Josef Fritzl is launching a plot to be freed from jail and hopes to return to the area where he caged his daughter. The depraved child killer, now 88, is set to launch a bid for freedom next month and could be released from prison, having served just 15 years for his horrifying crimes. The incest monster's lawyers have today revealed they will submit a parole application in weeks and are confident he will be successful and back out on the streets this year.
Fritzl was jailed for life in 2009 after locking his daughter, Elisabeth, in his basement lair for 24 years. During her captivity, Fritzl raped her repeatedly and forcibly fathered seven children with her. His team argues he no longer poses a danger to society. They have said he wants to live close to where he previously imprisoned Elisabeth. Fritzl's lawyer Astrid Wagner told the Mirror: "We will start an action in March and call for parole and if the court rejects it we will appeal and given his condition, I believe he will be released by next year. He wants to live close to where he previously did and he wants to live alone but I think that is very unlikely given his age and condition. He would need a carer and none of his friends or family want to know.".
Ms Wagner, who also helped the monster write a book in 2023, said Fritzl has Alzheimer's disease and passes his days in his cell reading and watching TV. Sixteen years ago, Fritzl was incarcerated for incest, rape, coercion, false imprisonment, enslavement and the negligent homicide of one of his infant sons. Fritzl cannot return to the horror house where he kept his dark secrets concealed for decades, because the ordinary-looking family home in Amstetten, Austria, now looks very different. It has since been turned into nine flats. Landlords Herbert and Ingrid Houska bought 40 Ybbsstrasse from Fritzl's bankruptcy estate for around £160,000 in 2016, after plans to turn it into a horror museum fell through.
They previously shared: "All nine apartments are rented out. There are young people among them who have no connection to the Fritzl case." Taking care to remove reminders of the property's grim history, Herbert and Ingrid have had the basement dungeon filled in with concrete. The garage entrance, through which Fritzl accessed his makeshift underground prison, has also been bricked up. After renovation, the apartments appear to be bright, modern, and with plenty of natural light - a far cry from the conditions in which Elisabeth and her children were once kept. The house now even boasts a rooftop terrace and garden.
Fritzl began work enlarging his basement into a cell in around 1982, at which point he installed a washbasin, toilet, bed and refrigerator. The beast even tricked Elisabeth into helping construct the cramped space that would one day become her prison. After finishing the building work, on August 28, 1984, Fritzl forced Elisabeth to help him drag a 300kg concrete and steel door down to the basement and fit it. He then drugged her and threw her inside.
From that day on, Elisabeth, then 18, was kept away from the outside world for the next 24 years. She gave birth to seven children during her time in captivity. One baby, who died at birth after suffering breathing difficulties, was callously tossed into a furnace by Fritzl. Three of the children were brought up in the cellar with their mother, while the other three others were raised upstairs by Fritzl and his wife, Rosemarie, after being 'discovered' on their doorstep.
During his 2009 trial, evil Fritzl pleaded guilty to rape, false imprisonment, manslaughter by negligence and incest. Elisabeth has since changed her name and has been given support from the authorities in protecting both her identity and her children's wellbeing. She has never spoken out publicly about her harrowing ordeal. Fritzl was pictured last month for the first time in 15 years when he appeared in court as part of his battle to be released. He was driven to and from the district court near the jail where he is locked up, Stein prison in the town of Krems an der Donau. A psychiatrist, Adelheid Kastner, said she has come to the conclusion Fritzl is no longer a danger to the public, due to his frail state and old age.
