Austria: Girl escapes after being held in cellar for 8 years

The Times (U.K.) ^ | August 24, 2006 | Michael Leidig

[Stoat]

Girl escapes after being held in cellar for 8 years

By Michael Leidig in Vienna
 

AN AUSTRIAN girl held prisoner in a cellar for eight years was reunited with her parents last night after making a dramatic dash for freedom.

Police searching for a man suspected of kidnapping Natascha Kampusch and holding her prisoner said that the alleged kidnapper had committed suicide late last night by jumping in front of a train.

Natascha vanished on March 2, 1998, while walking to school in Vienna. She was 10 years old at the time. She reappeared yesterday after leaping out of a black BMW when it was stopped in a routine police roadcheck.

The BMW was caught in traffic in the Deutsch Wagram suburb of the Austrian capital. The delay had been caused by a police routine roadside check a short distance ahead.

Austrian television said that other motorists had raised the alarm when a girl ran from the car and was then seen apparently in some distress in the garden of a house where officers who came to investigate had found her.

Last night Erich Zwettler, a spokesman for Vienna police, confirmed that the teenage girl was “with 98 per cent certainty” Natascha Kampusch, although a DNA test was being carried out. He said that the tests had included an “age progression test” that had been used on pictures of the girl to show how she would look today, and she also been asked questions that only the real Natascha would be able to answer.

Her father, Ludwig Koch, said that he was “overcome” after being told that his daughter had been found. “I can’t believe that after eight desperate years my daughter is finally coming home. If it is true it will be the greatest thing that could possibly be,” he said.

Herr Koch and Natascha’s mother were at the secure location where the teenager was being kept.

Herr Zwettler said that police had chased the BMW across the city but had lost it. It was later found abandoned in a Vienna wood, and the numberplate had been traced to a house in the Donaustadt area of Vienna, which was found abandoned after a police raid.

Last night the house was surrounded by police, and neighbouring homes were evacuated after the teenage girl said that the man had told her that it would explode if he was ever caught. She said that he had not wanted any evidence left to incriminate him.

Bomb disposal squad experts were reported to be at the scene as well as dogs trained to detect explosives. Border control points had also been placed on alert for the 44-year-old man — known only as Wolfgang P. — who is from Lower Austria. It was also revealed that the suspect was someone “who was known to police”.

Police sources said that the alleged kidnapper committed suicide late last night by jumping in front of a train in Vienna, Austrian television said.

The teenager said that she had occasionally been allowed out of the cellar and had been receiving schooling from her captor, and was able to read and write.

Asked why Natascha had not tried to escape in the past, Herr Zwettler said she appeared to have had “Stockholm Syndrome” — a psychological condition in which long-held captives begin to identify with their captors.

Another police source said: “She is white, pale-looking, as if she had been out of the light of day for a long time, but she articulated well.”

Adolf Brenner, the chief of police in Deutsch Wagram, where the teenager was taken after being found, said that she seemed to be in good spirits despite her ordeal but repeatedly said how happy she was to have been freed.

“He seems to have made great efforts to keep her away from the outside world,” he said. “She was allowed limited access to the television and radio, and sometimes she was given videos.”

Austrian media reported that the girl had told police that she had been sexually abused and police were investigating her claims, but the motive for the kidnapping remained unclear.

MISSING NO LONGER

 

• In 1996 Sabine Dardenne, 12, was abducted by the Belgian paedophile Marc Dutroux. Confined to a cellar, she suffered continual abuse until her rescue 80 days later. Her testimony was key in his conviction

   

• Natasha Ryan, 14, ran away from home in Australia in 1998. After a huge police search a man was charged with her murder. Five years later, she was discovered living with her boyfriend

   

• In 2003 Matthew Scott, a British student, was among eight tourists taken hostage by kidnappers in Colombia. He escaped by jumping into a river and trekking through the jungle for two days

[Stoat]

It's great to see some good news for a change.
 

Please say a prayer for her, as she has a lifetime of healing ahead..

 

[Steel and Fire and Stone]

Austrian media reported that the girl had told police that she had been sexually abused and police were investigating her claims, but the motive for the kidnapping remained unclear.

===================================================================

Motive unclear??? I wonder what their first clue was? I can't believe the lunacy of the Europeans.

SFS

[beyond the sea]

Excellent.

[mkjessup]

This IS a good news story to begin the day with, although I can't help but wonder how long it will take before it is suggested here in America that by increasing the frequency and numbers of "routine police roadchecks" that OTHER kidnapped, abused, neglected, etc., children might be found and rescued from their suffering?

After all, it takes a village doesn't it? ;)

[FunkyZero]

Thanks to God for the return of the child.
The train story was a nice touch too. The police over there are apparently more inventive than here in the states. Bless them as well, another demon sent back to hell.

[msnimje]

Being hit by a train is far to good for this creep.

I do hope the fact that his dead give her some security as she heals from her ordeal.

[msnimje]

No, death by locomotive.

[Dustbunny]

God Bless her and heal her.

[ArtDodger]

This story wraps up a little too neatly for me. It would be nice if someone in Austria could verify that a train death was indeed reported on that day. Solely on the death-by-train statement issued by the 'police', all interest and inquiry into the kidnapper is ended.

What if....the kidnapper had enough influence to have a suicide offically saddled with his crime and he goes Scot free?

Would make a good flick, anyway. Years later, the middle aged woman sees her former kidnapper, thought to be dead running for public office.

[Tom Bombadil]

Motive unclear???

My exact thought.

Motive unclear="we are open minded people".

Morons.

[Schnucki]

They're trying to determine if she was sexually abused or not. Because of this and other questions about the case, the motive is not clear.

[Shery]

"Motive unclear??? I wonder what their first clue was? I can't believe the lunacy of the Europeans."

Now you understand why the left loves the Europeans so much!

[Schnucki]

One psychiatrist involved in the investigation has stated that the guy was on a power trip and needed somebody he could completely control. It was suggested that she may have become more rebellious or opinionated as she grew older and that this may have diminished his interest in the girl and lessened his concern about a possible escape.

They seem to be trying to reconcile her escape (and her claim that she was sexually abused) with her attitude towards the kidnapper (i.e., "Stockholm Syndrome").

Her understandably odd behavior and unique emotional state has probably given them a reason to verify her claim by other means.

[Stoat]

Update to All

The Sun Online - News Perv said call me Master

Perv said call me Master

Monster ... Priklopil
 

By VIRGINIA WHEELER

 A TEENAGER held prisoner by a paedophile for EIGHT YEARS sobbed yesterday as she told cops how he forced her to call him “Master”.

 

Brave Natascha Kampusch — kept in a garage dungeon as a sex-slave — revealed she spent nearly the whole time in darkness.

The skeletal 18-year-old was so pale and unrecognisable that cops identified her only from a scar on her ear after she fled from 44-year-old captor Wolfgang Priklopil.

 

Hidden ... Natascha is
covered by police
Picture: REX
 

 

Natascha wept as she was reunited with her mother and father, who are divorced.

Mum Brigitte was brought back from a holiday to meet up with her daughter.

She said: “My heart was beating so fast I was sure she’d hear it.

“Natascha looked at me and I saw right away it was my little girl. I opened my arms and called her, ‘My little mouse’. She knew it was me.

 

Victim ... Natascha
 

 

“I am so proud of her. I’m so proud she survived it.

“In all this time I left her bedroom exactly as it was. I never changed a thing. It’s all still there waiting for her.”

Dad Ludwig stared at Natascha in disbelief as they were reunited by police.

 

Creepy ... door to perv's dungeon
 

 

Ludwig said the first thing Natascha told him was: “Dad, I love you.”

He added: “The next question was, ‘Is my toy car still there?’ It was Natascha’s favourite toy. I never gave it away in all those years.”

Pervert Priklopil, who kidnapped Natascha when she was ten, killed himself after she fled from his garden when he let her out of her cell for air.

He fled in his red BMW and threw himself under a train.

Natascha’s reappearance ends one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in Austrian police history.

 

Cramped ... inside of girl's tiny cell
 

 

Priklopil, a freelance communications technician, grabbed her as she walked to school in Vienna in March 1998.

Despite a huge search, cops were unable to track her to the 6ft by 10ft underground dungeon he had built under the garage of his suburban house.

Natascha says she was not allowed out for seven years by her abductor, who taught her to read and write and gave her limited access to radio and TV.

But in recent months, Priklopil had let her outside occasionally.

He convinced her not to scream for help — until her freedom dash this week, when she ran to a neighbour’s house.

 

On duty ... cops guard hell house
 

 

Adolf Brenner, police chief of Austria’s Deutsch-Wagram area, said yesterday: “She seems in good spirits despite her ordeal.

“We are still questioning her but she told us Priklopil forced her to call him ‘Gebiete’.” This name is an old term for ‘Master’ usually found in fairytales.

Natascha reportedly told cops she had been sexually abused.

Cops who raided Priklopil’s home found a 20in hole under the garage that led to the cell.

Officers said she was suffering from Stockholm syndrome, where captives make friends with their kidnappers.

But she did not seem upset when told Priklopil was dead.

Natascha’s ordeal echoes the plot of John Fowles’s thriller The Collector, where a butterfly-lover holds a girl captive.

[MrEdd]

ping.

[Stoat]

Update to All

 

Austria police seek accomplices of child captor  Top News  Reuters.co.uk

 

Austria police seek accomplices of child captor
Fri Aug 25, 2006 7:33 PM BST

By Alexandra Zawadil

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian police said on Friday they were searching for possible accomplices of a kidnapper who held a young girl in a tiny room under his garage for eight years until her dramatic escape this week.

Natascha Kampusch, who was 10 years old when kidnapped, managed to evade her abductor when he took a phone call as she was cleaning his car. Her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil, committed suicide shortly after she escaped.

"We are not chasing a particular suspect but we are chasing the theory that several people were involved," Gerhard Lang, a senior officer at Austria's Federal Police Agency, told Reuters.

Kampusch was abducted on her way to school in Vienna in 1998. A school friend said at the time she saw two men pulling her into a white van. This triggered a probe of almost 1,000 owners of similar vans -- including Priklopil.

Priklopil had told police he needed the van to clear debris from building work at his home in the commuter village of Strasshof. With no previous criminal record, he was quickly eliminated as a potential suspect.

One neighbour in Strasshof, 25 km (15 miles) northeast of Vienna, said Priklopil appeared to have built the underground prison where he kept Kampusch a long time before he snatched the 10-year-old.

"He started building the workshop pit maybe a year or half a year before the kidnapping," said the neighbour, who declined to be named. "It really looks like he planned this well in advance.

Kampusch was pale and trembling when she escaped and weighed only 42 kg, less than she did as a 10-year-old.

CHANCE TO FLEE

After spending the first years locked below ground in a room stuffed with books, soft toys and magazines, Kampusch began helping her kidnapper in the house and garden. She was later allowed to make occasional outings to the village.

As Priklopil lowered his security measures, Kampusch's chance to flee arose. When she cleaned his car on Wednesday, the gate to the street was open.

"He told her to vacuum the car. Then he got a phone call and stepped a few metres away to avoid the noise," Lang, told a news conference in the Federal Police Agency's headquarters.

"Natascha took advantage of the situation and fled."

When he realised the girl had escaped, 44-year-old Priklopil drove to Vienna. He parked his car and called a friend for help, pretending he was being chased by police for drunk driving.

He later threw himself in front of a train. His friend was questioned by police, but Lang said he was not a suspect.

Police said they would give Kampusch a break until Monday before they continued interviewing her, an agonising process for the girl after years with only one person, who told her to call him "master", to talk to.

"She's in a completely new world," said Interior Minister Liese Prokop. "She's got to learn to breathe in this new world."

Experts said Kampusch was probably suffering from "Stockholm Syndrome" -- a psychological condition in which long-held captives begin to identify with their captors.

"If you cannot cope with the fear for your life you start to identify with your aggressor, you try to understand what happens inside (the mind of) your captor, what is driving him," said Reinhard Haller, an Austrian forensic psychiatrist.

A DNA test on Friday formally confirmed Kampusch's identity.

 

[Shuttle Shucker]

I haven't felt this disturbed since I saw Silence of the Lambs. How many other missing children are alive out there (or down there) somewhere wishing police would leave one less stone unturned?

Presumably they'll show pictures of the victim at some point, but I wonder when that will be allowed. I doubt she'll opt for a life of anonymity, so some acquaintance will eventually let a journalist know...

My guess is she'll be hard-pressed to earn a living with the developmental retardation that has resulted. Presumably there will be a demand for movie rights or at least book rights? I hope so because she's got a hard enough road to follow as it is, and a life of poverty isn't what this poor gal deserves. I wish the captor could have spent the rest of his life cooped up in a cell, with occasional conjugal intrusions by Bubbah. But at least he didn't manage to escape for long before he gave up. What a JERK.

[Stoat]

How many other missing children are alive out there (or down there) somewhere wishing police would leave one less stone unturned?

Knowing that the police can never look EVERYWHERE (unless they are operating under a totalitarian State) and even so they wouldn't have the manpower to do so, Socialist countries in particular will point to events like this as justification for instituting mandatory RFID chip implantation in newborns.  They will cite the enhanced cost-effectiveness of so very many otherwise human-oriented tasks and the usual bleating of "if it saves even one child's life...."

Then the pervs will just line their dungeons with lead sheeting and go on about their business.

I think that just about the only way to stop this kind of thing is to radically overhaul the criminal justice system so that it's not only dramatically swifter but for cases like this, torture be implemented as well.

In the meantime, hopefully children will travel in groups more often.  It's so sad that people must change their behaviors because of a few sick individuals, but this is what happens when there are so many freedoms coupled with a comparatively 'humane' (lax) criminal justice system.  I don't think that this kind of garbage goes on in Singapore, but you get flogged for chewing gum in Singapore as well.  As long as crime exists, we will always have to strike a balance, and oftentimes the balance is not perfect.

Presumably they'll show pictures of the victim at some point, but I wonder when that will be allowed.

It may take some months for her to get a healthy appearance again, and in the meantime she will most likely feel embarrassed about herself.

I doubt she'll opt for a life of anonymity, so some acquaintance will eventually let a journalist know...

You never know....I think that the people who clamor for an opportunity to get onto the Jerry Springer show and tell the world about their problems and dysfunctions are a tiny minority....I'm guessing that an experience like this will cause her and her family to be very careful about any publicity that is allowed....it's such an utterly devastating thing, after all.

My guess is she'll be hard-pressed to earn a living with the developmental retardation that has resulted.

Perhaps, but she may surprise us all in that regard.  She had the strength to survive this ordeal, and so she may have the strength to overcome many of the scars.  But I agree, it will be a very hard road and she deserves our prayers and kind thoughts.