Monday, August 28, 2006
Dungeon girl lived on bread and cheese The Sunday Times August 27, 2006
As I read this this article this morning.I couldn't help but wonder has this poor girl now a young women escaped from one house of horror Straight into a nightmare
The Sunday Times
August 27, 2006
Dungeon girl lived on bread and cheese
Natascha Kampusch
Questioning delayed
..
INSPECTOR Sabine Freudenberger of the Austrian police will never forget what happened at work on Wednesday. She was one of the first people to talk to a pale, skinny young woman who arrived at the police station just outside Vienna.
Traumatised, trembling and covered in red blotches, 18-year-old Natascha Kampusch said she had just escaped from a man who had kept her prisoner in his cellar for eight years. In all that time she had been given little more than bread and cheese to eat.
She could not remember her last hot meal and was suffering from eczema. She asked for a cup of camomile tea.
Freudenberger wrapped her in her jacket, feeling immense pity for this tortured youngster, whose suffering she could only imagine. The girl could not take her eyes off Freudenbergers watch. She told me she had never had anything like it, the policewoman recalled last week. The kidnapper always told her he did not have any money for jewellery. So I gave her my watch.
Natascha was a 10-year-old schoolgirl when she went missing one morning in 1998. It was originally thought she had run away from home after quarrelling with her mother. The truth has sickened and shocked the nation.
She was abducted by Wolfgang Priklopil, a 44-year-old communications engineer who locked her in a purpose-built cell beneath the garage of his house in this quiet town half an hours drive from Vienna.
It emerged yesterday that Priklopil had started building the dungeon several months before the kidnapping and documented his progress with photographs that he kept in an album. Police said it was so well hidden that if Natascha had not told them where it was, they would never have found it.
This was uncannily reminiscent of the chamber of horrors built by Marc Dutroux, the Belgian serial killer and rapist who kidnapped six girls, two of whom were found alive after his arrest in 1996. Police had searched every inch of his house without finding the entrance to his dungeon.
There were other similarities, from Priklopils white kidnap van to a bungled police investigation and the failure of neighbours to notice evil under their noses.
But whether Priklopil was inspired by Dutroux, the monster of Charleroi, may never be known: he appears to have recognised the enormity of his crime by throwing himself under a train in Vienna after Nataschas escape.
Nothing in this nightmarish landscape is as simple as it might seem.
A psychologist treating Natascha has reported symptoms of Stockholm syndrome in which kidnap victims sympathise and identify with their abductors.
Freudenberger said the girl was in denial about being sexually abused by Priklopil. She doesnt want to accept that, the policewoman said. In her mind, she did everything of her own free will.
Instead of rejoicing in the death of her tormentor, Natascha was said to have cried bitterly when she heard about his suicide.
Police were amazed at how articulate she was. Although she had never been to secondary school, she had an adults vocabulary. She had been allowed to listen to the radio and read. The kidnapper even brought her school textbooks to study.
Now that she is free she cannot wait to get her first mobile telephone. She is also looking forward to visiting Britain, where she plans to join her half-sister on a holiday later this year.
Adapting to normal life will not be easy, however. Her parents separated four years before her kidnapping and she was said to be unenthusiastic about the prospect of returning to live with Brigitta Sirny, her 55-year-old mother, even though the room she left behind complete with its Spice Girls poster awaits her.
Whether he liked flirting with danger or had tired of the warden-prisoner relationship, Priklopil began allowing his victim some freedom earlier this year.
In May he let her out of her basement for the first time in seven years. She came up the ladder through a 20in opening in the floor into the garage. The entrance was normally hidden by a carpet.
On at least one occasion Priklopil took her shopping, convinced that he could trust her not to cry for help. He also put her to work in the garden, mowing the lawn.
One witness claimed to have seen Priklopils mother, who lives in Vienna but often brought her son meals, in the garden at the same time as a young woman.
Dutrouxs main accomplice was his wife, Michelle Martin, whose failure to feed two little girls in his cellar while he was in prison led to their deaths by starvation.
Did Priklopils mother know about the girl hidden under the garage? She has denied any involvement and detectives have yet to question Natascha about this, preferring to let her recover her health before forcing her to relive her ordeal.
They were hoping to question a 20-year-old woman who witnessed the kidnapping and claimed, as a 12 year old, to have seen two men in the van used to take Natascha away.
Priklopil was a strange, obsessive character who was terrified of dogs. He liked to keep his car spotlessly clean. On Wednesday he allowed Natascha to come upstairs to vacuum the red Mercedes he had inherited from his father.
As she set to work on the car, Priklopil received a call on his mobile phone. Unable to hear anything over the sound of the cleaner, he moved away from the car. Natascha ran.
An elderly female neighbour saw her in front of my kitchen window, panicking, white in the face and shaking.
Ludwig Koch, her 51-year-old father, said he had never given up hope. Sirny, the mother, had also fought despair, especially in the days after the kidnapping when Koch was voicing suspicions that she may somehow have been involved in the abduction.
He has since apologised but relations between them remain frosty. They met Natascha separately amid suggestions that they were in competition for the right to care for her.
In his home on Friday, the ruddy faced Koch, a former baker, said he had secured the services of Rupert Leutgeb, an Austrian author and journalist, to negotiate the rights to his daughters story.
Leutgeb said Natascha had kept a diary of her ordeal that was hundreds of pages long. We think her story is worth at least 100,000 (£67,000), he said.
Sirny also reported a joyous reunion with Natascha before resuming a holiday in the Austrian countryside, saying: Its all too much for me.
The mother has never been able to banish from her mind the painful circumstances of her daughters disappearance on March 2, 1998.
On that morning Natascha had got up late. She had lost her glasses. Her mother told her off. Natascha answered back. Her mother slapped her in the face.
They were always arguing. Her mother thought she was jealous of her four grandchildren and new boyfriend. Her daughter walked out of the house without saying goodbye.
Last week she told investigators she had seen a man on the pavement. She felt like crossing the road to avoid him but carried on walking, still furious with her mother.
She told police that she had asked her abductor later what would have happened if she had crossed the road. He said he had targeted her. He would have come back another day.
The police were criticised for having questioned Priklopil after the abduction he was one of 700 white minivan owners contacted without finding anything suspicious.
This was another parallel with the Dutroux investigation: in that case, one policeman concluded that the muffled sound of childrens voices that he could hear was coming from the street outside instead of an underground cellar.
Max Edelbaucher, a detective who spent years hunting for Natascha, said of her escape: This is the best retirement gift I could ever have imagined. He went on: It is horrible, though, that a girl could be held in our area for eight years while being searched for by thousands of policemen.
Additional reporting: Michael Leidig
The Sunday Times
August 27, 2006
Dungeon girl lived on bread and cheese
Natascha Kampusch
Questioning delayed
..
INSPECTOR Sabine Freudenberger of the Austrian police will never forget what happened at work on Wednesday. She was one of the first people to talk to a pale, skinny young woman who arrived at the police station just outside Vienna.
Traumatised, trembling and covered in red blotches, 18-year-old Natascha Kampusch said she had just escaped from a man who had kept her prisoner in his cellar for eight years. In all that time she had been given little more than bread and cheese to eat.
She could not remember her last hot meal and was suffering from eczema. She asked for a cup of camomile tea.
Freudenberger wrapped her in her jacket, feeling immense pity for this tortured youngster, whose suffering she could only imagine. The girl could not take her eyes off Freudenbergers watch. She told me she had never had anything like it, the policewoman recalled last week. The kidnapper always told her he did not have any money for jewellery. So I gave her my watch.
Natascha was a 10-year-old schoolgirl when she went missing one morning in 1998. It was originally thought she had run away from home after quarrelling with her mother. The truth has sickened and shocked the nation.
She was abducted by Wolfgang Priklopil, a 44-year-old communications engineer who locked her in a purpose-built cell beneath the garage of his house in this quiet town half an hours drive from Vienna.
It emerged yesterday that Priklopil had started building the dungeon several months before the kidnapping and documented his progress with photographs that he kept in an album. Police said it was so well hidden that if Natascha had not told them where it was, they would never have found it.
This was uncannily reminiscent of the chamber of horrors built by Marc Dutroux, the Belgian serial killer and rapist who kidnapped six girls, two of whom were found alive after his arrest in 1996. Police had searched every inch of his house without finding the entrance to his dungeon.
There were other similarities, from Priklopils white kidnap van to a bungled police investigation and the failure of neighbours to notice evil under their noses.
But whether Priklopil was inspired by Dutroux, the monster of Charleroi, may never be known: he appears to have recognised the enormity of his crime by throwing himself under a train in Vienna after Nataschas escape.
Nothing in this nightmarish landscape is as simple as it might seem.
A psychologist treating Natascha has reported symptoms of Stockholm syndrome in which kidnap victims sympathise and identify with their abductors.
Freudenberger said the girl was in denial about being sexually abused by Priklopil. She doesnt want to accept that, the policewoman said. In her mind, she did everything of her own free will.
Instead of rejoicing in the death of her tormentor, Natascha was said to have cried bitterly when she heard about his suicide.
Police were amazed at how articulate she was. Although she had never been to secondary school, she had an adults vocabulary. She had been allowed to listen to the radio and read. The kidnapper even brought her school textbooks to study.
Now that she is free she cannot wait to get her first mobile telephone. She is also looking forward to visiting Britain, where she plans to join her half-sister on a holiday later this year.
Adapting to normal life will not be easy, however. Her parents separated four years before her kidnapping and she was said to be unenthusiastic about the prospect of returning to live with Brigitta Sirny, her 55-year-old mother, even though the room she left behind complete with its Spice Girls poster awaits her.
Whether he liked flirting with danger or had tired of the warden-prisoner relationship, Priklopil began allowing his victim some freedom earlier this year.
In May he let her out of her basement for the first time in seven years. She came up the ladder through a 20in opening in the floor into the garage. The entrance was normally hidden by a carpet.
On at least one occasion Priklopil took her shopping, convinced that he could trust her not to cry for help. He also put her to work in the garden, mowing the lawn.
One witness claimed to have seen Priklopils mother, who lives in Vienna but often brought her son meals, in the garden at the same time as a young woman.
Dutrouxs main accomplice was his wife, Michelle Martin, whose failure to feed two little girls in his cellar while he was in prison led to their deaths by starvation.
Did Priklopils mother know about the girl hidden under the garage? She has denied any involvement and detectives have yet to question Natascha about this, preferring to let her recover her health before forcing her to relive her ordeal.
They were hoping to question a 20-year-old woman who witnessed the kidnapping and claimed, as a 12 year old, to have seen two men in the van used to take Natascha away.
Priklopil was a strange, obsessive character who was terrified of dogs. He liked to keep his car spotlessly clean. On Wednesday he allowed Natascha to come upstairs to vacuum the red Mercedes he had inherited from his father.
As she set to work on the car, Priklopil received a call on his mobile phone. Unable to hear anything over the sound of the cleaner, he moved away from the car. Natascha ran.
An elderly female neighbour saw her in front of my kitchen window, panicking, white in the face and shaking.
Ludwig Koch, her 51-year-old father, said he had never given up hope. Sirny, the mother, had also fought despair, especially in the days after the kidnapping when Koch was voicing suspicions that she may somehow have been involved in the abduction.
He has since apologised but relations between them remain frosty. They met Natascha separately amid suggestions that they were in competition for the right to care for her.
In his home on Friday, the ruddy faced Koch, a former baker, said he had secured the services of Rupert Leutgeb, an Austrian author and journalist, to negotiate the rights to his daughters story.
Leutgeb said Natascha had kept a diary of her ordeal that was hundreds of pages long. We think her story is worth at least 100,000 (£67,000), he said.
Sirny also reported a joyous reunion with Natascha before resuming a holiday in the Austrian countryside, saying: Its all too much for me.
The mother has never been able to banish from her mind the painful circumstances of her daughters disappearance on March 2, 1998.
On that morning Natascha had got up late. She had lost her glasses. Her mother told her off. Natascha answered back. Her mother slapped her in the face.
They were always arguing. Her mother thought she was jealous of her four grandchildren and new boyfriend. Her daughter walked out of the house without saying goodbye.
Last week she told investigators she had seen a man on the pavement. She felt like crossing the road to avoid him but carried on walking, still furious with her mother.
She told police that she had asked her abductor later what would have happened if she had crossed the road. He said he had targeted her. He would have come back another day.
The police were criticised for having questioned Priklopil after the abduction he was one of 700 white minivan owners contacted without finding anything suspicious.
This was another parallel with the Dutroux investigation: in that case, one policeman concluded that the muffled sound of childrens voices that he could hear was coming from the street outside instead of an underground cellar.
Max Edelbaucher, a detective who spent years hunting for Natascha, said of her escape: This is the best retirement gift I could ever have imagined. He went on: It is horrible, though, that a girl could be held in our area for eight years while being searched for by thousands of policemen.
Additional reporting: Michael Leidig
