I read about this the other day. The father (if you can call him that) is obviously mentally ill! The thought that his wife and neighbors were clueless made this so surreal.

This case is even worse than the one of Natasha Kampusch...!! I can't believe that something like this could really be possible, and it's already the second case to surface in Austria.

Actually, it's the 3rd. Believe it or not, about a year before Natascha escaped from her captor, 3 girl who'd been imprisoned by their mother were finally rescued. The mother was mentally ill and a lawyer (and I'm not meaning to imply any kind of a connection there) and had been going through a contentious custody battle with her husband. One day she called the school and told them she was going to teach them at home. That's the last anyone saw of the girls for the next 7 years.

What's worse is that she'd been called into court at least *9* times by her husband and a concerned neighbour, and one of ther neighbours called the police a number of times trying to get them to look into the situation as he was concerned that something back might be happening in there (he didn't know for sure what, but he wsa concerned.) When reporting it to the police didn't help any, he threatened the sue the city and FINALLY, after that, they decided maybe they should check it out after all, and that's when the daughters were found.

ugh, so disturbing

I personally dont think the father was "crazy" he obviously knew what he was doing was wrong---as he went out of his way to make sure it would go undiscovered for 24 years. He knew every single day...he was doing something horrible...what I don't understand is how he never for one single minute feel mercy for his daughter and those children.
He stole their lives. He stole their dignity. And, if he could have..he would have stolen their souls...
Now, his attorney claims Josef Fritzl is is remorseful and feels sorry. Well...you know what? I think he IS SORRY...SORRY HE GOT CAUGHT. What a crock of poo...how can he or his attorney pretend remorse? If he really was sorry...he never ever would have done this. Or at the very least, he would have released her A VERY LONG TIME AGO.
I can only hope that god is seeing the world through Elisabeths childrens eyes...and that he goes easy on them, and protect them. I ache for them. I pray for them.

...i'm at a loss for words here about this whole situation...
Poor girl!

Bela_design, the reason he couldn't feel any mercy for his daughter or their children is that he's a sociopath, the defining characteristic of which is that they have no ability at all to feel empathy for anyone else. They have no conscionce and are incapable of feeling any kind of guilt. They simply have no conscience, no ability to feel guity and no abilty to feel any mercy for anyone other than themselves. They learn how to *mimic* emotions so that they can appear to be feeling the expected emotion for whatever situation they're in, but there's no actual feeling behind it - they're just acting.

If they provide any care to their victim or show their victim any kind of mercy, it's not because they actually care about the victim or feel any guilt over the way they're treating the victim, but because doing so meets their own needs. In this case, he fed and clothes Elisabeth and her children because he needed her to be alive and unwilling to put up much resistance. Most likely, he took Kerstin to the hospital because he knew that if he let her die, Elisabeth might rebel against him, which would make it hard for him to get what he wanted from her.

None of this, however, in ANY way excuse what sociopaths do. They make a deliberate choice to commit their crimes and they take whatever steps they can to prevent anyone from finding out because they know if they are caught they'll be subject to society's justice. The only person who's feelings or needs mean *anything* to them is their own.

In our justice system - and I believe this is true for most countries - we do not consider a sociopath to be legally insane. They intellectually know the difference between right and wrong, they just don't care. But because they *know* that what they were doing is wrong, they're considered legally sane for the purposes of their trial and sentence.

I read about this story the other day and could not believe that I was reading something this horrific. There was another story that I came across on the AP wire today. It is about a woman in Germany who killed three of her newborn infants and stored them in the freezer. The babies are believed to have been there since the 1980s: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080505/ap_on_re_eu/germany_dead_infants

This story just boggles the mind. The worst part is the realization that there are similar situations occurring right now around the world...and we just don't know about them yet (or maybe, never?).

God Bless those poor innocent children.

May Josef Fritzl rot in permanent damnation.

Well, the way I see it , he is the devil in disguise,wolf in heeps clothing, he walks and talks normal but underneath it all the devil is truly learking....you see that is what hell will be like.....he will pay for what he has done not just in this life but the one that follows forever and forever!!!!!!

this is awful!

The latest news is that Fritzl is complaining that the media isn't giving him a fair shake. He doesn't like that he is being portrayed as a monster. He even said that he could have killed all of the children, but he didn't so that means he's an OK person. He is definitely a sociopath.

I am not surprised,dont get me wrong:but have you looked at what we support as far as
sexuall desire thes days.How and when does what each persons fetish,mood or just plain
lust become the bizzare.We monitor what we can in the public Eye!.How can the wife?
allow her baby to just dissapear!.It is total nonsense and I believe she should have
been prosecuted for Child endangerment and felony imprisonment.Let's get real about that
whole situation.The world has always been a sick entity.