Girl in the Cellar

by Allan Hall

  Within sight of the famous giant wheel in Vienna’s Prater amusement park, where the psychopathic Harry Lime asked his cynical former friend Rollo Martins how much human life was worth as they gazed down on the ‘dots’ of humanity beneath them in the cinematic version of The Third Man, Wolfgang Priklopil ended his tormented existence beneath the wheels of a train. Between the stations of Praterstern and Traisengasse, Priklopil beheaded himself. His body was badly mutilated but the keys to his beloved BMW, which had been found by police nearly four hours before he killed himself, were retrieved from a trouser pocket, along with other personal possessions.

  What he did in the intervening hours between that last telephone call and his death remains a puzzle. No one reported seeing him drinking in pubs, sitting in parks, walking the streets. Like the wraith he so often was in life, he was unnoticed by the great mass of the public as the minutes ticked by to his lonely death.

  Everything we would come to know of him would be refracted back, like light through a telescope, by the one person who came closest to ever really knowing him.

  For so long he had controlled the whole show. He was the main actor, director and producer of the secret drama of Strasshof. Now the curtain was about to go up on Natascha Kampusch, megastar.

  Not since Haider and his Freedom Party gained a share in power in 2000 had Austria witnessed such a media frenzy. When news of her escape, and her captor’s death, hit the newswires, Vienna found itself at the centre of a story without parallel. Natascha Kampusch discovered herself as the Princess Diana of the common person: haunted, hunted, wanted by a sensation-seeking world eager to feed on the details of what had occurred during those long years of captivity. But as the onion was peeled back, layer by layer, Frau Kampusch, as she insisted on being called in all interviews, baffled the world with her feelings for her tormentor. The relationship with her family was also called into question, and there were bitter recriminations from both parents that Natascha was somehow being kept from them, manipulated by her aides, like some modern-day Manchurian Candidate, into being distant and aloof.

  The girl in the cellar was no more: the battle for her soul, her story, her mind and her affections was just beginning.

  The first few hours after her escape were spent with the police in Deutsch-Wagram not far from the house in Heinestrasse. Erich Zwettler from the National Crime Squad told local media that Natascha ‘is suffering from serious Stockholm syndrome’, and there were myriad reports attributed to police that she had been the victim of sexual abuse.

  Inspector Sabine Freudenberger was the first to speak to Natascha and quickly made friends by wrapping her in her jacket and giving her a watch. The policewoman said: ‘She admired my jewellery and regretted that she never had anything like it. The kidnapper always told her he didn’t have any money for that. So I gave her my watch.’

  She added: ‘Natascha had a formidable vocabulary. Her kidnapper taught her and gave her books. He also told Natascha that he had chosen her. If he hadn’t taken her on that day, he would have grabbed her on another. She was very chatty. She told me the whole story from beginning to end. She told me she spent her days just listening to the radio.’

  The policewoman revealed to the broadcaster ORF, the station Natascha would later use to give her—carefully sanitised—version of her captivity and her relationship with Priklopil, that she thought Natascha had been the victim of serious sexual abuse. But she believes that Natascha does not want to accept that. ‘It is not clear to her. She did everything of her own free will,’ she added. Muddy waters would soon become murkier still.

  In the meantime Natascha’s family had been notified of her reappearance. When her father Ludwig heard the news that his daughter was alive and in Vienna he broke down, saying: ‘I hope, I hope, I hope so much that I can hardly bear it, I mean, I just can’t believe it. If it is true it will be the greatest thing that could possibly be.’ At seven o’clock that same evening, with less than two hours of Priklopil’s life left to run, in the Kriminaldirektion 1 police station in Vienna’s Berggasse, Natascha was reunited with her dad after eight and a half years.

  According to police, Koch walked in and there was a long pause as the two stared at each other. Then Natascha, who was wearing just the simple knee-length orange dress and ballet shoes she had on when she escaped, jumped up and threw her arms around her father’s neck. Police department head Herwig Haidinger said the pair just held each other while crying uncontrollably. Ludwig Koch said later: ‘The only way to imagine it is to picture a movie. It was completely over-whelming. She fell into my arms and told me that she loved me. Then she asked me if I still had her toy car, her favourite. Of course, I told her. I also still have every doll she ever had.

  ‘I never gave up hope,’ Koch added. ‘But I am so wonderfully relieved. She is 100 per cent my daughter. For me it’s as if she never went away.’ Her mother Brigitta was away on holiday near Graz when Natascha resurfaced, but hours later was back in Vienna for a brief reunion with her daughter.

  Natascha remained out of the sight of the media for two weeks. Details seeped out from family members and police sources before the circus of media advisers and sharp-suited lawyers began trying to lock down the story of Natascha tighter than the Pentagon under nuclear attack. Ludwig described his daughter thus: ‘Natascha is emaciated, with a very, very white skin and bruises over her entire body. I cannot bear to think where they came from. She is staying in a hotel, with a policewoman and a psychologist. But they told me that whenever I want to see Natascha it would be possible.’

  Austrian police allowed photographers into the room where Natascha was kept. The room, though small, looked quite like an ordinary child’s room, a little bit messy with light pink walls and lots of clothes lying around, including what looked like a quite smart black and grey skirt and blouse outfit hanging on the wall. The cupboards looked full with brightly coloured ring binders, papers and books, and there was a red handbag hanging near the bed. The world was spellbound to see this ‘dungeon’, but it was the first of many instances where Natascha would complain that her privacy was being ‘violated’ by the media.

  Child psychiatrist Dr Max Friedrich—the man who would later refuse to be drawn on the disturbing childhood photos of a naked Natascha—is the head of Vienna’s University Clinic for Youth Neuropsychiatry and was put in charge of her mental health. She was to spend her first month of freedom in the care of his team, meeting with damaged souls like potential suicides and anorexia victims as the doctors tried, slowly and gently, to discover what happened to her and what the precise nature of her relationship to Priklopil was.

  Doctors said that the marks on her legs were more likely the result of a skin disorder than brutality. The claim was backed up by her mother: ‘That comes from malnutrition, as she was given practically only cold stuff like ham sandwiches and no fruit or vegetables.’ This is in direct contradiction to Natascha’s later claims that she cooked for him using recipes culled from cookery books he purchased.

  Frau Sirny added that watching the video of Natascha’s tiny prison was very hard for her. ‘The chequered clothes that were hanging on the wall, that was the dress that Natascha was wearing when she was snatched. She apparently always wanted to keep it in sight—her only connection to her former life.’

  More details about what Natascha focused on in those first days and hours emerged through her stepmother Georgina Koch, who said: ‘Her first wish is a mobile phone. We went out and bought one straight away, but we don’t know if she’ll be able to use it. She is always with psychologists and police officers—even when she has visitors, there is always someone there. They didn’t even want to let her have a doll from back then straight away.’

  When asked if he was afraid that the kidnapper had been violent to his daughter, Ludwig replied: ‘He did enough to her. I only have to look at her to know that.’

  But the conflicting emotions she felt about Priklopil surfaced within hours of her being free. She was info
rmed of his death the day after it occurred, and both police and medical sources said that her first reaction was intense anger at the police for ‘letting it happen’, followed swiftly afterwards by intense sorrow. She cried bitterly. Dr Berger, the child and adolescent psychiatrist at Vienna University who is one of the key players in Natascha’s ongoing psychiatric care, said it was ‘not surprising’, given that a degree of ‘togetherness’ had formed with the man responsible for her incarceration.

  ‘Of course the experience is a very severe psychological trauma, especially for a young person like Natascha,’ said Professor Berger. He added: ‘There are two sides of the coin: on one hand the victim experiences suffering and pain because of the violence, but on the other hand, strong emotional bonding is involved as well. Eight years alone with just one man that has now been ripped from her life has certainly left her in shock.’

  Shocked, too, were the followers of this strange relationship when it was revealed that Natascha paid her respects to her kidnapper by spending ten minutes alone with his body in the morgue of the Vienna Institute of Forensic Medicine and lit a candle in front of the closed coffin. The young woman was accompanied by her psychiatric adviser Professor Friedrich, in what was reportedly a ‘solemn and intimate ceremony of grief lasting several minutes’.

  Local media have suggested that the visit to the morgue was probably advised by Professor Friedrich as part of the process of Fraulein Kampusch coming to terms with her eight-year ordeal. Professor Berger said that Natascha insisted on seeing her abductor’s coffin, as she was not allowed to attend his burial—in an unmarked grave at an unidentified cemetery.

  ‘She wanted to go to Herr Priklopil’s funeral,’ said Berger, ‘but I told her it was not a good idea and talked her out of it. She then went to the morgue instead and asked to spend ten minutes alone in a room with his coffin.’ Neither he nor Professor Friedrich said whether she cried during the farewell, but he did confirm the reports that she was angry with the police for letting him die. He said: ‘Fraulein Kampusch blames herself for the death of Herr Priklopil and for the suffering it inflicted on his mother. She still feels guilty, but is also very angry with police, because in her opinion they let him die. She blames the police for not preventing his suicide.’

  Wolfgang Priklopil was buried in an anonymous grave during a quiet ceremony without a priest in the presence of his mother and his business partner Ernst Holzapfel’s sister Margit Wendelberger. The only other people present at the small and desolate Laxenburg Cemetery, several kilometres south of Vienna, were about 20 civilian-clothed police officers and two undercover journalists and photographers disguised as cemetery workers. The bid to keep the monster’s final resting-place a secret had failed.

  The ceremony only took a few minutes, with the two women quietly saying the Lord’s Prayer. They laid red and pink roses and an evergreen wreath with an inscription reading: ‘Last fond farewell from your beloved ones.’

  The news that Natascha mourned by his coffin and wanted to go to his funeral was relayed against the very public backdrop of her apparent indifference towards her parents. A spat that her high-profile, high-cost legal/media minders wanted to keep a lid on soon played out in the papers. Again, it went some way towards turning public opinion against Natascha at a later stage.

  After Natascha was free she was given a psychologist, as she requested. She also contacted the Weisser Ring organisation, which helps victims of violence. She was familiar with their work from listening to the radio during her time in captivity.

  Natascha than asked to be put in touch with Austria’s most prominent child and adolescent psychiatrist Professor Max Friedrich, whom she also knew from his numerous radio interviews. Professor Friedrich immediately took on the job and then invited Professor Ernst Berger and other expert advisers to deal with different aspects of her care.

  The enormous media interest in seeing the first pictures and having the first interview then led to people contacting the mother, but it soon became clear that she was not the person to deal with, as she had only met her daughter once since Natascha’s escape. Natascha apparently distanced herself from her parents and wished to be taken care of away from them both.

  Ludwig Koch then tried to start negotiating on Natascha’s behalf, and hired an agent, Rupert Leutgeb. He was sidelined, however, when it was revealed that Natascha had been given her own lawyer, Dr Guenther Harrich. He was invited by the psychiatrists, as he had already worked with them on the case of an Austrian girl who had been kept in a box by her stepmother.

  But Dr Harrich’s telephone lines were instantly blocked with callers wanting an interview, and as a result a professional PR adviser was hired—the PR and lobbying expert Dietmar Ecker of Ecker & Partners, whose other clients include the Republic of Serbia. Ecker was invited by Professor Berger, as the pair of them were friends and went back a long way.

  The original lawyer, Dr Harrich, resigned after about a week, admitting that he had been overburdened by the case. ‘I cannot deal with it any more,’ he said, ‘as it would mean neglecting my other clients. I also cannot deal with this incredible media pressure. I would like to be able to go home without having a dozen reporters and TV crews besieging my apartment.’

  Dr Harrich himself recommended Natascha’s current legal representatives, Lansky, Ganzger & Partners, who are one of Austria’s biggest corporate law firms specialising in media law. Thus began the healing—and marketing—process of Natascha Kampusch. It is unclear which of these processes came first in her mind, but the rush for advisers created bitterness in her family.

  Frau Sirny was the first to complain that she’d hardly seen her daughter since she escaped. ‘A daughter also needs her mother,’ she said, railing against the medical experts who tried to explain the depth of isolation and confusion that Natascha was experiencing. ‘Why can’t I see my child?’ was one headline in an Austrian newspaper. ‘Natascha is locked away again—that is simply terrible for me,’ said Frau Sirny, who said in an interview:

  Psychologists and physicians—yes, that is both important and good. But nevertheless, a daughter needs her mother.

  Every time the phone rang I was both excited and anxious. I always hoped for news of my daughter but dreaded the thought of it being bad. And every so often the police would ask me to come to the station to identify items of clothing or girls’ belongings they had found, whether it was underwear, a school bag or shoes. Each time it was like going to my own execution.

  At times I even wished they would find Natascha’s body—at least then I could have striven towards some kind of closure and had a grave where I could mourn my beautiful daughter.

  But instead I continued as if she would walk through the door at any minute. And now…now I can’t see her.

  Nothing would make me happier than if Natascha came to live with me, but she is not a child any more and that is a decision she will have to make. At the moment I’m not even allowed to see her, which is torturous for me.

  She is so pretty, just like in her old photos, but much too thin. It’s strange for me because when she vanished she was just a child, but now she is an adult. I always knew she had an iron will. It’s unbelievable that she has survived such an ordeal and was strong enough and clever enough to escape. I’m so proud of her.

  Ludwig, after his euphoric reunion with Natascha, also complained that he feared he was becoming a stranger in the world of Brand Natascha. Aware of the phenomenal media interest coupled with his daughter’s determination to map out her own future, he railed in frustration: ‘I lost her once before and I have lost her now. I, her father, must beg to see her. Is that not some kind of insanity? Many psychiatrists have told me that it would be for the best if she was with me. Why not, then? Isn’t it crazy that I don’t know where she is?’

  Whatever Natascha attempted to do, or not do, it came across, to a public scrutinising and dissecting her and her motives like those of no other individual, as a somehow callous disregard for her own flesh and
blood. It seemed that she preferred the chase for fame and fortune to the love and affection of a family who thought they had lost her permanently. Perception is everything when you are a media star. That is why her media team had to move quickly to try to preserve the purity of the NK image, as she was referred to by the Porsche-driving, cocktail-sipping PR set.

  It became apparent that Natascha was the most sought-after ‘property’ for the media in the world at that moment. One journalist said that if Osama bin Laden had been found and Natascha Kampusch had spoken on the same day, she would have beaten the terrorist mastermind to the top item on the evening news.

  Such massive interest, with interview offers flooding in and fantastical sums of money being promised, made Natascha anxious to explain, at least in part, how she was feeling. She did it by means of a curious ‘Letter to the world’, released five days after she escaped and reprinted in full below.

  Dear journalists, reporters, and people of the world.

  I realised quite early what a strong impression the news of my captivity has made on people, but I ask for understanding in satisfying the tremendous interest of the public. I realise how shocking and worrying the thoughts about my time in my prison must be, and that something like this could even be possible. I also realise there is a certain amount of curiosity and a desire to know more about the circumstances in which I lived.

  But at the same time I want to make it clear that I don’t want to answer any details about intimate personal matters, and am prepared to take steps to ensure this interest does not get out of control.

  She then goes on to release some details of her captivity:

  My personal space: my room was equipped with everything I would need and I made it my home, and it was not meant to be shown to the public.

  My daily life: This was carefully regulated, mostly it started with a joint breakfast—he was anyway not working most of the time. There was housework, reading, television, talking, cooking. That’s all there was, year in and year out, and always tied in with the fear of being lonely.