Where is Elisabeth Fritzl now and what happened to the Girl in the Cellar?
ELISABETH FRITZL was kept in a cellar by her father Josef Fritzl for more than twenty years.
Here's a look at what happened to her and what her life has been like since her ordeal.
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Who is Elisabeth Fritzl?
Elisabeth is a kidnapping survivor and suffered her ordeal at the hands of her own father.
She was raped and tortured by her father Josef Frtizl.
Elisabeth had seven childrenonly one died – and all were fathered by her captor.
Fritzl is serving his life sentence in a special prison unit for the criminally insane in the Austrian Krems-Stein prison.
What happened to Elisabeth Fritzl?
On August 28, 1984 Joseph Fritzl his then 18-year-old daughter Elisabeth called into the basement of the family's home in Austria.
He was reinstalling a door in the newly renovated basement and needed help carrying it.
But he tricked her and knocked her unconscious with an ether-soaked towel before trapping her.
For the next one For 24 years, the inside of that cellar was the only thing Elisabeth would see.
Her father lied to her mother and the police, telling them that she had run away and joined a cult.
During her horrific time in the basement, Fritzl attacked and sexually assaulted Elisabeth.
She even gave birth to seven children as a result of the numerous cases of rape, one of whom died shortly after birth.
Three of her children were raised by Fritzl and Elisabeth's mother Rosemary – while he led his wife to believe that they had been left on their doorstep by their 'missing' daughter, who was unable to care for them.
But the other three children were raised by Elisabeth in the basement.
However, Elisabeth gained her freedom on April 26, 2008 at the age of 42.
She was able to escape from the basement after one of her children fell unconscious and Josef agreed to get her medical care.
Here the police were tipped off by medical staff and Elisabeth told what had happened to her.
She then told police the gruesome account of her 24 years of captivity and Fritzl was arrested and eventually imprisoned.
Where is Elisabeth Fritzl now?
Elisabeth was renamed after the trial, with strict laws in place to prevent her identity from being revealed.
She now lives with her six surviving children in a small hamlet in the Austrian countryside, which also cannot be identified and is referred to only as 'Village X' by the country's media.
The children reportedly slept in rooms with doors permanently open after undergoing weekly therapy sessions to eliminate the trauma they suffered in the basement.
Their two-storey family home is constantly monitored by CCTV and guarded by security guards, while any stranger lurking nearby can expect to be picked up by the police within minutes.
This was reported in 2019 Elisabeth has “found love” with her bodyguard.