I regret with all my heart what I did to my family. I’m a torn person, with passions I can’t control. “There is an evil streak lurking inside me. “For someone born to rape, I held out for a long time,” he told the court-appointed psychiatrist who assessed him before trial. He served 12 months of an 18-month prison sentence but by the time the authorities came to investigate his family years later, the conviction was spent and had disappeared from his record. It is hard to imagine quite where The Abysses Of Josef F would fit on a Waterstones shelf.įritzl’s contributions are part fiction, part mea culpa.įritzl’s victims would be horrified a fact acknowledged by Wagner, who says she had to disregard the feelings of Elisabeth and her children - and of Fritzl’s wife, Rosemarie - in order to deliver what she believes to be a true account of the man and his crimes. Wagner, 59, began visiting him at Stein and the resulting book, written by her, is an account of her impressions, interspersed with Fritzl’s own writings. Wagner says she is attracted to wicked men like Fritzl because she “has always been fascinated by what motivates such criminals”.įritzl told her he had written an autobiography and asked for help in finding a publisher and for legal advice. Last July, when he had finished his manuscript, he wrote to Astrid Wagner, an Austrian lawyer and author of several books, one about a love affair she had with a serial killer, Jack Unterweger. Now, Fritzl is seeking things he feels have been denied him: understanding, sympathy, perhaps - even though he does not put it into words - forgiveness.

Elisabeth fritzl now 2016