(Fritzl was married to his child’s mother the entire time he was abusing her and presumably sleeping with the child’s mother while raping her. In an unspeakable expression of sickness, 200 “lonely women” are reported to have sent in love letters to Fritzl saying they would willingly sleep with and comfort him. Until we address the issue as systemic, there is always a chance that another Fritzl will pop up somewhere else. Several sex abuse imprisonment scandals have rocked the U.S. Making Fritzly into a unique monster negates the ways in which his behavior is simply a more extreme version of the same behavior engaged in by men around the world, whether they are molesting their own children, raping their wives or girl friends or strangers, or engaging in child prostitution. Instead these assaults a function of a sexist world that says women and girls have no right to bodily integrity at the hands of men’s desires for power, control, or dominance. People around the world continue to refer to him as a unique monster, but as I argued in May, Fritzl is not the only Austrian who kept a young girl in one of these cellars for the duration of her youth while sexually assaulting her, nor is the sexual assault of minors, women, or one’s own children unique. His plea also included the involuntary manslaughter charge for the refusal to get medical attention for his pregnant daughter that resulted in the death of one of her children (he was the father) and the subsequent burning of the baby’s corpse to hide the evidence.įritzl was given life in prison, perhaps as an ironic sentence meant to mirror the imprisonment and rape he forced on his own child. He also added that the other inmates are happy to stay away from him, given his reputation as one of the most infamous convicts in Austria.Josef Fritzl, who I blogged about twice in May when the story broke, plead guilty to all charges against him related to the imprisonment and repeated rape of his daughter in a foot cellar in the family home over a period of 24 years. One of the fellow prisoners told local media that Josef has withdrawn from people and hardly leaves his cell. He reportedly has dementia, and his fellow inmates believe that he may be at the end of his life. At the time, he was 84 years old and expressed his wish to live no longer. In April 2019, it was reported that Josef’s health had been rapidly declining. In May 2017, Josef Fritzl formally changed his name to Josef Mayrhoff. He did not get along with other inmates and lost several teeth in a physical encounter. He also divorced his wife Rosemarie in 2012 when she stopped visiting him in prison. Image Credit: Sky NewsĪfter the case splashed all over the news, Josef lost all his wealth. He is currently serving his sentence in Krems-Stein prison that used to be a Redemptorist convent. On March 19, 2009, Josef was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for 15 years. Even though Josef had initially stated that he locked up his then-teenage daughter Elisabeth because she broke the rules and he had to keep her away from the outside world, he reportedly admitted to doing so because he was “born to rape.” Where Is Josef Fritzl Now? He even pleaded guilty to the negligent homicide of baby Michael, who was his son and grandson. He also believed that he was not the monster that the media made him into because he took care of Elisabeth and her kids.Īlmost a year after his arrest, Josef pleaded guilty to charges of incest, rape, false imprisonment, coercion, and enslavement of his daughter Elisabeth. However, according to his conversations with his defense lawyer Rudolf Mayer, he admitted that he was aware that what he was doing “was not right.” But he said that it became a “normal occurrence” for him to lead a different life in the basement of his house. Josef was 73 years old at the time.Īfter his arrest, Josef claimed that his relationship with Elisabeth was consensual. Eventually, this led to his arrest on April 26, 2008, after Elisabeth described her ordeal to the police. ![]() ![]() The medical staff alerted the police when Josef’s made-up story about Kerstin seemed suspicious. This was triggered by a medical emergency since Elisabeth’s oldest daughter Kerstin suffered life-threatening kidney failure and had to be rushed to the hospital on April 19, 2008. Josef Fritzl caught the attention of the public when Elisabeth revealed the truth about where she was for 24 years.
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