Gruesome crimes

Joseph Fritzel was an only child; he was born on April 9 1935 in lower Austria to parents Maria and Joseph senior. Fritzel senior was a severe alcoholic who abandoned Maria and Joseph when he was just four years old leaving him to be raised alone by his mother. Fritzel senior ultimately died in battle during World War II fighting for the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany, his name appears on a memorial plaque in .

In 1956, 21 year old Joseph married 17 year old Rosemary at the time Joseph was a well-known and respected electrical engineer. In 1967 just over 10 years after the couple had been married Joseph's deviant Behavior began to come to light, Joseph broke into the home of a 24 year old nurse and raped her at knife point, was arrested and served 12 months of his 18-month prison sentence before being released. Joseph was also named as a suspect in the attempted rape of a 21 year old and also had a history of indecent exposure, despite the conviction in his history Joseph and Rosemary's marriage continued they would go on to have seven children together three sons and four daughters. In 1966 Joseph and Rosemarie welcomed their fourth child Elizabeth having had two other daughters and one son before her, Elizabeth's childhood was a struggle to say the least, Joseph's toxicity permeated their day-to-day lives with him and Elizabeth getting into frequent arguments that would result in her getting beaten, the beatings were not exclusive to Elizabeth as Joseph was abusive to his wife and all of his children.

Elizabeth received the majority of the beatings because she was one of the only ones willing to stand up to her authoritarian father, aside from Joseph being physically abusive toward her and her siblings he also began sexually abusing Elizabeth from the time she was 11 years old. After completing her government-required education at age 15, Elizabeth began a course to become a waitress but before she finished she decided she'd suffered enough of the abuse she was receiving at home and in January 1983 she and a friend from work ran away from home to Vienna, the authorities found her within three weeks and returned her to her parents, upon her return she continued the course she was taking to become a waitress and was ultimately offered a job in the nearby City lens. Elizabeth thought her life was finally about to change for the better unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth. On August 28 1984 shortly after Elizabeth turned 18, Joseph lured her into the basement of the family home by lying and telling her he needed help carrying a door, in reality for the last six years Joseph had been building what he told his family was an underground fallout shelter while some might think this to be a bit suspicious the cold war between the United States and the USSR was raging on and the lingering threat of nuclear warfare was always looming so building a nuclear fallout shelter in your house was not uncommon, but Yosef was not building a fallout shelter, it was simply his cover story.

On that August Night Elizabeth was about to find out what he was really building when she helped her father secure the final door to the area she held the door in place while he attempted to secure it shortly before slamming it in her face and knocking her backward into the shelter or more accurately the prison, he ran in with an ether-soaked towel covered her mouth and waited for her to fall unconscious. Barely kept Alive by her captor father the prison was a cramped but cleverly planned room hidden behind a small square entrance that featured an elaborate keypad lock that Joseph guaranteed only he could operate, on top of that even getting to the final entry door of the room required getting past not one not two but eight locked doors within the elaborate Labyrinth that Joseph had meticulously planned and built upon.

Joseph and rosemary reported their missing daughter to the police, Joseph told the police she had run away to join a cult and that he suspected this was coming when he noticed her growing interest in the occult however he was the only one that seemed to think Elizabeth had any interest in Cults as Rosemary and other family members saw no such signs, however police did confirm the previous report where Elizabeth had run away with her co-worker and because of this they suspected she had indeed simply run away again. The theory was backed by a letter from Elizabeth which Joseph forced Elizabeth to write where she explained that she was tired of living with her family and warned her parents to not look for her or else she'd leave the country the letter was the final piece that convinced the police that Elizabeth left voluntarily so they closed the case, meanwhile Joseph visited Elizabeth in the underground prison almost daily to bring her food and other supplies, he also visited almost daily to rape her sometimes several times per day. After five years of Elizabeth living alone in the prison during which time Yosef would hardly ever even speak to her the babies started to come, first having a baby in the cellar was terrifying for Elizabeth but they also provided much needed company for her as well, as a purpose for living after so many years where she'd contemplated suicide over her 24 years of captivity Elizabeth gave birth to seven children by her father, for a reason still unclear three of those children were chosen by joseph to live openly upstairs with him, his wife and the rest of the family. Joseph achieved this by placing all three of the children on the family porch at different points along with more letters he'd forced Elizabeth to write, in the letters she'd state that she was dropping the children off for her parents to take care of because she couldn't handle the responsibility.

Out of the four children relegated to live with Elizabeth in the basement one of them was born with respiratory issues and he died shortly after birth the other three Kirsten, Stefan and Felix remained in the dungeon. Elizabeth was refused medical attention and was forced to give birth to all seven children in the basement without any medical assistance to prepare for them. Joseph provided Elizabeth with disinfectant, a dirty pair of scissors and a book on childbirth from the 1960s. When Michael the child with respiratory issues died, Joseph cremated his body in their oven.

Social workers were called to their residents on multiple occasions considering the way the children were all supposedly left at the door and Joseph convinced them with all his false stories.

Joseph's sister-in-law reported that he would go into the basement every morning at 9am explaining that he was making Blueprints and building new machines to sell to clients but he warned that no one was ever to bother him or come down into the basement while he was working. The fritzels also rented out a bedroom in their home which happened to be directly above the basement. One of the tenants reported he would hear noises at night and would bring his concerns to Joseph but Joseph would always assure him it was nothing more than faulty pipes. Another tenant who lived there Over a four-year period noted that his dog would randomly become Alert in the middle of the night sniffing and growling at seemingly nothing the tenant would look around the house to find whatever his dog was suspicious of but never found the Cellar Door or anything of concern but neither his wife his family nor any of the multitude of tenants over the years harbored enough suspicion to report any of Joseph's peculiar actions.

Elizabeth loved and cared for the three children that lived with her as well as she could. Elizabeth requested that Joseph bring her books regularly so she could teach the children to read and write and she made sure they learned about the outside world and its culture through the television and radio that Joseph allowed them to keep downstairs. Joseph allowed the cramped 380 square foot prison to be extended to 590 square feet or just over 50 percent larger, once the concealed prison was expanded it would contain a narrow 16-foot Corridor, a storage area three small open cells connected by narrow passageways, two sleeping areas equipped with two beds each bathroom facilities and a basic cooking area the ceilings were so low they only reached between five feet six inches in some areas up to six feet at their highest point a condition that would cause walking problems for Stefan who ultimately grew to 5 feet 8 inches but would have to stoop to walk nearly all the time to achieve the extension.

Joseph forced the underground family to dig the walls with their bare hands, he warned them that touching the inside of the Cellar Door he came down from would electrocute them and that if they ever tried to escape they would instantly be gassed. Joseph punished them in other ways for even the smallest acts of disobedience on top of the repeated physical and sexual abuse as punishment he would shut down all the power to the seller or refuse to bring any food or water forcing Elizabeth and her children to live hungry, thirsty and in total darkness for days at a time.

On the 19th of April in 2008, the hellish prison would only be the home of Elizabeth and her three kids for one more week on that day nineteen-year-old Kirsten one of Elizabeth's three children still with her at the time fell unconscious for the first time ever, Joseph heeded to Elizabeth's request that medical attention was necessary so he allowed Elizabeth outside to help him carry Kirsten to the car it was the first time she'd seen the outside world in 24 years, once Kirsten was in the car Joseph locked Elizabeth back with the other children in the dungeon then proceeded to the local hospital upon arriving at the hospital, doctors were immediately concerned as Kirsten's skin was as white as a ghost it was so white you could easily see her veins and some noted that it was nearly transparent obviously confused by this the doctors asked Joseph for the girl's name to look up her and her family's medical history, but to their surprise Kirsten's name was nowhere to be found in the database she seemingly didn't exist before now. Upon examination doctors found that Kirsten was in serious condition suffering from life-threatening kidney failure on top of several other medical issues brought on by a vitamin D deficiency. Joseph frantically told the doctors that Kirsten was one of his granddaughters, but the doctors concerns grew even more and they insisted that they get in contact with the mother so they could figure out what was going on and this irritated Joseph as he refused to answer almost all important questions or simply danced around them. As their suspicions about Joseph's story mounted they decided to alert the Police.

On April 21st in an attempt to contact Elizabeth the police broadcast a public appeal for her to come forward to provide Kirsten's medical history they reopened the file on Elizabeth's disappearance from years prior, Joseph stuck with a story that Elizabeth had run away with a cult and even produced yet another letter that he'd forced her to write from January of that year which was postmarked in the town of camiton. Police contacted an expert on Cults who was highly suspicious of both the seemingly dictated and oddly Written Letter as well as the supposed cult which he felt didn't exist. In the meantime, Elizabeth begged joseph to allow her to go to the hospital a week later, on April 26th Joseph allowed Elizabeth to come with him to the hospital with strict instructions for her to stick to the fabricated story or face the consequences he also allowed the two remaining children to be taken to the upstairs home while they went to the hospital. When they arrived at the hospital Joseph and Elizabeth were immediately detained by police and separated for questioning Elizabeth was initially reluctant and fearful talking very quietly and avoiding eye contact. The doctors and authorities' first suspicion was that Elizabeth was an abusive mother and that her treatment and neglect of her daughter was the cause of Kirsten's health issues but they quickly began questioning that theory once they saw that Elizabeth shared the same ghostly features of white hair and pale white skin. Elizabeth remained unwilling to cooperate until the police granted her her only request that she never has to see her father again once police agreed she told them everything over the next hours she recounted her 24 years in captivity including the secret dungeon the constant physical and sexual abuse dating back even before her imprisonment, the multiple children, the fact that some of them were taken from her and even unfathomable details like how he used to force her to watch adult films and then reenact them with him in front of their children to humiliate her and Scar the children. Police forced Joseph to give them the key code to his electrical lock and immediately began investigating the home and basement on the same night he and Elizabeth came to the hospital. Joseph, 73 years old at the time, was arrested and taken into custody three days later.

On April 29th DNA evidence confirmed that Elizabeth was telling the truth and that all six of Elizabeth's remaining kids were biologically Josephs. Police also planned to interview every person that had rented the extra bedroom in the house with the number of former tenants totaling over 100. During the investigation police found the many letters that Joseph forced Elizabeth to write, one of which seemingly implied that he was planning on releasing her from the basement the following year the letter stated that she wanted to come home but that it wasn't possible for her to do so just yet police believed and Joseph confirmed that his plan was to free her but tell everyone in the outside world that he had actually rescued her from the cult she had run away to, he felt he was growing too old to care for his second family underground and was hatching what he felt was a viable transition plan once police began interrogating Joseph he confessed to everything, he claimed that he simply lived a second life in the basement with his daughter and that while he may have been forcing her to stay in the basement the details of their relationship were all consensual. He claimed that the media painted him out to be a monster but that in reality he and his second family enjoyed spending time together and he had a good relationship with Elizabeth and their kids despite these false claims he does admit that something in him was aware that everything he was doing was wrong but he became so used to his secondary Life underground that he didn't care. He acknowledged that what prompted him to keep Elizabeth locked up in the basement is that she no longer adhered to any rules in her teenage years and that he needed to keep her safe from the outside world by force if he thought necessary but even though he made statements like that positioning himself as her protector he'd also made statements that reflected quite the opposite, he admitted that the decades without sunshine or medical and dental care caused a profoundly negative effect on his daughter's Health stating Elizabeth remains strong she never complains even as her teeth slowly rot and come out of her mouth one by one,she suffers day and night with unbearable pain and can't sleep.

By the time Elizabeth had arrived at the hospital that fateful day each and every one of her teeth had excruciatingly rotted out of her mouth. Joseph admitted that the reason he wanted to force Elizabeth into carrying all of these children is because of his obsession with being in control, he wanted to own Elizabeth like a piece of property and made sure that he could do so in every way possible, he was hoping he could get her pregnant as many times as possible so future Partners would be scared off by the large number of children she had and she'd hopefully be led back to him out of desperation. Elizabeth would never have to see her father again; she gave videotaped testimony presented to Austrian prosecutors and investigators in July 2008. Later that month the trial for Joseph began, he faced 10 years for the negligent homicide charge of Michael the infant who died shortly after birth as well as a maximum of 20 years for rape incest kidnapping, imprisonment and enslavement. On the first day of the trial Joseph pleaded guilty to all charges, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility for parole after 15 years he accepted the sentence and stated he would not appeal once the trial was over Elizabeth and her six children were given new identities in a new home where they could enjoy their freedom but still be afforded privacy, all of the six children require ongoing therapy. Elizabeth is said to have been estranged from her mother for believing her father's story about her whereabouts and not questioning it.

However, over time she came to forgive her mother and they have a strong relationship now.