Shocking story of Josef Fritzl who locked up daughter Elisabeth for 24 years, raped her 3,000 times

BLINKING from decades of light deprivation, Elisabeth Fritzl was led from her underground prison to her father’s waiting car.

At 42, she had spent her entire adult life locked in a cellar and used as a sex slave by evil dad Josef Fritzl, who raped her over 3,000 times and fathered seven children.

It was only when her eldest daughter, Kerstin, fell critically ill that he let her out - eventually leading to his arrest.

The horrific story, which unfolded in 2008 in the small Austrian town of Amstetten, shocked the world and has now inspired a hit US movie, The Girl in the Basement.

Although it is set in the States and names have been changed, the Lifetime movie mirrors Elisabeth's story in almost every detail - with the lead, Sara, locked away by her dad after her 18th birthday and made to have his kids as her mum remains unaware of his vile crimes.

But the true story of Elisabeth and her surviving six children is more chilling than any fiction could ever be.

Chained to the bed, raped and beaten

When Josef Fritzl asked his daughter to help him install a door in his newly-built cellar complex, in 1984, she happily agreed.

Moments later 18-year-old Elisabeth was drugged, tied up and chained to a bed by her evil father - who would keep her captive for 24 years, raping her over 3,000 times and fathering seven children.

Chillingly, Fritzl had been planning the underground prison for years, excavating the garden and even building a swimming pool over the complex where barbecue guests swam, unaware Elisabeth was trapped in her hellish prison below.

The door she had helped fix completed the soundproof bunker and sealed her fate.

After chaining her arms behind her back, so she could only move half a metre either side of the bed, Fritzl convinced his wife Rosemarie their daughter had run away to join a sect.

The next day he raped her for the first time.

Six months later, Fritzl removed the chain because, according to court documents, it was "hindering his sexual activity."

Throughout her captivity, he beat and kicked her, forced her into degrading acts - including re-enacting scenes from violent porn films - and often raped her several times a day.

The cellar walls dripped with damp, which Elisabeth mopped up with towels, and rats infested her living space, forcing her to catch and kill them with her bare hands.

Babies born in cellar witnessed cruel abuse

With no medical care, and given just disinfectant and a pair of dirty scissors, Elisabeth gave birth to seven babies in the cellar.

Three of the children - Kerstin, born 1988, Stefan (1990) and Felix (2002) - lived underground, never seeing sunlight, and were forced to witness the vile abuse of their mum.

But Fritzl arranged for three of the children - Lisa, (born 1992) Monica (1994) and Alexander (1996) - to be raised upstairs, with Rosemarie.

He convinced neighbours they had been left on the doorstep by Elisabeth who didn't want to raise them in her "sect".

Tragically, Alexander's twin Michael died in her arms at just 66 hours, leaving Fritzl to burn his fragile body in an incinerator.

In a cruel twist, Fritzl forced Elisabeth to write letters to Rosemarie, claiming she was well but unable to care for the kids, begging her mother to raise them.

To prevent escape attempts, Fritzl told the four captives the doors would give them electric shocks and, according to court papers, “poison would be released into the cellar, killing them all instantly".

If he was angry with Elisabeth, he punished her by switching off the electricity in the cellar for days on end, leaving her in total darkness.

'No one will believe me'

Kerstin’s slide into illness in April 2008 was the beginning of the end of Elisabeth’s ordeal.

In an uncharacteristic act of mercy, Fritzl drove the 19-year-old to hospital where she was instantly taken into intensive care.

Police concerned about the deathly pale girl put out an appeal for her mother to contact them and Elisabeth, watching them on a TV in the cellar, begged her father to set her free.

Incredibly, he relented, driving her to hospital and telling police that the family had recently been released from the sect.

But when officers managed to get Elisabeth alone, she revealed the whole shocking story - on condition she was never to see her father again.

The first thing she said was "No one will believe me."

Fritzl plays 'loving father' at trial

At his trial, in 2009, Fritzl’s lawyers attempted to portray him as a loving father who locked his wayward daughter away to save her from a life of drugs, drink and mixing with the wrong crowds.

But Elisabeth’s recorded 11-hour testimony - so harrowing some jurors had to watch in short bursts - convinced the court of his evil crimes and the 73-year-old was sentenced to life imprisonment. He is still in Austria’s Garsten Abbey jail.

With ages ranging from six to 19 when their ordeal ended, the children were given intense therapy for many years and the whole family are now living under adopted names.

Initially, Stefan couldn’t walk upright, after years of stooping in the low-ceiling basement and it later emerged Kerstin was so traumatised, she pulled her hair out in clumps and shredded her dresses.

All three “downstairs” children had medical problems, caused by lack of sunlight, while the “upstairs” kids were traumatised to learn the truth.

According to one of their carers, quoted in the book Monster: “There was conflict between the cellar children and the upstairs family raised by their grandparents.

“The day the upstairs children started calling Elisabeth ‘Mama’ was the day she knew she had won their hearts.

Elisabeth also fell out with her mother, who she believed could have stood up to Fritzl, but they reconciled and have started to spend more time together.

After years of psychiatric help, Elisabeth reportedly found love at the age of 52, when she fell for 29-year-old bodyguard Thomas Wagner in 2019.

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A psychiatrist who had been treating the family told Austria’s Oesterreich paper: “This is vivid proof of love being the strongest force in the world.