Regarding his treatment of Elisabeth and her children in the cellar, he explained that he brought flowers for Elisabeth and books and toys for the children into the "bunker", as he called it, and often watched videos with the children and ate meals with Elisabeth and the children. He suggested that the emphasis on discipline in the Reflecting on his childhood, Fritzl initially described his mother as "the best woman in the world" and "as strict as it was necessary".Later reports have revealed Fritzl's premeditated plan to lock his daughter up was not for discipline but for his own gratification.Pursuant to the agreement that she would never have to see her father again, Elisabeth Fritzl gave videotaped testimony before Austrian prosecutors and investigators on 11 July 2008.On 13 November 2008, authorities in Austria released an indictment against Josef Fritzl. Fritzl had illegally enlarged the room by excavating space for a much larger basement, concealed by walls. Fritzl forced her to return to the chamber, where she remained for a final week.Medical staff found aspects of Fritzl's story puzzling and alerted the police on 21 April, who then broadcast an appeal on public media for the missing mother to come forward and provide additional information about Kerstin's medical history.Elisabeth pleaded with Fritzl to be taken to the hospital. All of Elisabeth's children attended a four-day summer camp organised by firefighters, with 4,000 other young campers, in August 2008. Members of the Fritzl family were offered new identities but it was emphasized that it was their choice to make.Berthold Kepplinger, head of the clinic where Elisabeth and her children were being treated, said that Elisabeth and the three children held captive in the cellar required further therapy to help them adjust to the light after years in semi-darkness. A newer building was added after 1978 when Fritzl applied for a building permit for an "extension with basement". Rosemarie Fritzl has refused to give evidence against husband Josef, whom she is now divorcing By Gordon Rayner and Caroline Gammell in St Poelten
Mayer forwarded extracts from the minutes of his talks with his client to the Austrian weekly Regarding his treatment of the family he had with his wife, Fritzl stated, "I am not the beast the media make me to be". The children, along with their mother, also have made day trips, including swimming outings, on which care was taken to keep them out of reach of the paparazzi and to protect their privacy.In March 2009, Elisabeth and her children were forced to move out of the family's hide-away home and returned to the psychiatric clinic where medical staff had started trying to heal the family and unite the "upstairs" and "downstairs" siblings during the previous year. He stood trial for the murder of the infant Michael, who died shortly after birth,The trial of Josef Fritzl commenced on 16 March 2009, in the city of On day one, Fritzl entered the courtroom attempting to hide his face from cameras behind a blue folder, which he was entitled to do under Austrian law. This was the last piece needed to seal what would turn out to be the chamber where Elisabeth was held captive.After Elisabeth's disappearance, Rosemarie filed a Over the next 24 years, Fritzl visited Elisabeth in the hidden chamber almost every day, or a minimum of three times a week, bringing food and other supplies. Josef Fritzl was born on 9 April 1935, in Amstetten, Austria. Josef Fritzl was born on 9 April 1935, in Amstetten, Austria.In 1956, at age 21, he married 17-year-old Rosemarie (born 23 September 1939), with whom he had three sons and four daughters, including Elisabeth, who was born on 6 April 1966. How could Josef Fritzl's wife not have known?
It was simply inconceivable that any mother could have remained silent if she had even the slightest suspicion of such horrors.But in recent months, doubts have increasingly begun to surface in Elisabeth's mind after she discovered that her mother had stood by Fritzl after he was convicted of rape in 1967.The stark reality is that if Rosemarie had refused to take Fritzl back after his conviction and imprisonment for the brutal sex attack on a young nurse, her daughter, who was just a toddler at the time, would surely have been spared the unspeakable crimes which followed.And the fact that she was complicit in helping Fritzl bury his dark secret when he went to jail - telling their children he "gone abroad" - has led to inevitable questions, not just from Elisabeth but from Austria as a whole, about whether Rosemarie did indeed suspect what was going on.Rosemarie lived in terror of her husband almost from the day they were married, enduring countless beatings and confiding in friends that she feared Fritzl would track her down and murder her if she ever tried to leave him.She even stood by while Fritzl beat their son Harald so savagely that he was left with a broken nose on one occasion and at other times was too badly bruised to go to school.Such submissiveness on Rosemarie's part has led psychologists to speculate that she might have subconsciously suppressed any suspicions she might later have had about Elisabeth's disappearance.Rosemarie has never been treated as a suspect by police, and detectives are convinced she was an entirely innocent party as Fritzl raped their daughter more than 3,000 times in her purpose-built prison.Police believe Fritzl built the 200 sq ft bunker, later expanded to 450 sq ft, during the summer months when his wife would be away from home, running the lakeside guest house they owned for more than 20 years.But did she never stop to question what her husband was up to when he disappeared to the cellar for hours at a time, and sometimes overnight, for his daily rape sessions, with instructions that he was not to be disturbed?Did it not seem odd to her when three grandchildren turned up on the doorstep, supposedly left there by her runaway daughter, and always found by Fritzl without anyone seeing the children being brought to the house?The fact that Rosemarie refused to give evidence against Fritzl, whom she is now divorcing, only added to the questions.Franz Polzer, the detective in charge of the Fritzl investigation, says it "defies logic" to suggest that Rosemarie could have known what was going on.Nevertheless, Rosemarie has become an increasingly distant figure in her daughter's broken life.She now lives alone in a council flat in Linz, and although she visits Elisabeth and her children - including the three "upstairs" children brought up by Rosemarie - there is no longer any affection between the two women.Whether or not she suspected her husband in any way, the knowledge that she could have been her daughter's saviour if she had found the strength to leave Fritzl after his rape charge will surely haunt her to the grave.