“She lost the best years of her life in that cellar she is determined that every day remaining to her will be filled with activity.”Īnother source close to the medical team that still monitors the family recently added: “It may seem remarkable but they are still together. The devastating truth reached the headlines after 24 years when she managed to escape the basement she was locked in. “With the approval of her doctors she has ceased psychiatric therapies while she gets on with her life – learning to drive, helping her children with their homework, making friends with people in her locality. Sanjana Kalyanpur Lifetime's new feature film, The Girl in the Basement tells the real-life story of the rape and abuse endured by Elisabeth Fritzl at the hands of her own father. Here, we look at what happened to her and how. The psychiatrist said: “This is vivid proof of love being the strongest force in the world. .uk - JOSEF FRITZL was jailed in 2009 after keeping his daughter in his basement for over 20 years. One of the team of psychiatric carers revealed that the romance has helped her overcome the traumas of her past, leading her to radically scale back the therapy she was undergoing for post-traumatic stress disorders. Thomas, who is 23 years younger than Elisabeth, moved to live with her and her family. Monster who kept daughter as sex slave for decades - Josef Fritzl ten years onĪnd in 2009 it was revealed that, just a year after she escaped captivity, Elisabeth found love with Thomas Wagner, a bodyguard with the Austrian firm A&T securities who had been assigned to protect her. Their two-storey family home is kept under constant CCTV surveillance and patrolled by security guards, while any stranger caught lurking nearby can expect to be picked up by police within minutes. The children, now aged between 17 and 31, sleep in rooms with doors permanently open after undergoing weekly therapy sessions to eliminate the traumas they suffered inside the cellar. She now lives with her six surviving children in a brightly-painted house in a tiny hamlet in the Austrian countryside, which also cannot be identified and only referred to by the country’s media as ‘Village X’. Most people watching the awful story unfold wondered how Elisabeth, who was locked up from the age of 18 to 42, would ever managed to put the pieces of her life back together - especially in the glare of the world's media.īut just as she managed to survive against the odds - keeping her sanity and caring for her children in horrific circumstances - she also surprised many by overcoming her ordeal and finding happiness.Įlisabeth was given a new name following the trial, with strict laws to prevent her identity being revealed. Dark secrets behind Josef Fritzl's kidnap and rape of his daughter 10 years on

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