A master of deception

2008-04-30 20:15

Vienna - Josef Fritzl was always a severe man but also a master of deception whose had faced charges of attempted rape, arson and insurance fraud but still did not raise suspicions about the sinister events in his home.

To many, the 73-year-old Fritzl, now in detention for holding his daughter in a windowless cellar for 24 years and making her pregnant seven times, was an ordinary pensioner.

Now the Austrian media portray him as the "monster father" who led a double-life between his flat above ground and the underground cellar in Amstetten where his daughter, Elisabeth, and her children were kept as prisoners.

Newspapers said Fritzl had an attempted rape conviction dating back to the 1960s. But this was wiped from his record and another later charge of arson and insurance fraud was also dropped.

Former colleagues of the electrical engineer described him as hard-working and courteous. Neighbours painted a picture of a quiet but polite man.

But Elisabeth was a prisoner for 24 years and three of the six children who survived being born in the dungeon never left it for many years before their rescue on Saturday.

Fritzl furnished the three tiny rooms behind a secret wall at Ybsstrasse number 40 with a sink, shower, toilet and kitchen area.

Tenants forbidden to enter

He also sublet other flats in the building. Some former tenants recalled they were forbidden to enter the cellar. "Whoever enters it will be given immediate notice," one of them said he was told, the Kurier daily reported.

Fritzl shopped outside of town to avoid raising questions about the food and clothing he was buying for the captives.

Police say he also deceived his wife Rosemarie, 69, who seems to have been unaware that her daughter was being held captive below ground.

"He often came in and he was friendly," Guenther Pramreiter, 38, who rents the bakery next to the Fritzls' house, told AFP.

"We sometimes made small talk, about the weather or the news. I remember the day the Natascha Kampusch story was on the front page of the newspaper, he said he was quite shocked."

Kampusch was kidnapped in 1998, aged 10 and held for years in an underground cell, similar to the one Fritzl built for his daughter, before escaping in August 2006.

Loving with children

"Josef often came in with the children and he was very loving with them," Pramreiter added.

But neighbours and former tenants also described Fritzl as a strict man, who ruled his household with an iron fist.

A friend who twice went on holiday to Thailand with him told the German daily Bild: "With me, he was a decent, outgoing and funny guy. With his family it was different. He was a tyrant and a despot."

The children "were all scared stiff in the presence of their dad," Paul H added, noting that Fritzl often beat his daughter Elisabeth, whom he seemed to like less than his other children.

Elisabeth has alleged her father started abusing her at the age of 11.

He gained custody of three of her babies, convincing his wife and the authorities that his daughter had left them on his doorstep, while three other children remained in the cellar.

Rosemarie Fritzl, who bore seven children for Fritzl, took most care of the children. "She was always taking them somewhere, to music lessons, sports practices, etc," said Pramreiter.

Wife 'like a slave'

Paul H also noted that she acted almost as her husband's slave.

Local rumours abound that Fritzl had an unhappy childhood and that he suffered as a boy under the Russian occupation of Austria after World War II.

"The suspect's perfidy and cold-bloodedness horrified me," Franz Polzer, the chief investigator in the case, told Kurier.

Former colleagues meanwhile recall his love of order.

"His shoes always shined, his tie was never crooked. He looked like a diplomat," a woman who said she used to work with Fritzl, Gerda S, told the tabloid Oesterreich.

Fritzl also invested in real estate, buying and renovating houses and opening a guesthouse in the 1970s, which later burnt to the ground.

- AFP