MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Austrian House of Horrors

Episode Date: July 14, 2022

Today’s podcast features two separate, unique stories that share a theme: stories that are so messed up they sound fake, but, they are actually true. The audio from these stories has been pulled from my YouTube channel, which is just called MrBallen, and has been remastered for today's podcast.Story names, previews & links to original YouTube videos:Story 1 -- “This Chatroom Kills People" -- Two teen boys are pulled into a bizarre plot (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vihYdB3SkuE)Story 2 -- "The Old Man's Secret" -- A terrible secret was discovered in an Austrian basement (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgL41aUL7tY)For 100s more stories like these, check out my YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @MrBallenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today's podcast features two separate, unique stories that share a theme. Stories that are so messed up, they sound fake, but they're actually true. The audio from both of these stories has been pulled from my YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called This Chat Room Kills People, and it's about the totally insane plot that took hold of two UK teenagers in the early 2000s. The second story you'll hear is called The Old Man's Secret,

and it's about the horrible secret that was discovered inside of an Austrian basement that shocked the world in 2008. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please offer to help the 5-star review button pack up their things so they can move, but only use old, weak tape so the bottom of their moving boxes drop out as soon as anyone tries to lift them.

Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Boland podcast wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into our first story called This Chat Room Kills People. Hello, I'm Emily and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. OK, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts?

Free cocktails? Careless whispers? OK, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's stone-cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom.

From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making, with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wanderie Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wanderie app. I'm Peter Frank-O'Pern. And I'm Afua Hirsch.

And we're here to tell you about our new season of Legacy, covering the iconic, troubled musical genius that was Nina Simone. Full disclosure, this is a big one for me. Nina Simone, one of my favourite artists of all time. Somebody who's had a huge impact on me, who I think objectively stands apart for the level of her talent, the audacity of her message. If I was a first year at university,

the first time I sat down and really listened to her and engaged with her message, it totally floored me. And the truth and pain and messiness of her struggle, that's all captured in unforgettable music that has stood the test of time. Think that's fair, Peter? I mean, the way in which her music comes across is so powerful, no matter what song it is.

So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. On June 29th, 2003, a 14-year-old boy named John and his best friend, a 16-year-old named Mark, were walking in this back alleyway behind a row of shops in Manchester, England. Mark had asked John to go back there, to which John was a little bit confused because it was just a dead end back there. But he went back there anyways because he figured, you know, Mark must have a reason. And so they're walking along this alleyway when Mark suddenly comes to a stop. Then he turns to face John and

John's looking at him inquisitively and Mark just reaches out and grabs him by the shoulder before pulling out a huge knife and drives it into his stomach and says, I'm sorry, bro. Pulls it out again, drives it into his chest before releasing it and letting John fall to the ground. As soon as John hits the ground, he looks up at Mark and he says, you're killing me. And Mark says, I had to do it. If you knew all the details, you would understand. And so after only a couple of minutes, John goes quiet and he's laying still on the ground. And Mark would stand there just waiting for about 20 minutes to ensure that John really was dead before calling authorities and claiming some madman had snuck up behind them and attacked his best friend. And you've got to send an ambulance as fast as you can. When the

ambulance arrived to Mark's horror, they were able to keep John alive, and they were able to get him to a hospital where he nearly died twice on the operating table, but he ultimately would make a full recovery. And when John was well enough to speak, he would tell police that Mark is the guy who attacked him, but he had no idea why. When Mark was confronted with these allegations that he was the one who attacked John, he quickly confessed. And the police thought, you know, this is a strange case, but pretty open and shut. And they arrested Mark for attempted murder. When investigators began digging into the motive behind this attack, they, along with Mark, were not prepared for the totally bizarre story that unraveled. The judge in this case would say well-schooled fiction writers could not come

up with the plot of this real-life story. And so this crazy story starts four months before the stabbing in February of 2003. In February of 2003, Mark was a 16-year-old student who was also a part-time dishwasher at a restaurant near his home in Manchester, England. Mark had okay grades, but even by his own account, he was nowhere near an academic. In fact, he was quite dim-witted. He was very close with his family, who all lived in a very modest home in a very modest neighborhood. By all accounts, Mark was living a very ordinary life. That year, Mark discovered an online chat room for teens in Manchester, England, and it was designed

to, you know, make friends and talk about fashion and sports. And initially, when he logged into this chat room, he was just watching. He wasn't really participating. But over time, he became a very active user and, in fact, became totally obsessed with this chat room and basically put everything else in his life on the back burner to the point where his grades were tanking and he was staying up all night. I mean, this really took over his life. Also in February of 2013, John was a 14-year-old student who lived in Manchester, England, but not near Mark, and at this point he had not met Mark yet. He was incredibly intelligent and polite and charming, and he was an excellent, excellent student, and he went to a very, very prestigious school. But while John's academic life was going really well, his home life was kind of in shambles. His mother had a series

of really crappy boyfriends that always left, and they always left her feeling very depressed, and it was just a very sad environment around his mother. And John, unfortunately, had grown up believing one of his mother's ex-boyfriends was his biological father. And even though this boyfriend had abandoned the family, John at least knew who his dad was. But it would turn out his biological father had actually abandoned him when he was a brand new baby, and he had no way of figuring out who his dad even was. John really wanted to escape his home life. He wanted to just live somewhere else, have an adventurous, happy life away from all the sadness and depression he was around all the time. And so it was in that frame of mind that he discovered this chat room, the same one that Mark had discovered. Although they don't know each other yet, they're both

entering the same chat room. John's initial interest in this chat room was not nearly as high as Mark's was. Mark pretty much immediately became obsessed with being in this chat room. John was a little bit more reserved, but his mom purchased a laptop for him, which suddenly gave him 24-7 access to this chat room, and he found himself going on there all the time, to the point where he was staying up all night and even skipping meals, just so he wouldn't have to leave his screen even for a few minutes. The main focus of this chat room was supposed to be sports and movies and entertainment,

but the real reason teenagers were flocking into this particular chat room was to flirt with each other. And Mark and John were no different. They both really enjoyed, you know, these flirtatious interactions they were having with different girls on this chat room, but John's interactions with the girls was very friendly and wasn't going to go anywhere. It was not really intended to, whereas Mark fell head over heels in love with a girl he was flirting with, and her name was Rachel. Rachel was a 16-year-old living in Manchester, England who worked at a gym, and when Mark saw her pictures, he was just totally smitten with her, and he sent her a direct message, not really expecting her to write back, but she did, and she seemed at least somewhat interested in him. And that night, they stayed up all night chatting with each other, and Mark is just over the moon. For the next couple of days, Mark and Rachel were talking non-stop on this chat room,

and then at some point, Rachel says, hey, I really want to introduce you to this guy I met on this chat. He reminds me a lot of you. I think you guys would get along great. His name is John. And Mark was like, okay, cool. So Rachel introduced him to John and they hit it off right away. And the three of them formed their own separate chat thread outside of the main chat room. And very quickly through this separate chat thread that they were on pretty much 24-7, Mark and John would become best friends and Mark and Rachel would fall deeper and deeper in love with each other. Every time John and Mark were in this chat room, they would use a web camera. But Rachel didn't have one.

And initially, that really frustrated Mark because he wanted to see his girlfriend in real time. But she said she didn't have the money to get one. And then she said she was shy. And so Mark's getting frustrated. But she says, Mark, come visit me. You don't live that far away. You can see me in real life in real time. And so initially, Mark's excited. And he's talking to John about how excited he

is to go see his girlfriend, but then he gets cold feet and he makes an excuse and he doesn't go. Rachel's disappointed, but she asks him again a couple more times if he'll come visit her. And every time he would agree and then he would kind of chicken out. But after the last time he canceled on her, he finally got the courage up and he invited her to come visit him. And this is when she started getting cold feet. And they kind of went back and forth until they basically stopped asking to visit each other. And they just decided that their relationship was going to live online, even if there wasn't a web camera involved. About three months after Rachel, Mark, and John had started their own separate chat thread, a new user popped up inside

the main chat room. It was a fairly controlled group, so it was pretty easy to tell when there were new people added. And this individual only wrote in pink text. So he stood out, his name was Kevin, and he told the group that he was a stalker and that he had a foot fetish. And the group thought this guy was pretty weird, but they figured it was just, you know, some kid trying to get attention. They didn't think much of him. But shortly after Kevin's arrival, Mark would get a private message from Kevin that said, I know you're Rachel's boyfriend and I'm her stalker and I'm going to hurt her. Mark didn't know what to do.

So he just went to Rachel and he said, hey, I got this strange email from this guy named Kevin who says he's going to hurt you and he's your stalker. And Rachel kind of made light of it and said, oh, just ignore that guy. I don't know what that's about. And John didn't know what to make about it either. So Mark just kind of ignored it. And then the next day when Mark logged into the chat room, Rachel wasn't there. Now, Rachel always logged in at the same time

that Mark did and that John did. It was very rare that she wouldn't be there. And so Mark asked John, you know, have you talked to Rachel today? And John said, no. And then Mark went into the main chat room and he asked some people in there if they had seen Rachel or talked to her. And they said no. And that's when Mark went into his email and he had another message from Kevin.

This message, again, was about Rachel. But this time, Kevin is saying he actually has Rachel hostage. And the only way he's going to release her is if Mark lets Kevin look at his feet. Because, again, he has that foot fetish. And so Mark, interestingly, does not go to the police. He doesn't tell anyone about this. He just says, okay, I'll do that. And so he lets him see his feet. And then Kevin writes back saying, okay, I've released Rachel. Later that day, Rachel came back online and she thanked Mark for what he did. But she felt really bad that he had to be kind of humiliated in that way.

And she said, you know what? We really need to meet up. We need to see each other face to face. I want to apologize to you and give you a hug. And so they decide the next day they're going to meet up finally in town together. But the next day when Mark went to the rendezvous point, Rachel didn't show. In fact, after this missed meeting, Rachel never contacted Mark again. She just vanished. When Mark got back to his computer, he asked John, you know, have you talked to, Rachel never contacted Mark again. She just vanished. When Mark got back to his computer, he asked John, you know, have you talked to Rachel?

And he said no. And again, he went into the main chat room and he asked around and no one had heard from Rachel. And then a couple of days later, after just continued silence from Rachel, and Mark's really upset about this, he notices a rumor being passed around in the main chat room about how apparently one of the members of this chat room abducted and killed another member of the chat room. And Mark's thinking to himself, no way, that can't be about Rachel. But almost immediately after this rumor was kind of announced on the main chat, people started chiming in that they think it could be Kevin, the guy who writes in all pink,

the guy who claims he's a stalker, and this girl Rachel, because they had both logged out around the same time and had not logged back in again. They were the only ones in this chat room that were that inactive. And then after that, dozens more users were commenting that this was actually true, that Kevin had indeed abducted Rachel and killed her. They'd heard about it in other chat rooms and at school, and all of a sudden Mark's reality is just coming crashing down. And he feels so guilty that he probably could have done something to stop this and he didn't. But then interestingly, even though Mark was devastated, just crushed by what has happened, he just continued to log into the chat room and acted like nothing had happened.

And John picked up on this strange behavior and began kind of delicately asking him, you know, like, are you doing okay? But Mark made it clear he did not want to talk about it. And over time, the rumor about what happened to Rachel and Kevin just kind of left the chat room and it just seemed like people moved on, including Mark and including John. Over the next month, John and Mark's relationship really strengthened. They continued to speak in that private chat, now missing Rachel, so they were only interacting with each other in there, and they even began meeting up in person and hanging out in real life. About a month after Rachel's disappearance, a new person popped up in the main

chat. It was a woman. Her name was Janet, and she wrote in all capitals, and she reached out to Mark, and she said to Mark that she was a mother of two. she was married, she was 44 years old, she was a real estate agent, but secretly she was a spy for the British Secret Service. And in fact, she was the third most powerful person in all of Britain, and she was contacting Mark because she was sent to recruit him. She told Mark if he agreed to work with her, not only would he become an agent like her, he would become fabulously wealthy, and he could be her boyfriend. Now, of course, to an adult, this sounds preposterous and sounds like an obvious scam, but you got to remember, Mark at this time was extremely vulnerable. He's just lost his girlfriend under very suspicious circumstances, but no matter how it happened, she's gone and

he's still grieving her loss privately, and he's just not a very bright person so he's kind of primed to be taken advantage of and she was promising him all the things he wanted in life status money romance and so even though he didn't necessarily believe everything Janet was saying he wanted to believe her and so he went along with it. He did not tell John about his interactions with Janet perhaps signaling that he didn't fully believe it and was maybe embarrassed to give away details, but we don't know. As soon as Mark told Janet he was prepared to work with her, she made him swear an oath through the chat and then told him he would need to go to London for initiation, where he'd be meeting the Queen, amongst other dignitaries and officials. other dignitaries and officials. At this point, Mark asked a couple of qualifying questions, namely, how would I explain to my mom that I was just going to suddenly leave for a couple of days in the middle of the week and miss school? I have to give her a reason for that. And she would say, your mother will be looped in on this process. In fact, once you go to London for initiation,

we'll be in touch with her, giving her progress reports on how you're doing, and you'll have two opportunities every day to call her. Feeling satisfied that this was in fact legitimate, he told Janet, okay, you know, when do you want me to go? And she said, well, there's a caveat. You have to pass a series of tests before you're going to be allowed to go to initiation. This is where Janet explained to Mark why he specifically was being recruited. She said his friend John was actually not named John. His real name was James Bell and he was a very very important person but she couldn't say why until he passed his first test. And so Mark's very confused by this and he says okay well what's the first test? And she says well you need to demonstrate you can protect your friend James Bell.

And so I want you to escort him from his school to his dentist appointment tomorrow. You're going to be his bodyguard for one day, but you can't let him know you're his bodyguard. He can't know that you know his real identity. So if you can do that successfully, when you get back, I will explain to you why he is so important. At this point, Mark is very committed to this. So he says, yep, I'll do it. He reaches out to John that day and he says, hey, can we hang out tomorrow? And John tells him, yeah, but I have a dentist appointment right after school. So maybe after that. And Mark says, oh, don't worry, I'll tag along for your dentist appointment. And John's like, great, I could use the company. So the next day, Mark meets up with John, aka James Bell,

and he walks with him from his school to his dentist appointment. And he doesn't notice anything suspicious. So he doesn't need to do any bodyguarding duties and after the dentist appointment the two of them just go to a mall and they spend the rest of the day together. Once Mark got back to his house and opened his computer there was a message waiting for him from Janet and the message said you know we had agents following you and you did a great job you passed your first test. Now I can tell you why James Bell your friend friend John, is so very important. And she told him that at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean is this big safe that only a couple of countries know about,

and inside of that safe is 568 billion pounds, and it belongs to the Queen. But only one person has access to that safe, and that person is James Bell. Literally, his body would need to be in front of the safe for its special scanner to scan him, recognize it as James Bell, and then it would open its door. Despite its implausibility, Mark believed this was real. Not so much because he naturally believed the safe at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean was real, but it was because he totally believed Janet was real. Janet had the ability to know what he was wearing, where he had gone that day, what he was up to. I mean, she seemed to know everything about him. And it's because, she told

him, she has agents monitoring him all the time, disguised as bus drivers and teachers and mailmen, that basically he was under constant surveillance. And she explained to him that that's what happens when you're being recruited. We have agents watch you. So when Janet gave Mark his final test, despite how shocked Mark was at what he had to do, he was willing to do it because he really believed he was doing it for the government. The test was simple. Mark needed to kill John aka James Bell and she explained to him that James Bell actually had an inoperable brain tumor and he was going to die any day. And if the wrong country found out about this, they could steal his body after he died and they could use his body to gain access to this safe. And so we need to preemptively end his life, take control of his body, and get that safe open.

She told Mark if he completed this test, he would move on to the initiation phase in London where he would meet the Queen and he would get his first paycheck of 80 million pounds and he would officially become Janet's boyfriend. Mark is in so deep at this point. He is fully committed and he says, yes, I'm prepared to do this. And she says, okay, your new name is Agent 47695 and you need to go buy a large knife. She said there was going to be an abort code for this test, which was going to be 6969, and if at any point he hears anybody say that to him on the day he's supposed to carry out this attack, that means it's off and do not do it. So on June 29, 2003, around 11 a.m., Mark and John, aka Agent 47695 and James Bell, met at a bus station in Manchester. Mark

took John down the alleyway that Janet had instructed him to go down to commit the stabbing, and she had assured him she would be one of the first people to arrive on scene. She would be dressed as a detective, and she would ensure he did not get arrested. And so once he was in position, Mark turned around, grabbed John by the shoulder, pulled out his knife, said he loved him, and then began stabbing him. When the police arrived, Janet was not there, and Mark, after giving his statement about what happened, was asking the police officers, when's Janet gonna be here? And no one knew what he was talking about. After John survived the attack and said Mark was the one who attacked him, Mark would tell police, you know,

you gotta find Janet. She's the one who can explain what's going on here. But Janet never arrived because Janet didn't exist. Neither did Rachel. Neither did Kevin. Neither did James Bell. Neither did 189 other accounts that Mark interacted with on a daily basis inside of that chat room. And all of those fake accounts were determined to be controlled by one person. And that one person was John. When John was confronted with all these confiscated chat logs that clearly showed he was behind all of these accounts, he confessed. John said he never entered this chat room in order to do any of the things he did or, you know, to manipulate Mark. He said when he joined, he just saw a picture of Mark and was kind of in love with

him and wanted to get closer to him, but didn't know how. So he created Rachel in order to get closer to Mark, but then became jealous of Mark's love of Rachel. So he killed off Rachel using Kevin and he didn't expect Mark to believe it. He thought he would pick up that this is all made up when he's involving this stalker that's abducting and killing Rachel. But when he saw Mark totally believed it, John realized, wow, Mark's pretty gullible. I wonder what else I can get him to believe. And before long, he created Janet, who had complete control over Mark. And originally, John was using Janet to make Mark spend more time with John. He was going to be the bodyguard of James Bell, which was really John. When John started to feel guilty about what he was doing to Mark, he realized there was no good way out of this without kind of exposing himself and definitely losing his friendship to Mark,

something that, in a weird way, he really, really cherished. And so he decided that the only way to end this was for him to die. And that's when he had Janet flip the script from protect James Bell to kill James Bell. And even on the day where he was going to get attacked, he had given that abort code. So maybe some part of him thought, I don't necessarily want to go through with this. But he never used the abort code. He was literally prepared to die to protect that relationship with Mark. Mark might have had suspicions that something was up with Janet or even Kevin or Rachel, but he never suspected John was behind any of these accounts. He learned about this betrayal when they were in court, and John is confessing once again to being behind all of

these people that Mark had been interacting with. Apparently in court, when Mark is hearing this for the first time, he was just standing there, mouth open, just completely dumbfounded that he's hearing this. And then he would say afterwards, I've been such a fool. Mark was convicted of attempted murder, but he only spent eight months in jail. And then he was given a two month probationary period where during that time, he could only go on the Internet with supervision and he wasn't allowed to enter into any chat rooms. John was convicted of inciting his own murder, which no one else has ever been charged with, so this is a first. And he was not given any jail time,

but he was given three years of probation, where in that time, he was not allowed to use the internet without supervision, and he also was not allowed to enter into any chat rooms. And both boys were told they had a permanent restraining order on the other. So for the rest of their lives, they will never interact. Today's podcast is sponsored by the online therapy platform, BetterHelp.

Stress can rear its ugly head in all types of ways. Maybe work has you anxious about deadlines, or maybe you're worried that the college fund you've been investing in for years is actually not going to be enough for your kids. And maybe you don't even know you're stressed. In fact, many people don't always recognize the physical symptoms of stress. Things like headaches, teeth grinding, and even digestive problems. But nowadays, no one has the time to go to the doctor's office and fill out all that paperwork

and then wait around for the doctor to finally come out to help you deal with your stress. But that doesn't mean you need to let your mental health suffer. Now, you can get the professional help you need from the comfort of your own home. And that's with BetterHelp. BetterHelp is customized online therapy that offers video, phone, and even live chat sessions with your therapist

so you don't have to see anyone on camera if you don't want to. It's much more affordable than in-person therapy, and financial aid is available to those who need it. BetterHelp is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches, making it super easy and free to change therapists if needed. In today's world that's telling you to do more, sleep less, and grind all the time, here's your reminder to take care of yourself, do less, and maybe try some therapy. So give it a try and see if online therapy can help lower your stress. Mr. Ballin listeners can get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com

slash mrballinpod. That's b-e-t-t-e-R-H-E-L-P dot com slash mrballinpod. Hello, I am Alice Levine, and I am one of the hosts of Wondery's podcast, British Scandal. On our latest series, The Race to Ruin, we tell the story of a British man who took part in the first ever round the world sailing race. Good on him, I hear you say. But there is a problem, as there always is in this show. The man in question hadn't actually sailed before. Oh, and his boat wasn't seaworthy. Oh, and also tiny little detail, almost didn't mention it.

He bet his family home on making it to the finish line. What ensued was one of the most complex cheating plots in British sporting history. To find out the full story, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and he seemed really unwell. So she wound up taking him to the hospital right away so he could get treatment. While Dorothy's friend waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit. But she would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later,

what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and so many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic

evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try and discover what really happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. The next and final story of today's episode is called The Old Man's Secret. On August 28th, 1984, an 18-year-old girl named Elizabeth went missing. On the first day she was gone, her friends and family went out looking for her, but they couldn't find her. The following day, when she still hadn't shown up and no one had heard from her, her parents went to the local police station in their Austrian town of Amstetten, which is about an hour west of Vienna, and they reported her missing. The police launched an

initial search of the town and the surrounding areas, but after several weeks, they had found nothing that connected to Elizabeth and where she might have gone. A month after she had been reported missing, her parents came back to the police station, except this time they were carrying a note they say they received in the mail from their missing daughter. It was postmarked from a town that was about two hours west of Amstetten, and in this note, Elizabeth writes directly to her parents and she tells them that she had grown tired of living with them and she did not want them to come looking for her, and if she discovered they were looking for her, she would just flee the country. After the police read the note, they asked the parents if they thought it was real, if this was a legitimate letter from their daughter, and they said yeah,

they think it is. And then after that, her father, Joseph, suggested that maybe his daughter had run off to join a cult. That was something he thought she was getting into before her disappearance. After the parents left the police station, the police began conducting interviews with other family members and friends of Elizabeth to see if it was possible that she might have run off to join a cult. And virtually everyone they spoke to said absolutely not, there is no way she ran off to join a cult. That just wasn't her, she was a quiet reserved person and they had never heard her talking about a cult or anything that even resembled a cult. These answers left the police feeling very suspicious of the whole situation, and so they decided to look into the young woman's history to see if there was some other reason she might have run off. In their

research, they discovered that Elizabeth was one of seven siblings that all lived together with their parents, Joseph and Rose Marie. Joseph was a successful electrical engineer and real estate developer who was well-liked and respected in town, and Rosemarie had gotten married very young at the age of 17, and she had stayed home to take care of the kids. By all accounts, from the outside looking in, they were a very ordinary family. But as the police began to dig deeper and deeper into their history, they discovered there were some big problems behind closed doors. Despite his friendly, outward public appearance, Joseph was actually a

ruthless authoritarian when he was home alone with his family. At night when he came home from work, his wife and his kids would immediately stop whatever they were doing and go silent in hopes they might avoid a beating. The only member of the family that seemed willing to stand up to Joseph was Elizabeth, and she and her father would frequently get into screaming fights, and then as punishment for these fights, Joseph would not only beat his daughter, he would also prevent her from seeing her friends for long periods of time, and he would go through her personal things like her diary. Their toxic relationship finally came to a head when Elizabeth finally ran away from home two years prior to her most recent disappearance. She made it all the way to Vienna before authorities caught up to her and brought her back home. Upon learning about this earlier disappearance,

the police became convinced that the most recent disappearance was yet another attempt to escape her abusive and controlling father. And so the police decided that this was more of a family affair and they didn't push the investigation further. A year went by and neither the police nor her family heard anything from Elizabeth and so her case was closed. But 24 years later, a seemingly unconnected event broke her case wide open. On April 19th, 2008, a 19-year-old named Kerstin was rushed to the hospital in Amstetten. Her skin was so pale it looked almost transparent. She was unconscious and suffering from seizures as well as lung and

kidney failure. The doctors were able to stabilize her by putting her into a medically induced coma, but after running a litany of tests, they couldn't figure out what was causing her to have this medical condition, and so they were not able to treat her effectively. They assumed it had to be some sort of genetic condition, so they put her name into the medical database, but nothing came up. Her name wasn't listed. And so this was very perplexing because everybody's name was in this database. And so they took her name and they ran it in other medical databases, and her name didn't show up in any of them. And so totally confused by this girl who seemingly didn't exist, who was exhibiting symptoms of a condition none of the doctors had seen before, the doctors decide they have to speak to the guy she

showed up with, an older man who was out in the waiting room. When the doctors approached him, he said he was Kirsten's grandfather, but beyond that, he offered virtually no new information. In fact, he was aggressive and rude and dismissive, and anytime they asked him questions, he would answer as minimally as possible. And when the doctors really fixated on whether or not Kirsten had some underlying medical condition, he would not give them an answer. He would just dismiss it and say he didn't know anything, but it was the doctor's impression that he did know something, he just didn't want to tell them.

And this behavior shocked them because they're thinking the information he has could potentially save his granddaughter's life. Why wouldn't he want to give it to us? And so after this disastrous interaction with the grandfather, the doctors decide to get the police involved. There were just too many red flags not to. When the police arrived, they were surprised to find out that this older man in the waiting room was none other than Joseph, the father of the still missing girl Elizabeth. The police ask Joseph what's going on here and he tells them that earlier that day he had opened his front door of his house and lying

on his front step was a girl he had never seen before. It was Kirsten and there was a note laying on her from his missing daughter Elizabeth. In the note Elizabeth writes to Joseph directly and tells him this girl here is Kirsten and she is my daughter so she's your granddaughter and she's sick and I can't take care of her. Can you and mom take her to the hospital? While the police had many more questions about this totally bizarre turn of events, they realized that for the time being they needed to focus their efforts on just getting Elizabeth to contact them because they needed to know more about Kirsten's medical condition so they could save her life. And so the police went to the media and they put out a message on TV and on radio that was a direct appeal to Elizabeth

that basically said, we need you to come forward as soon as possible and speak to us so we can help save your daughter's life. And all the messages worked because a week later, Elizabeth, along with her father Joseph, showed up at the hospital where Kirsten was staying. When doctors asked, Joseph did not get into detail about how he actually located Elizabeth. He simply said he found her and now she wants to see her daughter. The doctors noticed that Elizabeth, who was supposed to be in her early 40s, looked like she could easily be in her 60s. Her hair was completely white and her skin was so pale it was almost transparent, just like they had noticed about her daughter's skin.

And so after they checked in, Joseph and Elizabeth made their way to Kirsten's room and the pair went inside and the doctors that were in there would say that Elizabeth looked terrified. She was hunched over and kind of slouched down, and she wouldn't make eye contact with any of the doctors. And as she was standing there looking at her terribly sick daughter, the doctors began asking her, do you know of any underlying health problems your daughter might have that might help us treat her more effectively. And Elizabeth was so scared she couldn't even talk. And at some point the questions became too much for her and she just turned around and walked out into the hall with Joseph. And once they got out into the hall the police were waiting for them. They had been tipped off as soon as the doctor saw Joseph

and Elizabeth come into the hospital. Elizabeth and Joseph were detained and brought to the police station where they were put in two separate rooms to be interviewed. They first interviewed Elizabeth, and initially, just like in the hospital room, she was totally mute and didn't say anything. Then for five hours, the police grilled her with questions. Where had she been for the last 24 years? What happened to Kirsten? Did she have something to do with her illness? And they kept reminding her throughout these five hours that if she never gave them any information, and God forbid something were to happen to Kirsten, she, Elizabeth, could be held criminally liable. And so eventually, Elizabeth, in a very small, meek voice, said, okay, I'll tell you the story, but you have to promise me I never have to see my father, Joseph, ever again. When

she said this to the police, they could tell she was so scared that they said, okay, fine. You never have to see your father again. We'll make sure of it and tell us what happened. After that, Elizabeth clutched her hands. She took a deep breath and then she told them one of the most horrifying stories they had ever heard. A story so disturbing that it would make headlines all around the world for months. It all began 24 years earlier on August 28th, 1984, the day Elizabeth went missing. On that day, she told police she was at her family home in Amstetten when her father asked her to come into the basement to help him with something. Her father, for the last several years, had been constructing a bomb shelter in their basement, and he was now only one door installation away from being done. At the time, in the early 1980s, the Cold War was still very much on,

and so building bomb shelters inside of your home was a relatively common thing. So Elizabeth goes down into her basement, and she sees her father standing in front of this empty frame where this door is going to go that leads into the shelter, and so she walks over and steps through the frame into the shelter. She turns around and her father hands her this door and she holds it in the middle of the frame while he secures it to the hinges. And then once it's securely in place, suddenly he swings open the door, knocking Elizabeth backwards farther into the shelter. And before she could stand back up again, her father had run inside and pushed an ether-soaked towel onto her face, knocking her unconscious. When she came to again, she found herself chained up in the very back room of the shelter. It would

turn out this bomb shelter that Joseph had spent six years constructing was not actually a bomb shelter. It was a prison he was building specifically for Elizabeth. To get into the shelter, you would have to go down the steps into the basement which looked like a typical unfinished basement and then on the far wall you would see these shelves that had things like paint cans and screwdrivers and other tools you would expect to find in the basement but if you walked over to the left side of the shelving there was a lock on the back of it that if you undid it the shelf itself would swing out like a door and then behind it on the wall would reveal

a three foot tall secret door. This secret door was also locked, but not by a key lock. Instead, it was locked by a keypad lock that only Joseph had the code to. And since Joseph was an electrical engineer, he took great care in ensuring this lock never could be tampered with or destroyed. That thing was going to stay locked unless he unlocked it. When Joseph entered his code into the keypad, he could open that secret door and it would reveal this secret underground prison that was basically a winding maze of small rooms with ceilings that were too short to be able to stand up all the way in. If you walked through the secret door and actually entered into this prison, you would start by entering this soundproof narrow hallway that went on for several feet before it entered into this very small bathroom area

where the bathroom was unbelievably cramped and there was no doors, there was no privacy. And then if you didn't stop in the bathroom and you just kept walking straight through that first hallway, you would reach another hallway that was totally soundproof and narrow. And at the end of that hallway,

it would feed into a very small bedroom that was so small that it barely contained the one bed that was inside of it, and then off to the right side of that bedroom was another door that led into a similarly sized bedroom. All of the walls of this underground prison were made of thick reinforced concrete. That combined with the soundproofing that Joseph had installed throughout the entire prison meant no one could hear Elizabeth's cries for help. Also, the inside of the prison was heavily monitored by Joseph's security system, so truly Elizabeth had absolutely no privacy. She was completely trapped and the only way she was getting out was if her father freed her. For the first five years of her imprisonment, she remained in that dungeon all alone. Her only connection to the outside world was her father, who would come down almost every night to drop off basic supplies and to assault

her. As far as Joseph's wife and his other kids knew, he was just spending all this time in the basement because that's where he worked when he was not at the office. In 1988, Elizabeth became pregnant with her father's child. She was terrified of the pregnancy and begged Joseph to at least allow her to deliver the child in a hospital, but he refused. He wasn't willing to potentially expose himself for what he was doing, and so he gave her a book about childbirth, and he gave her a pair of scissors to cut the umbilical cord, and he said, good luck. And so on August 30th, Elizabeth delivered her daughter, Kirsten, alone in that basement. Following the birth of Kirsten, Elizabeth would deliver six more of her father's children, all the same way she delivered

Kirsten, alone and in the basement. In 1996, one of Elizabeth's newborn babies, Michael, was born with respiratory issues, and so Elizabeth pleaded with Joseph to take the baby to the hospital to get help, but Joseph refused. He was worried he would be exposed. And so three days after his birth, the baby died in Elizabeth's arms. And after the baby died, Joseph just took the body, threw it in a stove, and incinerated it like it was nothing. In the late 90s, the six living children down in the basement were getting bigger and noisier, and so Joseph came up with a plan in order to reduce the chances of them being discovered. And so one day, Joseph went downstairs into the basement, and so Joseph came up with a plan in order to reduce the chances of them being discovered. And so one day, Joseph went downstairs into the basement and he took one of Elizabeth's youngest children away from her. And then he threatened her and the rest of the kids down there that if they

tried to fight back or if they ever tried to escape, he would seal off the basement and he would gas them to death. Previously, Joseph had punished the entire family by turning off their power and cutting off their food and water supply for multiple days at a time, so they knew he was willing and able to hurt them if he wanted to. And so when he took this young child away from Elizabeth, they didn't put up a fight, and the baby disappeared upstairs. And when Joseph's wife, Rosemary, came home, he put on this elaborate charade about how he had discovered this baby on the front step, and that there was a note attached to the baby, and it was from Elizabeth, their missing daughter, and this child was apparently Elizabeth's, and she couldn't take care of it, and she was leaving it here for he and

Rosemary to raise it as their own. And Joseph had actually made Elizabeth write out this note and sign it to add credibility to the story. And so when Elizabeth's mother, Rosemary, saw this note and heard Joseph's story, she believed it. Over the next several years, Joseph would steal two more of Elizabeth's young children and then stage having found them on his front step with a note from Elizabeth. And with each discovered child, Rosemary amazingly never asked any questions. She just took these kids in and she and Joseph raised them as their own. Eventually, when these three kids got old enough, Joseph would tell them that their real mother, Elizabeth,

was a lowlife and she had abandoned them and she didn't care about them, when in reality, their mother and their other three siblings they didn't know existed were locked up in the basement below their feet. Initially, investigators believed all of these children Joseph had with Elizabeth were all mistakes, but it would turn out that was not the case. Joseph would admit that the reason he initially imprisoned Elizabeth was because he wanted to completely control her.

He wanted to own her. And so he decided that if he could just impregnate her as many times as possible and make her have all these kids, even if she eventually got out of the prison, no man would want her. She had too many kids, and so she would remain his property. And so over the entire time Elizabeth was imprisoned, over two decades, the nightly assaults by her father never slowed down. They happened thousands of times. But despite the horrific and tragic circumstances surrounding each of her children's births, she loved her children unconditionally and would spend all of her time doing her best to educate them and care for them. The three children that remained with her that were not taken by Joseph, she taught them

how to read and how to write. And when Joseph had given them a TV and a radio to keep down there, she would use those two items to try to teach her kids about the outside world and she would promise them that someday they would get to experience it for real. Finally in 2008, so 24 years after Elizabeth had originally been captured by her father, her oldest daughter Kirsten becomes extremely sick and Elizabeth convinces Joseph to bring her to the hospital and one week later Joseph's heinous crimes were revealed to the world. Once police found out about the secret prison, they rushed to the house and they went downstairs and they used the codes and instructions that Joseph had given them. And they went inside and they freed the last two remaining children that were still there.

When they brought them to the hospital, the youngest of these two kids, who was five years old, he didn't speak the entire time. He just pressed his face up against the glass of the car window and he stared out in utter amazement because to that point in his life, he had never actually seen the world. After those two kids were brought to the hospital, they were reunited with the other three siblings that had been taken away from them years ago to live upstairs with Joseph and Rosemary. And apparently the reunion was very emotional and the kids were extremely happy to see each other. And then a couple days later, Kirsten would come out of her coma and she too would have a chance to be reunited with all of her siblings. Kirsten would ultimately make a full recovery.

It would turn out she was suffering from a severe vitamin D deficiency. And vitamin D you primarily get from the sun. And in her 19 years of life, she had never been in the sun. As soon as the story broke about this family being trapped inside of this basement, everybody had the same question. How could Elizabeth's mother, Rosemary, not know what was going on in her basement? But the police had the same suspicions about Rosemary, and they investigated her, and they ruled her out. And they said she's not at fault here, She's a victim too. She had been so badly abused by Joseph that she lived in fear of him. And so when he forbade her from ever going anywhere near the basement, she listened.

And if she ever heard any strange sounds coming out of the basement, or if she ever suspected any strange behavior by Joseph, she kept those thoughts to herself because she was scared. It's also worth noting that in those 24 years that Elizabeth and her kids were trapped in the basement, Joseph had over 100 people rent out a room inside of his house that was right over the basement. And in those 24 years, not one of those tenants ever said Joseph was acting strangely or complained about strange noises coming from the basement. However, one tenant who was there for a four-year stretch had a dog with him the whole time, and every night the dog at some point would suddenly stand up, its ears would prick up, and it would start growling like it heard or it

saw something. And at first, this tenant would try to see what the dog had seen or heard, but after never seeing anything, he would always just dismiss the dog when it did this at night. Later on, when that tenant figured out what was actually happening inside the house while he was there, he realized his dog was most likely hearing the faint sounds of the family that was imprisoned right below him. After a year of therapy and rehabilitation, Elizabeth and her six kids were given new identities by the Austrian government, and they were sent off to a secret location to start their lives over. As such, there's virtually no information about how they're doing today. However, anonymous sources have come forward and said the family has successfully reintegrated

into society, and they are all leading relatively normal and happy lives. As for Joseph, he was quickly given a life sentence, and today he is one of the most hated people in his prison due to the nature of his crimes. He is so hated that in 2016 when he was out in general population he was attacked by other inmates and had several of his teeth knocked out. And so now prison officials are worried if they leave him in general population he'll be killed and so he spends virtually all of his time in solitary confinement. He will be eligible for parole in 2024 when he is 89 years old. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Boland Podcast. If you got something out of this episode and you haven't done this already, please offer to help the 5-star review button pack up their things so

they can move, but only use old weak tape so the bottom of their moving boxes drop out as soon as anyone tries to lift them. Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Ballin Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Google, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. This podcast airs every Monday and Thursday morning, but in the meantime, you can always watch one of the hundreds of stories I have posted on my YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to get in touch with me, please follow me on any major social media platform and then send me a direct message. My username is just at Mr. Ballin, and I really do read the majority of my DMs. Lastly, we have some really cool merchandise, so head on over to shopmrballin.com to have a look. So that's gonna do it.

I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya. I'm going to go. dot com slash survey. Hey, Mr. Ballin fans. Did you know you can listen to episodes of this very show ad-free and one month early on Amazon Music with your Prime membership? That's right. All your favorite Mr. Ballin episodes can be heard on Amazon Music ad-free, and you'll always be the first one to catch our new episodes. But that's not all. You get access to other amazing shows like Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Morbid, 48 Hours, and 2020,

all ad-free too. And you know what that means, uninterrupted listening, so no more cliffhangers. Amazon Music is your home for all things true crime and offers the most ad-free top podcasts, so we definitely have something for you. And it's already included in your Prime membership. To listen now, all you need to do is go to amazon.com slash ballin. That's amazon.com slash ballin, or download the free Amazon Music app. It's just that easy.