Secrets in the Cellar (16 page)

The urgent call for the change in law came after the disclosure that Fritzl had been allowed to officially adopt and foster three of Elisabeth’s children despite being a convicted rapist.

Hours before the debate, Justice Minister Maria Berger finally admitted that Amstetten officials had been “gullible” in accepting Josef Fritzl’s stories over the years. In an interview with Austria’s
Der Standard
newspaper, she vowed it would never happen again.

“Looking at everything we know up to now,” she said, “I can see a certain gullibility—especially when it comes to that tale that she had joined a sect, with which the suspect explained the disappearance of his daughter. Today, one would certainly pursue this more precisely.”

The minister pledged to tighten Austrian adoption procedures to prevent another Josef Fritzl from manipulating the system.

“In general, adoptive parents are checked up thoroughly,” she said. “One way to do this is to check the criminal record. Now we also want to make this compulsory when it comes to privileged adoptions by family members.”

Reacting to this, Elisabeth’s lawyer Christoph Herbst said he was examining the possibility of claiming compensation from debt-ridden Fritzl, who still had five properties in his name.

Late Wednesday night, five hundred people descended on Amstetten’s town square for a further show of support for the Fritzl family. They unfurled a large banner made by schoolchildren, bearing the messages “Wishing You Strength on Your Path Through Life,” “It Was Hell For You, Now We Wish You Lots of Sunshine” and, “We’re With You.”

But there were other signs displayed by citizens, pleading with the world’s media to leave them alone.

“The town is ready to move on,” said demonstration organizer Margarete Reisinger. “I’m here because this was one man, and it now reflects on all of us. I’m proud to be from Amstetten.”

City official Hermann Gruber addressed the crowd, saying that the good people here today represented the
real
Amstetten, and not the evil of Josef Fritzl.

“We, the Whole Family”

On Thursday, Josef Fritzl’s bizarre
mea culpa
ran in the Austrian publication
News Magazin
, and was immediately picked up by the international press. But far from generating sympathy for him, it had the opposite effect, and was widely seen as cynical and delusional.

“I Could Have Killed Them All,” was the headline in Germany’s
Bild-Zeitung
, and “Dungeon Dad’s Sick Defense,” was the
New York Post
’s offering. The London
Sun
ran a front-page color picture of Fritzl sunbathing in a pair of red Speedos, with the headline, “I Lusted After My Mother.”

The next morning, Josef Fritzl, wearing casual clothes, was brought, under heavy armed guard, though without handcuffs, to St. Polten court. There he joined his attorney, Rudolf Mayer, for a fifteen-minute hearing behind closed doors.

The judge remanded Fritzl for another month in custody while the investigation proceeded. During the hearing, Fritzl was told that he would most likely face a murder charge, putting him behind bars for the rest of his life.

“In Austria he could be charged with murder through negligence,” explained Gerhard Sedlacek, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office. “It needs to be proved that the baby would have survived had he [gotten] proper medical attention. That carries a life sentence—and life means life.”

Sedlacek told reporters that police were running down every single lead, forecasting that the investigation could take six months to complete.

“The investigation continues,” said Sedlacek. “The charges against him will probably be filed this fall, when we expect the trial to begin.”

Outside the court, defender Mayer said Fritzl wondered why none of his family had visited him and was missing his wife Rosemarie.

“Psychologically,” Mayer told reporters, “my client is in a very bad way. But he does not complain. His biggest fear is how his children are faring without him. He wants to know how they’re coping with it all.”

A few hours later, Chief Inspector Franz Polzer held another press conference, announcing that investigators had discovered two new rooms in the cellar, sealed off with concrete. They had entered the rubble-filled rooms, thought to have been used as storage space during the cellar’s construction.

“This prison was so complex, so extensive,” said Polzer, “that it exhausted Mr. Fritzl’s capabilities.”

He said the investigation into the cellar and nearby grounds was almost complete, and they were now concentrating the search for human remains in the grounds outside.

“We have been using sniffer-dogs and ground radar,” he said, “in order not to have to dig up the whole area.”

Sunday was Austrian Mother’s Day, and Elisabeth, her mother and her children celebrated together at the Amstetten-Mauer clinic. They all sat down for a special lunch, and during the meal the children gave Elisabeth and Rosemarie flowers from the clinic gardens as presents.

It had now been two weeks since the family had reunited, and everybody appeared to be bonding well. The closed-off clinic wing had been divided into areas, with the children sharing bedrooms. Lisa and Monika slept together in one space, while the older brothers Stefan and Alexander slept together in another. Elisabeth shared her bed with Felix, who needed constant reassurance.

Since gaining her freedom, Elisabeth had surprised everyone by her sheer strength and determination to heal her family.

“Elisabeth is really an impressive person,” said family lawyer Christoph Herbst at a press conference that day. “She is very strong . . . a tower of strength [and] happy now for the first time. Her biggest wish now is to have the family together and to have the best for her children. They need time to heal and grow together. Everything else is secondary to her. She tells her family that all she longs for is a normal life. That’s her only wish.”

The attorney dispelled media reports about the toll all the years of imprisonment had taken on Elisabeth’s physical appearance.

“Some people who hear the story think Elisabeth is like something from a horror film,” he said. “But rumors that she had no teeth and cannot talk are not true. If you met her, you wouldn’t realize what she has been through . . . Elisabeth is an attractive woman, and does not look old or drawn in some way, like it is speculated in the media.”

He ridiculed other rumors circulating in the press about the family.

“If a family member were sitting here next to us,” he said, “you would not find a difference. One does not notice any of the things that were implied or believed by people outside.”

Herbst also revealed that, during their time in the cellar, Elisabeth had scrupulously recorded the dates of birth for all her children on scraps of paper. And next week, Kerstin, Stefan and Felix would all be receiving birth certificates and Austrian passports, so they would now legally exist.

Updating reporters on the family’s progress, Herbst said that little Felix was making exceptional progress, recently seeing rain for the first time through the clinic window.

“Unfortunately he was unable to go out,” said Herbst. “He didn’t know what rain was, and was fascinated by it. He is a lively and lovely little fellow, and delights in every new discovery.”

As the youngest of the cellar children, Felix would probably have the best chance of leading a normal life one day, but his older brother Stefan was having a much tougher time. While the little boy was now learning to run, as well as riding a new bicycle—things he could never do in the dungeon—Stefan had trouble even standing up, lacking basic motor skills and coordination. He spent his days staring at the fish in his aquarium, just as he had done in the cellar.

Their upstairs siblings were also having their own set of difficulties. Lisa, Monika and Alexander all missed their friends at school, angry that their normal life had been turned upside down.

“They cannot go out,” explained Herbst, as their psychiatrists had advised against them going back to school for the foreseeable future, “so for them, life is completely different. They don’t have the freedom they had before. They cannot see their friends, they cannot meet their classmates. This is very hard for them. And they are asking, when they can meet them again? When can they go to school again? And we all hope that this will happen pretty soon.”

In the meantime, the three upstairs children were being privately tutored, ensuring that they didn’t fall behind in their schoolwork. They also spent time watching Disney DVDs and reading the hundreds of letters of support pouring into the clinic from all over the world.

Elisabeth was so moved by all this good will towards the family, she decided a response was required. So, after discussing it with doctors, she called everyone together to initiate a moving family project.

For the next two days in collective therapy, Elisabeth, Rosemarie and the children all worked hard, preparing a huge colorful thank-you poster, full of rainbows, hearts and smiling faces, to be displayed in a store window in Amstetten town square for the world to see.

Elisabeth wrote across the top of the poster:

We, the whole family, would like to use this opportunity to thank you all for sympathizing with our fate. Your empathy is helping us to go through these difficult times, and it shows us that there also are good and honest people. We hope that there will be a time when we can return to normal life.

Then, one by one, they each traced different colored crayons around their hands and fingers, writing individual messages inside their outlined palms. A large heart at the bottom was drawn for Kerstin, who remained unconscious in Amstetten hospital.

Elisabeth’s message, written inside her green hand outlines, said:

I wish for—the recovery of my daughter Kerstin, the love of my children, the protection of my family, for people with a big heart and compassion.

Then Lisa, 16, took a red crayon and wrote:

Wishes: health, that everything goes well, love, happiness.

Misses: Kerstin, school, friends, fresh air, Class 1C.

Stefan’s message was in purple:

I miss my sister. I am enjoying freedom and my family. I like the sun, the fresh air and the nature.

Then in green crayon, 12-year-old Alexander wrote:

I desire freedom, strength and power and the sun. I miss the fire brigade and sister Kerstin.

His 14-year-old sister Monika took a purple crayon, writing inside her palm prints, besides a smiley face:

Wishes: that Kerstin gets better, lots of love, that everything is soon past.

Misses: fire brigade, music school, friends, school, Kerstin.

Little Felix did his in green:

I dream of playing with the other children, running in the meadows, riding in cars, playing ball, swimming, sleigh rides, and playing with other children.

Finally, Rosemarie Fritzl wrote her message in red and purple crayon, signing it “Oma”:

I wish to be able to live in peace with my children, with much strength and with God’s help I miss my dear friends and my freedom.

Rosemarie was still coming to terms with what had happened. As detectives prepared to interview her again, it was revealed that on discovering the truth, she had suffered a nervous breakdown. She was now being treated for severe heart problems, believed to have been caused by all her years of stressful living with her husband.

“With new details emerging daily of what was going on under her own house,” said a police source, “she’s been unable to take it in.”

Chief Inspector Franz Polzer confirmed that Rosemarie would soon be questioned again, emphasizing that she was not under suspicion.

“What woman would stay silent,” he asked, “if she knew that her husband had seven children with his daughter, and was holding her in the cellar?”

On Monday, May 12, doctors decided to slowly reduce Kerstin’s medication, to ease her out of the coma. After her condition had stabilized a few days earlier, she had started getting stronger and stronger. Now her doctors were hopeful that she might make a full recovery. But their big fear was whether she had suffered any brain damage, as severe cramping brought on by her infection might have starved her brain of oxygen.

“The medication keeping her in an artificial coma is being slowly reduced,” explained Dr. Albert Reiter. “This is the first phase in the process of eventually waking her up. How long this will take is something we cannot say.”

Doctors viewed her mother as being crucial to her recovery. So every day, Elisabeth would be disguised as a nurse in a red wig with a ponytail, walking out through the front gates and past news photographers, who never recognized her. Then an ambulance would drive her to the hospital, where she would spend hours gently talking to her daughter, who was still catheterized and hooked up to various breathing and nutrition tubes.

“During this period,” said Dr. Reiter, “it was extremely important that Kerstin’s mother was coming to the bed on a regular basis to motivate her.”

Frankenstein

On Monday, May 12, as police allowed tenants to briefly return to Ybbsstrasse 40 to move out their stuff, a team of court-appointed psychiatrists started examining Josef Fritzl, to see if he was truly insane. It would be the beginning of weeks of testing to establish if he was aware of the horror he had inflicted on his family. Then they would have to decide where he would spend the rest of his life.

Dr. Adelheid Kastner, the 46-year-old head of the forensic department of the Linz psychiatric clinic, had been selected to lead a team of experts to interview Fritzl in depth about all areas of his life and behavior. Her team would also conduct special tests to determine if he was suffering from any psychiatric disorder and try to explain his abhorrent behavior.

Before the first round of testing began, Dr. Kastner, who has studied an estimated five hundred murderers, told reporters that she would not be “pressured” into making a diagnosis.

“What is special about this case is the worldwide media interest,” she said. “And the case itself is without precedent. But I will treat it like any other, and if my results do not conform to public expectation, that is not my concern. I always go into an assessment interview neutral and professional. It is not up to me to condemn.”

Dr. Kastner asserted that she would study every part of Fritzl’s personality, saying it would be difficult for him to feign insanity.

“In a very few cases,” she explained, “some of the subjects have tried to fake a mental condition in a bid to appear unfit for trial. But that is a rare occurrence and it can hardly be successful, as any condition that would deem a person unfit for trial is very complex and with a number of symptoms.”

The length of time needed to complete her tests would depend on how cooperative her subject would be.

“The analysis could take anything between a single session to several days or even weeks,” she explained. “I’ve had a few cases where subjects have refused to cooperate.”

There was much speculation in the press as to what had driven Josef Fritzl to commit his terrible crimes. One popular theory was that he was suffering from so-called “Frankenstein syndrome.”

“He was like Dr. Frankenstein,” German psychiatrist Dr. Christian Lüdke told the London
Mail
. “Fritzl was delusional and enjoyed being the master of life and death, exercising the ultimate power.

“He enjoyed this fantasy of playing God. He was like Dr. Frankenstein, fathering the children, then deciding their fate and controlling all they did. This man is the personification of the terrifying power of evil—the devil.”

Although it is impossible to obtain a true psychological profile without many hours of face-to-face interviews, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow believes that Fritzl’s growing up in Nazi Germany and the relationship with his mother are key to understanding him.

“So what kind of questions would I ask him?” said Dr. Ablow, noting that as he has never interviewed Fritzl, all his reflections represent theories. “What were your experiences in Germany at that time? What did you see happen to children? Did you have any fantasies about what you’d like to do if you had all that power?

“Equally, how did your mother provoke these feelings in you, that you’d like to have a relationship with her? Did she know about these feelings? Did she punish you for the feelings? Were there times when she knew you to be having sexual feelings that weren’t about her?”

The next morning, a team of ten forensic investigators began examining the handiwork Fritzl had put into the cellar construction, to determine if he had done it alone or had any outside assistance. It had already been calculated that in building the dungeon, Fritzl had somehow moved 197 tons of earth—the equivalent of seventeen truckloads—and then somehow disposed of it without raising suspicions.

Equally baffling was how Fritzl had brought a washing machine, fridge and two beds into the cellar over the years, without anyone noticing.

They were also paying special attention to the electric installations, plumbing and gas lines, as well as the eight electronic security doors. And they now planned to break through old walls, to reach some hidden ones revealed by the sonar probes.

Eventually police would discover many rooms of all sizes in the cellar. One of particular interest contained a cache of diaries, invoices and other paperwork that the obsessive Fritzl had kept locked away for years. These would provide an in-depth look at how the dungeon was constructed, as well as other shocking revelations about Fritzl’s twisted sexual history.

“He kept information going back more than twenty-four years,” said a police spokesman. “He was extremely careful. Everything will now need to be checked.”

Another team of highly trained specialists, wearing state-of-the-art Kappler protective suits, had also begun clearing out the dungeon. Over the next few days they would remove piles of trash, including dozens of empty cans of Fritzl’s favorite Skol Lager, empty pizza and cereal boxes, and takeaway containers. Everything would then be transported to a police laboratory to be examined forensically.

The investigators worked under the constant gaze of tourists, now coming from as far as Germany and Hungary to make the pilgrimage to the Fritzl house and be photographed in front of it.

There were also reports that a local entrepreneur was operating bus tours from Tyrol into Amstetten, 250 miles away, stopping briefly in front of the house, before going back again.

“It’s bad enough [with] journalists and TV crews,” said one angry Amstetten resident, “but now there is this ghoulish tourism. It is appalling, we just want to be left in peace.”

On Wednesday morning, Amstetten residents awoke to discover the Fritzl family thank-you poster on display in a storefront window in the main square. As word of it spread, the entire town descended on the square to see it for themselves, with many being moved to tears.

“The initiative . . . came from the family themselves,” explained attorney Herbst. “It is their wish to thank the community for the support.”

Later that day, Amstetten-Mauer clinic director Dr. Berthold Kepplinger held a press conference, saying the family would have to remain at the clinic for several more months at the least. When they were well enough to go out into the world, they would be given new identities, similar to being in a witness protection program.

“In order to give them a good start in their new life,” said Dr. Kepplinger, “they all need to be very carefully protected and very slowly introduced to the real world, and to each other.”

He said integrating the two sets of Fritzl children together had “gone extremely well,” and they had now settled into a routine of playing together and painting. The family had also been given a computer, which was mainly being used for games.

Each day, the family met as a group to discuss how to move on with their lives.

“Apart from the psychiatric support of both the adults and the children,” said Dr. Kepplinger, “we have started the first sessions of family therapy. These are primarily dealing with the issues of planning their future life.”

On the more immediate front, Dr. Kepplinger said, Elisabeth, Stefan and Felix would also need additional therapy, to help them fully adjust to daylight, after spending their lives in the badly lit cellar. They would also undergo intensive physiotherapy and ergotherapy, to help them adapt to the larger spaces they now moved around in.

They were also receiving therapy to help them climb stairs and manage other physical activities they never had to do before. They would receive immunization shots, usually given to newborn babies, to build up their resistance to germs and bacteria in the outside world.

One treatment for the downstairs children was learning how to play. Therapists were shocked to find that Stefan and Felix had absolutely no concept of “play,” after spending their entire lives in the claustrophobic cellar. Elisabeth was now showing them how to swim and run—though Stefan had problems even standing up.

Experts designed customized treatments for individual family members, who each had a unique set of issues and problems to overcome.

“We are making every effort to give them what they need as a group or as individuals,” said Dr. Kepplinger, “and we are carefully monitoring progress.”

But these different treatments were already causing problems. The three “normal” upstairs children, now being isolated twenty-four hours a day in a hospital ward, were becoming increasingly frustrated and resentful, while their mother and downstairs siblings needed a far “slower pace of life,” requiring peace and quiet.

“[They] are extremely different,” said Dr. Kepplinger. “They have lived different lives, at different speeds, and both are having to adjust to the here and now. While for one set, even the smallest details are interesting, for the others, they’re dull. For one lot, seeing a large cloud float by is a major event, for their upstairs siblings it is just boring.”

Refusing to elaborate further, Dr. Kepplinger observed that Josef Fritzl’s female children had a far different view of their father than their male siblings.

Once again he appealed to the media to stop harassing the family, after a clinic security officer had been badly injured by a photographer trying to break into the hospital. Ultimately, more than twenty photographers, mostly English, would be caught attempting to sneak into the clinic.

“This madness has to end,” said the doctor. “The family needs time and peace. The protection of their privacy is of enormous importance for the success of the therapy. We are doing everything we can to protect the family from external stress.”

Family lawyer Christoph Herbst said the “aggressive” media were effectively imprisoning Elisabeth, Stefan and Felix for a second time.

“The children would like to go out in the open,” he said. “They have never experienced rain in their lives, nor have they felt fresh air. They’re incredibly curious about everything around them, and they would like to touch the trees and the plants in the hospital gardens. But they are unable to leave the floor they are residing [on].”

Herbst said the family was now considering moving abroad under new identities.

“They are being hunted by the media,” he said. “The family cannot live a normal life in Austria. I’m looking at the options and weighing up opportunities.”

A few days later, Austrian authorities completed the official documents, providing new identities for Rosemarie, Elisabeth and her six children. All that was now needed were signatures to activate the new ID papers from the Amstetten district council.

That week’s edition of the German magazine
Bunte
carried a major interview with Natascha Kampusch, who revealed that she had now bought Wolfgang Priklopil’s house, which had been her prison for eight years. She said it would be therapeutic for her to own the house, to protect it from vandals or being demolished.

She had now been back to the scene of her horrific ordeal for the first time since her dramatic August 2006 escape.

“It is not as threatening as it was back then,” she said. “But it is still a house of horrors for me.”

The beautiful 20-year-old, soon to launch her own Austrian cable television talk show, gave her own unique perspective on the Fritzl case, which mirrored her own.

“My stomach churned when I saw the pictures,” she said. “I felt really sick. All the emotions that I’ve carefully tried to suppress were suddenly there again. It’s very stressful.”

After closely following the case, she described Josef Fritzl as “self-loving” and a “serious egoist,” saying she was angry about his statement to the media.

“He’s a liar,” she said. “He doesn’t care about anyone but himself, and it’s monstrous for him to claim that he loves his wife and his daughter . . . what he did was sick.”

She offered to personally help Elisabeth and her family with their healing, using her own similar experiences, but only if they needed her.

“If they don’t want my help,” she said, “then I’m not going to force myself on them. In my case, you wonder how a total stranger can possibly take a child away from [his or her] parents, and to put a whole family through such severe trauma. But this Fritzl did that to his own child, to his own family. That is even more unbelievable.”

She warned that healing would take a long time, saying that even after nearly two years out of her cellar, she was still being helped by doctors, psychologists, social workers.

“It’s a very dark past,” she explained. “It’s as if I lost my memory and have now started a completely new life.”

On Thursday, May 15, Kerstin Fritzl woke up from her coma. Dr. Albert Reiter had been making his morning rounds when he saw his patient suddenly open her eyes and smile at him.

“It was an amazing moment,” he recalled. “She opened her eyes and showed emotional reactions. We smiled at her and she smiled back at us.”

The doctors had wanted Elisabeth to be there when she regained consciousness, as Kerstin had never seen anyone apart from her mother, two brothers and her father Josef Fritzl. But Elisabeth was told the good news immediately, and drove straight to the hospital to be at her daughter’s bedside. Everybody breathed a huge sigh of relief, as it appeared Kerstin had not suffered any brain damage.

For the next two weeks, Elisabeth and the doctors were constantly at Kerstin’s bedside, talking to her and giving her medication as she grew stronger by the day.

“It was very important that Elisabeth was there to motivate her,” said Dr. Reiter, “and get her to participate in some of the things we asked her to participate in. That was so difficult with all the different tubes going into her neck and body, and catheters and all those things.”

The doctors’ main concerns, during those crucial first days, were to have Kerstin breathing on her own and be able to swallow solid food again.

“We mobilized her,” explained the doctor. “We put her up in bed, and helped her prepare to be able to swallow foods, so she didn’t choke, especially with the tubes still in her neck. So we were preparing her for the removal of the breathing tube.”