Monster Fritzl offers life story to raise cash for family

Published on Sunday 15 February 2009 20:56

JOSEF Fritzl, the Austrian who fathered seven children with his daughter and held them captive in a secret cellar beneath their home, is putting his life story up for sale to the highest bidder.

Fritzl, 74, is also hawking his property empire at rock bottom prices in an attempt to raise cash for his family, saying he wants to provide "a secure future" for the six surviving children conceived after he raped his daughter Elisabeth repeatedly over a 24-year period.

Fritzl is accused of killing one of his children through neglect, by failing to get medical help when the boy was born with breathing difficulties in 1996. An eighth pregnancy ended in a miscarriage.

Just four weeks before he stands trial for the crimes, Fritzl has been declared bankrupt by authorities winding down his rented homes empire worth the equivalent of 3 million.

The properties Fritzl once rented out are mortgaged and have fallen in value due to the global financial crisis.

Walter Anzboeck, the lawyer assigned to act as liquidator for Fritzl's insolvent real estate businesses, said yesterday: "Fritzl is ready to open up and reveal everything about his motives and the background of the case if it helps to care for his family."

Mr Anzboeck said he is aware that this is a "very sensitive matter" and made reassurances that nothing will be released into the public domain before permission is gained from the court, the family, the creditors and the victims' lawyer.

Austria has laws against criminals being paid for their life stories, but Mr Anzboeck made it clear that no money will go to Fritzl. Any payments will be channelled directly to his daughter and the children.

Fritzl is believed to be asking for in excess of 500,000 for his story. Mr Anzboeck said there have been "many" requests from foreign media. He added that TV stations are desperate for the rights to make a film or a documentary about the case. The lawyer claimed there is no chance to ensure the family's financial future without such media tie-ups.

Adding that he considers Fritzl to be a "distasteful" man, Mr Anzboeck added: "I would not (want] to go for a coffee with him, but he is extraordinarily friendly, very co-operative and very talkative."

Fritzl is scheduled to stand trial from 16 March in St Poelten, the town where he has been held on remand ever since the cellar was discovered in April last year. He faces charges of murder, rape, slavery, incest, imprisonment and abuse.

Elisabeth, who now lives with her six surviving children in a small town not far from Vienna, will not be in court. She gave testimony about her ordeal to prosecutors last year on the understanding she would not have to face her father in public.

In December, Elisabeth and her children left the psychiatric clinic in Austria where they were recovering from their ordeal.

Fritzl, who has been in custody since April last year, kept Elisabeth in a soundproofed basement under his house in the town of Amstetten.

Prosecutors said that Fritzl had threatened to kill his daughter and their imprisoned children by gassing them or through an explosion if they tried to escape.

Shortly after Fritzl's arrest, police investigators said he burned in a furnace the body of the child who died.

Fritzl has previously told a woman psychiatrist he "was born to rape" and that he had "an evil streak".

Dr Adelheid Kastner, of the Wagner-Jauregg psychiatric clinic in Linz, found part of the answer for Fritzl's behaviour was rooted in his childhood.

In a court-ordered psychiatric examination she said he was not a "wanted child" and that his dominant mother had raised him without love.

Secrets and lies, incest and cruelty

THE authoritarian and domineering husband of Rosemarie, a shy, nervous woman who is reported to have had no idea of what was going on, secretly converted the basement of the family home into a prison behind a concealed concrete door.

On 28 August, 1984, Fritzl handcuffed and drugged 18-year-old Elisabeth, who would not emerge from her ordeal of rape, beatings and abuse until 18 April, 2008, during which time she bore seven children by her father.

For almost a quarter of a century, Fritzl alternated between two families, that of his wife and their sons and daughters and that of his subterranean "family" produced as a result of incestuous rape. He would buy food and clothes in neighbouring towns and sneak down to the rooms he had soundproofed.

The story was spread that Elisabeth had run off to join a cult. After a month, a letter, apparently written by Elisabeth, arrived telling her family not to look for her. A strong, domineering man, Fritzl decreed to his family: "Nobody is allowed to go down into the cellar." So nobody did.