Man keeps daughter captive in the cellar for 24 years

[Dahak]

I'm a bit disturbed by the ages of the children as well.
19, 18, 5 for the captives but no information on the ones they 'adopted'.
I get the feeling these 'adopted' children will have ages between 17 and 6 which makes it even more shocking it got this far. The first two ages at least indicate he was continuing to rape the mother not long after she had the first child. I dread to think what kind of damage that would do to her physical and mental well being, nevermind having your own children being forced to watch it...
Were these kids being homeschooled as a cover and would they not require some sort of formal registration along the way ?

The three kids he took as "fosterage" are 15, 14, and 12.

[PeZook]

Jesus...fuck. Goddammit!

I will have nightmares now. For fuck's sake, this is the kind of shit that gives normal people nightmares!

[Molyneux]

Let the monster rot in a cell.
I honestly had to read the topic title three times before it registered; it was like some switch in my brain simply would not accept the magnitude of what that man did, kept insisting that I had to be misreading the number. Days, months, even...but decades?

[PREDATOR490]

So the ages of this break down to: 42, 19, 18, 15, 14, 12, 5

I think the only one that has a chance of coming out of this relatively undamaged would be the 5 year old kid. The rest are all at a point where they should have been in education which I suspect they have been denied or will have witnessed this abuse.

The situation that lead to him being discovered seems to be a bit wierd. He took one of the captives to a hospital after she 'feel unconcious' which would indicate something particularily wrong happened. Perhaps a desperate gamble to try and get this 'message' from the mother out or did this guy go over the top in abuse this time ?

Did this guy just 'magically' appear with three foster children over the course of four years as new borns or was he raising them as captives until a certain point and bringing them 'upstairs'.
I'm curious to find out if an element of sexism was going on here with the girls being held captive while the boys were 'adopted'.

[Dahak]

So the ages of this break down to: 42, 19, 18, 15, 14, 12, 5

I think the only one that has a chance of coming out of this relatively undamaged would be the 5 year old kid. The rest are all at a point where they should have been in education which I suspect they have been denied or will have witnessed this abuse.

The situation that lead to him being discovered seems to be a bit wierd. He took one of the captives to a hospital after she 'feel unconcious' which would indicate something particularily wrong happened. Perhaps a desperate gamble to try and get this 'message' from the mother out or did this guy go over the top in abuse this time ?

Did this guy just 'magically' appear with three foster children over the course of four years as new borns or was he raising them as captives until a certain point and bringing them 'upstairs'.
I'm curious to find out if an element of sexism was going on here with the girls being held captive while the boys were 'adopted'.

Well, the three kids he took as "foster kids" are reported to be quite charming and good in school and socially engaged in the town. Though this new information about them and their parentage might put a dent in it for sure.
The one that was brought to hospital is in an intensive care unit, so its more than just unconscious. They seem to think it might have something to do with an hereditary disease.
And he did just "appear" with the kids and went through the normal procedures. Since everyone was thinking the mother ran away at some point to join some sect, no warning flags raised and they bought the story that the mother was putting the kids on his doorstep...
It doesn't seem like sexism, though. From the three kids that were locked up with the mother, two were male.

[Dahak]

If anyone's interested, here are some pictures of the "dungeon".

[Rye]

Jesus Christ, imagine being 18 years old and having never seen the light of day or anyone outside of your immediate family. It boggles the mind. I'm guessing he had his wife in total submission.

I also remember from 2 years ago, another Austrian girl, held captive for 8 years. Weird that both of these came from Austria.

[KlavoHunter]

Can there be any punishment severe enough for someone so depraved?

[SCRawl]

Can there be any punishment severe enough for someone so depraved?

Only if you believe in an afterlife; at 73, he's pretty close to "judgement proof" at this point.

[Solauren]

Actually, the ignorance of the mother isn't all that unbelievable.

All it would take is a converted bombshelter, accessed via a wall reinforced with something like heavy cinderblocks, and you have a sound proof room or series of rooms (depending on the bomb shelter).

Getting supplies in and out wouldn't be that hard either. The mother sleeps, and one assumes she might either go out somewhere, or have other activities. For example, the 'children of the child' in this case would be a perfect distraction. "I'm taking kid #1 to soccer". Time for a shopping trip.

All it would take is a little creativity on the mans part....


Which makes this even more tragic if you think about it. Either the mother is a complete idiot, or the man played her like a fiddle without her even realizing it. The ignorance needed for the former is astounding, and the intelligence needed for the later is formidable.


This case goes to prove a point however; if something bad happens to a child, investigate the parents while checking the other possibles out.

[K. A. Pital]

That happens from time to time. In Russia, similar stories arose recently with 1 or 2 reclusive maniacs buildings underground bunkers where they kept their enslaved women, and I think one of the times they had borned daughters from them and held those daughters as sex-slaves too.

[ray245]

There has to be a way to punish this monster

Frankly speaking, there probably isn't. What this man did is so beyond the pale of cruelty to make even a brutal person sick. Other people like this fellow aren't going to be deterred by his punishment: deterrance doesn't tend to work with even the mentally healthy.

Considering what he is and what he's done, he should be disposed of in the most cost-efficient (and beneficial) manner possible. Whether that means a bullet to the head or being caged until he croaks is of little consequence, so long as he's not allowed in normal society ever again.

[/quote]


Hell, human rights be damned, we really need mentally toture this guy until he got insane with regret.


Seriously...

[Mr. Coffee]

As bad as this might sound, this first thought I had after reading the OP was "Well, at least it's just the South..."

[Colonel Olrik]

Hell, human rights be damned, we really need mentally toture this guy until he got insane with regret.


Seriously...

Seriously, shut the fuck up.

[Raesene]

He'll not get outside of a psychiatric clinic or prison anymore, that's for sure.

The cellar/dungeon btw was not directly beneath the house, so his wife (and other relatives) might really not know what he did and how he spent his time.

What surprises me however is that nobody noticed the construction of these dungeons - usually you can't cough or sneeze in small austrian towns and villages without your neighbour saying 'bless you'.
Our tabloids are having another greats story to run.

[Surlethe]

How can a person be so broken? What went wrong with him?

[K. A. Pital]

What went wrong with him?

His psyche.

Sometimes it happens to people who are very reclusive and/or insecure with women. Well, the basic "sex-slave in the basement" crime.

But then, locking up his own daughter, definetely more fucked up than usual.

[Master of Ossus]

That happens from time to time. In Russia, similar stories arose recently with 1 or 2 reclusive maniacs buildings underground bunkers where they kept their enslaved women, and I think one of the times they had borned daughters from them and held those daughters as sex-slaves too.

Jesus! I mean, as bad as this was I had dismissed it by saying that it's only one guy... Holy shit these people are depraved.

What's going to happen to the kids? Have they all been taken into protective custody (or whatever it is over there)? Are they going to be made to stay with the (allegedly) oblivious wife? What do you do to try and repair their lives?

[PREDATOR490]

I dont think repair is even possible in this situation. The mother and two Teenage captives are likely to be a lost cause. If they have been shacked up their whole life then they will have almost no education / social skills and they are past the point where the can go to school for these things.
Even if they did manage to go out into the real world, they are going to be hounded by the legacy of this rancid situation for the rest of their life.

I wouldnt be too surprised to see them getting written off as wrecks and the chances of them ever being able to form emotional attachments to others is going to be very unlikely. The 'adopted' kids and the 5 year old might be the only ones that come out being moderately ok.

I wouldnt mind seeing how much this guy earns and what his job was. I would expect the amount of effort required in building his 'dungeon' and keeping these captives supplied to be rather expensive. It also indicates a really disgusting element of planning to this guy's actions.
He must have built this dungeon before he kidnapped his own daughter and from the photos linked above. You have sinks, toilets being brought in which would require all sorts of plumbing and additional work.

Your honestly saying this guy manage to assemble an entire dungeon completely on his own without outside help ?
The wife just manged to miss him disappearing into the cellar with all this stuff then the daughter suddenly 'disappears' around the same time a coded door is put in the cellar ?
Still not noticing as the shopping / utility bills start increasing as they supply a family of 9 ?
Not raising a single eyebrow when the daughter supposedly 'drops' off 3 children on the 'doorstep' without any documentation and the wife never seeing this daughter ?
I could MAYBE buy the idea she took the first adoption with that excuse but having it happen a further two times with the last having a space of two years between should really raise red flags. Not just from the wife either unless they were feeding outsiders a different line, in which case this wife obviously had to be implicit in this deception to a degree.

You can say it was abuse from the guy that might have forced her to keep quiet but I find it extremely strange that this guy could exert such total fear all the time for them to be unable to get help. I keep thinking about how this could work and I keep coming to the conclusion it could be a combination of fear and the illness you get when the victim begins to assosciate with their abuser (Cant remember what it is called though).

[Warsie]

I keep coming to the conclusion it could be a combination of fear and the illness you get when the victim begins to assosciate with their abuser (Cant remember what it is called though).

It's called Stockholm Syndrome

[xerex]

question.

this wife of his was the mother of the captive daughter ? or was that a previous wife ? did she marry him after he imprisoned his daughter ?

if she is the mom or married to him before the imprisonment, the I think it highly likely that she was complicit possibly even viewing her daughter as a rival.

[xerex]

ahh more info
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europ ... storyemail

The authorities have revealed that the prison, constructed in the basement of the 1960s building, ran underneath both the building itself and the garden outside.The entrance was via a small door, hidden behind cupboards in the basement, controlled by an electronic keyless-entry system. Polzer said that the prison was hard to find, even if someone was looking for it, and had been soundproofed.

"Even though they shouted and called they were not in a position to let anyone hear them," Polzer told the press conference. Polzer said that the father made clear to his wife and other children that the area was out of bounds and they were not to go into the basement. He bought food and took it to his captives in the evening.

http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8237605

District Governor Hans-Heinz Lenze said investigators were still checking whether it was possible to hear any noise from the dungeon.

"As far as we know so far, it was not possible to hear any noise. This still has to be checked but to me it is very surprising that in a property like this, where several parties live, nobody noticed that a complete second life was going on," he told reporters.
...............................................
According to the police statement, Elisabeth said that she and her children got food and clothing only from her father and that her mother had not been involved. Lenze on Monday said that Elisabeth's mother was in "a bad state".

"The mother obviously had no idea what was going on...You have to imagine that for this woman a whole world collapsed, just like for all other family members," he said.

[Dahak]

question.

this wife of his was the mother of the captive daughter ? or was that a previous wife ? did she marry him after he imprisoned his daughter ?

if she is the mom or married to him before the imprisonment, the I think it highly likely that she was complicit possibly even viewing her daughter as a rival.

She was the mother of the imprisoned daughter. He had 7 kids with her (including the imprisoned one).

[K. A. Pital]

What's going to happen to the kids?

As a rule of thumb in such cases, the small kids are put into protective custody (pre-18). Or moved to relatives who are living separately and are not complitic in sex crimes.

Are they going to be made to stay with the (allegedly) oblivious wife?

No. In case the family lives together and is complicit in sex-slave crimes, even one member, children will be taken away from them.

What do you do to try and repair their lives

The ones which are adolescent (those are also the ones who contact the police through some hidden means - usually the owner of the sex slaves sometimes puts them out to walk as dogs, or uses them as "family" in the hunt for new sex slaves), their lives can also be repaired but not to the extent the unwitting children can be protected.

Those kids' lives are ruined from the start. Some though, already 18 and 20, make it pretty fine in life, I know one of the girls held by the Russian "bunker maniac" #1 (the first such story) became a well-off management worker IIRC.

P.S. Yes, as much as I'd like that to be a singular, one of a kind crime, it's not.

[AMX]

She was the mother of the imprisoned daughter. He had 7 kids with her (including the imprisoned one).

I think you mixed something up there - he had 7 children with his imprisoned daughter, not with his wife.