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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Rachel Hagan

Pathetic Fritzl brags about imprisoning daughter and wonders whether his wife forgives

Notorious Austrian sex monster Josef Fritzl has bragged about imprisoning and torturing his daughter in a new tell-all book.

Fritzl imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth when she was 18 years old, in a dungeon he built under his house, telling his wife and police that she had run away to join a cult.

The case only emerged in 2008 when she told police during a trip to hospital, in the town of Amstetten, Austria, that she had been held captive for 24 years by her father.

Elisabeth, along with the three children she had with the beast, were finally freed from their brutal life of captivity.

A hidden bathroom at the house and hiding place (Getty Images)
One of the hidden rooms in Fritzl's lair (Getty Images)

Fritzl was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2009 for incest, rape, coercion, false imprisonment, enslavement and for the negligent homicide of one of his infant sons.

Now the rapist's thoughts have been exposed in his new disturbing memoir, Die Abgründe des Josef F (The Abysses Of Josef F), which was published in Germany last week.

The now 87-year-old said in his memoir: "At first it was just a mind game I played. But I got used to it. The idea, which had previously seemed so absurd, so monstrous to me, took shape.

"One day I knew what I had to do. All that remained was to wait for the right opportunity. On that rainy Saturday morning, the time had come. The thought had become action.

"Those around me noticed my inner restlessness . . . I toyed with the idea of exposing everything and fleeing justice abroad. Still, it wouldn’t be easy.

Monika Fritzl age 14 (Ian Vogler)
Alexander Fritzl age 12 (Ian Vogler)

"The public opinion of the entire world would portray my act as a unique monstrosity, that of a beast."

He impregnated his daughter seven times. Three of the children remained in captivity with their mother.

Kerstin, Stefan and Felix were aged 19, 18 and five when they were freed in April 2008.

One died at the hands of Fritzl at just a few days old and the body was disposed of in an incinerator.

The other three were brought up by Fritzl and his wife, Rosemarie. But in order to hide 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 by a note allegedly written by Elisabeth, claiming that she couldn’t take care of the baby and was leaving it with her parents for safekeeping.

Picture of Elizabeth Fritzl taken in the early 80s before being imprisoned (Ian Vogler)

He told the family trapped in the basement that he would gas them if they tried to escape.

Elizabeth, now 56, reportedly lives under a new identity with her six surviving children at a secret location in Austria.

Fritzl writes in the book: "Even though everything was so long ago, my wife is still inside me."

He wonders if she could ever forgive him: "More than before. You probably become more sensitive with age. I’m worried about how she thinks about everything now. It would be nice if she would come and visit me. I think it’s time to talk about what happened. To make a clean slate, so to speak."

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