Josef Fritzi is worse than an animal - Warning... daughters description of life in cellar

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/18/josef-fritzl-austria-trial

After two days he gave her more freedom of movement by attaching the chain around her waist. Then around six to nine months into her imprisonment, he "removed the metal chain", because "it was hindering his sexual activity with his daughter".

He forced her to endure sexual abuse and rape at his hands sometimes several times a day, from the second day of her incarceration right up until her release last April. During the first nine months he kept her on a lead and "constantly covered her mouth and prevented her from breathing".

He repeatedly threatened her with the statement: "If you do not do as I say, your treatment will get worse and you will not escape from the cellar anyway."

The indictment states how he repeatedly beat and kicked her. He also subjected her to humiliating sexual abuse, including forcing her to reenact scenes in pornographic films with him as well as inserting objects into her in a violent manner. The abuse left her with serious lasting physical injuries and did huge damage to her mental state. The indictment details how she gave birth to seven children in the cellar without any medical help.

[tammywammy]

1. It's just so horrible n/t

[LisaL]

2. I still don't understand how no one knew she and her children were

there. What a horrible story.

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. It's hard to believe the wife didn't know. He'd wheel barrow food to the cellar.

[emilyg]

9. That has puzzled me, too.

[varkam]

19. I'm guessing she didn't want to know. eom

[tonysam]

4. That Case is Something Else. I Have Followed It From the Beginning.

Not only is Fritzl a complete and total monster in one of the all-time worst crimes, but there was a total failure by authorities to have investigated it.

It's incredible this piece of filth got away with it for so long.

[Cronopio]

25. Unfortunately, he's not a one-off.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,23871491-5006003,00.html

[cali]

5. no. he's not worse than an animal.

Why we project despicable and very human behavior on animals is a mystery to me.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

8. I know of no animal that

raped their children repeatly for years, kept them in a homemade prison and had them bear 7 incestual children. Most times humans are the worst form of animal there is.

[varkam]

13. Well, only for want of thumbs and a frontal lobe.

We sure come up with some sick shit.

[Hippo_Tron]

6. It's amazing she's still alive

I'm pretty sure I would've turned to suicide pretty quickly had I been in her situation.

[LisaL]

7. I wonder how her children are doing.

Being raised underground the way they were, I wonder how they are coping with it all.

[Maru Kitteh]

11. I remeber hearing that even the older teens had never seen the sun or a blade of grass.

It's beyond comprehension.

[Cronopio]

26. From a Guardian article.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/04/austria.internationalcrime1

Then there is the 'downstairs family' - Kerstin, 19, Stefan, 18, and Felix, five - who remained in the tiny prison, never once seeing daylight and knowing only four other faces in their whole lives. Kerstin is comatose in hospital, suffering from renal failure. It was her life-threatening illness that would eventually betray Fritzl's monstrous secret.

Her two brothers are stooped, anaemic and barely able to communicate in anything other than their own peculiar growling language. A seventh child, Alexander's twin, died three days after birth, his body incinerated by Fritzl in the house's furnace.

Perhaps the worst fears are for Elisabeth. She is said to be 'deeply distressed', agreeing to talk to doctors and detectives only on the promise that she will have no further contact with her father. At the age of only 42, her crudely cut hair is completely white, her lips are shrunken around toothless gums, her face is deeply lined, her body painfully thin, her skin almost transparent. According to a forensic psychiatrist, Dr Guntram Knecht, she has been 'destroyed by all means'. Of all those Fritzl damaged, she was the only one to know she was a victim. If she can live with her children again, 'it will be because of her desire to be a mother,' he said. ...

Poignantly, the pictures show how Elisabeth desperately tried to decorate the drab rooms for the sake of her children. On the grimy white bathroom tiles are a painted yellow snail with green shell, a purple octopus, a child's drawing of a flower and a fish, and stickers of stars and the sun - all of them things her 'cellar children' had never seen, except on the television, which was on all day. ...

After their initial delights at seeing the sun for the first time, and riding in cars, Stefan and Felix can clamber back into the dark confines of a special container set up in the clinic to help them adjust to life outside.

Felix often crawls in there, and sits humming an unknown melody to himself. Police believe his mother used it to soothe him to sleep.

'It can't be called a good-night song really, as there was never any night in the cellar,' said Chief Inspector Etz.

----

EDIT: I totally disagree with Dr. Knecht. Elizabeth was *not* destroyed. She cared for her children as best she could.

[annm4peace]

10. this abuse goes on here probably every day in America

It is sick. I worked at a psych hospital for 2 years, and sometimes on the Adolescent unit.. it is horrific the reports that happened to these kids. and the abuse would be free for whatever reason.
that was over 15 years ago. I can't imagine how bad it is now.

[NoUsername]

12. But according to his lawyer, it's wrong to call him a monster.

Rudolf Mayer, Fritzl's lawyer and a veteran presence at Austria's more obscure criminal cases, urged the jury to take a less passionate view of his client.

"You need to keep emotion out of this," he said, arguing that it was wrong to call him a monster, as he has repeatedly been referred to in the media.

"A man who put so much effort into keeping two families cannot be called a monster," he said. "If I only want a daughter as a sex slave, I don't let her bring children into the world. You'd let them starve," he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/17/josef-fritzl-austria-trial

Yeah, his client is a real fine, upstanding citizen there, raising two families and all. :puke:

I'm thinking they should lock up his lawyer right along with him. Yes, I realize it's the guy's job to defend this asshole but to this extent?? WTF?? Wouldn't a "my client is mentally ill" defense be a bit more appropriate? And the "if I only wanted a daughter as a sex slave..." comment is just off the charts. Sounds like the lawyer has put some serious consideration into the matter. Maybe a check of the lawyer's home is in order.

[Naturyl]

16. F--k his lawyer, quite frankly.

He's doing a job to pay the bills. While I do believe every defendant is entitled to a competent defense, that doesn't mean I have to like their defenders.

[varkam]

18. Not many people do - I know public defenders that have gotten death threats...

just because a certain case came across their desk. Thankless job, I tell you.

[Naturyl]

21. I'd imagine it is.

I admire them in a sense... they really do have courage to defend the indefensible.

But how do they sleep?

[varkam]

22. Usually in a bed - just like most of us.

[Hippo_Tron]

27. By knowing that the service they provide is essential to our freedom

And the defense attorney is right, passion should be kept out of this and he should be judged based on his crime alone. That said, juries are made up of human beings and thus it is physically impossible to remove passion from a case like this.

[varkam]

17. You do realize that the lawyer is doing his job, right?

That's what defense attorneys do - defend those accused of crimes. Granted, in this case he doesn't have a whole hell of a lot to work with - it's a pretty nasty crime and there doesn't seem to be a lot going in his favor.

[NoUsername]

20. Yes, I realize that.

That's why I mentioned in my post. A claim of mental illness would fit the bill in that regard. Trying to paint the client as a good guy because he took it upon himself to take care of two families goes beyond the pale.

[varkam]

24. Ah, I missed that bit.

And, as I posted, defense lawyers have to work with what they've got. I agree that a "good guy" defense probably isn't going to convince many people, but I don't think that it means the lawyer needs to get thrown in prison or investigated himself. They have to work with what they've got, and in Fritzl's case, they may not have much. Sad to say, but the fact that he didn't kill the children he sired might be the best he's got going for him.

[Naturyl]

14. He is less than an animal, not worse.

Animals have more going for them than he does.

I have read a good bit about this case since it broke. Fritzl has no place in human society.

[varkam]

15. While I don't wish him to be put into a wood chipper / fed to dogs / skinned alive, etc...

I can honestly state that, if the allegations are true, I hope that he dies in prison. I can't really wrap my brain around how someone could do that to someone else, much less their own flesh and blood.

eta: And I have to second cali's comment upthread - he's as much human as you and I - which is perhaps the scarier proposition than to say that he's merely an animal. To propose that any of us aren't capable of some pretty heinous acts is to deny human history.

[JI7]

23. anyone know if they have talked to the wife about this ?