Austrian man admits guilt in incest, denies murder
His daughter had seven children in a dungeon. He also faces a murder charge for a child who died.
ST. POELTEN, Austria - An Austrian man accused of fathering his daughter's seven children as he locked her in a basement for decades pleaded guilty yesterday to incest but insisted he was innocent of murder and enslavement charges as his trial opened.
Josef Fritzl wore a mismatched suit and hid his face behind a file folder as a judge began the proceedings under heavy security in St. Poelten, 40 miles west of Vienna.
Fritzl, 73, faces up to life in prison if convicted of murder. Incest is punishable by up to one year in prison. A verdict was expected by Friday in a case that has drawn worldwide attention.
Fritzl pleaded guilty to incest and false imprisonment, but only partially guilty to charges of coercion and rape. He pleaded not guilty to murder by neglect and enslavement.
He spoke in an almost inaudible voice as he gave the judge his name and other personal details. His voice breaking, Fritzl briefly recalled his childhood and said life with his mother was "very difficult." Asked if he had friends, he said simply: "No."
Authorities say Fritzl imprisoned and repeatedly raped his daughter Elisabeth for 24 years in a cramped and windowless dungeon he built beneath the family's home in Amstetten. Investigators say DNA tests show he fathered her six surviving children. Another child died in infancy, and that prompted the murder charge.
Prosecutor Christiane Burkheiser accused Fritzl of repeatedly raping his daughter in front of the children. She said that Fritzl did not talk to his daughter during her first few years in captivity and that he simply went down to the cellar to rape her.
"Josef Fritzl used his daughter like his property," Burkheiser said, adding that for her first delivery he gave her an unsterilized blanket to wrap up the infant.
She said Fritzl once punished the young woman by shutting off electricity to the dungeon and forced her to spend the first part of her captivity in a tiny space with no shower or warm water. "The worst was . . . there was no daylight," Burkheiser said.
Defense lawyer Rudolf Mayer appealed to the jury to be objective and insisted Fritzl was "not a monster," saying his client took a Christmas tree down to his captives, whom he considered a second family.