Austrian Captor Planned Dungeon In 1978

Police Reveal Secret Cell Plans Of Man At Center Of Imprisonment-Incest Case

(AP)  The Austrian man who allegedly imprisoned his daughter and fathered seven children with her first planned to build his secret cell as early as 1978, when his daughter was 12, authorities said Monday.

Investigators said a total of eight doors fitted with sophisticated locks and electronics secured the underground warren of windowless rooms where they say Josef Fritzl held his daughter captive for two dozen years.

"This was not built from one day to the next," said police Col. Franz Polzer, who is overseeing the investigation into a case that has stunned Austria and the world.

He said the main door weighed about 500 kilograms (half a ton).

Polzer said an investigation showed that the apartment complex owned by Fritzl originally was built in 1890, and that he applied for permits to expand it in 1978. He said police believe the plans for that expansion included the secret rooms because adding them later would have been far more difficult and expensive.

Prosecutors told reporters in Amstetten, Fritzl's hometown about 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of Vienna, that they will have their first meeting with the 73-year-old suspect on Wednesday or Thursday.

Officials said Fritzl's wife, the daughter he allegedly imprisoned and raped, and the children born of the illicit relationship are learning how to live together as they get psychiatric care and counseling.

They said the children were given a fish tank at the clinic, and the youngest - a 5-year-old boy - received a teddy bear.

Fritzl's lawyer, meanwhile, indicated he is preparing an insanity defense.

In an interview broadcast late Sunday, attorney Rudolf Mayer said he believes Fritzl has a serious mental disorder and that anyone with that kind of psychological illness "didn't choose" to do what police allege he did.

Mayer said experts will have to determine Fritzl's mental state and decide whether the suspect can be considered certifiably insane. If that is the case, and Fritzl is convicted, he would be confined to a psychiatric institution rather than a prison, he said.

Investigators have said Fritzl confessed last week that he held his daughter captive in a windowless cell, fathered her seven children, and tossed the body of one who died in infancy into a furnace.

"I believe that the trigger was a mental disorder, because I can't imagine that someone has sex with his own daughter without having a mental disorder," Mayer said.

Fritzl has not yet been charged, but remains in pretrial detention. Police reiterated Monday they have no evidence that the retired electrician had an accomplice.

Authorities first began to unravel the complex story April 19, when a 19-year-old girl who Fritzl fathered with his daughter, Elisabeth, was admitted to a hospital suffering from an unidentified infection.

Doctors, unable to find any medical records for the girl, appealed on television for her mother to come forward. Fritzl then accompanied Elisabeth to the hospital on April 26 and opened up to police.

The 19-year-old remained hospitalized Monday in critical but stable condition, although clinic spokesman Klaus Schwertner said her situation "has stabilized somewhat in recent days." Officials said she is still being kept in an artificial coma to help her breathe.

Investigators have said they believe Fritzl concealed his crimes from his wife, Rosemarie, and her sister said Rosemarie believed her husband's cover story that Elisabeth had run away from home to join a cult.

"We were all taken in by him," the sister, who gave her name only as Christine R., said in an exclusive television interview with The Associated Press. "Every person that looked in his eyes was fooled by him."

Christine R. described Fritzl as a "tyrant" who instilled a culture of fear at home, which may have explained why his wife and other children apparently never dared venture into the cellar - which Fritzl warned was strictly off-limits.

"When he said it was black, it was black, even when it was 10 times white," said the woman, who was interviewed Saturday evening at her home in Austria. "He tolerated no dissent."

"Listen, if I myself was scared of him at a family party, and I did not feel confident to say anything in any form that could possibly offend him, then you can imagine how it must have been for a woman who spent so many years with him," she said.

She also said her imprisoned niece - now 42 - ran away from home as a 17-year-old, about six months before police say she was locked into the secret basement rooms. The previous attempt to flee may have made her father's story that the girl joined a cult more believable.

She also said Fritzl was jailed for "a year and half" for an alleged 1967 rape conviction, but said she could not offer details.

On Saturday, the Oberoesterreichische Nachrichten daily printed an excerpt of what it said was a 1967 court record found in the state archives in Linz, in which a Josef F. was accused of breaking into the apartment of a 24-year-old nurse and raping her.

Police have declined to comment, saying records that old would have been erased under Austria's statutes of limitation. But authorities are awaiting old court records that the media say document the case.

[honestabe8]

DrMaqazi: You post the same stuff all the time. Many of us posting on this board do not care what the bible says about homosexuality. But, by all means, keep posting. Parrots amuse me.

[dog7771]

I can believe his wife was so terrorized; I''ve seen it in older families where the HUSBAND rules, the wife serves and that is it. All colors and languages. Specifically, I had an 1st generation Irish landlord who treated his wife like this; she could not speak to the neighbors or tenants unless he told her to, the son and daughter were named after the father and mother because that is what he wanted, and he used to beat the son to a pulp after his Friday afternoon pub crawl, but doted on the daughter like SHE was his wife, and bought her a *** spider monkey that used to bite people. He threatened us and yelled & screamed outside in the drive way when we moved because now, in order to rent the place he would have to do some work. After he let my grandma live in squalor for 10 years and refused to fix anything he was red-faced with anger that she would have the nerve to move to a house she purchased. Another guy actually did the 10-paces behind thing with his wife..I will not say what country he came from. The fact is, they lived in the USA and still kept the "Old ways." WOmen and children are chattel, to be used and abused.

[wvce]

Who would have thought that a German-speaking Austrian with a funny mustache could be a evil, manipulative tyrant?

[gaye5]

Anonymous73 so well said..
I dont care if he is insane or not, which i doubt, he should be locked up in the same sell as he locked her up..and yes

rational_1 to save the space lock a couple of *** crazy mad men with him.. and like

minnick8 I cant understand why his wife didnt do anything, she cant possibly have not known.. how did he sneak the food down to them or did he only do it on odd occaisions??? and I also would have gone and got the police, they would have stormed the house taking him in and freeing the girl/family, or was their some other selfish motive for her keeping quite?? she could not possibly not have known for that length of time..

[gaye5]

Fritzl''s lawyer, meanwhile, indicated he is preparing an insanity defense.
Yep, that would be right, get the b off with insanity, how can these lawyers sleep at night, I thought the law was there to protect the innocent not the criminal, but the past 30 years has proven other wise while lawyers do their best to get off a sentence even those they know have killed..If I was a lawyer, I could NEVER help to go free someone who is a killer, it makes the lawyer no better than the killer.
If this is the case and he is insane, then lock him away from the people in his secret cekk for 30 years, shove his food under the door and give him no contact with the outside world, just what he gave her.
let him know that only one person will know where he is and that is his wife, no one else will be told and let him be scared that she will die and leave him there to stave to death just as he did with his daughter..

[minnick8-2009]

I can''t believe his wife was so terrorized that she would believe such a story and stay away from the cellar for 24 years. If it was me, I would assemble a support group and we would all storm the cellar to find out what he was keeping down there. How could she not notice him carrying food and filthy laundry up and down the stairs for 24 years? I agree he was criminally insane; however, he should still be imprisoned in a like situation for the rest of his pathetic life. To say he didn''t choose his actions is equally insane; the attorney should be psychologically evaluated.

[maywood4]

Did I hear he could get only 15 years of jail time? Are you kidding me ! That''s just wrong! Put him away, shut the door and throw away the key.!

[guadalcanal3]

This guy''s lawyer is trying to make it into an insanity case???....I think the lawyer is insane!...obviously this whole situation was ''premeditated'',cold and calculated,...This man ia a cruel and brutal s.o.b...It''s kinda like saying Hitler was insane...he''s even smart enough to try and plead insanity...I say lock him up for the rest of his life in that very same dungeon with no windows or "the light of day".

[anonymous73]

Poor Josef Fritzl, he is very distraught and emotionally broken, according to his lawyer, not because he got caught and that others are trying to hurt or kill him, but because he has only now just realized how he could not help his urges to destroy others. It is not his fault that because of his personality disorder, he was forced to build a dungeon over 6 years and then terrorize his family over the next 24 years. He only appeared to have the daily presence of mind each and every day. He took his 19 year old granddaughter/daughter to the hospital out of compassion, not because he could not figure out how to dispose of her body when she died. To help him overcome his disorder, for which he shouldn''t be held criminally responsible, he should be put in a secure psychiatric facility, where he can be cared for...with sunlight, human interaction, TV (hopefully high definition), medical and dental care, good food. Perhaps he will be able to spin his devious control over the other patients and doctors to get beneficial treatment in exchange for sharing little juicy tidbits that can be sold to the tabloids. Why not just let him serve his time doing community service so he can teach others how they should not build dungeons and keep people prisoners in a dark, low oxygen environment for a quarter century? Better yet, he can help other criminals excape justice by showing them how to be appear "insane"...

[rational_1]

I hope his cellmate is a 300 pound gay rapist with a huge stash of Viagra and a flair for the kinky.