About This Episode
On August 28, 1984, Josef Fritzl lured his 18-year-old daughter Elisabeth to the basement of the family home in Amstetten, Lower Austria, under the pretense of helping her move a door. Using an ether-soaked towel, he incapacitated her and locked her in a hidden chamber he had spent years constructing. For the next 24 years, Elisabeth remained imprisoned in that basement dungeon while her father raped her repeatedly—"thousands of times" according to investigators' accounts.
Freitzl, born April 9, 1935, had methodically prepared the prison. Between 1981 and 1983, he converted a concealed cellar space into a windowless chamber, installing a washbasin, toilet, bed, hot plate, and refrigerator. The roughly 600-square-foot dungeon was accessed through a series of reinforced electronic doors, making escape virtually impossible. When Elisabeth disappeared, Fritzl told police and family members she had run away to join a religious cult—a story he supported with a forged letter that authorities accepted without serious investigation.