UNCONVENTIONAL WORLD RECORDS

Elisabeth Fritzl was 18 when she started to be kept hostage by her own father in a cellar under her home in a village near the town of Amstetten, Austria sometime in 1984. Hence, an innocent cellar became a dungeon, and her nightmare continued for 24 years, until April 2008. Heck, back in 1984 the balance transfer credit card was perhaps not yet even invented!

Forgive me for immediately thinking that Austrians have a penchant for locking up people in cellars for long periods of time, no thanks to that other infamous case: Natascha Kampusch, now 20, who was kidnapped on her way to school at 10 in 1998. Her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil kept her for 8 years in a bunker under his house near Vienna. She finally escaped on 23rd August 2006. The 44-year old Priklopil, a telecomm technician / information specialist, killed himself on the same day by jumping in front of a train.

But Elisabeth’s case is sure going to be bigger – she’s confined 3 times longer, for goodness’ sake!

Apparently the house where Fritzl was kept

Her father, now 73, is believed to have sexually abused and beaten her all these years. Worst of all, he fathered his daughter’s seven (six surviving until today) children, the oldest of whom is 19 years old. In effect, he became his children’s own grandfather.

Strangely, all the kids lived with the guy and even went to school while all this time their mother was trapped in the dungeon.

Apparently Mrs Fritzl had it much much worse than Kampusch; where Kampusch was allowed out after some time, even following her captor on a skiing holiday, Fritzl was apparently locked up for the whole of the 24 years!!!

Naturally, Fritzl was found in an exhausted condition, but luckily stable condition and now under medical and psychiatric care.

Her father managed to trick everybody by telling that Elisabeth “had gone into hiding and left him with her children, only communicating with occasional letters.”

The case only came out into the open when the oldest child, 19-year-old Kerstin was admitted to a hospital after a bout with “a mystery illness,” which left her in coma for several days and is now fighting for her life.

The other kids are in their early teens. It’s to their credit that their school issued a statement saying: “the children are well behaved and have always had good notes in school.”

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