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Fritzl admits ALL charges

By Emma Sibbles on Wednesday 18 March 2009

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Josef Fritzl, World News

Josef Fritzl, 73, told the court in St Poelten, Austria, that he had had a change of heart after seeing his daughter Elisabeth’s video evidence yesterday.

He told the judge and jury, ‘I plead guilty to all the charges in the indictment. I am guilty on all points.’ He added that the death of his son Michael was an ‘accident’.

He had previously denied murder and slavery. This means he now faces a likely life sentence and will die in jail.

The guilty plea is likely to speed up the process.

Fritzl built a secret dungeon under the family home in Amstetten, Austria, where he imprisoned Elisabeth in 1984. He is accused of raping her over 3,000 times over 24 years and fathering seven children, one of whom died.

Giving video evidence yesterday, Elisabeth, now 43, spoke of the beatings, rapes and pregnancies she suffered at the hands of her father.

She said her father would bring

boxes of sexually explicit videos into the cellar and then order her to re-enact certain scenes. He reportedly also used oversized sex toys that left her with internal injuries.

The evidence was taped over two days in 2008 to spare her from facing her father in court.

Dr Adelheid Kastner, a psychiatrist, described Fritzl as an ‘emotional volcano’. She said, ‘He has a personality disturbance. He has a malicious vein, an almost unstoppable flood of destructive lava.

‘He completely misunderstood the dimensions of his behaviour . . . and assumed that when his daughter made contact with the outside world she would do nothing to expose the events.

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Wednesday 18 March 2009

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I think that the only reason he has changed his plea is because after seeing Elizabeth's testimony and the reaction of the jurors he realised that they would find him guilty of all charges anyway, and being the control freak that he is wanted to exercise his last opportunity to take control of his own fate rather than be humiliated further by being convicted of things which he had previously denied doing- an indication of his sheer arrogance and wanting the upper hand rather than any remorse or epiphany!
He may even be hoping for clemency as a result of changing his plea, he really is a loathsome, manipulative man.
Comment by Helen on March 18 11:05

I hope Elisabeth finds the inner peace that she deserves and hopefully gets some sort of closure from the trial and verdict. I hope she gets all the support she needs and that she will eventually be able to live a happy and content life. May she find the strenght to fight on.
Comment by Beth on March 18 13:53

I, like most people find it really hard to believe that in this day and age, a man can get away with such evil for so many years. What about the poor girls mother; where the hell was she and does she not share at least some of the guilt for his crimes. Whatever her excuses are, I as a parent cannot see how she could have been totally unaware of what was going on over such a horrendously long period of time!
Comment by Simone Plummer on March 18 18:05