09
Speaker 1: thing she said, I want to watch a Robbie Williams concert.
35:12
Speaker 1: The second thing, a new life is starting for all
35:15
Speaker 1: of us. Let us be happy. Little Felix, pressing his
35:19
Speaker 1: nose to the window, going in this car for the
35:22
Speaker 1: first time in his little life, watching all the lights,
35:27
Speaker 1: seeing the moonlight for the first time, and gluing his
35:30
Speaker 1: little nose till it's white to the window shield of
35:34
Speaker 1: the car, just looking, staring, wide eyes, saying nothing. That
35:40
Speaker 1: was his first look at the normal life.
35:43
Speaker 4: Colonel Frank Polzer, the head of Lower Austria's criminal police,
35:48
Speaker 4: held an impromptu press conference on the 27th of April.
35:52
Speaker 4: He told the world that Josef Fritzl had kept his
35:56
Speaker 4: daughter in his cellar for 24 years and that she'd
36:00
Speaker 4: borne him several children. The press went wild. Boyan, tell
36:07
Speaker 4: me what the reaction was like in Austria when... news
36:12
Speaker 4: of the whole Fritzl affair became public.
36:15
Speaker 3: The reports were quite erratic and I think the news
36:18
Speaker 3: readers were themselves in disbelief about what they were actually
36:22
Speaker 3: reading from the local wire, which was based on a
36:26
Speaker 3: press release from Amstetten's police. Within two days they had
36:31
Speaker 3: about 800 camera teams and journalists and interpreters, fixers, TV vans,
36:39
Speaker 3: satellite dishes.
36:40
Speaker 6: It is our duty to investigate the concurrent circumstances which
36:50
Speaker 6: made it possible that such crime which shocked all of
36:57
Speaker 6: us deeply could happen.
37:00
Speaker 3: In Austria there was a huge backlash against the international
37:05
Speaker 3: coverage and part of it was justified because, you know,
37:09
Speaker 3: especially tabloids from the English-speaking world, were very intrusive because
37:13
Speaker 3: they were hungry, they were demanding images from the family,
37:17
Speaker 3: they were demanding details of the ordeal, and the family refused,
37:23
Speaker 3: Elizabeth refused, and she refuses this very day to be photographed,
37:27
Speaker 3: to speak to anyone, she doesn't want her story told
37:31
Speaker 3: by herself or the family, she doesn't want them to
37:34
Speaker 3: be in the spotlight.
37:37
Speaker 4: Following his arrest, the authorities ordered a psychiatric evaluation of
37:42
Speaker 4: the 73-year-old Josef Fritzl. Was he insane or was he
37:48
Speaker 4: suffering from a deep-rooted, profound personality disorder? Dr Adelheid Kastner
37:54
Speaker 4: was asked by the courts to assess Fritzl's reasons.
37:58
Speaker 5: Behind his actions.
38:00
Speaker 9: Was this the most awful case you have been involved
38:04
Speaker 9: with yourself?
38:06
Speaker 10: You can't really imagine what 24 years mean. You can't.
38:12
Speaker 10: I remember I was standing down there in the cellar
38:15
Speaker 10: and thought, well, they were down there for 24 years.
38:20
Speaker 10: So now I try to imagine what that means. And
38:24
Speaker 10: I thought, well, where have I been 24 years ago
38:26
Speaker 10: and what happened in this time? And it feels like forever.
38:33
Speaker 10: It feels like endless.
38:35
Speaker 9: Is it possible for you to paint a picture for
38:38
Speaker 9: me of what the cellar was like.
38:41
Speaker 10: It was quite a mess with all kinds of machine
38:47
Speaker 10: parts lying around and the writing desk and it was
38:55
Speaker 10: a rabid warren of rooms, of cellar rooms. And in
38:59
Speaker 10: the far corner was a cupboard And behind that cupboard
39:05
Speaker 10: was a door that was one meter per one meter.
39:09
Speaker 10: And it was a metal frame filled with concrete, like that.
39:16
Speaker 10: And you had to creep through it because it was
39:19
Speaker 10: only one meter high to go on your knees. And
39:23
Speaker 10: then you could, behind the door, you could stand up
39:25
Speaker 10: again and it was a corridor that was leading to
39:31
Speaker 10: another door like that. You had to go down on
39:35
Speaker 10: your knees again and then you came to a kind
39:37
Speaker 10: of provisions room, you know, where you had shelves and
39:40
Speaker 10: a fridge. And then you came to the living quarters,
39:48
Speaker 10: you know. From there on, the doors were relatively normal.
39:54
Speaker 10: The rooms were so that I could stand there, could
39:59
Speaker 10: easily stand there. And it was humid. It smelled rotten.
40:07
Speaker 10: It was not a nice place to live in.
40:11
Speaker 4: On 16th March 2009, Josef Fritzl was brought to trial
40:17
Speaker 4: here at St. Pölten, the capital of Lower Austria. He
40:21
Speaker 4: was charged with rape, enslavement, incest and the murder of
40:26
Speaker 4: one of the children he'd conceived with his daughter, Elisabeth.
40:31
Speaker 4: At first, Josef Fritzl entered a plea of not guilty.
40:36
Speaker 5: What was his demeanour at the trial?
40:39
Speaker 10: He was polite. He answered the questions. He was sitting
40:42
Speaker 10: there like a stone.
40:45
Speaker 5: But he changed his plea when he saw Elizabeth.
40:48
Speaker 10: And he had to listen to her. He couldn't close
40:52
Speaker 10: his ears. He had to listen to what she was saying.
40:55
Speaker 10: And what she was saying was quite not a story
40:58
Speaker 10: than he was telling. And she was telling about how
41:05
Speaker 10: horrible the time was and had been and how brutal
41:09
Speaker 10: he had been and how horrible the time was. And
41:14
Speaker 10: that she did not at all feel like a partner
41:19
Speaker 10: or that she didn't see that as a partnership. That
41:22
Speaker 10: she saw it as a crime. And I think somehow
41:28
Speaker 10: this got to him.
41:30
Speaker 3: Her testimony was recorded, was video recorded, and this was
41:34
Speaker 3: used as evidence throughout the trial. as were the testimonies
41:38
Speaker 3: of some of the children. But she decided to show
41:43
Speaker 3: up as a final act of defiance. She just wanted
41:46
Speaker 3: to see him there in the dock, being put on trial, shamed,
41:52
Speaker 3: his crimes exposed for everyone to see. For the first
41:55
Speaker 3: time in her life, she was over 40 years old
41:58
Speaker 3: at the time. She had been abused by him for
42:01
Speaker 3: the whole of her life, basically, ever since her early childhood.
42:05
Speaker 3: Her whole family had been abused by him. He was
42:09
Speaker 3: a tyrant. He kind of ruled over her faith for
42:14
Speaker 3: the whole of her life. And this was the one
42:16
Speaker 3: final moment where she kind of appeared as a free,
42:19
Speaker 3: independent woman, and he was on trial. So I think
42:23
Speaker 3: that appearance made an impact. He burst into tears, reportedly,
42:28
Speaker 3: and then changed his plea to guilty.
42:32
Speaker 4: After a four-day trial, Josef Fritzl was found guilty and
42:36
Speaker 4: sentenced to life imprisonment for murder by neglect, 20 years
42:41
Speaker 4: for enslavement, 15 years for rape, 10 years for deprivation
42:46
Speaker 4: of liberty, five years for coercion and one year for incest.
42:52
Speaker 4: Elizabeth and her children are now living a secluded life
42:57
Speaker 4: away from the media in an undisclosed location. so the
43:01
Speaker 4: children can have normal lives. It's amazing.
43:06
Speaker 5: She didn't go mad, isn't it?
43:08
Speaker 10: I think she didn't go mad because she had the children.
43:11
Speaker 10: I think it would have been almost impossible for her
43:15
Speaker 10: to survive alone on her own. But she had a
43:20
Speaker 10: reason to live. She had the children. She taught the children.
43:23
Speaker 10: She tried to maintain... An almost normal life. She made
43:30
Speaker 10: the children get up at a set time and she
43:34
Speaker 10: made breakfast for the family and she had them go
43:38
Speaker 10: to school, so to speak. She taught them. She tried
43:42
Speaker 10: to maintain a normal, almost seemingly normal life. And I
43:48
Speaker 10: think that is what saved her.
43:49
Speaker 9: Do you think in his own strange, perverted way he
43:54
Speaker 9: loved her?
43:56
Speaker 10: He can't love anybody. He definitely can't. He's incapable of
44:01
Speaker 10: loving anybody. But he is convinced that he loved her.
44:05
Speaker 10: And he says, well, she was like a second wife
44:08
Speaker 10: to me. She was like my second marriage.
44:13
Speaker 4: What are your feelings now about Joseph Fritzl?
44:18
Speaker 7: You can't have feelings for such a person.
44:20
Speaker 8: I don't have feelings. Anyway, the sentence is, well, he's
44:26
Speaker 8: an old man. He won't get out of there. I
44:29
Speaker 8: didn't like him as a child. He was unlikable. And now,
44:33
Speaker 8: after the affair, I can't find words. It's good that
44:38
Speaker 8: he's been put away and that you don't have to
44:40
Speaker 8: see him anymore.
44:44
Speaker 4: And as we stand in front of this grim, fortress-like building,
44:48
Speaker 4: your final thoughts on Josef Fritzl, the man?
44:52
Speaker 2: I think this is almost the best angle to view
44:55
Speaker 2: Forte Ibstrasse in Amstetten, because this building behind me reminds
45:00
Speaker 2: me of some of the prisons I've worked in. And,
45:02
Speaker 2: you know, my final thoughts would be these, Fred. This
45:05
Speaker 2: isn't New York, this isn't London, this isn't some kind
45:09
Speaker 2: of anonymous urban environment. It's sleepy Amstetten. And therefore, the
45:14
Speaker 2: thing to take away is sometimes the most dreadful of
45:18
Speaker 2: crimes can happen in the most ordinary of places.
45:23
Speaker 4: For me, the case of Josef Fritzl is one of
45:26
Speaker 4: the most shocking ever. The word cruelty doesn't begin to
45:31
Speaker 4: describe the torture handed out to Elizabeth and her young
45:35
Speaker 4: family by their father. How any father could commit such
45:39
Speaker 4: a crime is beyond me. Justice, of course, has been served.
45:43
Speaker 4: Josef Fritzl will die in prison. But for Elizabeth and
45:47
Speaker 4: her children, the scars will last a lifetime.