A psychiatrist will decide whether Josef Fritzl (the Austrian basement dungeon boss) should be freed. Fritzl was a father to several children along with his daughter captive.
Fritzl, aged 86, locked Elisabeth inside a basement room in Amstetten where he raped and had seven children.
Fritzl was finally released on March 19 2009 after Kerstin, Kerstin’s teenage daughter, had to be admitted to the hospital.
Fritzl currently serves a life sentence. However, he may be eligible for an early release application in 2024 because he has served 15 years of his crimes.
His freedom will allow him to be free and he’ll have almost a decade less imprisonment than his daughter, who was held in his basement dungeon.
Josef Fritzl who kept his daughter, Julia, in a basement for 24 years, and had seven children from her was sent to prison for life.
Photo of Josef Fritzl (then 73 years old) given to police. Fritzl admitted that he held Elisabeth in the basement of his family home in Amstetten in north-west Austria for 24 years, and then fathering seven of her children.
Elisabeth Fritzl, pictured as a young girl in an undated photograph, hasn’t had contact with her father since his imprisonment. She now lives in Austria under another alias with children she conceived in the years her father brutally raped.
In Lower Austria’s Regional Court of Krems decided in January that Fritzl would be transferred from the Krems Stein prison special unit for the criminally insane to the regular jail system.
After completing 15 years, he could apply for early release.
However, the plan was rejected by the public prosecutor and he appealed immediately.
Fritzl is now being examined by the Higher Regional Court. This expert will assess Fritzl to see if he has any psychiatric or neurological issues. Fritzl spent over ten years behind bars, most of it separated from his fellow inmates.
Fritzl can’t ask for an early release because of any abnormalities that the expert may find. Fritzl has to stay in prison.
But, if an expert finds that the 86-year old is sound, then one the most notorious of Europe’s criminals may be released as soon as 2024.
Photo taken by a forensic group and released by Austrian police on April 28 2008 with the permission of Austrian prosecution office. This shows a peek into a secret room in an Amstetten house, Austria. Fritzl was holding his daughter Elisabeth hostage for over 24 years.
Ferdinand Schuster (Vice President, Krems Regional Court) said that the opinion of the expert is anticipated by January 31st. However, Fritzl’s chances of receiving a clean bill for mental health and the judges later granting him liberty are very slim.
In addition to the horrific crimes that he committed on his daughter over 24 years, 2019 reported that Fritzl was showing signs of dementia. His mental state was also deteriorating.
His inmates in Krems-Stein prison said he was extremely disliked and spent much time in solitary confinement.
Elisabeth Fritzl, who was sentenced to life in prison by her father, has never been in contact. She now lives with a different alias and the children she conceived from her abusive father.
Fritzl is now 86 and is shown here at Sankt Poelten Prison, where he was once held in 2010.
Josef Fritzl covering his face before the incest trial began on March 16, 2009 at St. Poelten’s provincial courthouse.
Fritzl’s horrendous crimes were discovered only when Kerstin, one of Fritzl’s children, fell into a coma. He took Kerstin to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with malnutrition and decay.
Elisabeth (now 55) was finally allowed to escape the dungeon in order to see Kerstin. However, Elisabeth was taken into custody and told police the horrendous crimes that her father had committed.
Fritzl claimed during his trial he had ‘actually intended well’ to be jailed before being convicted.