Josef Fritzl kept sick mother locked in attic, leaked papers reveal

Josef Fritzl, the Austrian accused of raping and imprisoning his daughter, kept his ailing mother locked in an attic room with bricked-up windows until her death, according to leaked court reports.

The Austrian newspapers Kronen Zeitung and Österreich have published accounts of Fritzl’s interviews with a forensic psychiatrist in which he says he incarcerated his mother – who he blames for his actions – in the attic of her own house shortly before he locked up his daughter.

The retired engineer and property developer said it was revenge for the abuse he claims she inflicted upon him.

Fritzl’s mother died in 1980. By then, Fritzl had begun building the concrete dungeon that would imprison his daughter, Elisabeth.

Fritzl is awaiting trial for raping and incarcerating Elisabeth for 24 years in a purpose-built prison beneath his home in the town of Amstetten. He faces charges of sexual abuse, incest, coercion and manslaughter.

He fathered seven children with Elisabeth, now 42, during her years of captivity. One of the children, a baby boy called Michael, died shortly after birth and it is alleged Fritzl disposed of the body in an incinerator.

The confessions were made to Dr Adelheid Kastner, an Austrian prison psychiatrist who is assessing the 73-year-old’s mental state during six in-depth sessions before Fritzl’s trial, which is expected to start in January.

This week, Austrian newspapers reported Fritzl describing how his abusive relationship with his mother fed his life as a rapist.

“She never showed me any love, she beat me and kicked me until I was on the floor and bleeding,” he said. “I felt so weak and humiliated. I never got a kiss from her or even a hug although I tried very hard to please her. The only thing she did with me was go to church.

“She beat me and kicked me until I was lying on the floor bleeding. I had a horrible fear from her. She kept insulting me and told me I was a Satan, a criminal, a no-good.”

Reports revealed that Fritzl’s mother raised him alone after a bitter divorce. Fritzl claims he was isolated from other children and was an “alibi child”– his mother only had him to prove to her husband she was not sterile.

According to Fritzl, he moved into the Amstetten house in 1959 soon after he married his wife, Rosmarie. His mother moved into the house with them and Kastner was told how their roles gradually reversed with Fritzl’s mother coming to fear her son.

It is unknown how long his mother was kept in a room without daylight, but Austrian newspapers speculate it could have been for up to 20 years.

In the leaked confidential report, the psychiatrist declared Fritzl as sane and fit for trial despite suffering from a “severe combined personality disorder” and “a sexual disorder”.

In the first of the leaked accounts in Austrian newspapers, Fritzl said: “I have realised that I had a mean streak. For someone who was born to be a rapist, I have managed to contain myself for a relatively long period.”

He allegedly hatched his plan to incarcerate his daughter, Elisabeth, while he was in prison for rape.

In 1967 he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for brutally raping a 24-year-old woman at knifepoint in her home.

Kastner writes that Fritzl devised the “ideal solution” to his deranged fantasies after he was released from prison. He decided to lock up his daughter in the cellar so that he could “live out” his “evil side” while leading a seemingly normal life in the flat upstairs.

Kastner came to the conclusion when dissecting the personality of Fritzl that the electrician managed to distance himself from what he was doing by never looking his victim in the face when he raped her.

“He was not only incredibly able to lead a double life but also managed to maintain a triple life without any problems,” she wrote, indicating that Fritzl played down the gravity of his crimes in his mind.

“Mr Fritzl resembles a volcano: under the surface that appears almost banal there is an evil streak. He is torn apart by his desires that he cannot master.”

Three children aged 12 to 15 whom Fritzl fathered with Elisabeth lived in the large upstairs apartment with him and his wife, Rosemarie, 69. Their other three siblings, aged five to 19, were kept in the cellar with their mother, never seeing the light of day until they were freed by police on April 26 this year.

Fritzl believed himself to be a good father to his incestuous family, he told the psychiatrist, and took them games and celebrated birthdays and Christmas with them.

It is believed Fritzl will try to use his claims of his own alleged childhood abuse to explain his actions towards his daughter.

Kastner concluded in her report that Fritzl was cold-blooded and calculating.

“His narcissism combines with the lack of empathy and contributes to the exploitative way of turning others into instruments of satisfying his own needs. There is also a noticeable ability or tendency to ‘modify’ reality according to his own wishes,” she wrote.