Being left alone in a single room for years on end is one of the worst punishments imaginable. So, try and imagine just how terrifying it must've been for 18-year-old Elisabeth Fritzl when she was locked away by her own father in 1984. No one was able to identify her whereabouts, so she remained there for decades, waiting for someone to find her. This is her story.
The Police Search
Not long after Elisabeth went missing, her mother called the police, and a search was launched. However, as the first couple of days didn't turn up much of anything and it wasn't long before weeks began passing by with nothing to show. The only clue the cops had was a claim from Elisabeth's father, who said that she'd been talking about leaving the house and running away to join a cult.
Of course, this proved to just be a misdirection, but nobody could've guessed that while the police were in the home searching for clues and asking her parents questions, Elisabeth was some 20 feet below ground.
Her Father Asks For Some Help
Elisabeth probably had no clue what was about to happen to her when her father asked if she could help him fix their door in the cellar of the house. Elisabeth always helped fix things around their home, so it probably didn't sound too strange to her. So, Elisabeth walked with her father down the stairs to their cellar, which for some reason he'd been renovating for months by this point.
She couldn't have known that what was about to happen would result in her being lost to the world and being trapped down there for two very long decades.
He Traps Her in the Cellar
When Elisabeth got down to the cellar, she helped fix the door, unaware that she was only helping to make sure that she remained locked down below. After the two finished with the door, her father pulled a rag over her face, and Elisabeth quickly passed out. After she came to, she immediately knew she was down in the cellar, but why and for how long was a complete mystery.
The cellar itself sat 20 feet underground, directly under the family's garden, but it contained no windows, meaning it was completely dark and devoid of any light from the sun.
Locked In A Nuclear Shelter
This would probably be a good time to mention that this wasn't any ordinary cellar Elisabeth found herself in. It'd been built to protect the family in case of a nuclear attack. These bunkers were common throughout southern Austria during the 1970s, and Elisabeth's father had even gotten a grant from the government to build the cellar. The bunker had just about everything you'd need in case of a nuclear attack.
There was plumbing and electricity, and it even had a shower so that you could bath. However, more importantly than all of that, it was secure and only had two entrances.
A Secure Bunker With Only Two Ways In
The bunker had been built to withstand a nuclear blast, so it was extremely secure. If you wanted to get in or out, you had to pass through eight different doors before finally making it to the one that Elisabeth and her father had fixed before he drugged her and locked her down there. In total, there were only two ways in, one of which needed a remote control to open.
The other one involved opening a very heavy metal door manually. In short, if you didn't have the keys or the remote, you weren't getting in or out of the bunker.
Covering Up His Crime
Unforunately for Elisabeth, it hadn't been too difficult for other father to cover up his crime. Not long after she'd been reported missing, her father made her write out a letter stating that she'd run away and didn't plan on returning home. He then showed it to her mother, who believed it since Elisabeth had often threatened she was going to run away. While her mother was grieving, her father pretended to grieve with her.
She had no idea that her husband had actually locked their daughter away and that she hadn't gone too far, in fact she was right under the house the whole time.
She Had a Past Of Running Away
Under normal circumstance, the police may look on the letter like that with a little bit of suspicion, but Elisabeth had a history of running away from home. Every time she'd run away, she was brought back by the police or her father. After a couple of weeks of looking and not being any closer to finding her, the police were forced to give up their search and declare that she'd run away.
After all, it wouldn't be odd for her to run away from home, and now they had a letter in her handwriting saying that she'd done just that and planned on joining a cult.
The Daily Routine
After the cops stopped looking for Elisabeth, Josef Fritzl could start to establish his daily routine. Every day at around nine in the morning, he'd descend into the basement, telling his wife and others that it was the only place he could do his work. Josef drew plans for different types of machines, which he then tried to sell to manufacturing companies. He wouldn't let his wife visit him in the basement.
He'd often lock himself away in the basement all night, which to the outside world simply made it look like he was hard at work trying to support the family.
The Routine Gets Darker
At first, Josef simply wanted to keep Elisabeth captive, but around six months after she'd been down in the cellar, he began to abuse her. He was now going down into the bunker at least three times a week. Some six months after she'd been locked away, Josef took her chains off to make it easier, but this hadn't been the first time and the treatment reportedly started when Elisabeth was only 11.
Her father began going down to the bunker and staying there more overnight as the amount of his mistreatment gradually increased, which must've been an absolutely terrifying ordeal for Elisabeth.
Mistreated From A Young Age
Josef's behavior started when Elisabeth was only 11 years old. This was why she'd tried to run away from home on so many different occasions. Unfortunately, nobody else knew about it because her father had threatened her that if she spoke up, she'd get hurt. She was still only a young child, so she believed him and did as he said. However, now there was nowhere to run.
This may have been why Josef had decided to trap her down in the bunker. She was getting older and more capable of leaving home and not having to deal with it.
Children And A Miscarriage
Elisabeth was completely helpless while trapped in the basement, and around a year and a half after she became trapped underground, she became pregnant with her first child. She had a miscarriage at around 10 months. Some two years later, she became pregnant again and gave birth to her daughter, Kerstin. She tried to do the best she could for her kids and she also tried to protect them from Josef.
Around two years after her daughter was born, Elisabeth gave birth again, this time to a son whom she named Stefan, turning life into a terrifying ordeal, not just for her but for her children as well.
Elisabeth Gives Birth To More Children
Elisabeth tried her hardest to give the children somewhat normal lives. While locked in the cellar, she taught them how to read and write. However, Josef's behavior didn't stop because of the children, and Elisabeth would go on to have five more kids from her father, one of whom died not long after being born. Eventually, Josef ended up moving three of the children upstairs to live with him and Elisabeth's mother.
The youngest and the two oldest would remain in the cellar, as Josef later said that his wife couldn't look after any more children in addition to the three upstairs.
Josef Makes It Look Like Elisabeth Abandoned Her Kids at Their Doorstep
Of course, receiving three children at the door of her house would alarm Elisabeth's mother. So, her father forced her to write letters and came up with a plan to make it look like Elisabeth had dropped the children off, one by one, so as not to arouse too much suspicion. In each letter, Elisabeth said that she didn't have the means to take care of the children and that they'd be better off with her parents.
Elisabeth hadn't wanted the children to be taken away since they were her whole world now, but she had no choice in the matter, and three of them were sent to live upstairs.
Raising Elisabeth's Children In The Family Home
You'd think that when three children turn up at the front door and have to do with a missing person's case, it would raise some alarms. Unfortunately, it did not. Elisabeth's mother seemed satisfied with the letters, as did the neighbors and even social workers who'd been called to the home after the children showed up. The children were raised as the couple's grandchildren, while three of their kids remained trapped in the bunker.
If you could say anything was bright about this story, then it might be that the three children who were sent to live upstairs were no longer trapped in the dark, dingy cellar under the house.
No Medical Assistance For The Pregnancies
The mortality rates for childbirth have fallen steeply over the last couple of centuries. This is mainly due to new medical techniques and technologies, but Elisabeth had none of that for her multiple pregnancies. She was given some scissors, a book on giving birth, and some disinfectant, and that was all. So, it's all pretty unbelievable that she was able to survive so many different pregnancies without any proper assistance.
It took a lot of will and determination, and her children did give her the power to keep going and provided a small light in the middle of the dark underground bunker.
Living Conditions In The Cellar
The bunker was built to contain the bare necessities for survival. Josef had brought Elisabeth and the children a cassette player, radio, and a T.V. for them to try and entertain themselves. There was also a fridge and freezer, but that was about it. There was no central heating or AC, so the bunker would get extremely hot in the summer. It also wasn't uncommon for the walls to leak.
After years of begging, Josef finally agreed to expand the bunker, but he made Elisabeth and her children spend years digging soil out with their bare hands so that the walls could be expanded.
Completely Unaware Of Life Outside
For the two decades that Elisabeth was trapped in the cellar, time kept moving on the outside. She missed all of the historical events happening outside and had no clue how the world had changed since her imprisonment in the 1980s. During that time, the Berlin Wall was brought down, Chernobyl happened, Nelson Mandela became the president of South Africa, the Soviet Union collapsed, Princess Diana died, and so much more.
Not to mention, she missed out on some of the best years of her life. Her 20s and 30s were spent being trapped down in that prison-like basement.
After More Than Two Decades, She Got a Chance For Escape
In 2008, Elisabeth's oldest, Kerstin, who was now 19, fell very sick. She was suffering from a kidney failure. Elisabeth begged her father to take her daughter to the hospital, and he eventually relented. Elisabeth even helped carry her out of the cellar and caught a glimpse of the outside world for the first time in two decades. However, he forced her to return down to the cellar and wait there.
It's still not exactly clear what his ultimate goal was and how long he'd originally planned to keep his daughter trapped down there, but he must've known that it couldn't last forever.
People Start Asking Questions At The Hospital
After getting Kerstin to the hospital, Josef later returned home and came back, claiming to have found a note from Elisabeth. The note described her daughter's condition and said that she wasn't able to help her, so, she left her with her grandparents, but this time, the doctors weren't buying it, so they called in the police began asking questions. The doctors said that the child was extremely pale and that her teeth were in bad shape.
This was what finally convinced them to call the cops and what would start a chain of events that would finally result in the end of Elisabeth's 24 years of captivity.
The Police Reopen The Missing Person's Case
It didn't take long after the police started questioning Josef for them to start to feel like something wasn't right. Whether Josef wasn involved in his daughter's disappearance or not, the bad shape that Kerstin was in required them to start investigating, so they released an all call for people to come forward if they had any information on Elisabeth's whereabouts. Nobody did since she had been locked in the cellar the entire time.
So, in the meantime, the police began to look at the whole situation and read all of the letters that Elisabeth has supposedly left at her parents house.
Elisabeth Is Released From The Bunker
After police began questioning Josef, he once again stated that she'd run away and joined a cult all of those years ago, but now police were a bit hesitant to believe his story. Josef brought what he claimed was the last letter his daughter sent and said it'd come from a town called Kematan. The police called a man named Manfred Wolhfahrt, who was a church officer and cult expert. He said he'd never heard of the cult and that the letters themselves looked strange and dictated.
Back at the house, Elisabeth had been pleading with her father to let her out so she could go be with her daughter. Finally, perhaps sensing that the end was near, he agreed and Elisabeth stepped out of the cellar on April 26, 2008.
Elisabeth Is Questioned By Police
Not long after Elisabeth arrived at the hospital, one of the doctors called the police. Once they arrived, they took her and her father into custody and took Elisabeth into a room for questioning. She said that she wouldn't say a word unless they promised that she wouldn't have to see her father. They agreed, and then Elisabeth started to tell them details about the last 24 years of her life.
She told them about being locked in the cellar, she told them about having to give birth without medical assistance, and she told them about her father's actions, which continued even in front of the children.
Police Visit The Home
Josef, probably knowing that his time was up, led the police back to the home and showed them how to get into the cellar. Elisabeth's mother was taken by surprise, and she was reportedly devasted that her daughter had been locked away right under the house for so long. After telling the police about her children, they took blood, and a DNA test confirmed that they'd been fathered by Josef.
Elisabeth, all of her children, and her mother were taken into care, and Josef was arrested by the police and thrown in jail, where he would away his trial.
The Defense Comes Up With A Crazy Claim
Josef was assigned a defense lawyer who admitted that the DNA tests proved that he was the father. However, he claimed that Josef said his behavior was actually consensual, and he went on to try and say that Josef was working hard to provide for two families. He also claimed that the only reason he locked his daughter in a bunker for 24 years was in order to protect her and prevent her from running away.
As the trial went on, the world's attention turned to Austria and more and more details about the events emerged as the jury listed to video testimony from Elisabeth's time with the police.
Josef's Threats Towards Elisabeth And The Kids
During all of the time locked in the bunker, Josef made repeated threats so that his daughter and his other children wouldn't try to escape. He'd cut the electricity on occasion and even fail to bring them food for days at a time. He threatened to gas the bunker, (he had no gas on hand) if they tried to escape and he told them that the door had electricity running through it.
After the death of one of the twins, not long after it was born, Josef admitted to using an incinerator to get rid of the body to try and cover up his crimes.
Josef Pleads Guilty
Josef was facing life without the possibility of parole, and he'd pleaded guilty to most of the charges, but he failed to plead guilty to murder and for the threats about gassing his children. On the last day of the trial, Elisabeth showed up in the courtroom and gave her testimony in front of the jury. Josef pleaded guilty to the last two charges after seeing his daughter and her children in the room.
During all of the proceedings, Josef's older brother had also said that he suffered at the hands of his father while he'd lived in the family home when he was younger.
The Sentencing And A History Of Crime
The jury didn't take long to come back with a verdict and they sentenced Josef to life in imprison with the possibility of parole after only 15 years. Still, he claimed that what he did was normal. He actually had a history of criminality and committing similar crimes. When he was growing up, he was verbally physically mistreated by his mother, who used to refer to him as Satan.
When he got his own home, she moved in with him, and he locked her in the attic until she passed away years later. And that was only one instance.
Other Past Crimes
It also came out that Josef has previously mistreated other women as well, including breaking into one's home. However, this was 15 years prior to when the social workers came to their home and to talk about the official adoption of Elisabeth's children, so his record had been wiped clean by that point per Austrian law and the workers didn't see any red flags. In addition, he'd also been suspected of multiple murders.
There were three different women that died near to where Josef was at the time, and some of them even bore a resemblance to Elisabeth, but police were unable to come up with enough evidence to charge him for the murders.
Elisabeth And Her Children Today
Not much is known about what Elisabeth and her children are doing today, but we do know that they were provided with extensive psychiatric care after their release. The judge who oversaw the case said that doctors told him Elisabeth and her children were in "relatively good health," considering all that had happened to them. A poster made by Elisabeth and her children at the clinic was posted in the town center.
It read, "Your compassion is helping us greatly to overcome these difficult times, and it shows us there also are good and honest people here who really care for us. We hope that soon there will be a time where we can find our way back into a normal life." She and her kids now live under different names and under protection from paparazzi.
Another Strange Missing Person's Case
Greg Allen, from Austin Texas, married Dara Llorens and the two had a daughter named Sabrina in 1997. It all started out picturesque and family was starting to take shape. However, the coming years would prove extremely difficult, as trying to balance a marriage, work full time, and raise a child began to take its toll on the two's marriage. What had started out as a fairytale was turning into a nightmare.
However, things were only going to get worse, and Sabrina would eventually go missing, leaving the family traumatized until she came back home with someone unexpected by her side.
A Messy Divorce And Damaging Claims
It wasn't long before the couple filed for divorce, and Greg and Dara were quickly thrown into a messy custody battle over their daughter. The court ended up siding with Greg, and it awarded him full custody of his daughter. However, that's when Dara started acting unusual. Child protection services were visiting the house, and they discovered that Dara had been telling her daughter lies about her father. A comment about Greg beating her made them intervene.
They took Sabrina out of the home and put her under protective custody, where they asked her if Greg had been abusive. "My daddy hits my mommy, that’s a lie my mommy told me to say," she said.
Dara Seems To Be Okay
As the months went on, Sabrina was eventually placed with her dad. However, he was beginning to notice something strange when his ex-wife would come to visit. She seemed more at ease with the whole situation. There was no more constant fighting or comments, and he took this as a sign that maybe things were getting better. However, it would turn out that he couldn't be further from the truth.
In fact, Dara was only acting. In reality, she'd been working on a plan that would turn all of their lives upside down and lead to countless restless nights.
A Strange Comment And Sabrina's Disappearance
As per the custody agreement, Dara would get Sabrina on the weekends. It was on one of these weekends in 2002 when Sabrina asked him something strange. He'd driven to meet Dara somewhere and was preparing to drop his daughter off when she said, “Daddy don’t ever forget me.” It raised a couple of alarm bells in his head, but he said that she'd come back from her mom's with stomach issues the weeks prior, so he thought maybe she was just a little nervous.
Sabrina was supposed to be dropped off in two days' time, but that Sunday evening came and went, forcing Greg to call the police when Dara failed to answer the phone.
A Lead And A New Country
At first, the case seemed to go nowhere, but after six months, the police finally got a lead. A former coworker of Dara came forward and told police that she'd paid him to drive her and her daughter to the Mexican border. He also said that he believed they'd gone to Mexico City. That meant that the official investigation was going to get complicated, so Greg packed up his stuff and went to Mexico City himself in order to search for his daughter.
He devoted himself to learning Spanish while also putting up fliers of his missing daughter, but unknown to him, she was only about 30 minutes away from where he was staying. Although, her hair had been dyed and she was living under an alias.
Finding His Daughter, But Having To Wait
Eventually, Sabrina's teacher at school found one of the fliers Greg had put up and emailed him to say that she'd arrived around six months ago and couldn't speak Spanish. During an event for Father's Day, Sabrina seemed upset and told the teacher, “I do have a dad. My real name is not Blanca [her alias] my real name is Sabrina. My dad's name is Greg and he lives in Texas.” However, by the time the embassy was able to get involved, Dara had fled with Sabrina.
It'd be nine more years before police were able to track her down again, at which point one of them would be injured by Dara during the operation. However, Sabrina would eventually be returned home to her father, who'd gotten some help looking for her from his former Spanish teacher and now wife. Today, the two avoid the media, but it's believed they are doing well and trying to make up for lost time. It's believed that Dara kept Sabrina locked away during her time there. She was sentenced to six years in prison.