The Elisabeth Fritzl Case

In April 2008, Austrian police discovered that Josef Fritzl had imprisoned his own daughter Elisabeth in a secret underground cellar beneath their family home in Amstetten for 24 years, beginning in 1984. During her captivity, she bore seven children fathered by her father. The case shocked the world and led to sweeping changes in Austrian child protection laws. Fritzl was convicted of murder, rape, incest, enslavement, and false imprisonment, and sentenced to life in a psychiatric institution.