The Fritzl case emerged in 2008, when a woman named Elisabeth Fritzl (born 6 April 1966) told police in the town of Amstetten, Lower Austria, that she had been held captive for 24 years by her father, Josef Fritzl (born 9 April 1935). Fritzl had assaulted, sexually abused, and raped his daughter repeatedly during her imprisonment inside a concealed area in the cellar of the family home. The abuse resulted in the birth of seven children: three of them remained in captivity with their mother; one died shortly after birth and was cremated by Fritzl; and the other three were brought up by Fritzl and his wife, Rosemarie, having been reported as foundlings. Josef Fritzl was arrested on suspicion of rape, false imprisonment, manslaughter by negligence, and incest. In March 2009, he pleaded guilty to all counts and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
History
Background
Josef Fritzl (now known as Mayrhoff) was born on 9 April 1935, in Amstetten to Josef Fritzl Sr. and Maria Fritzl (née Nenning). He grew up as an only child raised solely by his working mother. His father, who was a severe alcoholic, had deserted the family when Fritzl was four, and never again came into contact with him. Fritzl Sr. later fought as a soldier in the Wehrmacht during World War II, and was killed in action in 1944. His name appears on a memorial plaque in Amstetten. 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. Fritzl reportedly began sexually abusing Elisabeth in 1977, when she was aged 11.
After completing his education at an HTL Technical College with a qualification in electrical engineering, Fritzl obtained a job at Voestalpine in Linz. From 1969 until 1971, he held a job in a construction-material firm in Amstetten. Later, he became a technical equipment salesman, travelling throughout Austria. He retired from active employment when he turned 60 in 1995, but continued some commercial activities. In addition to his apartment building in Amstetten, Fritzl rented out several other properties. In 1972, he purchased a guesthouse and an adjacent campsite at Lake Mondsee. He ran it, together with his wife, until 1996.
Criminal history
In 1967, Fritzl broke into the Linz home of a 24-year-old nurse while her husband was away and raped her while holding a knife to her throat, threatening to kill her if she screamed. According to an annual report for 1967 and a press release of the same year, he was also named as a suspect in a case of attempted rape of a 21-year-old woman, and was known for indecent exposure. Fritzl was arrested and served 12 months of an 18-month prison sentence. In accordance with Austrian law, his criminal record was expunged after 15 years. As a result, more than 25 years later, when he applied to adopt and/or foster Elisabeth's children, the local social service authorities did not discover his criminal history.
Suspected murders
On November 12, 1986, at 6:40 a.m., 17-year-old Martina Claudia Posch left her home in Vöcklabruck to get to a nearby bus stop. When she did not show up for an agreed meeting with her boyfriend at around 5 p.m., he called Martina's mother, who thought her daughter was already with her boyfriend. She later learned that Martina had not shown up for work that day and authorities were also able to determine through witness statements that Posch had not been on the bus that morning either.
On November 22, 1986, two scuba divers found Posch's body wrapped in two olive green tarpaulins on the southern shore of Lake Mondsee. The forensic examination revealed that she had been killed by strangulation two hours after leaving her parents' home. After his arrest, Fritzl was investigated for possible involvement since at the time of the murder, he and his wife ran a guesthouse which was located opposite where Posch was found and she was also very physically similar to his daughter, Elisabeth.
In addition to Posch's homicide, Fritzl was looked into as a suspect in the death of Anna Neumayer, 17, who was killed with a captive bolt pistol in a field in Linz on August 17, 1966. She had disappeared on her way to Wels, 35 kilometres from where Fritzl worked at the time. Another potential victim was Gabriele Superkova, 20, a prostitute who was murdered in August 2007. Her body was found at the Lipno Reservoir near the Austrian-Czech border at a time when Fritzl was on holiday there. However, Fritzl was ultimately not charged with these murders due to a lack of evidence.