‘I Can’t Believe I’m Free’: Daughter Held Captive 24 Years Finally Speaks
Posted May 12, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
For weeks, we’ve been bringing you the unbelievable case of a woman held captive in a windowless enclave in Amstetten, Austria for 24 years, allegedly by her own father. You’ve already heard some of accused dad Joseph Fritzl’s side of the story. But now for the very first time, the woman who was the victim of this incredible abuse is telling family members her version of life in captivity.
Elisabeth Fritzl was just 18 years old when she claims her father forced her into the dungeon. Despite earlier reports that she was drugged and carried down into that prison, she now insists she was actually tricked into entering the room that would be her home for more than two decades.
“He told me I could help him downstairs carrying a door,” she told her sister, who spoke to Britain’s Daily Mirror. “When I was down in the cellar, he pushed me into this little room, tied me up and somehow kept me quiet.” Her father has denied that version of the story.
The young woman says she was forced to endure endless bouts of incest with her dad, and the result was seven children – three of whom lived with her the entire time and never saw the light of day until they were liberated last month. The end came after one of them – a 19-year-old girl – became seriously ill and had to be taken to hospital.
The victim told her sister she never wants to see her father again, and is reported to have collapsed in tears when she was reunited with her mother for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century. “I can’t believe I’m free – is it really you?” Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper quotes her as saying. “I can’t believe I’m out. I didn’t think I would ever see you again. It’s all too much for me.”
The woman who endured a lifetime of agony and deprivation now says she just wants to reacquaint herself with her family and do some of the things most of us take for granted – like feeling rain on her skin.
Her sister calls her sibling’s recovery ‘remarkable’ and claims Elisabeth has had a lot of pent-up emotions and stories to tell them. Health experts will be closely monitoring the family for the next few years to see how they’re progressing after the astounding ordeal. The victim’s lawyer reports the mother and the three kids held in that hidden basement have no concept of time or the ability to plan for their future, since they never really had one.
Meanwhile, another British newspaper, the Telegraph, is reporting a new side to this already horrifying story. It quotes Austrian police as revealing the cell the family was kept in had only one ventilation shaft, providing very little oxygen for those inside and leaving them feeling listless, tired and with very little energy – a possible method to keep them from even being able to consider escape.
Fritzl began constructing the jail when his daughter was 11 and had it finished seven years later. He’s accused of keeping them locked inside behind a door that weighed half a ton and could only be opened by an electronic combination on a keypad. No one but the father knew the numbers.
The former electrician remains in jail and could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Fritzl home photo credit: Dieter Nagl/AFP/Getty Images
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