Published 16:54 IST, March 4th 2021
Josef Fritzl's infamous case comes to life with The Girl in the Basement movie. The rapist was moved to a prison in 2008. Where is Josef Fritzl now?
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Lifetime's The Girl in the Basement is one of the most terrifying films based on the true story of Elizabeth Fritzl, who was imprisoned and raped for 24 years in her home's basement by her own father Josef Fritzl. The case finally came to light in 2008 when she somehow escaped the scene and reported to the police. Where is Josef Fritzl now?
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Where is Josef Fritzl now?
Josef Fritzl was arrested in 2009 for a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 15 years. Reportedly, Joseph has now changed his last name to Mayrhoff to spend his final days in anonymity. He took this action because he was being harassed by several inmates in his cell. In the latest report dated March 2019, it was revealed that his health is deteriorating and that he's supposedly suffering from dementia. According to Time, in the leaked portions of a psychiatrist's report, Joseph said, "I was born to rape, and I held myself back for a relatively long time. I could have behaved a lot worse than locking up my daughter."
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More devastating crimes from his past came to light thereafter. He was no stranger to the prison as he was previously admitted for the rape of a young nurse at knifepoint. He was also a suspect in the rape of another woman but that story never unravelled. In Elizabeth's case, he had lured her into their basement in 1984 and then locked her there until 2008. He would visit her daily to rape and assault her, after which she birthed seven children.
So that his wife wouldn't be suspicious, he designed a handwritten letter with Elizabeth's name on it that suggested that she had skipped towns and did not wish to go back to her parents. The letter was postmarked from the town of Braunau in Upper Austria. He further cooked up a story that made Elizabeth look like she had joined a religious cult. Before The Girl in the Basement, Brie Larson's Room (2016) had also threaded the same story, which was directly adapted from Emma Donaghue's book of the same name.
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16:54 IST, March 4th 2021