Cellar monster Josef Fritzl is launching a bid for freedom next month that would see him back on the streets this year if successful. Lawyers for evil Fritzl, 89, revealed they will submit a parole application in weeks and are confident he will be released having served just 15 years for his depraved crimes. The pensioner - jailed in 2009 for fathering seven children with daughter Elisabeth, who he imprisoned for 24 years – and his team argue he no longer poses a danger to society in his frail state and old age.
Fritzl’s lawyer Astrid Wagner told the Daily 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.”.
The bid for freedom by Fritzl, who was moved from a psychiatric facility to a normal prison in Austria last year, is likely to outrage his victims and his family members. Lawyers revealed that the deluded child killer, jailed for life in 2009 for a series of shocking crimes including rape, incest and false imprisonment, believes that he would receive a great ‘fanfare’ on his release. Ms Wagner said: “He believes that when he is released, he will come out to a big celebration with people cheering and music and wanting to shake his hand. This is obviously not the case. It is a fantasy. I don't think he fully understands what the world really thinks. Every time I see him, he says he regrets his decisions every day. He has ruined his life. He always talks about his regrets about his crimes. He thinks he has friends on the outside, but he hasn’t. One thing he accepts is that his family no longer want to see him and respects that.”.
She said that former electrical engineer Fritzl, who created a lair under his family home in the quiet town of Amstetten to imprison Elisabeth and her children, said he passes his days in his cell reading and watching TV. 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. Three judges decided to transfer him from his high security unit, considered to be the toughest in Austria's penal system, to a normal cell, initially on another wing at the same prison, which is 50 miles north west of the capital, Vienna. Fritzl imprisoned Elisabeth in the basement of his home in Amstetten, Austria. Ms Wagner, who also helped the monster write a book in 2023, said: “He likes the new prison. He likes being around young people. They leave him alone but he has no friends. No one ever comes to visit him. He sometimes gets confused and tells me that TV news crews have been to visit him in his cell but I tell him that is impossible because he’s not had a visit from anyone apart from me.” She added: “He's in very good physical shape. He will live until he is 100 I think but mentally he is showing his age.”.
Ms Wagner also revealed Fritzl, who has Alzheimer’s, is undergoing psychotherapy in jail. Fritzl was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2009 for incest, rape, coercion, false imprisonment, enslavement and for the negligent homicide of one of his infant sons. Daughter Elisabeth was 18 when she disappeared in 1984 and did not re-emerge until 2008 from the dungeon-like basement built by her father under the family home in Amstetten, Austria. The abuse resulted in the birth of seven children – three of which remained in captivity with their mother.
One died at the hands of Fritzl, a matter of days after being born and he disposed of the body in an incinerator. The other three were brought up by Fritzl and his wife, Rosemarie, now aged 84, who divorced him after his horrific crimes were laid bare. It came after a long court wrangle about whether this was a safe move with a court finally ruling in May last year that he was. Get email updates with the day's biggest stories.
