Joseph Fritzl
Posted on 04/30/2008 2:41:19 PM PDT by PROCON
The Austrian children kept in a cellar for their entire lives speak their own language using animalistic noises rather than words. Stefan Fritzl, 18, and his brother Felix, five, learned to talk by watching a television in the dungeon where they were held with their mother Elisabeth Fritzl, 42. But their form of communciation is only partly intelligible to Austrian police officers.
Police chief Leopold Etz, 50, who has met the two boys, said: “It is only half true that they can speak. They communicate with noises that are a mixture of growling and cooing.
“If they want to say something so others understand them as well they have to focus and really concentrate which seems to be extremely exhausting for them.
“Felix prefers to crawl but he can walk upright if he wants.”
Dr Berthold Kepplinger, who examined the brothers at a neuropsychiatric clinic near their home town of Amstetten, said: “They communicate between each other but this is far from a normal way of expressing oneself.
“Their mother taught them to read and write a bit but Elisabeth had lost much of her childhood knowledge after her imprisonment from the age of 18.
“They had no books and the main source of education was the television.”
When he was rescued Felix pointed to the moon, which he was seeing for the first time, and said: “Is that God up there?”
He then made excited gurgling noises when he saw a cow.
Doctors said that since he emerged from his prison he is constantly excited and keeps trying to hit the air with his hand.
When he saw the sun for the first time he was even more excited than when he discovered the moon.
He made a squeaking noise and tried to look directly at the sun. When he realised he couldn’t he kept covering his face with his hand.
When police took him in a lift at the hospital he was petrified and clung on to his mother as the floor moved.
Police said he was stunned when one officers started talking into a mobile phone.
Felix was also excited about the police officer's mobile phones. He was stunned by the ring tones and even more when one of the policemen used his mobile phone to talk.
The youngster also often hums an unknown tune to himself which police believe his mother used to get him to sleep.
Stefan and Felix’s sister Kerstin, 19, became ill in the dungeon and is in a coma.
All three have weakened immune systems, are suffering from vitamin D deficiency and are anaemic.
None of them had ever been seen by a doctor or a dentist and Kerstin has already lost most of her teeth.
The low ceilings in their prison left them all with cramped physical posture.
Elisabeth has aged so much she looks like a sister to her mother Rosemarie, 68.
Austrian psychotherapist and university professor Rotraud Perner said: “A lot will depend on what the children have been told, whether the mother explained to them their life in captivity.
“They may have created their own illusory world. However, a normal life could be possible for them.”
The children will need to wear sun-block cream as their skin gets used to sunlight.
The story only mentioned three children; are the other 4 dead?
Dear heaven, how can a parent do this?? What did her mother think happened to her? Did she know?
Those poor children and their mom, what a horror story.
15 This side of the jordan and eternal torment beyond. As the lord said better is death than the torment that awaits one who does this to children.
I can hardly stand this story. How did the mother not wonder what happened to her daughter? He had her locked up since she was 18? Did she think her daughter had died?
I hate this story. I hate that a so called father could be so cruel.
Next they’ll be blaming this on the FLDS.
three children living normal lives upstairs.......three in the dungeon........and one died at birth.
hey, stranger!
oh, yeah......the father claimed he found three infants on their doorstep left with a note by their runaway daughter.
Sorry, but no amount of drastic measures full-immersion language training and/or speech therapists will help them.
Most language processing becomes baked-in by age SIX.
They need our prayers.
Lurking’
Hey Tioga! Long time no see. :-)
Soooo, how come no one said anything about the three kids living upstairs? Or do I need to go read the original story? I mean, did the mother think they sprung from the garden out back?
This story is frightening.
Much worse - that man (lower than a beast) is her father
Joseph Fritzl
it’s all in the story......the father claimed the daughter ran away.....when he had drugged her and taken her downstairs......then he claimed he found the infants with a note from the runaway asking her parents to raise them..so the state broke their own laws and allowed the adoptions......the other were in the sound proof dungeon......pics and drawings all at the story site......at least the one I saw yesterday. did you SEE the creep in his speedo on his Thailand vacation at the beach?????????
NO.
A 6 X 6 windowless cell, never to see daylight or have any communication with another human being - I should say, "a human being", not "another" one - for HE is not human.
I’d stick that SOB in a small cell with a VERY large inmate that is addicted to Viagra/Cialis and an endless supply to feed his addiction.
Three were raised as ‘drop offs’ the “FATHER” claimed his missing daughter dropped off on his doorstep. So he chose three to raise, three to keep hostage and one died as an infant.
He told the police and his invalid wife that their daughter had run away when she was 18. He claimed the three kids he raised were dropped off by his ‘missing’ daughter.
Maybe the inbreeding has had an effect? I agree with another poster - These kids will be studied intensively and will never have even close to a normal life.
I swear he and The Grinch are seperated at birth.
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