Heartbreaking Story of Elisabeth Fritzl

2020-10-06 15:59:54 Written by Aisha Ahmad

Elisabeth Fritzl 

The Horrifying Story Of Elisabeth Fritzl Who Spent 24 Years In Her Father’s Prison

We have read about many cases and we also write stories of gruesome crimes but the case of Elisabeth Fritzl was one of the heartbreaking cases of this brutal world.

Elisabeth Fritzl spent 24 years in imprisonment, restricted to a makeshift basement, and continually tortured at the hands of her own papa Josef Fritzl.

 

 

On August 28, 1984

 

18-year-old Elisabeth Fritzl went missing.

 

Her mother Rosemarie shortly filed a missing-persons report, desperate over the position of her daughter. For weeks there was no message from Elisabeth, and her parents were left to understand the worst. Then out of nowhere, a letter received from Elisabeth, claiming she had grown bored of her family life and flee away.

 

Her father Josef informed the policeman who came to the house that he had no idea where she would go, but that she likely joined religious followers, something she had talked recently about achieving.

 

But the fact was that Josef Fritzl knew really where his daughter was: she was nearly 20 feet below where the police officer was sitting.

Starting

 

On August 28, 1984, Josef called his daughter into the cellar of the family’s residence. He was re-fitting a door to the recently rebuilt cellar and needed help holding it. As Elisabeth carried the door, Josef fixed it into spot. As shortly as it was on the hinges, he swung it open, forcing Elisabeth inside and hitting her unconscious with an ether-soaked towel.

 

For the next 24 years, the interior of the dirt-walled basement would be the only thing Elisabeth Fritzl would see. Her father would tell an untruth to her mama and the police, informing them stories about how she had run away and joined a cult. Someday, the police inquiry into her location would run cold and before long, the community would forget about the lost Fritzl girl.

 

 

 

But Josef Fritzl wouldn’t forget. And over the next 24 years, he would make that very obvious to his daughter.

Routine

As far as the remainder of the Fritzl family was interested, Josef would head down to the cellar every morning at 9 a.m. to bring out plans for the machines that he sold. Sometimes, he would spend the night, but his spouse wouldn’t worry – her husband was a hard-working man and was completely dutiful to his career.

 

As far as Elisabeth Fritzl was concerned, Josef was a devil. At the minimum, he would visit her in the cellar three times a week. Usually, it was every day. For the early two years, he left her alone, protecting her captive. Then, he began to rape her, continuing the nightly visits he had started when she was just 11 years old.

 

Two years into her imprisonment, Elisabeth became pregnant, though she miscarried 10 weeks into the pregnancy. Two years later, nevertheless, she fell pregnant again, this time holding to term. In August of 1988, a baby girl called Kerstin was born. Two years later, another baby was born, a boy called Stefan.

 

Kerstin and Stefan stayed in the basement with their mother for the duration of her captivity, being brought weekly supplies of food and water by Josef. Elisabeth tried to teach them with the basic education she herself had, and provide them the most normal life she could under her horrific situations.

 

Over the next 24 years, Elisabeth would give birth to five more offsprings. One more was allowed to stay in the cellar with her, one died soon after birth, and the other three were taken upstairs to reside with Rosemarie and Josef.

 

Josef didn’t just bring the children up to stay with him, nevertheless.

 

In order to hide what he was doing from Rosemarie, he staged detailed findings of the children, often involving placing them on bushes near the residence or on the doorstep. Each time, the child would be wrapped neatly and accompanied by a note allegedly composed by Elisabeth, declaring that she couldn’t take care of the infant and was leaving it with her parents for safekeeping.

 

Shockingly, social services never doubted the arrival of the children and allowed the Fritzl’s to keep them as their own kids. Administrators were, after all, under the feeling that Rosemarie and Josef were the babies’ grandparents.

In 2008

 

It is not understood how long Josef Fritzl planned to keep his daughter captive in his cellar. He had gotten away with it for 24 years, and for all the police realized he was going to continue for another 24. However, in 2008, one of the children in the basement fell sick.

 

Elisabeth requested her father to allow her 19-year-old daughter Kerstin to receive medical attention. She’d fallen quickly and critically sick and Elisabeth was beside herself. Grudgingly, Josef decided to take her to a hospital. He removed Kerstin from the basement and phoned an ambulance, claiming that he had a note from Kerstin’s mother explaining her circumstance.

 

For a week, the police doubted Kerstin and interrogated the public for any information on her family. Naturally, no one came ahead as there was no family to speak of. The police finally grew suspicious of Josef and reopened the inquiry into Elisabeth Fritzl’s disappearance. They began to scan the letters that Elisabeth had supposedly been leaving for the Fritzl's and started to see inconsistencies in them.

 

Whether Josef eventually felt the pressure or had a change of heart considering his daughter’s captivity, the world may never know, but on April 26, 2008, he sent out Elisabeth from the basement for the first time in 24 years. She directly went to the hospital to see her daughter where the hospital staff warned police about her suspicious appearance.

 

That night, she was taken into control to be questioned about her daughter’s disease and her father’s story. After making the police commitment she never had to see her father again, Elisabeth Fritzl told the tale of her 24-year captivity.

 

She clarified that her father kept her in a cellar and that she bore seven children. She clarified that Josef was the father of all seven of them and that he would come down during the darkness, make her watch pornographic films and again rape her. She said that he’d been abusing her ever since she was 11.

 

Arrest

 

The police caught Josef Fritzl that night.

 

After the arrest, the kids in the basement were also released and Rosemarie Fritzl fled the residence. She had allegedly understood nothing about the incidents taking place right under her feet and Josef backed up her story. The residents who had lived in the apartment on the first floor of the Fritzl home also never realized what was happening right beneath them, as Josef had explained away all sounds by blaming faulty piping and a noisy heater.

New Identity

 

Today, Elisabeth Fritzl lives under a new identity in a secret Austrian village remembered only as “Village X.” The residence is under constant CCTV surveillance and police patrol every nook. The family doesn’t allow conferences anywhere within their walls and declines to give any themselves. Though she is now in her mid-fifties, the last photo captured of her was when she was only 16 years of age.

 

The actions to hide her new personality were made to keep her past hidden from the media and let her live her new life. Many believe, however, that they’ve done a better job of ensuring her immortality as the girl held captive for 24 years.

The information on this blog is taken from Aisha Ahmad's Answer on Quora.

Original Answer: Link