Pölzer said Fritzl had no criminal convictions from the past 15 years, and that the statute of limitations would apply to any earlier offences he might have committed.īut that does not answer the question as to whether he was checked for a criminal record in 1984 when his daughter went missing. There have been reports that Fritzl had criminal convictions, including for the attempted rape of a woman in the late 1960s and insurance fraud after he allegedly set fire to a guesthouse he had run with his wife. However, he added: 'We still find it hard to believe that no one – no neighbour, family member or acquaintance – noticed anything.' Given Fritzl's reported criminal convictions, why was he not investigated when his daughter went missing? 'It defies logical thinking that a woman who has had seven children with her husband would make it possible for him to have anther relationship with his daughter and have another seven children,' Franz Pölzer, the head of the criminal investigations unit in the province of Lower Austria, said. However, it has been difficult for police to accept Rosemarie was completely ignorant of her husband's double life. 'Rosi wasn't even allowed to bring him a coffee.' She described her older sister as 'dominated and constantly belittled in public' by Fritzl. 'Often, he would spend whole nights down there,' Christine told an Austrian newspaper. Rosemarie's sister, Christine, has come forward to reveal Fritzl would often spend the whole evening in the cellar, but she corroborated the claim that Rosemarie knew nothing of what went on underneath her own home. The implication is that she never had any reason to go to the cellar or, if she did, she was discouraged by her husband without him raising any suspicions. Police quickly ruled out the possibility that Rosemarie Fritzl had any knowledge of her husband's activities after details of his horrific crimes emerged. How could Josef Fritzl's wife not have known? Also, Fritzl said he threatened the captors with gas if they tried to leave. The door is still being checked by police but if they were able to open the door from the inside, then Elisabeth may have been able to leave the dungeon for provisions.īut if this is the case, why didn't they escape? It is possible the years in the dungeon had disturbed Elisabeth so much she was too scared to escape.

This would give an explanation as to how Elisabeth and the children survived while Fritzl went on holidays. It was first thought there was no means of escape for Elisabeth and the children because the heavy reinforced door was operated by a remote control key pad which Fritzl kept with him at all times.īut Fritzl told police that the heavy steel door shutting the basement dungeon could open automatically if he were absent for a long period. Could Elisabeth and the children have escaped? The pictures have prompted questions over how the family in the basement survived in his absence during this and other jaunts, and whether he had an accomplice.Ĭramped as the dungeon was, police said there was sufficient room to store enough food for the family to survive in the father's absence. Photographs and video images of Fritzl on a four-week trip to Thailand in 1998 have been widely published. Who provided for Elisabeth Fritzl and her children when her father went on holiday? However, without any reason to suspect anything sinister, they maintain they had no reason to question the goings-on. Some have since indicated that they heard children's cries or knocking and saw Fritzl making visits to the cellar late at night. Tenants of the eight flats in the same building were forbidden by Fritzl from going into the basement, and appear to have followed his instructions to the letter. Police have been sceptical that nobody noticed anything untoward, and are investigating whether anyone helped in the delivery of the seven children.īut DNA tests have apparently revealed that no other man had entered the cellar, and Leopold Etz, the chief homicide investigator for the Lower Austria province, told the Associated Press: 'I think we can rule out accomplices.' It weighed 660lb, making people wonder how Fritzl was able to hinge it in to position alone. The reinforced door to the cellar is also raising questions. Alfred Dubanovsky, who was a tenant in the same building, told the BBC the man was introduced as a plumber. A neighbour has now come forward who claims to have seen a second man go in to the cellar.

Elisabeth fritzl now 2019