Where is Elisabeth Fritzl now and what happened to the Girl In The Basement?
JOSEF FRITZL was jailed in 2009 after keeping his daughter in his basement for over 20 years.
Here, we look at what happened to her and how her life has been since her ordeal.
Who is Elisabeth Fritzl?
Elisabeth is a kidnap survivor and suffered her ordeal at the hands of her own father.
She was raped and tortured by her dad Josef Frtizl.
Elisabeth had seven children, but one died – all of which were fathered by her evil captor.
Fritzl, 85, is serving his life sentence in a special prison unit for the criminally insane in Austria’s Krems-Stein prison.
What happened to Elisabeth Fritzl?
On August 28, 1984, Josef Fritzl called his then 18-year-old daughter Elisabeth into the basement of the family’s home in Austria
He was re-fitting a door to the newly renovated cellar and needed help carrying it.
But he tricked her, and knocked her unconscious with an ether-soaked towel.
For the next 24 years, the inside of that cellar would be the only thing Elisabeth would see.
Her father lied to her mother and the police, telling them she was a runaway and had joined a cult.
During her horrific time in the basement, Fritzl assaulted and sexually abused Elisabeth.
She even gave birth to seven children that resulted from the numerous instances of rape, one of whom died shortly after birth.
Three of her children were brought up by Fritzl and Elisabeth’s mother Rosemarie – as he led his wife to believe that they were left at the doorstep by their “missing” daughter, who was unable to care for them.
But the other three kids were brought up by Elisabeth in the cellar.
However, Elisabeth got her freedom on April 26, 2008, aged 42.
She was able to escape from the basement after one of her children fell unconscious and Josef agreed to get her medical care.
It was here that the police were tipped off by medical staff and Elisabeth told them what had happened to her.
She then went on to provide cops the horrifying account of her 24 years in captivity and Fritzl was arrested and eventually jailed.
Where is Elisabeth Fritzl now?
Elisabeth was given a new name following the trial, with strict laws to prevent her identity being revealed.
She now lives with her six surviving children in a tiny hamlet in the Austrian countryside, which also cannot be identified and only referred to by the country’s media as ‘Village X’
The children, now aged between 18 and 32, sleep in rooms with doors permanently open after undergoing weekly therapy sessions to eliminate the traumas they suffered inside the cellar.
Their two-storey family home is kept under constant CCTV surveillance and patrolled by security guards, while any stranger caught lurking nearby can expect to be picked up by police within minutes.
It was reported in 2019 that Elisabeth has “found love” with her bodyguard.