by John Glatt
“The nice thing is they have started having a little day-to-day life together,” said Dr. Kepplinger. “The mother and the grandmother are making breakfast. The children are making their beds. The three from the cellar are enjoying the fresh air and balanced food, and their skin color is slowly changing.”
Elisabeth and her downstairs children were now being kept in a low-lit “treatment container,” inside a well-guarded 860-square-foot area of the hospital that could be locked from the inside. But psychiatric experts predicted it would take years before the downstairs children could be fully rehabilitated and introduced to the world outside.
“They can be themselves here, undisturbed by anyone,” said Dr. Kepplinger. “The kids are playing, jumping about, moving around as they wish. They’ve got their toys with them, and there are people there for them around the clock. Physically, they are in good condition, and they love the clinic food.”
Stefan and Felix now spent hours in the dark treatment container, where they felt safe. The little boy would often crawl in there at night, humming a lullaby his mother had taught him.
Both boys suffered severe nightmares, when they had to be comforted by their mother. But this presented doctors with a problem: part of their treatment was to separate them from Elisabeth, giving them the independence they would need to survive in the outside world.
All their therapists and doctors agreed it would be a long road to their recovery.
Forensic psychiatrist Keith Ablow, M.D., believes that Elisabeth and her children can heal their deep wounds with the right treatment.
“The key is going to be healing professionals to form bonds with each of these individuals,” he said. “That’s true whether they be psychiatrists, psychologists, pastoral counselors or psychiatric social workers. The goal is for each of them to feel free to slowly build up trust, telling his or her story with all of its darkness. There is tremendous power in human empathy, and when two people connect in a meeting of heart and soul, it can do wonders for the mind.”
Josef Fritzl’s upstairs and downstairs families were worlds apart, presenting doctors with many complicated problems in treatment.
“In the dungeon, time must have passed very slowly,” explained Dr. Kepplinger. “This slow-moving time is something we want to maintain in the clinic.”
While Elisabeth, Stefan and Felix had a naturally slow rhythm of life, Lisa, Monika and Alexander desperately wanted to return to school and see their friends again. But the media interest in the family was so intense, none of the children could leave.
“It’s a very frustrating situation,” said Klaus Schwertner, a Mauer clinic spokesman. “They will probably be here for months.”
Their classmates and teachers also missed them, while attempting to come to terms with what had happened.
“How could a father do such a thing?” asked Alexander’s 12-year-old school friend Jelena Krsic, describing him as a “A” student in Mathematics, English and German.
Jelena said everyone at the school was devastated, especially the teachers, several of whom wept when they learned what had happened.
“[Alexander] has a lot of feeling for others,” said Jelena, “and whenever someone cried, he helped them. Without him, recess is really boring.”
CHAPTER 21
“The Devil Himself”
On Thursday, May 1, a local Linz newspaper printed a dramatic interview with the nurse Josef Fritzl had been convicted of raping at knifepoint forty-one years earlier. Identified only as Frau M., the woman, now 65, had seen a news report, recognizing him instantly after so many years.
“I saw his photograph on television and I knew it was him by his eyes,” she said. “I could hardly sleep.”
She described in vivid detail how the then–father-of-four had crawled into her ground-floor bedroom through a window, while her husband was out working. She had woken up to find him holding a kitchen knife to her neck, threatening to kill her if she screamed.
Frau M., who was a young mother at the time, said that Fritzl, then working for a Linz steel company, was a well-known Peeping Tom, who used to bicycle around the streets late at night, spying on women.
Later that day, a local Austrian newspaper announced it had unearthed old 1967 police records proving that Josef Fritzl was a known sex offender. The files, gathering dust in a basement for nearly four decades, contained his conviction for Frau M.’s rape, for which he’d served 18 months in jail, as well as an earlier one for attempted rape and an arrest for indecent exposure.
A few days later, long-retired Linz Police Chief Gerhard Marwan, 77, told reporters how he had caught Fritzl after the vicious rape.
“We traced him by a print from his palm at the scene,” said Marwan. “And he was identified by the victim, a nurse, as well as by a twenty-one-year-old woman, who was attacked in Ebelsbergerwald woods, but managed to escape. As early as 1959, we recorded Fritzl as an exhibitionist.”
Red-faced Amstetten police, who had earlier claimed Fritzl did not have a criminal past, confirmed that Linz police had unearthed his rape files, which would be studied at the earliest opportunity.
“We must examine them carefully,” said a spokesman for the St. Polten prosecutor’s office. “They obviously have great relevance for the case.”
On the heels of this shocking revelation, Austrian police announced they now wanted to question Josef Fritzl about the November 1986 unsolved sex murder of 17-year-old Martina Posch, whose naked body had been found close to the boarding house at Lake Mondsee, which Fritzl owned at the time.
Calling it a “routine measure,” Police Chief Alois Lissl said that Martina, who had been savagely raped, bore a striking resemblance to Elisabeth, who’d already been down in the cellar two years at the time of the murder.
Now investigators planned to search Ybbsstrasse 40, looking for Martina’s clothes and personal possessions, including a pair of black leather boots, a blue jacket and a gray purse that were missing.
“The perpetrator could have kept these items as a kind of trophy,” said Chief Lissl. “What really stands out is that Martina looks similar to Elisabeth.”
The police chief ultimately admitted that there was no sign of a “concrete link” to Fritzl, who would nevertheless be asked to account for his movements around the time of the murder.
Over the next few weeks, Austrian police would take a further look at more than 700 unsolved sexual assault and missing persons cases, to see if Josef Fritzl had been involved.
But his defense attorney, Rudolf Mayer, had now instructed his new client to exercise his rights and keep quiet.
“From now on he is not speaking to the police,” Mayer told reporters. “He will not say a single word.”
He said that as Fritzl faced a possible 15-year sentence for rape, as well as 20 years for the “murder through neglect” of Michael, he might use an insanity defense.
“This case requires a thorough psychiatric and psychological examination,” said Mayer. “We need to establish if he can be considered responsible for his actions.”
On Friday morning, Amstetten hospital doctors announced that Kerstin’s condition had deteriorated, and she was not expected to survive.
“She is suffering from multiple organ failure,” said a hospital spokesman. “That means her chances of survival are very low.”
St. Polten prosecutors said they would examine the possibility of charging Josef Fritz with murder if his daughter died through his negligence.
The same morning a story appeared in the Austrian Press that Fritzl had left Elisabeth alone for three days, after giving birth to her twins Alexander and Michael. It was only after the baby had died that he had come into the cellar and coldly thrown the body into the incinerator.
“We thought we were dealing with a monster,” a police officer told The Sun. “But this man is the devil himself. We think he went off sex with Elisabeth when she was heavily pregnant, and left her to have her babies underground. The more we learn about him, the
more his actions defy belief. He is morally sub-human.”
In another shocking revelation that day, the German magazine Der Spiegel claimed it had received information that Fritzl had repeatedly raped Elisabeth in front of Kerstin and Stefan. Elisabeth had told investigators she had spent the first nine years of her incarceration in the one-room dungeon, until the cellar had been enlarged. Therefore, her children must have witnessed their father committing incestuous rape on numerous occasions.
Defender Rudolf Mayer said his client was most upset about the allegations being made against him. He was especially angry that police had accused him of murdering baby Michael by neglect, and for that reason, had stopped cooperating with the investigation.
Mayer accused prosecutors of trying to put his client behind bars for the rest of his life, even though 15 years was the maximum term for murder in Austria.
“My client has admitted Elisabeth had the twins on her own in the cellar,” said Mayer. “And that he did not see her until three days after the birth. He told me that when he found one of the babies was dead, he put its body in the furnace.”
Mayer said his client was “emotionally destroyed,” and had no regrets about anything he had done.
“He thought he was protecting his family,” said the lawyer, “and said that was his job as the patriarch.”
The following day, Mayer told the Austrian Times that he had received several death threats and sack-loads of hate mail since becoming Fritzl’s defense attorney. One letter threatened to come to his office and execute him during Euro 2008.
But he said he would not be intimidated, having received similar threats when he defended “Black Widow” Elfriede Blauensteiner.
“I am getting letters saying that I should be locked up with Fritzl,” he complained. “But I am not representing a monster; I am representing a human being.”
Mayer had no plans to hire a bodyguard, saying he was “an enthusiastic” amateur boxer, who could look after himself.
“I will not be swayed by a lynch justice mentality,” he declared. “Every accused person has the right to a defense. I see the good in my clients and I want to understand them. Perhaps that’s why some people hate me.”
Over the next few days, several of Josef Fritzl’s acquaintances revealed that there had been clues about what was happening in the cellar, now regretting having never spoken up at the time.
Alfred Dubanovsky, who had lived above the dungeon for twelve years, broke down in tears during a television interview, recalling how Fritzl had once told him the house would go down in history.
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” sobbed the 42-year--old gas-pump attendant. “There were so many clues. The noises at night, the amount of food he used to load into a wheelbarrow and push to the cellar. His wife must have noticed that.”
Dubanovsky revealed that he had once seen another man go into the cellar, saying he believed it was a plumber helping Fritzl install a toilet.
“I met a common friend of mine and Elisabeth,” said former tenant Josef Leitner, who gave several television interviews, “and told her I was living at Fritzl’s house. She said, ‘Don’t you know who he is?’ I said I got along with him and she said, ‘He raped Sissy, his daughter.’ ”
Leitner said he thought the police knew about it, otherwise he would have reported it. He also recalled another tenant telling him about the 1967 rape and suspected arson, showing him newspaper cuttings to prove it.
In hindsight, said the Amstetten waiter, there were many strange goings-on in the house that should have raised suspicions. Every month he would receive huge electricity bills, although he was working construction at the time and was seldom there. Then there was the food, mysteriously disappearing from his and other tenants’ refrigerators. Finally, his pet Labrador/husky Sam, would bark and start pulling him toward the cellar whenever they were near it.
“If I had been a bit more fussy,” he said, “and put more effort into finding out what was behind all that, maybe the dungeon would have been discovered much earlier.”
On Friday, May 2, investigators began scanning the entire area around Josef Fritzl’s house with sonar, looking for more underground dungeons. Bloodhounds were brought in to see if there were any bodies buried in the garden.
Police had by now discounted Fritzl’s threats of laying deadly gas pipes into the cellar, and after installing new ventilation shafts to increase the oxygen, forensic technicians were busy filming, photographing and mapping every inch of it.
They had also determined that the area where Elisabeth and her three children were held captive only accounted for a third of the massive underground extensions Fritzl had excavated.
“The other two-thirds were constructed, but were bricked up,” revealed Chief Inspector Polzer. “This area is now being examined with a sonar probe. We have ruled out other dungeons or prisoners. However, we want to carry out a full investigation, so we are opening up the entire basement.”
Polzer also said that Fritzl had meticulously kept paperwork for everything. Investigators had uncovered design plans for his dungeon, as well as many years of receipts documenting purchases of food, furniture, appliances and clothing for his cellar family.
With the possibility of an insanity plea, prosecutors were now looking for evidence to prove otherwise.
“We can say that Fritzl is an unbelievably enterprising and effective man,” said lead investigator Polzer, “who has many skills and is highly intelligent. His conduct during these twenty-four years does not indicate a person with diminished capacities. On the contrary—everything up to now would conflict with the idea of a person who is not all there.”
CHAPTER 22
Under Siege
In the week since Josef Fritzl’s arrest, his so-called “House of Horrors” had become one of the biggest international news stories in years. There was huge media interest, with each new daily development making front pages in newspapers as far away as China, India and Russia.
Consequently, the Fritzl family was now under siege at the Amstetten-Mauer clinic, as scores of photographers and news crews encamped outside. Reportedly there was a $1.5 million bounty for the first picture of Elisabeth, currently portrayed in an artist’s rather gruesome impression of how she might have aged into a white-haired old woman.
After several incidents of photographers attempting to sneak through the clinic gates commando-style to snap photographs, the elite Austrian anti-terrorism Cobra Force had been drafted in, equipped with thermal-imaging night cameras and guard dogs. Over the next few days, seventeen photographers would be arrested trying to capture that elusive photograph that every news organization in the world was clamoring for.
One freelance photographer even donned an Austrian police officer’s uniform, and brazenly attempted to walk into the clinic, before being apprehended. Another one put on camouflage gear and climbed a tree for a long-range shot of the Fritzl family before he was discovered.
On Saturday, clinic officials pleaded with journalists to back off, saying that publishing a photograph of Elisabeth could result in “secondary trauma,” setting back her recovery for months.
“We’re under siege from the press,” said Mauer clinic spokesman Klaus Schwertner. “The original plan was to let them walk outside in the grounds, a tranquil and secluded place. But they cannot go outside. They’re climbing trees to try and see in. They’re literally storming the clinic.”
Five miles across Amstetten, there were still more journalists and television crews stationed on a side street behind Ybbsstrasse 40, where they’d been for more than a week. Several neighbors across the street had rented out balconies to camera crews for exorbitant rates.
The entire area around the “Incest House” had become a ghoulish three-ring circus, as thousands of “catastrophe tourists” took a detour off the main A1 motorway to gawk at the house.
“I find this shocking,” said Amstetten Deputy Mayor Ursula Puchebner. “I do not understand their motivation. It
shows no respect for the victims.”
But incredibly, with all the intense police activity around Ybbsstrasse, Rosemarie Fritzl’s gray hatchback car remained parked just across from the family home, apparently still unnoticed by investigators. Visible in the back seat was a large color photograph of her granddaughter Lisa by an address book, just as she had left it more than a week ago.
When a local reporter asked police why it had not been examined, he was politely told to mind his own business.
It would be another few days before police towed it into headquarters for a forensic examination.
On Sunday, May 4, Amstetten Catholic church held a special Mass to pray for Elisabeth Fritzl and her children. It was a moving service, and afterwards the congregation signed a banner hung outside the church, showing support for the Fritzl family.
Forty-five miles away in St. Polten prison, Josef Fritzl was in solitary confinement, after his cellmate had threatened to murder him, reportedly having gone berserk after Fritzl calmly admitted imprisoning his own daughter as a sex slave.
“From experience,” said prison governor Gunther Morwald, “we know that with sexual crimes where children are the victims, there is an increased need of protection for the prisoner.”
The governor then described his notorious inmate as “unproblematic . . . calm, collected and alert.”
That was in sharp contrast to Rudolf Mayer calling his client “a broken man,” and telling reporters that Fritzl had been diagnosed as a schizophrenic by a prison psychiatrist who had interviewed him.
“My client is psychologically ill,” said Mayer, who had visited him over the weekend, “and as a result is not responsible for his actions.”
He confirmed that Fritzl remained under a twenty-four-hour suicide watch, describing him as “distraught” and “depressed.”