Josef Fritzl, better known as the ‘Amstetten Monster’He was sentenced to 72 years to life in prison for kidnapping and raping his daughter in his own home between 1984 and 2008. After those episodes, he had 7 children with her, without her consent, children who are actually his grandchildren. Now, almost 15 years later, he asks to be released from prison.

His lawyer assures that, at now 88 years old, psychiatric reports confirm that the ‘monster of Amstetten’ is “no longer a danger to society” and requests his transfer to a residence, arguing that his client suffers from cognitive impairment which could lead to dementia. It will be the Austrian Justice who has the last word.

At the end of the previous decade, this case shocked the small Austrian town of Amstetten, with no more than 4,000 inhabitants. So much so that the nickname ‘Amstetten monster’ served him well. For almost 24 years he had his daughter kidnapped and raped her and with whom he had, as a result of that non-consensual relationship, 7 children who were also his grandchildren.

He let three of the little ones live in the upper part of the house with him and his real wife, he locked the other three in this basement with his daughter, and the other little one died as soon as he was born and he disposed of the body by cremating it. in a boiler.

The ‘monster of Amstetten’ tried not to arouse suspicion and lead an apparently normal life while his family lived in inhumane conditions. In 2008, one of the young women fell ill and was taken to the hospital. He denies that she is a relative of his and maintains that she is a stranger who has been found near her house. That’s when the police start asking questions and search the property. It was then, in 2008, that he was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment for all of this.