RedHanded - Episode 178 - Josef Fritzl & His Cellar of Horror - Part 3

Episode Date: December 17, 2020

In the concluding part of this terrifying series, we learn how Josef Fritzl's terrible secret was finally discovered, how his bizarre trial unfolded and what became of Elisabeth and her children. Sources: www.redhandedpodcast.com  Merch: www.redhandedshop.com    See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Sruti. And welcome to Red Handed. And it is the third, final, and concluding part of our Josef Fritzl series. We can call it a series. We're that type of show now. We are. And I feel that people have been enjoying.

How have we been feeling about this serialized kilt? Kilt? Tilt? I don't know, whatever. Yeah, we will be now selling Josef Fritzl-themed kilts in the merch store. Absolutely. They are being manufactured in his failed lingerie factory. Have they heard that? I don't know if you've heard that yet. Is it in this

part? Is it in last week's part? You're going to find out. I can't remember. But as much as I have enjoyed sort of doing this really kind of deep dive into one particular case, and I do think that Fritzl was a case that needed it. I am very glad that we don't have to talk about him ever again because I'm sick of him. I'm sick of the man. Get out of my face, Yosef. We sincerely hope that you're not all sick of it and you're actually here for answers, which we promise this week will be coming your way. Last week, if you will so kindly cast your minds back, we left Elizabeth in the cellar. She'd been there for years and she's got four children by that stage in the game and of course they are all fathered by joseph fritzl himself there's kirsten and stefan who lived in the cellar with elizabeth and then there's monica

and lisa whom joseph managed to smuggle upstairs to his upstairs family after he dumped them on his own doorstep and by this point eliz Elizabeth was finding a way to cope with her captivity by focusing on her children and their needs. So Yosef, back to him and how he is juggling his upstairs life with his secret family. To get the supplies, so to get food and, you know, things that the kids and Elizabeth needed,

he would drive an hour and a half to shops in various other towns so that he wouldn't run the risk of anybody recognizing him. And with the food that he brought the kids, he would buy things like frozen fish fillets, bottles of Fanta, bread dumplings, sausages, and tins of preserved foods like potatoes, rice, beans, spaghetti, and ice cream. From these basic ingredients, Elizabeth would cook three meals a day for her children. And on festive occasions, Yosef would allow Elizabeth to make decorations from paper. And on birthdays, if supplies allowed, she would even make the kids birthday cakes. Kirsten and Stefan

would obviously be overjoyed during these celebrations. That is, except for when their father decided to join them. The children were scared of him at the best of times, but during these celebrations, Josef Fritzl would turn up wearing a Krampus mask. And if you don't know what that is, it's a Germanic fairy-tale horned creature who's said to eat children. So unsurprisingly, the mask get-up would usually end with the children terrified and crying. I want to say what's wrong with this man, but where do you start? Did you know, I'm going to upset people in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands,

they don't have Father Christmas, they have Sinterklaas. And Sinterklaas doesn't have elves, he has black people, in particularly Black Pete. But I understand that they, in folklore, they are slaves. But then sometime around 1970, everyone decided that they weren't slaves anymore. They were just Father Christmas's friends and they were there of their own free will. I see. I see. Is that why the Dutch have that thing where they do blackface?

Yeah. What's that about? It's the same thing, yeah. Oh, okay. I see. I see. Okay. So anyway, various European Christmas folklore aside, Yosef's violence towards Elizabeth also continued. Because although things were sort of normalizing downstairs with the children's routine, etc.,

he would still come down into the cellar twice a day and take Elizabeth into the other bedroom, away from the children, and rape her. Like we said, Yosef had completely convinced himself by this point that their relationship was a consensual one. In his mind, they were essentially husband and wife. He had his upstairs family, and then he had his downstairs family. It was fine.

And by 1995, Elizabeth was once again pregnant. Only this time, and again, this just fucking made me want to weep. This time, when she realized she was pregnant, she could tell by the size of her belly and the movement she felt in her womb that she was probably carrying twins. Oh, God. Exactly, because I feel like twins is a scary prospect,

even if you know you're going to be in a hospital with trained medical professionals. The delivery of twins is not an easy process. So Elizabeth found herself more anxious than ever about this particular pregnancy. But she mentally prepared herself for months. And on the 28th of April 1996, the day finally came. And this time, Yosef was actually there in the cellar. He sat and ate supper with Stefan

and Kirsten, whilst Elizabeth lay on the floor in the next room, screaming from the agony of labour. When the first twin, Michael, was born, his umbilical cord was noticeably paler than the previous children's. And Elizabeth was worried, but she had no time to think about it because she was still in labour. Baby number two was well on the way. And this delivery proved to be much more difficult, certainly something that under normal circumstances would have needed the intervention of a doctor. But in the cellar, Elizabeth only had herself and her rapist jailer by her side. The second baby boy, Alexander, was born and for the first few hours he seemed perfectly fine.

And so did his brother, until Michael, the first twin, began to wheeze, showing signs that he was having difficulty breathing. And then his legs went rigid and he refused to feed. I think your legs go rigid when you've got polio. Anyway, I'm sure I'll find out immediately that I am wrong. The following day, Michael was still alive, but his condition had become much worse. Elizabeth begged and pleaded with him to get their baby son some medical attention, but Yosef simply ignored her. Josef shrugged his shoulders at the distraught Elizabeth and said, whatever will be, will be.

And then he disappeared upstairs for a few hours. On the 1st of May 1996, despite his mother doing everything she could think of to save his life, Michael Fritzl died. And for 24 hours, his tiny, pale, rigid body stayed wrapped in a blanket next to Elizabeth. The following day, Yosef returned to the cellar, picked up his dead newborn son and threw the body into a furnace, incinerating it. And Yosef said to Elizabeth, perhaps he would have been disabled.

Who knows? Maybe this was a good thing. And I know he's done a lot of fucking horrendous things by this point but i don't know when i read that about him picking up michael's body and just throwing him into the furnace in front of elizabeth it shocked me and i don't know why i was shocked at this point but it did it's just so callous as if everything else isn't it just proves that they're things it's their possessions i think yeah this one's broken. We don't need it anymore. Chuck it, get it, like, whatever. It's gone. Forget it. Move on. Yeah, I certainly can't bring it upstairs. I can't be bothered to look after it. Exactly. And so another year passed. And on the 3rd of August 1997, yet another child,

the third, in fact, that was found on the doorstep of the Fritzl family. This one was Alexander, their surviving twin, and he was now 15 months old and had a full head of blonde hair. Alexander would grow up to be told by everybody who knew him that he was the spitting image of his grandfather, Josef. Yikes. Multiple yikes. Absolutely. So once again, social services arrived at the Fritzl house and deemed Rosemary and Yosef fit to care for this child, whilst the police attempted to find Elizabeth. This is just fucking unbelievable. By this point, just three kids have randomly turned up on the doorstep

and none of them have been DNA tested. They're just like, oh, OK, we believe you, that these kids are coming from Elizabeth, your fucking cult adult daughter. It's just remarkable. And we say that the police were attempting to find Elizabeth, but there's no evidence that this is what the police were doing. And there's no evidence that they even examined the note

that had been left with Alexander this time. It was as if they'd given up looking for this mysterious cult member who would just magically drift onto the busiest street in Amsterdam, dropping off her babies unnoticed whenever she needed to. And once again, of course, Josef decided not to apply for adoption with Alexander, because if instead of adopting him, he kept him as a foster child, he was entitled to 400 euros a month from the state per child, as he was with the other kids. So for a third time, Josef had managed to fool everybody. And so, as a little treat to himself, he decided that what he really deserved was a holiday. So he left both his families and jetted off to Kenya on a safari trip for two weeks. Whilst he was there,

he even sent a postcard to a friend telling him how much he was enjoying the discos, the bars, and of course, the local brothels. Yosef loves a brothel. He does. He's just, I don't know, I don't even know where to begin. So during this time, back in the cellar, Elizabeth's physical health was beginning to deteriorate, and she started to exhibit health problems of a woman much older than 31. But at the age of 61, the age at which most men might think about retiring, Yosef showed no signs of slowing down. He even started a number of new never-to-be-completed projects on the family home.

He went on another holiday to Thailand, and he regularly took himself off fishing. He even started a company in the late 90s selling women's underwear. There are people out there who bought pants from Yosef Fritzl. Someone's grandma had a Yosef Fritzl bra. Not even someone's grandma, this is in the 90s, the 90s yeah someone's mom fuck someone listening right now this is what i keep because it's all it sounds so archaic like it's in austria you feel like it's in this like castle in the middle of nowhere that looks like cold and it's like in the 40s but it's not it's the mid 90s it's fucking mad yeah yeah by the time he starts

the underwear company is in the 90s but like this is just rampantly progressing into the 2000s i hate saying the phrase noughties i hate it i refuse to say i'm gonna say the 2000s oh no i refuse i no i'm sorry i remember the first time i heard it on the radio it was like on fucking radio 2 or something i was like what no sorry we won't be saying it. Absolutely not. Refuse. So unfortunately, his 90s women's underwear company didn't last very long. It became unprofitable, so he closed it down. And after this, it did seem like he slowed down a bit.

Until that was in 2002, when Elizabeth gave birth to her seventh and final child in the cellar. This time it was a little baby boy, and he was born around ten days before Christmas. Elisabeth named him Felix. And it was after this that Josef, who was now by this point 71 years old, began building something of a property empire. He started buying apartment blocks, villas and houses all around Amsterdam and its surrounding area.

In fact, and I think that this really illustrates just how persuasive a man Josef Fritzl could be. Over the course of five years, Josef Fritzl, a man in his 70s, managed to convince local banks to lend him 3.5 million euros so that he could fund these new properties. Do we think that Josef Fritzl single-handedly led to the 2008 housing crisis? How was he able to get this?

I can't get a fucking mortgage and Josef Fritzl can get over 3 million euros. In his 70s. It's mad. Do I say not in this economy? I'm not going to say it. You guys know it. And if you're wondering why he's starting all this in his 70s, it's no coincidence that this new dream of a property empire coincided with the birth of Felix. Because it was now that Yosef had for the first time started to view his family in the cellar as a threat. Kirsten was 14 and Stefan was 12 and it wouldn't be long before they were grown-ups and the potential for a three against one scenario in the cellar made Yosef feel a bit frightened. He was scared that one day his

children in the cellar would rise up against him. And this is why he started to plan how he was going to bring Elizabeth and the children out of the cellar and back into the real world without compromising himself. And a part of this plan was to establish an economically viable future for his children, because he is a finance guy at the end of the day. So he went on his property buying spree. Even Josef Fritzl was not deluded enough to think that Elizabeth, Stefan and Kirsten would be able to live and work normally. So he decided he was going to assign each of them a role in his own company after he freed them. He decided that Elizabeth was going to be his secretary,

Kirsten could be his cook, and Stefan could be a builder and help him with this property empire that he just bought. But baby Felix was Josef's particular favourite, and Josef planned to groom Felix into his heir and successor. Fritzl was sure that Elizabeth had become broken down by him and that she would never attempt to expose his lie of the cult story. And presumably he thinks he's going to manufacture the situation where Elizabeth just shows up with these kids like, I'm back, but I can't do anything because I'm so culted now. Been practicing my typing, dad. I've got Mavis Beacon on CD-ROM and now I can be your secretary It just shows again the level of delusion that Josef Fritzl has

that he thinks oh you know it's all getting a bit risky down there in that cellar they're probably just gonna fucking whack me one day when I go down there need to get them out I know I'll give each of them a job that I've thought of

I'm sure that none of them will ever say anything and also the other plus side is that he gets to look like the hero now. He gets to look like the hero dad who had this wayward daughter who ran off and joined a cult, but she came back with her kids and he's been raising the other three of them

that she kept dumping on his doorstep and now he's going to save all of them because he's such a fucking hero. This is his dream. This is his fantasy. And so, by the autumn of 2007, Yosef had written to the tenants of two of the downstairs flats

in the apartment block of 40 Yibstrasse, informing them that his runaway daughter was returning soon with her three children and that they needed to piss off pretty quick. And as soon as they were gone, Josef knocked down the conjoining walls and merged the two flats, together creating an apartment

large enough for his family in the cellar to call home. Around this time, he also had Elizabeth write another letter again, dressed to himself and Rosemary, informing them that she was coming home with her three children. Just like that, I'm just leaving this cult and bringing my kids home. I have come to my senses now and I am returning to the house that I ran away from when I was 18 years old

and never, ever, ever wanted to return to. Also, she's supposed to have moved in with her sister, right, when she's 18. And, like, her stuff was there. And nobody thinks that's weird. Yep. They're just like, well, she's joined a cult. She doesn't need all her stuff. That's why. It's fine. It makes total fucking sense. Eve, there's so many issues.

So Yosef's miraculous reunion that would merge his upstairs and his downstairs family was set to happen at the end of 2008. But in March 2008, Kirsten, who was now 19, had become very ill indeed. She developed a fever that wouldn't go away, that was accompanied by cold sweats, fits of coughing, and she began intermittently slipping in and out of consciousness. Joseph, as usual, just shrugged his shoulders, assuming that Kristen would get better in time on her own, as long as he gave her some aspirin, the miracle drug. But by April, Kirsten began suffering from fits which seemed to resemble epilepsy. And so Elizabeth once again found herself pleading and begging Yosef to get

her child medical attention. So Yosef decided that his plans would have to be executed early. And on Saturday, the 19th of April, 2008, that's right, 2008. This is so recent. That was the year I started university. Isn't that crazy? So yeah, sorry. So on Saturday the 19th of April 2008, Rosemary was on holiday in Italy with a friend, and so Yosef grabbed the opportunity. At just before 7am, he and Elizabeth carried their dangerously ill daughter out of the cellar and into the main house. They carried Kirsten upstairs and through a corridor which led to the apartment block,

and then into Yosef's first floor apartment, where they laid her unconscious feverish body on Joseph's bed. This was the first time that Elizabeth had left the cellar in 24 years. But even then all she could think about was her children. She only thought of Kirsten's well-being and also of how scared Stefan and Felix must have been because they were alone in the cellar for the first time in their lives. So once she made Josef promise to take Kirsten to hospital, Elizabeth ran immediately back to the cellar and to her sons. Josef then waited an hour and a half to phone for an ambulance,

which again, I don't know why. Is he like hoping that in the hour and a half something miraculous is going to happen? Or is he hoping that Kirsten might just die? I don't know. But neither happen and he eventually calls for an ambulance. The paramedics when they arrived assessed the pale injured and unconscious 19 year old and after their preliminary examination it was clear to them that even with medical help it wasn't guaranteed that she would survive. Yosef told them that he'd never seen this girl before but that she was his granddaughter. Again, this is the thing that is so fucking baffling

about the babies and about this situation with Kirsten. He's expecting these people to believe that without any confirmation that these kids are his grandkids, apart from a random letter stapled to them, he's willing to accept that they are his blood. Like, how does that even make any fucking sense anyway? But anyway, they believe it, apparently, and Kirsten was stretched into the back

of the ambulance. Josef told them he'd follow behind in his car, but what he had to do first was run down into the cellar and have Elisabeth write another letter describing Kirsten's symptoms. He then drove to Amstetten Hospital, where he found himself immediately summoned into intensive care for a talk with Dr Reiter. Dr Reiter was caring for Kirsten, who was now in a medically-induced coma, hooked up to a life-support machine, and as the doctor put it, her life was hanging in the balance.

Dr Reiter needed to know every detail Joseph could tell him about Kirsten's appearance and her condition, but all Yosef could give him was the note he had made Elizabeth write. Dr. Reiter would later say how he had a strange feeling about the story Yosef was telling him, but at the time his number one priority was gathering as much information as he could to save Kirsten's life. It was only three days later that he would act upon his intuition that something didn't totally add up about Josef's cult story and how Elisabeth had simply abandoned her terminally ill daughter on his doorstep.

So Dr Reiter made contact with the homicide detectives of Lower Austria's criminal police and the state prosecutor at the time, Christine Burkheiser. He informed them he believed Kirsten was potentially a victim of poisoning and the only hope to save her life was if they agreed to make a media appeal for Elizabeth to return to Amstetten. And so on the same day by mid-afternoon both an appeal was made on the radio for Elizabeth to return to Amstetten and the police had issued a warrant for her arrest. Elizabeth was accused of grievous bodily harm through neglect, abusing or neglecting a minor or a defenceless person and abandoning an injured person. I didn't know that was a crime.

That's interesting. I mean, you obviously, it's not nice, but like if someone falls over and you like leave them. Yeah, I guess maybe it depends on how seriously they're injured. I guess it would be like if you hit someone with your car and then fled, you've left the scene of a crime where someone could die. I don't know. Yeah, I guess. Not long after this, a journalist got in touch to put together a news story and phoned Yosef for a statement. And he found it odd when Yosef refused to appear on camera to make an appeal that could save his granddaughter's life. During this time, Yosef had also revealed to the police a letter he made Elizabeth write earlier that year in February, announcing that she was planning on returning to Yibstrasza with her three children. So many fucking letters. This is

2008 and he's like look at all these letters I have that perfectly fit together in the timeline. Fucking hell. Oh my god. Like the only possible reason in 2008 you wouldn't have a phone is a cult. Like which maybe. Like who did you know who didn't have a phone in 2008 i have no one not a single person so one of the detectors has a look at this letter and is quite confused by the fact that it had a chemmatin postmark chemmatin at which i'm sure i'm saying entirely wrong is only about eight miles from amstetten he's getting lazy in his old age isn't he fritzl yeah just eight my oh you know just it's only 20 minutes just in the area I've got an hour to kill on a Sunday I'll just drive around but the connection wouldn't be made

until years later the detective had finally clocked that Yosef owned a block of flats in Kermatin so that's why he was there and that's why he used that boast box nope there's no absolutely no investigation going on what so fucking ever this is shit but the detective did however collect the most recent note that Josef Fritzl had given Dr Reiter, the one with all of the symptoms that Kirsten had been suffering from, and he took this letter to a man named Manfred Wolfhard which is the most Germanic name I can possibly think of. Manfred Wolfhard. Yes, Manfred. I'm here for it. And he was a Catholic church's local diocese expert on cults and fringe religious groups, which just makes me love Manfred even more. Like what a fucking cool job. He's the fucking cult expert

for the local church. Love it. So not only had Manfred studied communes and sex since the 1980s, he had also lived very close to the Fritzls in Amstetten. However, this was the first time he'd ever been consulted by the police regarding Elizabeth. So this guy's the local fucking cult expert. He lives down the fucking road

and no one had ever spoken to him about the Fritzl case. Also, like, who just has your friendly neighborhood cult expert? Like who? I know. How does that happen? I mean maybe everyone has them and maybe there's some sort of cult expert directory that I'm not aware of but it does seem mad. I mean if you're not aware of it that's fine Hannah. The police they should have access to that fucking cult expert directory who lives down the fucking road and, like, would have known about this case. As in about the kids turning up and about there being a cult. Because it was actually reported in a local newspaper in the area

that this local cult girl kept dropping her babies off at her parents' house. So, like, the fact that nobody spoke to him is absolutely infuriating. And when he was eventually spoken to, Manfred would be the very first person to cast doubt on Yosef's cult story. He told detectives it was highly unusual that Elizabeth didn't mention a single detail about the cult that she'd supposedly run off to and been living with for the last 24 years in any of her letters. See, this is Yosef Ritzel's downfall. A lack of imagination.

He doesn't give them some cult facts, some cult info. He misses all of that out. Manfred was also not aware of any cult, the few that were in existence in Austria at the time, who would happily send away children born into their community in such a way, ill or not. This is such an important point. What sort of a cult would have babies born into the cult, like all those kids, and then allow Elizabeth Fritzl to escape and leave them at her parents' house and then come back? That doesn't make any sense. Cults surely want all the kids kept in the fucking cult, because that's how they grow, right? Yeah, that would be, I would argue that a cult would be like, Elizabeth, you can leave, fine, fuck you, but these kids are staying here. Exactly. Kids are too valuable to cults that this makes any

fucking sense. Manfred also advised the police to look deeper into the Fritzl family and Yosef, pointing out the only reason anybody believed that Elizabeth Fritzl had run off and joined a cult was on his word from the very start. So it had now been three days since Kirsten had been admitted to hospital and Elisabeth, Stefan and Felix were still waiting in the cellar to hear any news about her condition. But with the increased police presence at number 40 Yibstrasse and more and more family members arriving home, Josef hadn't gone downstairs since he made Elisabeth write that final letter. By now, Rosemary had also rushed back from Italy and was splitting her time between Kirsten's bedside

and the family home caring for Monica, Alexander and Lisa. People in the house would later recall how Yosef's behaviour during this time seemed totally ordinary. In fact, he appeared pretty upbeat and spent the days returning to his building work on the house and also going to view other properties that he was considering buying. The television in the cellar was constantly on, and by chance, Elizabeth switched on the news at the moment that Dr. Reiter was staring down the camera, desperately pleading for the return of Kirsten's mother in order to save her life. The following Thursday, Yosef received

a phone call from one of the detectives who requested a DNA sample from him in order to be certain that Kirsten was indeed Elizabeth's daughter. And obviously, Yosef was not going to allow this. He said he was far too busy and working all day. What else is at the top of your priority list, like, apart from your dying granddaughter? Like, I think he is so convinced that his way of thinking is logical that he can't understand that this is an enormous red flag to everyone around him. He's just like, I want to do this, so why would I not do it? Absolutely. No, that's a big part of it, for sure, I think. Like what only children are like.

Yeah, you're right. It's like he doesn't realise that his behaviour is incredibly odd to the outside world in him refusing to give a DNA sample. But to be fair, up until this point, whatever he said, he has gotten away with it. Yosef spent the next week speaking to his lawyers and told Elizabeth that he couldn't release her until he had managed to convince a lawyer of the cult story and obviously how he convinced the leaders to release her and her three children.

Because he's the hero, obviously. Yes, quite. And he also wanted to make sure the lawyer knew that Elizabeth couldn't be questioned on her own by the police. And so just before midnight on the Friday, Josef crept into the cellar and gave Elizabeth, Stefan and Felix a change of clean clothing each. Then he led them through the two electronically controlled doors of the dungeon they had lived in for the past 24 years. And then they went through a tiny hole behind the shelf in his workshop,

through some corridors and finally into number 40 Yibstrasse. Quietly, Josef led them to a bedroom upstairs where they spent the night and the following day, Josef introduced them quite casually to the other half of their family and the children they'd never met. Around 4pm that day, exactly a week since Kirsten had been admitted into hospital, Josef phoned Dr Reiter to inform him that Elizabeth had returned from the cult, just like he had said she would. They agreed to meet at the intensive care unit, and to the doctor's disappointment, neither of them were able to shed any more light on what may have been wrong with Kirsten. At around 9pm, when Yosef and Elizabeth were ready to leave and

go home, two detectives were waiting for them at the entrance to the hospital where they arrested Elizabeth. In the eyes of the detectives, this was just a simple missing persons case. And now, with Elizabeth back, it was more or less solved. The first thing they did was separate father and daughter into two interview rooms. And they began with Elizabeth, who for quite some time stuck to her father's cult story. But when the detectives told her that if she didn't tell them the truth, they would have to call social services and that she and her children would be separated and the kids would most likely be put into care, Elizabeth reconsidered. She made the police promise that her children would never have to face Yosef again. And then she told the two detectives everything.

Absolutely everything that her father had done to her. And so at 11.15pm, Josef Fritzl, who was waiting in the next room, was arrested and one of the detectives went to Yibstrasse to pick up Felix and Stefan. The following day, the police collected their DNA sample from Josef. I'm Jake Warren and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding

Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me.

And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death.

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In an interview, the detective who went to pick up Stefan and Felix from the house spoke of how heartwarming it was to watch Stefan marvel at the streetlights and the roads and the cars and the other people. Apparently, he pointed at the moon and asked the police officer, is that where God lives? No, I can't go. It's so fucking awful. It's like in room when the little kid sees the dog and I'm like, oh my God, fucking, I can't, I need to go lie down. So by the following Sunday, Yipstrasza was of course crawling with camera crews, journalists, paparazzi and media helicopters buzzing overhead. Because again, we're going to remind you, this is in 2008, people. So yeah, media helicopters everywhere, press absolutely everywhere.

Apparently at this point, a picture of Elisabeth or any of her children was going for about 300,000 euros. But of course, by this point, Elisabeth was no longer at number 40. She, along with her children and Rosemary, were being cared for at the Amstetten Mauer Clinic, a psychiatric and medical facility just five miles away, and it was being pretty heavily protected by police. Apparently, they had all gotten on quite well for the first couple of months. This means, like Elizabeth, the kids and Rosemary.

But, eventually, Elizabeth began to dislike how Monica, Lisa and Alexander would call Rosemary mama. And she asked Rosemary to leave. I think there's also going to be an element there where she knows that Rosemary was scared of Yosef and all of that. But I think that resentment would still have been there from Elizabeth. Oh, 100%. And also from Elizabeth's point of view, like, yes, Rosemary is also a victim. But from Elizabeth's point of view, like, yes, Rosemary is also a victim, but from Elizabeth's point of view, it's her mum and she didn't help her. Exactly. Absolutely. So after all of this and after Yosef had been arrested, he had reluctantly given the police the codes for the electronic doors to the cellar dungeon.

A forensic team had then entered that Sunday evening, but the air was so foul they decided to work in three-hour shifts. These are people who are probably wearing protective gear and are used to doing this kind of thing. Elizabeth and her kids were living down there for decades, and these people were going down in three-hour shifts because it was so disgusting. And among the many disturbing things that they found down there were rohypnol tablets, two pairs of handcuffs, a leather whip, two colour photos of an unknown girl sitting naked

in one of the bathtubs of the apartment block, two more nude photos of unknown women, a variety of sex toys, a typewritten story entitled The Scent Bernard, which described a young widow's sexual relationships with a dog, a ten-page-long sadomasochistic questionnaire titled imaginary conversation between a whore and a slave oh fucking read a hundred days of sodom have you dickhead like that it's the most like i'm doing an art degree and like it's all about like incest

like fuck you i hate it he's a dickhead i fucking hate him and they also found the photocopied contents of a diary of a young woman who had lived as a tenant in the apartment block from 1989 to 1991. So this again shows Joseph Fritzl's kind of like peeping Tom Marie voyeurism, breaking in and stealing stuff. Like he must have basically crept into this woman's apartment when she was out and photocopied her diary. And this, all this stuff, like fuck, it's just everything isn't it it's like incest rape torture bestiality voyeurism it's everything wrapped up into one horrible horrible fucking celeb smorgasbord of shit and this is just a tiny sample of what they found out there

it's horrendous people were obviously horrified by the discoveries and wanted the police to take accountability. But every time they were questioned by the media as to whether they should be held responsible for Fritzl having been able to keep his daughter and children locked up in the cellar unnoticed for 24 years, the lower Austrian police would deliberately misinterpret the question or just sidestep it altogether. And Fritzl didn't really take much responsibility either. When Josef was first cross-examined by the state prosecutor, Christine Burkheiser, he told her, quote, I'm no monster. Kirsten would not be alive today if it wasn't for me. I made sure she got to hospital. I could have killed them all. Great. So when people are like, oh, well, I could be cheating on you. I'm

not doing that. So take it. Take everything else. Josef even claimed that he'd originally locked Elizabeth up because she'd become a paint sniffing drug addict and he was saving her from herself and then went on to claim that it was her who came on to him and that their relationship had been totally consensual from the beginning i mean obviously it's unimaginable but like the way he's qualifying fucking his daughter yep yep yep and this is the thing's like, we know that it's not just the delusional side of his brain that is driving him to think that he isn't a monster. Like we said, nobody's a monster in their own story

because he's outright lying. He knows. This isn't just delusion. He knows. And he's saying this so that he doesn't have to look like the bad guy. Yosef also said that he'd never physically harmed Elizabeth in his life and that everything she told them was a total lie. He had absolutely no clue why she would make these things up about him.

Oh, I don't know, maybe because you locked her in a fucking dungeon for 24 years. And then he says that he never made death threats when she was 12 years old and he was certainly too busy travelling with work to have ever had time to sexually abuse her before she was 12 years old and he was certainly too busy traveling with work to have ever had time to sexually abuse her before she was 12 as well so he claims that that bit was a total mystery to him so absolutely no remorse regret from joseph fritzl i don't think he's physically capable of it and this one is the worst one for me he also told police that it was eliz Elizabeth who forced him not to use condoms because quote she would have felt less like it's it's amazing isn't it how people can just not take responsibility for literally anything he also told police that he'd never hit the children they just play fight with

them to teach them self-defense because of all the mountain lions that are coming into the dungeon i just don't even fucking know what to say because i don't know you've been caught red-handed am i gonna say yes i'm saying it he's been caught red-handed with the fucking family locked in a fucking cellar and he's like no it wasn't me she was totally into it my god when he was asked what happened to baby michael he told them that michael was born dead and therefore nothing could have been done about it and when he was asked why he'd kept his daughter down in a cellar for so many years he said quote i had always wanted someone there for me with whom i could share intimacies a person who wouldn't be influenced by other people someone who was at my disposal for all of my needs all the time, for conversations

as much as my sexual needs. It's like, I only read Playboy for the articles. Like, fuck you. And he also said, if she hadn't taken drugs, she wouldn't have been locked up. So it's all her fault. The babies are her fault. She's in the dungeon because it's her fault. And he's a really good guy. A disciplinarian, in fact. Yes, a good, solid father trying to lead his wayward daughter in the right direction until she, she raped him, almost, really. And she was the one who wouldn't let him wear condoms. Fucking hell.

What is an adult man supposed to do when they are being come onto by an 18 year old who is their child what else could possibly have happened in that situation even if it was true which obviously it fucking isn't no there's obviously no other option that he could possibly have taken there is also absolutely no fucking evidence anywhere whatsoever at all to suggest that elizabeth ever took drugs in fact the investigators had enough evidence to tell them that everything Josef Fritzl had told them was a complete and utter lie. The state prosecutor used a number of expert witnesses

to fight their case when it came to trial. Among these were the following. The psychiatric report on Fritzl, a neonatologist's assessment of Michael Fritzl, so the little baby, one of the twins' deaths, who concluded that Yosef could have saved his life and was therefore guilty of murder or manslaughter, and also, finally, a specially commissioned report from a man named Peter Capecki, who was an engineer. So this one's particularly interesting. So essentially,

Peter's job for the prosecution was to assess how well the seller would have been soundproofed, if at all. People obviously thought that the seller was completely like, you know, locked down. You couldn't hear a fucking thing because everybody thinks that Josef Fritzl is a genius. However, that's not exactly what Peter found. And we're going to talk about that in a second. But bear in mind when we tell you the following that these results were never used in court or ever discussed in public. I don't know why but they just weren't. So Peter tested the cellar's acoustics from the ground floor apartment and his findings were clear. Banging a fist on the

rafters, very audible. Banging broom handle on ceiling, very audible. TV, just about audible. Radio, just about audible. Chairs moving, very audible. Cries for help, audible. Fists on wall, very audible. Knocking and cries for help, very audible. Knocks on ceiling, very audible. Knocks on entrance, very audible. So a lot of the stuff that they were doing down there was very fucking audible. like we said had just assumed that nobody had heard anything but this isn't what peter found and it painted a rather horrific scenario because remember there are tenants that were living on the ground floor over the 24 year period of elizabeth and her children's imprisonment and now actually many of them say that they could hear mysterious banging and screaming from the cellar below. But they chose to ignore it.

And this is the thing, we're going to say it again, Fritzl is no genius, he's no criminal mastermind. His neighbours knew that he was a violent man who was violent towards his wife and children. He was also a convicted rapist and most people in that town also knew that. I just don't know why people didn't ask any more questions when a man like this, teenage daughter, who ran off already once to Vienna at the age of 16,

then disappeared two years later to join a cult and then abandoned three children on his doorstep. Why nobody asked any more questions about this? Yosef's neighbours saw him on countless occasions going into his cellar carrying groceries and a torch in the middle of the night. His daughter had sent letters home, which had been posted from towns within five miles of Amstetten, where Yosef owned properties. carrying groceries and a torch in the middle of the night. His daughter had sent letters home, which had been posted from towns within five miles of Amstetten,

where Josef owned properties. And still, the police either couldn't put two and two together or just refused to be bothered to do their actual jobs. And it also makes you wonder about Rosemarie too. We'll never really know how much she knew because the police decided she was too fragile. So she was never actually formally interviewed by police, ever. And they also clearly didn't need her. And they didn't really need her to be interviewed because the prosecution had a pretty easy case to fight here.

The very existence of the cellar, along with the evidence of the forensic teams had collected there, was enough to incriminate Josef beyond any doubt, reasonable or otherwise. Like, there is no doubt. It's black and white, I think. However, the problem they had was how to make sure that he faced a life sentence because anything less would, of course, be unacceptable. At the time, Austrian law carried only a one-year sentence for incest and a maximum sentence of 15 years for rape

and not to mention Australian law would have allowed Yosef to serve multiple rape sentences concurrently. So the longest sentence they could have pinned on him was a slavery charge from the 19th century penal code, but even that only had a 20-year sentence. Thankfully, the report from the state prosecutor's neonatologist expert witness report was enough to hold Yosef responsible for

the death of baby Michael. He chose to ignore his baby son's breathing difficulties and rigid legs 13 years ago, which now allowed the state prosecutor to argue that Yosef was guilty of murder. And on Monday, the 12th of November 2009, Yosef Fritzl was charged with murder, slavery, rape, deprivation of liberty, coercion and incest. Throughout the trial, Yosef denied everything, painting the picture of a loving father protecting his drug-addicted daughter, and then the story of how they fell in love, accusing Elizabeth of lying about everything. That was until Elizabeth's video testimony was played in the courtroom, in front of Yosef. When he saw this, something happened in him. He visibly broke down. He cried,

and the following day he confessed his guilt to the judge. He confessed to everything his daughter said, and he said that it was all true, and confessed that he should have saved his son's life. According to Yosef Fritzl, it was only when he watched Elizabeth's testimony that he realized how cruel he had been to her and he said that he had just never realised it before. At trial the court also heard from Dr Idlehaid Katzner who had interviewed Fritzl six times and if you've watched a documentary on Fritzl you've probably seen her too. As Dr Katzner made her statements to the court some journalists noticed how a usually still Fritzl began twisting his fingers awkwardly. Dr Katzner spoke of noticed how a usually still Fritzl began twisting

his fingers awkwardly. Dr Katzner spoke of how she believed Josef Fritzl's sexual behaviour and compulsion to dominate women was a way of him compensating for the defencelessness and humiliation he felt as a child. She went on to say that Josef was indeed responsible for his actions, but he did have a severe combined personality disorder and a very thin grasp of the gravity of his crimes. Josef even told Dr Katzner that he believed he would be allowed to live the rest of his days with his wife, minding his property business after pleading guilty and getting a very short prison sentence. But on Thursday the 19th of March, the jury found Josef Fritzl guilty of all charges. And he was imprisoned at the psychiatric

unit in Garsten Prison. Just a 40-minute car ride from Yibstrasse. And this year, so in 2020, Elisabeth Fritzl turned 54 years old. And today she lives in the Austrian countryside with her children. And I did look into this a little bit and I just thought this was really cute. So the village is only referred to anywhere as Village X. And the people of the village really take such good care of Elizabeth and her children. Sources say that aside from the CCTV that surrounds her house that's constantly monitored by police. So if anyone who is a stranger approaches the house, the police are there immediately and you're going to get arrested. The people of the village have also formed a little, like, army to keep Elizabeth and her kids safe. And strangers near her house are not tolerated by the locals.

That just made me so, like, happy slash sad. I love that so much. That is lovely. Apparently on Antiparos, where Tom Hanks lives, all of the locals are like, slash sad. I love that so much. That is lovely. Apparently on Antiparos where Tom Hanks lives, all of the locals are like, get away. They're all really protective of him. I like Tom Hanks. I hope we don't ever find out something horrible about him because I like him. That's all the evidence I needed. And also another Hannah's classics corner fact about Antiparos, it is the island where Polyphemus the Cyclops lived in the Odyssey. Oh, the one that

they blinded. That's fun. Cool. Anyway, sorry. So yeah, nice things. Elizabeth and her children are being very well looked after. And if you remember, obviously they lived in that cellar. Elizabeth was in that cellar for over two decades. Her and her children came out from there broken and sick. The children had never seen or felt sunlight on their skin. Kirsten was 19 years old. I mean, it's just unbelievable to even imagine. But the good thing is that we can say that since then, all of them have come so far. Apparently in 2009, and this is some other good news, so everyone listen up, Elizabeth even found love. And she found it in the most kind of Hollywood way, in the most like Whitney way, with her bodyguard, a man named Thomas Wagner,

who was assigned to protect the family shortly after they kind of moved from the hospital they were kept in into the house that they now live in. And I just thought that was really adorable. And also, get it, because Thomas is like 20 years younger than Elizabeth, which I was like, yeah, girl. Yes, get it. And the kids are all now in school and they're apparently all doing really well. And also the relationship that was originally quite fractured between the kind of upstairs kids and the downstairs kids has also improved over time and you know obviously there was going to be difficulties because just they didn't really know each other they didn't spend that much time together but apparently also there was a huge feeling of sort of survivor's guilt from the children who had lived upstairs who hadn't had

to endure what Kirsten, Felix and Stefan had been through. And you can understand that, like looking at your siblings, knowing what they went through and knowing that you didn't, it would have made it very difficult for them to bond and relate. But happy to say that it seems like they've come through that. So that's nice. Something else that we thought was quite nice was after the news broke about what happened to Elizabeth, Natasha Kampusch, another Austrian girl who was kept prisoner by a man and who was only found two years before Elizabeth, donated €20,000 to Elizabeth, which is nice.

I mean, that's not peanuts, is it? That's a significant amount of money. I love it. I love it. And I actually just watched, because, you know, why the hell not? The other night I just watched the Natasha Kampusch documentary that is on Netflix. If you haven't watched it, it's definitely worth a watch. I think Natasha, like Elizabeth, is so incredibly strong. What she went through, how she escaped, and she really,

you know, took the media on as well. And that's how she did earn so much money and she was able to donate it to Elizabeth. So definitely would recommend that if you've got the stomach for it after this three-parter. And finally, just before we can all leave and never think about Joseph Fritzl again, we've got a little bit of myth-busting for you. We've seen quite a few posts on social media about this, so we wanted to address it swiftly. Some of you will have seen that. It sounds like some of you may have seen that Hannah is actually a murderer

and we will be stopping the show. that's not what we're talking about some of you will have seen that there are some articles stating that fritzl allegedly locked his mother up in a similar way the story goes that she'd moved in with him and the family in about 1960 and he confessed in his psychological evaluations before his trial for what he did to Elizabeth that he had locked up his mum Maria in the attic of Forte Yibstrasse for up to 20 years, even bricking up the windows. This story reared its head in about 2008 when court records were leaked. But in 2009, Fritzl confessed that it was a lie. It was just what he had wanted to do to his mother. His mother obviously quite viciously abused him, if you remember from part one so it's not true don't believe everything you read but believe everything we tell you most of the time because you should absolutely and it's not anyone's fault for like believing that

because it was published in like the guardian and stuff but if you reread the article they say from court documents leaked there is no evidence that this is what he did and yeah when he was interviewed again in 2009 he was just no, none of that was true. And they never found any physical evidence that that was true either. So that's just a little bit of a myth that we wanted to bust about that. So that's it. Thanks, guys, for listening to three parts on Josef Fritzl. It's one way to end what has been the year 2020.

We've got one more episode, haven't we? We have. We've got one more episode, haven't we? We have. We've got two more. We've got, well, basically, guys, what we're going to be doing is next week to take the edge off this horrendous three-parter we've just done. We're going to do a very special Red Haunted and we've got loads and loads of content packed into that.

It's going to be really fun. And then we are going to finish off the year with a very exciting case from Iceland, which is a place I don't think we've ever been before. So you're going to have to stay tuned for that. I don't think we have either, but I'm really excited to flex all my Icelandic pronunciation that I'm so good at from watching CrossFit documentaries. I'm scared. I'm scared.

But I have been to Iceland. So I'll tell you about the best ever pizza I had when I was there. Oh yeah, you've got that on me. But anyway, that's that. So if you guys would like to take the edge off immediately and not have to wait until next week, then come hang out with us in Under the Duvet, where we shall be talking about all manner of strange and wonderful things. And then we've also got an excellent In the News coming up for December for all $10 on our patrons, which will be released at some point in the next two weeks.

I don't know. I don't have the calendar in front of me and there's too many things to think about and we've literally just got off the dog with shane dunphy who's an amazing true crime author we've got a hour long interview with shane as our bonus episode for patreon this month so go and have a look at that because he tells ghost stories oh my gosh the interview is based around his most recent work which is an audible exclusive called the bad place and you should absolutely go and check it out and this isn't sponsored this is just genuinely us being like we loved this book we loved shane yeah no he's genuinely just sick yeah this none of this is an advert none of this is sponsored we're just like shane's awesome he worked in child protection for 15 years he has some stories

and you should go listen to it so yeah come hang out with us on patreon.com slash red handed shout out to Marnie Shane's daughter hi Marnie

absolutely we hear you are a big fan of the show so yes thank you so much and we have some more shout outs to do for some wonderful patrons who have signed up

at some point during this year so thank you so much to Misty Schreier page and alicia gina campbell jemma boca jessica green mark mcintyre jeanette berson john walton macy mitchell erin riv kind rivkind angel or angel i don't know. Thank you. I feel like I recognise that name, India Carruthers. I feel like I recognise that name, India Carruthers. Do we know each other?

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Well, thank you guys so much for listening. We will be back next week. Goodbye. See you next time. Bye. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud.

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