Josef Fritzl

What a weird and disturbing case this this is!

Quote :

A drained and ashen-faced Josef Fritzl broke down in court yesterday
and fully confessed to all his crimes including murdering his baby son
and treating his daughter Elisabeth as a personal sex slave. Showing
remorse for what he had done for the first time, he said his daughter's
videotaped testimony had made him realise "how cruel I was".

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/how-cruel-i-was-fritzl-finally-admits-killing-son-1648399.html

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/73324/Fritzl-feared-jail-cannibal-would-make-him-schnitzel-/

FRITZL FEARED JAIL CANNIBAL WOULD MAKE HIM SCHNITZEL
19th March 2009

By Gary Nicks


Josef Fritzl pleaded guilty to his vile crimes yesterday after making a deal with prosecutors to escape being EATEN by a notorious cannibal.

The incest monster made a full confession to offences including the murder of his newborn son so he could slip away to a cushy prison cell.

Fritzl, 73, claimed watching his tormented daughter Elisabeth’s harrowing testimony of how he raped her for 24 years made him realise his “sick behaviour”.

But we can reveal the schemer’s real reason for his unexpected change of heart. It was because he faced being turned into a “Fritzl Schnitzel” by the infamous cannibal Robert Ackermann.

He was warned by lawyers he would be sent to Austria’s Goellersdorf asylum where Hannibal Lecter-style killer Ackermann has openly bragged about slicing him up.

Fritzl had read in newspapers how Ackermann, who detests paedophiles and rapists, had vowed to cook him alive – and warders would turn a blind eye.

Ackermann was 19 in 2007 when he ate the brains of Josef Schweiger, 49, after smashing in his skull. Fritzl also realised his defence was pointless after seeing that jurors were so repulsed by 42-year-old Elisabeth’s graphic evidence.

So he altered his plea to dodge being sent to the mental unit and instead will live out his days in a cushy prison.

Fritzl has even chosen the jail he prefers because it offers inmates meditation, tennis, football, darts, singing lessons and cookery classes.

A warder at the prison where Fritzl has been held on remand said: “People jailed for anything involving abusing children always get a hard time from the other inmates.

“They used to bang on his cell and shout: ‘Satan – come out and play.’

“Now they bang on his cell and shout that the cannibal is going to eat him.”

Defence lawyer Rudolf Mayer swung the secret deal to give Fritzl his pick of prisons if he pleaded guilty.

Mayer and prosecution officials agreed that the fiend will serve his time in a single cell. Lawyers announced his dramatic U-turn on Day Three of his trial in the Austrian town of St Poelten yesterday.

He had previously pleaded guilty to incest and the false imprisonment of Elisabeth. But yesterday he admitted murder, slavery, multiple rape and coercion.

It means Fritzl, due to be sentenced today, has almost certainly condemned himself to die in jail.

The murder charge relates to one of the seven children Elisabeth bore him during her 24 years locked in his cellar.

Tragic Michael was born was breathing difficulties and died 48 hours later. Fritzl burned his corpse, but prosecutors say the baby could have been saved had he sought urgent medical help.

He finally apologised yesterday to Elisabeth, who he raped more than 3,000 times in his cellar under the family home in Amstetten.

When the judge asked him why he was changing his plea, Fritzl replied: “My daughter’s videotaped testimony. I’m sorry.”

But, quizzed on why he failed to rush frail Michael to hospital, he told the court: “I don’t know why I did not help. I was hoping he would get through it.”

It emerged last night that Elisabeth was in court to witness her evil dad facing justice. She was freed from the dungeon last April having been drugged and locked away in August 1984.

Psychiatrist Dr Adelheid Kastner told the court that Fritzl had a very serious personality disorder and was “born to rape”.

he gives me the creeps

doodah wrote:

he gives me the creeps

He would give Dracula the creeps.

Has the beast been sentenced yet?

Shine wrote:

Has the beast been sentenced yet?

_____________________-

Life in a physciatric unit.

He should have got 'life in a torture cell,' if it was up to me, Magical.

No he should be put into the general prison population, let them deal with him the way they would any paedophiles as they are the most hated amongst criminals I have heard.

Or failing that let him loose on a market day with every citizen free to let loose their own judgement upon his crimes.

The old stocks with a twist might be an idea -death is too good for this man.

I cannot believe how he got away with it for so long.

Me neither and I feel so sorry for his daughter and what she has endured for so many years

He got off lightly in my opinion. I read that his Daughter was locked up in 1984, that was when I was born. All those years she has remained locked up and abused, he should have been punished like that in a dark cellar and someone should come and beat the CRAP out of HIM ever day of his Sorry Life

how long did he get?

15 years.. not nearly enough

What? Is that all?

Life in a secure psychiatric facility, but that means he could be out in 15yrs.. its shocking

His own TV, computer and even, if he wants, a pet. Life in a cell for Josef Fritzl will be far cushier than his daughter's dungeon


By Alan Hall and Sarah Titterton
Last updated at 1:03 AM on 20th March 2009


Josef Fritzl was sentenced to life in a psychiatric prison yesterday.
The 73-year-old, who raped his daughter and imprisoned her and their seven incest children in a cellar, is almost certain to die behind bars.
Austrian authorities will reassess Fritzl's condition in 15 years and could free him if he were deemed cured. He and his lawyers accept this will not happen.

Judgment day: Josef Fritzl arrives in court to learn his fate today

Enlarge

Before the verdicts were announced Fritzl told the hearing: 'I regret it with all my heart. ... I can't make it right anymore.'


His new surroundings however will be much more comfortable than those he inflicted on daughter Elisabeth and their children.
His cellar family had to endure damp and cramped conditions with little food, light or ventilation.
One child even died underground - leading to the murder charge that Fritzl belatedly admitted.
Enlarge






Fritzl, pictured in court today, will die in prison after keeping his daughter Elisabeth, right, imprisoned for 24 years, raping her more than 3,000 times and fathering her seven children

He will be sent to the secure hospital unit of Mittersteig prison in Vienna where he will have his own TV, music centre, computer and, if he likes, a pet for company.


More...

• As Fritzl faces life in prison, the agony that his victims face for years to come
  
• 'I never realised how cruel I was': Fritzl finally cracks after brave daughter faces him across court
  
• BRIAN MASTERS: What kind of human being can this be?
  
• Fritzl jurors wince at stench of the dungeon where rapist monster kept his secret family locked away for 24 years
  
• Cellar monster Josef Fritzl to be interviewed over string of unsolved brutal sex murders
  

He will have access to newspapers and magazines and can use the prison's garden for exercise.
He will be sharing a 16ft by 12ft cell - a fraction smaller than the space Elisabeth endured for the first nine years of her captivity.
Mittersteig is known as a ' boutique' jail with only 90 inmates, two thirds of whom are sex offenders.

Journalists watch a screen showing Josef Fritzl, left, going into the courtroom for the verdict this morning



Part of Fritzl's incarceration will involve therapy sessions with psychiatric experts and with Dr Patrick Fortier, his personal specialist who has been caring for him in jail.
Fritzl will share a sitting room, kitchen and tea-making area that all inmates can use between the hours of 9am and 6pm.
He will also be able to learn skills - such as basket making and ceramics - and have the chance to pick up a foreign language.
Rudolf Mayer, his lawyer, said: 'He doesn't mind where he goes. It's not like it's a hotel but he would like a prison close to home because it may be that relatives will go to see him.'



Prosecutor Christiane Burkheiser and defence lawyer Rudolf Mayer appeared to be having an argument at court this morning

The prison is a two-hour drive from the home in Amstetten that was the scene of his crimes.
It is likely he will eventually be sent to Gollersdorrf prison for the criminally insane in the town of that name in southern Austria.
Among those being held there is Robert Ackermann, who killed and then ate a man's body parts.
In recent days at the St Poelten jail where Fritzl has been held for his trial, inmates have begun tormenting him with the chant: 'Fritzl, you're a schnitzel when Ackermann gets to you'.
Many Austrians feel Fritzl should have been sent to a regular jail.
Enlarge


Dorothea Schoettker, a housewife in St Poelten, said: 'It seems he will now be able to knit and learn a foreign language when I think he should be in a cell with no daylight - just like his victims.'
In court yesterday, Fritzl looked straight ahead as the jury, who had deliberated for three hours, convicted him, as a formality, of all the charges.

Sexually obsessed, he began abusing his daughter Elisabeth when she was just 11. The court heard how his compulsion to 'own' a person grew over the years.



Fritzl's face is haggard as he arrives in court today


In August 1984 he tricked Elisabeth, then 18, into the cellar saying he needed help installing a door.
She was drugged with ether and sealed in with an elaborate security system. It was the start of a nightmare that involved 3,000 rapes, beatings, starvation, humiliation and the birth of seven children through incest.

Mittersteig prison in Vienna, where Josef Fritzl will start his incarceration

At the start of his trial on Monday, Fritzl had denied the murder through neglect of the newborn twin called Michael.
But as he sat through his daughter's gruelling videotaped evidence on Tuesday, and then caught her eye as she made a shock appearance in the public gallery, he cracked.
He returned to jail that evening and told a psychiatrist he wanted to change his plea to guilty on all charges - murder, rape, incest, deprivation of liberty, enslavement and 'massive coercion'.
The last charge related to the repeated threats he made to kill the cellar family if they tried to escape.
Fritzl's crimes came to light a year ago when Elisabeth forced him to seek hospital treatment for Kerstin, their daughter who was close to death from organ failure.
Because doctors asked to see the 19-year-old's mother, he was forced to release Elisabeth from the cellar to accompany him to hospital.
Suspicious medics and police soon uncovered Fritzl's crimes.
Fritzl, who is now said to be in an extremely fragile mental state and under suicide watch, finally apologised yesterday but said he could not make amends: 'I can only try to find opportunities to try to limit the damage that I have done.'
In debt to the tune of £3million, the electrical engineer was declared bankrupt before the trial began.
His wife Rosemarie is divorcing him and his seven children from their marriage have disowned him.

What a nasty, perverted nonce he is - i hope he dies in prison - but not for many years, i want him to feel how bad his daughter and kiddies felt incarcerated for all those years grrr