Josef Fritzl Pleads Guilty In Major Courtroom About-Face - Page 3
He told her: “If you do not do as I say, your treatment will get worse — and there is no way you can ever escape the cellar.”
Elisabeth tried to keep a record of the abuse by scrawling notes on tin can labels. She told how she first became pregnant by her father in the summer of 1986 but miscarried after ten weeks.
She said: “My soul was in tatters.” And she was plagued with suicidal thoughts.
She went on to give birth to Stefan in 1990, Lisa in 1992, Monika in 1994, Alexander and Michael in 1996 and Felix in 2002.
Fritzl brought food to the cellar. But he often neglected his responsibility and the family went hungry. The court in St Poelten also heard a 40-minute video testimony from Elisabeth’s older brother Harald — her closest confidant before Fritzl incarcerated her.
Harald, who had no idea where she had gone, was the only other member of the Fritzl family prepared to give evidence against him.
He portrayed his father as a violent tyrant who broke his nose when he was a teenager because he had a glass of wine at a party.
Harald, now 46, told how the young Elisabeth was “terrified” of Fritzl, who pleasured himself in front of her and forced her to look at porn magazines.
At the family’s holiday home in Mondsee, the father forced her to go with him into woodland, where he made her undress and fondled her.
If it was true that Elisabeth came to face her father down one last time, hopefully that will show her that he no longer has hold of her and that she truly is free. Sometimes, it is only by coming face to face with what we fear most that we can get control over it, and not let it have control over us.
And hopefully he will be put away forever, never to hurt anyone again.
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