Josef Fritzl.

He locked his own daughter inside a concealed area in the basement of the family home for 24 years.

Severally assaulted, sexually abused, raped & impregnated her numerous times during this time.

Josef Fritzl was born on 9 April 1935, in Amstetten, Austria.

In 1956, at age 21, he married 17-year-old Rosemarie, with whom he had three sons and four daughters, including Elisabeth, who was born on 6 April 1966.

Fritzl reportedly began abusing Elisabeth in 1977 when she was 11.

After completing compulsory education at age 15, Elisabeth started a course to become a waitress.

In January 1983, she ran away from home and went into hiding with a friend from work.

She was found by police within three weeks and returned to her parents. She rejoined her waitress course, finished it, and was offered a job.

After Elisabeth turned 18, Fritzl lured her into the basement of the family home, saying he needed help carrying a door.

This door was the last piece needed to seal what would turn out to be the chamber where Elisabeth was held captive for 24 years.

As soon as the door was on the hinges, he swung it open, forcing Elisabeth inside & knocking her unconscious with an ether-soaked towel.

For the next 24 years, the inside of the dirt-walled cellar would be the only thing Elisabeth Fritzl would see.

After Elisabeth's disappearance, her Mom filed a missing person's report.

Almost a month later, Fritzl handed over a letter to the police, the first of several that he had forced Elisabeth to write while in captivity.

The letter, stated that Elisabeth was tired of living with her family & was staying with a friend; she warned her parents not to look for her or she would leave the country.

Fritzl told police that she had most likely joined a religious cult.

Eventually, the police investigation into her whereabouts would run cold and before long, the world would forget about the missing Fritzl girl.

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

As far as the rest of the Fritzl family was concerned, Josef would head down to the basement every morning at 9 a.m. to draw plans for the machines that he sold.

Occasionally, he would spend the night, but his wife wouldn’t worry – her husband was a hard-working man and was thoroughly dedicated to his career.

As far as Elisabeth Fritzl was concerned, Josef was a monster.

At the minimum, he would visit her in the basement three times a week. Usually, it was every day.

For the first two years, he left her alone, keeping her captive.

Then, he began to rape her, continuing the nightly visits he had begun when she was just 11 years old.

Two years into her captivity, Elisabeth became pregnant, though she miscarried 10 weeks into the pregnancy.

Two years later, however, she got pregnant again, this time carrying to term. In August of 1988, a baby girl named Kerstin was born.

Two years later, another baby was born, a boy named Stefan.

Kerstin & Stefan remained in the cellar with their mother for the duration of her imprisonment, being brought weekly rations of food and water by Josef.

Elisabeth attempted to teach them with the rudimentary education she herself had, and give them the most normal life she could under her horrific circumstances.

Josef, would sometimes molest the children too.

Over the next 24 years, Elisabeth would give birth to 5 more children.
One more was allowed to remain in the basement with her, one died shortly after birth, and the other three were taken upstairs to live with Josef & his wife(Elisabeth's Mom).

In order to conceal what he was doing from his wife, he staged elaborate discoveries of the children, often involving placing them on bushes near the home or on the doorstep.

Each time, the child would be swaddled neatly and accompanied with a note allegedly written by Elisabeth, claiming that she couldn’t take care of the baby and was leaving it with her parents for safe keeping.

A tenant who rented a ground-floor room in the house for 12 years claimed to hear noises from the basement, which Fritzl explained were from the "faulty pipes" or the gas heating system.

He continued raping Elisabeth.

Sometimes he'd beat her & make her unconscious, then have sex with her "unconscious" body.

Sometimes he won't bring her food for a week, just to punish her.

The Fritzl house.

Please subscribe out my YouTube channel for weekly health content

It is not known how long Josef Fritzl intended to keep his daughter captive in his basement.

He had gotten away with it for 24 years, and for all the police knew he was going to continue for another 24.

However, in 2008, one of the remaining children in the cellar fell ill.

Elisabeth begged her father to allow her 19-year-old daughter Kerstin to get medical attention.

She’d fallen rapidly and critically ill and Elisabeth was beside herself.

Grudgingly, Josef agreed to take her to a hospital.

He removed Kerstin from the cellar and called an ambulance, claiming that he had a note from Kerstin’s mother explaining her condition.

For a week, the police questioned Kerstin & asked the public for any information on her family.

She didn't come forward as there was no family to speak of.

The police eventually grew suspicious of Josef and reopened the investigation into Elisabeth Fritzl’s disappearance.

They began to read the letters that Elisabeth had supposedly been leaving for the Fritzls and began to see inconsistencies in them.

Elisabeth pleaded with Fritzl to be taken to the hospital. He released her from the cellar along with her sons Stefan and Felix.

He and Elisabeth went to the hospital where Kerstin was being treated.

Following a tip-off that Josef and Elisabeth were at the hospital, the police detained them on the hospital grounds and took them to a police station for questioning.

Elisabeth did not provide police with more details until they promised her that she would never have to see her father again.

Over the next two hours, she told the story of her 24 years in captivity.

Elisabeth told the police that Fritzl raped her & forced her to watch pornographic videos, which he made her reenact with him in front of her children in order to humiliate her.

Shortly after midnight, police officers completed the interview.

Fritzl, aged 73, was arrested.

On 19 March 2009, Fritzl was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. He said that he accepted the sentence and would not appeal.

He is currently serving out his sentence.

Today, Elisabeth Fritzl & her 6 children live under a new identity in a secret Austrian village.

The home is under constant CCTV surveillance and police patrol every corner.

The family doesn’t allow interviews anywhere within their walls and decline to give any themselves.

Though she is now in her mid-fifties, the last photo taken of her was when she was just 16 years of age.

The efforts to conceal her new identity were made to keep her past hidden from the media and let her live her new life.

The case was featured in the 2008 documentary, The Longest Night: Secrets of the Austrian Cellar and the 2010 documentary, Monster: The Josef Fritzl Story.

You can check it out

Can you now subscribe to my YouTube channel? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcNu63CO1aHMabmGyZzFoDw