One of the worst fathers in history might actually walk free after locking up his daughter for years.
A father who kept his daughter imprisoned underground
Austrian man, Josef Fritzl, trapped his own daughter underground for 24 years. But the abuse actually began when she was just 11.
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Fritzl’s daughter, Elisabeth, was reported missing by her mother in 1982. But since she had run away before, no one suspected anything sinister.
By the time Elisabeth was 18, Josef had been working on a cellar
He built a place just to keep her locked up. One day, he asked for her help hanging the last door. As soon as she stepped inside, he pressed a cloth soaked in ether over her face, knocked her out, and locked her in.
She was reported missing by her mother
Fritzl took advantage of the situation and twisted the truth, making up a story that she had joined a cult. To make it more convincing, he forced Elisabeth to write a letter saying exactly that.
And somehow, everyone believed him.
She was just a child when the abuse began
Locked away in that cellar, Elisabeth suffered major abuse. Her father assaulted her over and over again, and over the years, she gave birth to seven of his children.
Three of them lived with her in captivity, never seeing the outside world. As for the other three, Fritzl staged it like they had just “shown up” at his doorstep, each time leaving a note—written by Elisabeth—saying she couldn’t take care of them. His wife, Rosemarie, unknowingly raised them upstairs.
One of the babies didn’t make it
Born weak and sick, a newborn died within days. Fritzl didn’t seek medical help. Instead, he burned the body in the furnace. That later became one of the charges against him—negligent homicide.
Fritzl controlled and terrorized his captive family
As if the abuse wasn’t enough, he also forced Elisabeth to reenact explicit scenes in front of her own children.
He controlled them all through fear, cutting off electricity for days as punishment. He told them he’d electrocute them if they ever thought about escaping.
A daughter’s illness led to their eventual escape
Elisabeth was trapped for 24 years, but at 42 she finally managed to escape. It all started when her 19-year-old daughter, Kristen, got seriously sick. Fritzl had no choice but to take her to the hospital.
At the hospital, the girl was in such terrible shape that the doctors knew something wasn’t right.
Elisabeth got arrested for child abuse
The police took Elisabeth away, initially planning to charge her with child abuse. That’s when she finally told them everything.
The truth came out, and in 2009, Fritzl was sentenced to life in prison for r***, incest, enslavement, and negligent homicide. He was locked up in a psychiatric facility for criminals.
Could he actually be freed?
In January 2024, a court decided that Austria’s most infamous criminal could be moved to a regular prison. Just because Fritzl was old, frail, and had ‘progressive dementia.’ Officials believed he wasn’t a danger anymore and didn’t need to stay in a psychiatric facility.
That decision could have set him up for an eventual release into a nursing home.
Elisabeth has built a new life away from the public eye
In an interview with The Sun, Fritzl said, “I miss my family very, very much. I am sure that we are going to be reunited, and I think they are going to forgive me for what I have done.”
As for Elisabeth, she was given a new identity after the trial. She still lives in Austria with her six children, keeping her life as private as possible.
