Josef Fritzl, the sick, perverted excuse for a human who has been dubbed “the Devil himself” kept his daughter chained to the wall by a dog lead during the first nine months of her imprisonment. The chain, put around her neck, was only released when she needed to use the bathroom.
Documents leaked from police files also show that Elisabeth helped to build the prison where she was to spend the next 24 years of her life. Not knowing what it was going to be used for, she toiled away with her bullying father to help him work on it. It was only when a 660 pound door was put in place that she discovered she had built her own prison.
During the first 9 years of her captivity, she was kept in one room, where her children had to witness the frequent rapes as there was nowhere else to go. Later, Fritzl started expanding the basement, creating additional rooms. What could Elisabeth have felt then, knowing that this was no temporary thing, that he intended for her to make her home down there in the basement, with him visiting whenever his sick, depraved needs had to be satisfied? Even as there were more rooms, additional places for the children to flee to, to avoid having to see their mother abused, they could not fully get away from the depravity as there were no doors to any of the rooms. In order to block out the sounds of their father raping his daughter, their mother, they had to put the tv on very loud volume, while holding their ears.
When Elisabeth was first imprisoned, at 18 years of age, she fought against the imprisonment, banging on the walls and screaming until she could no longer speak, but no rescue came as the weeks turned into months, and the years into decades. The despair must have been total. The fact that she has survived all these years in captivity, keeping her children alive with her, speaks volume as to this woman’s strength.
Eventually she had become pregnant with Kerstin, now 19, but when she told her father, hoping that he would have to take her to hospital, but fearing his fury, he had reportedly replied: “Do not think you are getting away from me so easily.” She went on to give birth to all her children in the basement, never receiving medical care before or after each birth.
Elisabeth remained in the cellar until last month when her daughter, who had reportedly suffered from epileptic attacks since birth, started once again to get severe cramps.
Josef Fritzl agreed to take Kerstin to hospital only after Elisabeth agreed to write a note, which read: “Wednesday, I gave her aspirin and cough medicine for the condition. Thursday, the cough worsened. Friday, the coughing gets even worse. She has been biting her lip as well as her tongue. Please, please help her! Kerstin is really terrified of other people, she was never in a hospital. If there are any problems please ask my father for help, he is the only person that she knows.”
Elisabeth had to carry Kerstin, who weighed 50 kilos, upstairs to the car. It was the first time she had seen sunlight. Apparently, this temporarily blinded her. Just as quickly as she had been allowed out, however, she was back in the basement with the door closed.
Records show that Fritzl then rang the emergency services saying: “This is an emergency, I have just found my niece unconscious.”
A few days later, as Elisabeth was watching the local news on the small tv she had in the basement, she saw a report from a doctor saying they needed to find her as her daughter’s condition had worsened. For the first time in years she stood up to her father and demanded to be taken to the hospital – where she was found by police. And the whole incredible, perverted story came out, little by little.
Elisabeth who is now in a secure ward with her mother Rosemarie, 69, and five of her six children told investigators her father had acted alone in providing food and clothing for them.
Kerstin is still in an intensive care ward.
