The home of Austrian criminal Josef Fritzl has been divided into apartments rented to young people after plans to turn it into a horror museum failed.
And the basement dungeon where he held his daughter captive and raped her for 24 years has been filled with concrete.
The “horror house”, as it has been dubbed in local media, is located in the town of Amstetten, which is home to 23,000 residents.
Landlord couple Herbert and Ingrid Houska bought the house from Fritzl’s bankruptcy estate and renovated it.
They said: “All nine apartments are rented out. There are young people among them who have no connection to the Fritzl case.”
The couple had the garage entrance, through which the Austrian discreetly provided for his captives, bricked up.
It has now been 15 years since Fritzl’s sickening crimes first came to light.
They were discovered in April 2008 after he took one of the children born to a rape of his daughter to hospital with a life-threatening illness.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment after pleading guilty to rape, false imprisonment, manslaughter by negligence, and incest in March 2009.
Of the seven children born from the repeated abuse of his daughter, three remained in captivity with their mother and one died shortly after birth.
The remainder were brought up by Fritzl and his wife, Rosemarie, after he claimed they had appeared on his doorstep.
The identities of the victim and her children are now protected.
Former Amstetten mayor Herbert Katzengruber told local media: “Nobody wants to talk about it anymore. I won’t make a statement on it. The people are really angry.”
While current mayor Christian Haberhauer said: “No comment, the chapter is closed.”
Fritzl has co-written a book in prison with his lawyer Astrid Wagner called ‘The Depths of Josef F.’, in which he reportedly writes: “In reality, I am a good person.”
To find out more about the author, editor or agency that supplied this story – please click below.
Story By: William McGee, Sub-Editor: Michael Leidig, Agency: Newsflash
The Ananova page is created by and dedicated to professional, independent freelance journalists. It is a place for us to showcase our work. When our news is sold to our media partners, we will include the link here.
