John Glatt - Secrets in the Cellar

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SECRETS IN
THE CELLAR

A True Story of the Austrian Incest Case
that Shocked the World

John Glatt

St. Martins Paperbacks

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Dr. Keith Ablow for his generous help with this project, as well as Dr. Laszlo Retsagi. Thanks also to Christa Woldrich, Trixi Mahd-Soltani, and Janina Alivio.

PROLOGUE

Vampire (as in evil spirit) n. : (folklore) a corpse that rises at night to drink the blood of the living

April 2008

The call came in to Amstetten emergency services at precisely 7:00 a.m. that Saturday morning. An elderly man calmly informed the dispatcher that he had just discovered a young woman collapsed against a wall in his apartment building. She needed urgent medical help, he announced, giving the address Ybbsstrasse 40, before abruptly hanging up the phone.

The dispatcher immediately sent an ambulance and EMS crew to Ybbsstrasse, a busy main road near the center of the small Austrian town, 80 miles west of Vienna. There was little traffic that early on a weekend morning, and within minutes the medical crew had located the bedraggled young woman, lying unconscious on the doorstep. Her lip was covered in blood, where she had bitten her tongue, her skin was unnaturally pale and clumps of hair had been torn out of her head.

A few minutes later, the critically ill woman was admitted into the intensive care ward of the Mostviertel Amstetten-Mauer state hospital.

She was in a life-threatening condition, recalled Dr. Albert Reiter, the head of the unit. She was unconscious and had to be ventilated. Several of her vital organs had failed.

Three hours later, a silver Mercedes pulled into the hospitals parking lot, and a distinguished-looking gray-haired man with a bushy mustache got out. He walked briskly into the emergency room and introduced himself as Josef Fritzl, the grandfather of 19-year-old Kerstin, who had just been brought in by ambulance. He demanded to see a doctor immediately, saying he had an important note from the patients mother about her condition.

He was a very polite, very normal man, recalled Dr. Reiter, who met Fritzl in his office. He was a correct man.

Fritzl explained he had been awakened by noises in the stairway of the building he owned. On further investigation, he had discovered the young woman, lying unconscious on his doorstep.

But there was more, he said, reaching for his jacket pocket. She had been clutching a handwritten note from his daughter Elisabeth, who had run away to join a religious sect twenty-four years earlier and not been seen since.

Then, handing the note to Dr. Reiter, he said this was the fourth child his wayward daughter had abandoned outside his house, for him and his wife to care for.

Please, please help her, it read.

At the bottom of the note, Elisabeth had added a postscript:

Then the elderly man explained how, with each baby his daughter had deposited on his doorstep over the years, there was always a note, begging him to care for the baby, as her cult disapproved of children.

What else could he do under the circumstances? he asked Dr. Reiter, shrugging his shoulders. So he and his wife Rosemarie had brought up Elisabeths three abandoned children, Lisa, 16, Monika, 15, and Alex, 12, as if they were their own.

When the bewildered doctor questioned Fritzl about his daughters disappearance and whether he had tried to find her, the elderly man said he had to leave.

I did not like his tone, remembered Dr. Reiter. Something didnt seem right. He simply demanded we make Kerstin better, so he could take her away again.

Over the years, the head of the busy intensive care ward had seen thousands of emergency cases, but nothing compared to the apparent neglect suffered by Kerstin. On closer inspection, he was amazed to discover that the teenager was missing most of her teeth and had several large bald patches. Her skin was deathly white and she appeared to be severely anemic.

Initially, he thought she might have been poisoned, ordering immediate blood tests. But these came back negative. Then he speculated that she might be suffering from epilepsy. When the young girls vital organs started to shut down, Dr. Reiter put her on life support.