Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 591: Josef Fritzl Part I - Dungeon Master

Episode Date: September 28, 2024

The boys are back in full effect and it's gonna' get dark as we begin a tale of kidnap, rape, child abuse, torture, slavery, and murder with the story of one of the worst fathers in human history - Josef Fritzel. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes and get exclusive access to bonus content.

There's no place to escape to this is the last That's when the cannibalism started Are you boys ready? Yeah! Back in the saddle gay on... The back! That's the back! I gotta go harder. I'm trying to... I did punch it. So fast on your mic or something.

Lost his voice. It's very very sad. No, Ed's got it. It's gotta be more of a deeper... Back! Back! Back! Back in the saddle gay!

That feels good. It really feels good. I'm out of the. You had to sound like you're on the verge of vomiting. Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm back in the saddle with Henry Zabrowski. You're right. I, this series is really going to make you question because I cuz I you know obviously this is up. It's gonna be rough But I'm excited for it But I think that more people need to think about do you have a sex dungeon really or do you just have a sex basement?

Yeah, cuz this is really gonna you're gonna listen to this and it's gonna make you like oh I'm not really doing anything with my sex dungeon. Yeah, this is not a dungeon. Like, this is way more, this is a room. This is a fun rump room. Yeah, if there's a pool table, not a sex dungeon. It's not a sex dungeon. There's a refrigerator. Well, maybe a refrigerator.

If there's a door that opens from the inside, it's not a sex dungeon. Yes, yeah, that's the major one. What if it's a rumpus dungeon? That's cute! That is adorable. Lock me in here until I win all these darts. That's the thing.

It's playing baccarat until you're 50 years old and you haven't seen the sunlight in 24 years. And of course with us is Ed Larson. See, yeah, that's a good note. You did it well. I love it. I would say he's great. I blew up my voice earlier today

Would you do I was having sex with a police officer? Scream I was howling like a siren That's exactly what you make when you come Well we're talking about Dungeons that's because today we are gonna be embarking on the first part of our journey We're finally gonna cover Dungeon Master number one Joseph Fritzl. We covered him Scantily scantily a very long time ago when we did our sex dungeon episode No, this was a literally probably the very beginning of the show. And so now getting deeper into it

We really see it just a lot of uncomfortable details in there. Yeah it was also a topic on Roundtable of Gentlemen I remember. Multiple times. Fretzels. Fretzels. Which I'm still trying to remember what the fuck that joke is all I remember is Fretzels Pretzels. It just sounded good and I thought it'd be fun if he sold pretzels. It wasn't an actual constructed, like, intelligent... Yeah, you know, it was just words. Wordplay. Well, Joseph Fritzl is a notoriously monstrous sexual deviant from Austria who imprisoned

his daughter in a windowless underground dungeon of his own making for 24 years. He did this with the explicit purpose of creating a second family for himself, an underground family through incestuous rape. Hey, let's not sugarcoat it, Mark. God damn it. I wonder if he's guilty every time I even chuckle. Yes! Well, Fritzl met this goal many times over, fathering seven children with his daughter Elizabeth.

Some of those kids were brought upstairs and raised by Fritzl and his wife, but others spent their existence in the dank dungeon with their mother, never seeing the light of day or breathing fresh air until Fritzl's crimes were finally uncovered in 2008. But they were lucky enough to see pictures of the outside. They had a TV at one point. They had a little bit, for a little bit. And then they also got to see pictures of what it was like of her children playing upstairs in the light, all the stuff like that.

And that's just a not good way to do it. I'm glad that we have zoom now. Did they have like air filtration? No, no whatsoever. We'll get into all that But yeah, you didn't have air filtration in good European buildings But before we get into the story of just how something so awful can actually be achieved Let's acknowledge our source today. It's secrets in the cellar by John Glatt, which is a harrowing, if fascinating, read. You really, it's kind of amazing. This is one of those stories too where you think you know the story, then you do for the most part know the story, but the details are

absolutely insane. Yeah. His life was a life of dreariness and horror and he loved it. Yeah. You know, like it was the happiest, evilest man possible. Yeah. Yeah, he is a Grinch looking motherfucker. He's always got a little bit of a smile and the hair is fun.

You know, like also that's the only positive thing I am going to say today about Joseph Ritzel. What, his Egon hair? His hair is fun. You know, like, also that's the only positive thing I am gonna say today about Joseph Fritzl. What, his Egon hair? His hair is fun. Sure. There you go. You didn't see it? It sticks slowly up. I see it again. No, it looks disheveled. Yeah. He was upset. He didn't have a comb. Or maybe he did.

Now I think Joseph Fritzl would have been an evil prick no matter when and where he was raised. But it certainly didn't help that he was born just 90 miles from where Hitler was born in the Austrian town of Amstetten. Now this wouldn't matter if Fritzl was born in say 1976, but his birth year was 1935. What was wrong with that? That was just three years before the Austrian Nazi party invited Hitler and the rest of his goons to annex Austria in the ramp up to World War II. It really it is true because of every other type of well he's not a serial killer but

every other type of criminal that we've covered like you could say if you took them out of their time period they might not be you know they would either be it depends right now this didn't help no like being in pro-nazi austria did not necessarily make him like chill yeah i mean if this was it was a nazi town i mean i mean not every town in austria and germany was a nazi town but this was a nazi town yeah and i will, you know There are extended periods of time when he's in weird places and we don't know what he did So he could have killed some people. Oh There is some talk about what else there is no proof No, there's no proof that he killed me one, but he was definitely around dead bodies a lot

Yeah I actually will talk about this when we get to the second half of this series because there is actually evidence that shows he specifically chose not to kill for reasons. Okay. Now as far as his parents went, Fritzl hated his father and called him a loser and he was pretty much a non-entity in Fritzl's life after his parents went through an acrimonious divorce. His mother Maria on the the other hand, loomed large in Fritzl's life in the most negative of ways. She would beat him almost daily until, as Fritzl later put it, he was black and blue, lying in a pool of blood on the floor. It was my utmost That's my Joseph Fritzl voice.

Sorry! That's his catchphrase. Sorry? It's not though. Sorry! No, he actually, he never said I'm sorry. No he didn't. Well, Maria would leave him humiliated and weak, withholding all affection.

She would constantly insult Fritzl and tell him that he was a criminal, a no-good, a Satan, singular. Maria valued discipline above all else, and was by all accounts an eccentric who, according to one neighbor, was unable to tolerate daylight. Later, Joseph Fritzl would say that he was a so-called alibi child, birthed only so Maria could prove to Fritzl's father that she wasn't sterile. See, I'm an egg, used to be at least. Now I'm a little egg-shaped boy. Hope I don't do anything evil, Papa.

Mommy beat me good. Yes, I don't know why I'm smiling thinking about it, but now I know she was right. That's because you sound like a Sesame Street-ness. Mmm, R is for Ray. Oh, that's what R is for. I didn't know that's what that was for. Whoa, what episode of Sesame Street was that? I'm sorry.

He's allowed, he's allowed. Well, despite all this, Fritzl idolized his mother and called her quote the embodiment of the perfect woman I believe you. Oof I love her. You just couldn't you couldn't resist an oof. But it's the oof, it's not the normal oof. It's an oh, it's an oof. That's the Austrian oof. Yes, because it's different sounds it is I learned that the vowel sounds are different longer than Austrian But considering the time and place in which Fritzl was raised It won't come as a surprise to hear that Maria Fritzl was an ardent Nazi and she encouraged her son to join the Hitler youth As soon as he was of age. Yeah, I got into a little bit of research about the Hitler youth and it is true

Like cuz we've talked about it a couple of times During very series on blast podcast and the lowest levels were something like the the the Boy Scouts You're like very very low level Community building with touch of Nazis. Yeah the touch of not Joe Joe rabbit Yes Yeah But then it would rapidly increase like as you get There was different levels of Hitler youth and the second I believe you got to be about 10 years old is when they start teaching

You about how to kill Jewish people like how to do paramilitary actions and all of the pumping of the hate inside of them and kids were also taught to rat you out they were supposed to the way that the first versions of kids ratting people out was to go and look for musicians playing for and what they'd called their their non non-german music they call actually they called it schmutz and schmuck it was got filth and something else like that's from the can series you did for no doubt yeah yeah yes because it's all that where they'd have to go look for if you're playing jazz you're going to jail Yeah, and the child would a child would go up to and go like oh I like your bass drum move and you'd be like of course child

He says for a ego and the next thing you know you're in fucking book Yeah, the drummer in can his father was a jazz musician and it's rumored that he was killed by the Nazis for playing jazz He just did when he left the house one day just didn't fucking come back. There's cold in the noises Actually, there's some incredible jazz musician German jazz musicians Well, now that they've grown, now that they've become decent humans, there's some good jazz. It's nice, they let the jazz in. Yeah, as soon as the Jews were freed, the jazz got better. Also, how, curiosity, how young do they start the Hitler Youth, or did they? It's like five or six years old.

Damn. Yeah, yeah, and you're supposed to, yeah, you got to rat on your parents. Well, the town of Amstetten was a strategic point for the Nazi invasion of Soviet Russia as such the town was often full of Nazi soldiers about to head off to the Eastern Front and one of Joseph Fritzl's fondest childhood memories Was being a six-year-old Hitler youth playing amongst his fellow Nazis. Hello. Can I have a question? Do you have any jujutsu I can play with? Sorry, don't mean to annoy you. Sorry! That's me! Later, Joseph would say that he owed the Nazis for giving him his lifelong respect for authority and more significantly his lifelong belief in

Control he looked up to the Nazis they were a part of their daily life And he thought that they were cool, and that's why it turned out so well No and Joseph was a young lad in school He was intelligent and popular with both teachers and students as such his nickname was pepper which disturbs me for reasons I can't explain Pepper was excited when the Wehrmacht came marching through marching through. He was over the moon when the Nazis installed a concentration camp close to his town. This camp, which came to be known as Mauthausen, was located on Fritzl's route to and from school, and Fritzl would only become more fascinated with what was going on inside the camp each time he walked past. He apparently he would

like sometimes get off the bus early because they would go this is I apparently this is in the book and he did multiple interviews so we know a lot of details about his life and he would would, like, so my dad, you know, one of the fun things he used to do was that he used to go and he'd take me to Mets. We'd go see the Mets. We'd go to Shea Stadium and go watch the warm-up. Which is very similar to a concentration camp.

See, very similar. If you ever go to the bathroom in Shea Stadium. But then he would do that, but at a concentration camp. Like, he would walk up to the gates of a concentration camp and watching the Nazis like practice beat of a fake Jewish person in a Mannequin outfit or whatever you're on better back and forth and he's going like good night get your autograph Imagine they have your school field trips I imagine they have school field trips

The Hitler Youth yeah Because a lot of the Hitler Youth Himmler was a member of the Hitler Hitler Youth and one of the earliest members of the Hitler Youth and he went all the way at the top they often hired from inside of the Hitler Youth You know what's interesting is when you say something that you think is a joke and then just ends up being said Yeah Well unbeknownst to Fritzl Mauthausen was a favorite stop of Nazi psychiatrist Emil Gelny who murdered countless mentally and physically Disabled and mentally ill people as one of the Nazis tasked with ridding the country of so-called Undesirables he was a part of Aktion 4, or Aktion 5. Fünf? Fünf!

Eins, zwei, drei, vier. Aktion 4 in the ramp up to the Holocaust. Because, of course, they started killing people, they started killing mental patients before they started killing anybody else. That was kind of testing the waters. Gelny, who was the man who coined the term useless eaters to describe disabled people who took food from the mouths of soldiers on the front lines, he began his murderous mission by encouraging parents to institutionalize children with mental and physical disabilities. Once the kids were wards of the state, Gelney would murder them by lethal injection. In all, it's estimated that Gelney was responsible for the deaths of roughly 10,000 children,

but that was just the beginning. By 1944, he'd moved on to experimenting with electroshock therapy. When I say experimenting, I very much mean it in the Mengele sense. Because the war was going badly by 1944, the compounds Gelney needed for lethal injections were starting to dry up, and bullets were expensive. So Gelney constructed what was, in essence, a portable electric chair. This is one of those fun, like, lost chapters of the Holocaust.

It's a fun one, right? Yeah, yeah, I'm having a great time. Laugh a minute Gelney modified a standard ECT machine by adding four extra electrodes, which were constructed by a locksmith who worked at one of his Nazi hospitals. First, the so-called patient would be knocked unconscious using the standard ECT electrodes that were attached to the head. Then once they were out, Gelney would attach the other four electrodes to the victim's wrists and ankles.

It would then take a further 10 minutes of constant electrocution to finally kill the victim. The body would then be wrapped in a sheet and hidden behind a screen. So the next person coming in wouldn't see what had happened to the last person who'd laid down for Dr. Gelney. Excuse me, Dr. Gelney! Dr. Gelney. Excuse me, Dr. Gelney, Dr. Gelney, it's me. Hey, could I press the button one time? Do I get to sit in the cockpit? Well, why not just hang them? It's got to be cheaper.

Because that's not science. Yeah, they were trying to figure things out at the same time. They were well aware what happened then, but they also wanted to keep it quiet and they also wanted to keep it efficient. Hanging people takes a long time and you kind of need a large infrastructure for this. And as Henry said, if you use it, you can kind of, I guess, said if you if you use it you can kind of I guess feel a little bit better about yourself by using these sorts of like quote-unquote scientific methods because that's why they started using these methods in the first place is because all of the people who were like the people because in the beginning the

Holocaust it was like just go out and shoot them just everywhere you find them just fucking shoot them but gather them up shoot them bury them of course it was fucking people off Like horribly so they find a more systematic ways that if I'm more system systematic ways So this is just running ammunition exactly and they're dancing on the razor's edge of History is gonna look back on this and we have to figure out a way We know what we're doing is a series of war crimes, but we can't let ourselves know that we're doing a bunch of war crimes So what we need to do is pretend like it's legitimate science Yeah, and that's also a lot of rope to get that they need for you know various war for jump rope

They used to do those experiments where they would see how high they could drop somebody before they died and shit like that It's still a unit 731. Yeah, we'll do a redo of that. You'll like that. Yeah. Yeah, that's the Japanese. No, man. I imagine it's also easier to talk someone into laying down on bed and strapping something to themselves than walking up to a head man's noose. Absolutely.

Well, yeah, and they're all mentally handicapped and mentally ill and stuff like that. Or physically disabled, either or. But that's the thing, though, is that I don't know for sure what Dr. Gelny was doing in the concentration camp that Joseph Fritzl walked by every day on the way to and from school, but considering how the Mauthausen camp was where many of the sickest and weakest people from the other camps in Germany and Austria were sent to die, Gelny was probably there using these people as experimental subjects.

The other possibility was that Gelny was sent there as a part of his rounds to various camps to kill the weak and sick to make room for stronger prisoners who could be used for slave labor. Either way, nothing good happened when Galany was around. Yeah, you don't get any lollipops at the end of those appointments. No. Now By 1947, two years after the war was over and the concentration camp had closed up shop, Joseph Fritzl was no longer the Pepper everyone knew. By the age of 12, he was seen as a weird kid with a bad haircut because his mother was too cheap to pay for a good one. But there was, of course, a much darker side to Maria Fritzl.

See, Joseph Fritzl would always deny that he'd been sexually abused by his mother, but he did admit to having sexual fantasies towards his mother. He said he loved her across all boundaries, which meant that he definitely wanted to have sex with his mother Every single boundary doesn't always end with stropping in the boot It's just a lot of them doing mine No, what was your favorite outfit that she would wear I loved it when she was in the bath. It was always her birthday in the bath. Well he said, what he called himself, and this is a fun term, is that he called himself,

including the psychiatrist that eventually would go to say that he was saying enough to go to trial, a born rapist and a natural rapist. And he said that he was bound by his DNA to do so and the only reason why he never constantly basically never did anything with his mother was because of the law. Yeah. Well, he constantly congratulated himself for resisting his strong urges as if it was a difficult thing that like everybody has to deal with. Yeah. And it seems like it probably wasn't rape as much as it was just sex

Actually, mmm. That's a very complicated Statement you've just made. Yeah, it's very strange. Yeah, it's very complicated state very good for him. Yeah Oh, no, cuz he liked it. That's the real difference is that he was Probably flirting. Yeah, mommy. mommy remember when I was in your tummy What if I'm in your tummy again, but different? But whether or not Fritzel and his mom had sex, although they almost certainly did, Joseph moved with his mother to the town of Linz in 1952 when Fritzl was 16. There he got a job at a steel factory that had not only once been the heart of the Nazi

war machine, but had also partially been constructed by prisoners from Pritzel's local concentration camp. Oh my god, locally sourced! It's amazing to be in here. You can really feel the Nazi vibes in here. This is a fun workable space. It's just, if these walls could talk, they would go, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH You know? No, as Joseph entered his 20s, he became, as the book Secrets in the Cellar put it, I don't know if I would put it this way, called him something of a dandy. Yeah, yeah, something of a dandy in my mind is Alan Cumming.

This said, he had a perfectly manicured mustache and expensive clothes. He apparently never had any trouble getting dates, but he would never bring them home for fear of what his mother might say or do. This to me is him trying to fit in as a normal human being. Yeah. I think that a lot of times when you see somebody like that gain a bunch of affectations at once, we saw it with actually kind of interestingly with the Kenan Barbie killers we know with Paul Bernardo like facing Pretending to be something else we saw it with the guy that went to LA that went not Unterveger Yeah, Jack Unterveger where there there's something about like Dressing all up as an offensive measure because like he's doing it to appear normal fun engaging like he's got money

Like he's got it put together, but he's literally like a walking sexual assault machine. Yeah. It's also around this time that Fritzl began his career as a dangerous sexual deviant, although it all started, as it usually does, with relatively small incidents, considering the things he would one day do. Fritzl began exposing himself to women in the woods of Lens while riding his bicycle around the countryside to stalk and spy on women. Later he would describe the urges that caused him to do these things as an internal volcano

that he could barely control. What's very interesting though is that once I started showing my pecker out, my peckeroon teeth out to all of the ladies in town town. I regot the name pepper Green you oh Maybe nice nice. It's oxygen Okay, Yoda. Sex with my mother I did. Good it felt. Made my own brother I did. You know I always imagine it to be the spice pepper. Like salt and pepper.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Please imagine it to be the spice pepper. Like salt and pepper. No.

No. No. The vegetable. It has to be one you can stick in an animal. Thank you, Eddie. Correct. Well, this volcano excuse would be employed by Fritzl many times over the course of his life, but it's worth noting that many of Fretzel's most heinous crimes involved meticulous plans that sometimes

took years to come to fruition. That's kind of why I think that later on. Again, all of this information comes that we know from his inner life, comes from, yes, interviews around him that knew him as a kid, but largely his speaking with this psychiatrist and unleashing his entire life story and I think he used the quote-unquote internal volcano thing as almost like an excuse. Oh absolutely uses an excuse. Because he is very different than a lot of our impulsive criminals that we've covered before like yes he'd like to show his pepper at people but when he wasn't doing that quick action

He was a stalker and he planned Yeah, and he moved very slowly and he specifically tried to avoid getting arrested for a very long time for you know in the very beginning He was trying to be sneaky about it and thinking of ways to do it He was like becoming consumed with it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, he's a a like, he's sort of like a BTK or Irons, you know, people like that. Yes. Now a lot of these guys are just straight up liars. Do we think that he was like that with his psychiatrist? I find that when guys, I find it's two types.

There's people that talk about, there's people that talk too much. Henry Lee Lucas, people that talk that are, they, Israel Keys. I actually put him in that category too, where like a part of their game is talking all about it after the fact. BTK did it where they spill all their guts and they're the ones that don't talk, right, or lie about what they did. He would admit up to a point things that he would do but then he had this wall of Validation that he would use that and hide behind that I think is why a lot of this is interesting because a lot of this Comes out it's just getting right up to the lip of the full truth, which is just he won't allow himself to know Yeah, well, he's got a twisted logic when it comes to everything

allow himself to know. Yeah, well he's got a twisted logic when it comes to everything. And I find, I find at least like when these guys have a sort of logic to what their own internal logic, then they are more likely to tell the truth because they want to explain to you. Yes, they want you to know how my brain thinks. Yeah, they want to explain it to you. They want your validation. They want you to tell them like, oh, you're right.

You've been right this whole time. Everyone else is wrong oh man I gotta go fuck my mom oh shit that's right my mom's pussy is the best pussy in the world it made me so in 1956 Joseph moved back to his hometown of Amstetten and married a barely educated easily controlled 17 year old girl named Rosemary. Within two years, Rosemary gave birth to their first child, the first of six Joseph would bother with his wife over the next 13 years. It comes as no surprise to hear, however, that every single one of Joseph's children absolutely fucking despised him.

They said he was a cruel and exploitative man who ruled his family like a little Hitler. Hey, medium Hitler! Hey, no, I'm not that little. Hitler was little. He was little. You would beat anyone who disagreed with him in any way. As one person put it, it's like if he said something was black, it was black even if it was white. And if you said it was black, it was black even if it was white.

And if you said it was white, he would beat you within an inch of your life. Because he's the father. Yes. This is a very much story, kind of like John List, where this is about the power of the him be, this idea of like, my come made you, which means you belong to me. Yeah, you are mine. Yes, you are mine. You are my entities.

And so he viewed that as the father's privilege. It was also apparent to his children that Fritzl was a bad person outside of the house when he started getting arrested for sex crimes. In 1959, Fritzl was arrested for exposing himself to a woman. And from what I can tell, he didn't do any time for that one. Apparently, according to the local constable, my penis was big enough to be punished for.

And he says it because it's got to get to four inches for it to be considered legally exposing a dingus. Because I have a little snoopy and my pepper is not quite as peppery as it once was. But that's just my explanation, that's my side of the story. Don't take my word for it. Soon after though, he left his family for three years to live in Ghana at the time Which it's a fucking black hole of information well what we know is later on he would do big travels It sounds like he did a lot of his work when he left a lot of it was sex tourism

Yes, he would do a lot of sex tourism, and he would do a lot of just weird Shady-ass shit like he was like one of those guys who was a Salesman like whatever the fuck that means you know I mean like he just did weird ass jobs and stuff and then like yeah I don't know what he did there, but it probably wasn't great. No yeah when he went to Africa We don't know exactly what happened, but I'm gonna say it was bad But soon after Fritzel returned to Austria Joseph and Rosemary's fourth child Elizabeth was born

Immediately Joseph said that he felt a strange attraction to the infant and soon became obsessed because she physically reminded him of his mother. Elizabeth... She's a baby. Babies can't remind you of mothers. I think that Joseph was wrong. You might have had some sort of twisted sense. There's something going on. Elizabeth, of course, was the daughter whom Joseph would imprison in his dungeon 18 years later. But long before Joseph acted on these despicable urges, his so-called volcano was leading him to take more risks.

Instead of being just a mobile creep on a bike, he'd spend hours on end sitting in bushes spying on women until someone finally called the cops. Yeah, do you think this is fucking easy? I've got the berry in my asshole. All I want to do is see an old woman's bush hairs while she's going to the bathroom. Is that not a liberty I can express? What is the point of not having Nazis anymore

if I can't sit in the bush and watch an old woman go to the bathroom? That is what I like. I will not be detained. Well in September of 1967 Fritzl escalated. That fall, he tried dragging a woman into the woods to rape her, but she fought him off and escaped. The next month, though, he climbed into the kitchen window of a house that he'd been casing, snuck into the bedroom, and raped a woman at knife point.

He threatened to come back and kill her if she told anyone, but tell she did, as did the woman in the woods. Joseph, however, only spent 18 months in prison for both crimes. And while he did lose his job, he was immediately hired upon release by a construction company who eventually promoted him to the title of technical director. See, Joseph, we know what you did, and a lot of us were super unhappy with what you did in your past, but obviously some of your previous actions shows that you do very well with blueprints. I think that this is a perfect position for you and the company to be in charge of everyone.

Thank you! Your general distaste of women will help with our catcalling. Yes, yes, right? Okay, I'll tell you what. Here's my first go, hey. Oh, I love your butt. You remind me of my mother that I had sex with. All right, we'll work it out.

We'll work it out. Yeah, we could work some. I stick with the blueprints, huh? Not much with the flirting I am. I couldn't even close the deal with my own mother. What a pussy. Yeah. I couldn't even close the deal with my own mother. What a pussy. Yeah, you couldn't even fuck your own mom boo.

Yeah, I know, I know, because my dad is fucking always there. Well, in this job, Joseph Fritzl oversaw machinery that manufactured concrete sewage pipes. I can't imagine a better job than this man whose job is to just create pipes filled with human shit. Yeah, that's like all he does all day, because he's got the temperament for it. He really does. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's not like they put the shit in the pipes in the factory.

You're still moving shit. If someone asks you what your job is, it's I take shit from over there, and I send it over there Well before long concrete technology how to pour it and construct things with it became Fritzl's specialty This was how Fritzl learned the skills he needed to construct the underground dungeon where he would imprison his daughter for 24 years It's just fucking pieces keep just start falling into place to make this shit possible It's kind of like a twisted little moment of fate. You know what I mean? It's just like all the stars aligned, everything came together just the right way for me to do what I did.

Isn't that great? In the worst way possible. Yeah, you know, well, to some. But in terms of being a father with a sex dungeon, I'm pretty much the number one guy. And I have an actual dungeon. Now Fritzl managed to stay out of prison, and by 1970, at the age of 35, his wife gave birth to twins. Now that they had six children, Joseph decided they needed more room,

so they moved into his mother's massive three-story house. The question is what happened to Joseph's mother. No one really knows for sure where she went, but Joseph told neighbors in 1970 that she just died. According to what Joseph later told police, though, he bricked up the windows on the third floor and kept Maria Fritzl imprisoned there for a full decade until she really did die in 1980. Yeah, that's a, that's a, it's technically not, I don't think it's real. I don't think it's really a dare. They're saying it's not real, but you know, it's the tracks. It's a good story, but it doesn't really make any sense. I think she just died and he dumped his body, dumped her body somewhere.

Yeah, I think she just put her out with the trash. Yeah, so there's no resting place. They have no idea where her body went. No, because in the early 70s, Fritzl tore down his mother's home so he could build a larger house with apartments he could rent up, because he wasn't enough of an asshole. He had to fucking be a landlord as well. But when the house was demolished, Fritzl made sure to keep the cellar completely intact And that fucked this is how far in advance He knew he was gonna do this or it just started being like maybe if I could just have a room of one's own For me just like Virginia Woolf

Now do you think he was planning to put Elizabeth in this dungeon at this point or do you think he was just building a Elizabeth in this dungeon at this point or do you think he was just building a dungeon in case he wanted to imprison someone? I have no idea. That's a question that I really kind of struggle with. I think he decided maybe when she was in her teens to do it, but I'm not exactly sure the entire time he was building it if he decided like okay It's gonna be Elizabeth one of the my theory is that kind of weirdly what you said is that it's about things falling together

And I think that a lot of these guys look at Leonard Lake I can bring up a lot of different guys see he touches on a lot of different true crime strings Leonard Lake He had a childhood fascination with having women locked up. Yeah. Right? I'm, there is no way this wasn't one of his protracted inner fantasies for a long time. Having an interrupted space where he could do whatever the fuck it is he wanted and nobody could see it or know. Well, it wasn't just a fantasy, it was also for him, it was practical. Yeah.

Because that's how this man thought. He was very methodical. He's German, very, I mean he was Austrian, but it's very, like, it's that line of thinking. He was a Nazi. Yes. Yes, he was a Nazi. So while Fritzl was doing his 18-month stretch in prison for rape, he'd come up with an idea on how to never return.

Instead of changing his aberrant behavior, he decided to build a dungeon underground where he could imprison a woman who would bear the brunt of Joseph's evil side so he could remain a so-called good man upstairs. So he's like, oh, it's kind of hard to get out of here. I need one of these. Whoa! I get out of here. Yeah.

In these. Such a good idea. I love this shit so much. Don't get me wrong. I love this. I love prison. I love the bars. But I want to be the guy with the keys. Yeah, and as the years went on, it became more and more apparent that this woman was

going to be his own daughter, Elizabeth. See when Elizabeth was christened at the age of 11, her father raped her for the first time. She learned to endure these violations, they continued, but they got worse in 1977 after Rosemary took the other kids on a vacation to Italy. Oh God, just, they're leaving to go to the best place in the world. You gotta be back with Daddy Yoda. So she took five kids and left Elizabeth and him. Because he refused to let her go, yeah. Fritzl insisted that Elizabeth stay behind, and once the rest of the family was gone, the rapes could occur anytime, anywhere.

After that, Elizabeth turned from a normal outgoing child into a shy, nervous recluse. Fritzl, however, maintained that things didn't happen that way. During his interrogation, he said that he didn't have sex with his daughter until she was 18, gallantly withholding his sexual impulses until it was quote-unquote appropriate, just like he'd done with his mother. He had this internal, it's what I'm talking about by this internal logic, where he's like, no, no, no, no, I'm not a bad guy. Yeah, I'm not a child molester.

Yeah, I'm not a bad guy. I waited until she was 18 to lock her up in the basement and have sex with her You know like oh, yeah, I guess jealous You just wish that you had the same idea. You're just jealous you dick riding me. You're a hater. Yeah This was of course a lie, but it was the only one that Fritzel could tell during his interrogation that made any sense considering the seller See Elizabeth wasn't imprisoned until 1984, after Elizabeth turned 18. The cellar, however, was no idle thought on Joseph's part. He began construction on this nightmare in 1978, six years earlier.

I don't know if it was daughter-specific. I actually don't know, because I think he was already doing it He started constructing it a year after he started raping her. Yeah, so it's quite possible It's it's likely that this was his fantasy Yeah, I mean it would have to be he would need a place where no one else could go but him and whoever he had in There honestly if you think that that what I did was bad, you should have seen my mood board. Was pretty rough! Life from North Laid

Branching off from the original cellar left over from his mother's demolished home, which dated back to the year 1890, so you know that was a creepy fucking cellar, the dungeon was meticulously planned and constructed all in plain sight. In fact, the Austrian government actually helped finance its construction. Wow, that's how liberal they are. See, after building a new home for his family and eight additional apartments for tenants, there were eight people living above this shit. Oh yeah, and Fred Rose West is also very similar, too

So you think there's no way they heard this shit going on? Well, we'll get to that here in a bit Okay, but Fritzl applied for financial assistance to build a domestic nuclear shelter and he got the grant and after he got the money He moved forward with the construction of a full-on rape dungeon in his own backyard in full view of everyone. But for Joseph Fritzl, the dungeon's purpose was not just sexual pleasure. His plan was to start a second family with his daughter underground. For reasons that are a little unclear. Yeah, they are unclear.

But I think I have some guesses. Yeah? It might just be that the wrongness of it all gave him an extra charge, but more likely I think it was about control. See I also think Control there's also like a medieval aspect There's a little bit of me wondering if it's him being like well my DNA is so superior. Can you imagine two times? Maybe but I think but looking at the situation But I think, but looking at the situation, the room which would house Elizabeth and her children started off as no bigger than 15 feet long by 15 feet wide.

It's no bigger than a medium-sized bedroom. It's actually probably about the size of the room we're in right now. This would be Elizabeth and her children's entire world, making it very easy for Fritzl to control every single aspect of their lives. And indeed, Fritzl did make the single aspect of their lives. And indeed Fritzl did make the space livable for the long haul. He installed ventilation, an underground furnace, a toilet, and a kitchen complete with plumbing and utilities. More importantly, he soundproofed everything.

Wow, it does kind of sound like in here. Yeah. Whoa, is that what we've done to ourselves? Have we put ourselves in a Fruitsles prison of content? I mean I could use a sink in a bed I'll tell you that much. One entrance led directly into the cellar of his house but this required walking through eight locked doors, including three that required electronic codes and one door that weighed 600 pounds. There was also a second entrance that was accessible via a secret door in Fritzl's

backyard. It's a lot of work. Over six years, Fritzl would remove over 250 tons of dirt and pour reinforced concrete to make walls, floors, and ceilings all in full view of everyone and with the approval of the local government, who believe Fritzl was doing something good for the community. I mean, God, if there was a nuclear war, he was fucked. Yes. Oh no!

He didn't start building until the Cold War was practically over? Honestly, I just...I should have made it BOOM! I should have made it nuclear proof! This is 78, man. This is when the Cold War is starting to heat back up again. Fucking Ronnie Reagan, that shit started...the 80s were like, hot time! Real hot time for the Cold War. I also find it interesting...I mean, not only just the size of it because this is what I thought when I first read the story when we first were all Talking about it. I thought it was just like in a basement. He put a lock in the door

Mmm, like that's like what I felt like kind of like ariel castro No, it was just like they're in a back room and no one's asking. No, he dug up his backyard to build this Yeah, did he do it himself or did he hire like a crew? Was it all with a shovel just like? Construction machines. Yeah, yeah, McHugh. You had fucking you know front and loader. Whatever he needed. Yeah Did he do it himself or did he hire like a crew? Was he out there with a shovel just like, brrrr, brrrr, brrrr,ubs and bushes in the backyard to ensure privacy and always made sure to shop around for the best deals In other words Fritzl was in no hurry, which makes him all the more terrifying Rosemarie Fritzl meanwhile would comment proudly on how hard her husband was working on his backyard project She did nothing. Nothing.

She just stayed at home. Well, she was terrified of him. Oh yeah. She didn't have a job. No. Not that I know of. I think she was just a housewife, yeah. Elizabeth Fritzl, however, had no idea what her father was planning.

He continued sexually abusing her, but she was doing her best to live a normal life. She was slowly trying to pull away from the horrors of her home in Amstetten. But it was pretty thick. What was happening to her was fucking awful. So it was, she was already known to her friends as like a shattered person. Like it was very, very difficult. And then she was extremely afraid of her father. She was not able to really have any form of social life. She had to leave immediately. Yeah. Her friends said that she would never really like talk about boys. No.

Like when they would like talk about, oh, isn't he cute? She would just wouldn't even answer. Yes. Fritzl, meanwhile, blew off steam at the local brothels. While his family was forced to budget and struggle financially, Fritzl would pay sex workers $225 an hour up to three times a week to, among other other acts pretend to be corpses while he had sex with them Oh, that's why he was looking for the best deals Budget your money

Most of those women however didn't see him a second time because aside from the corpse play He'd sometimes get violent choking them right up until the point of death Because aside from the corpse play, he'd sometimes get violent, choking them right up until the point of death. The weirdest thing he did was he'd ask girls to crawl into sacks, and then once they were in the sack, he'd verbally berate them. Yeah, while they're in the sack. And that's it. That's all he would do.

You're a bag woman and you're dumb. You're a bag woman and you're in your stupid little girl sack. You're a sack woman. Yeah, he notoriously hated potatoes. Girl, you miss burlap. Oh, look at you. You're all sack woman. Yeah, he notoriously hated potatoes. Girl, you miss burlap. Oh, look at you. You're all bagged up.

Ready to go. Have to go. Drop a road. Well, other sex workers, however, would be paid to act as if Fritzl was hunting them down to rape them. And he was a bad tipper on top of everything else. To be honest, I find that the worst part about him. Well, I mean, as Europe, that's not really a tipping culture.

Is that what you're honest about? You're honest about him being a bad tipper, that being the worst part about well, I mean is Europe. That's not really a tipping culture Is that what you're honest about to be is that you're you're honest about that and being a bad differ that being the worst thing About him. I feel like honestly honestly this is what you're being honest about honestly being a terrible customer It's one of the worst things you can be Then a father having sex with his daughter multiple times in a sex dungeon in order to make a second secret underground family. But God forbid you're a hypocrite. I mean that makes me crazy. He's guilty of all three.

He was never a hypocrite. He openly talked about how he wanted to have sex with his mother. He openly talked about wanting to have sex with his daughter. He was completing a promise to himself. Okay. Well according to one brothel owner, owner Fritzl had a bill for 97 euros He'd pay with a hundred and asked for change yikes now the image we have in our mind of Joseph Fritzl Is that of the exhausted old man hair sticking straight up with a look on his face that says he's just slightly put out by all This hullabaloo. It's it's one of those where if you were to put him next to two other old guys

And you asked me who of these old guys kept his daughter in a basement and had a bunch of children with her Yeah, I choose him unless you also were gonna ask me or which one of these makes fun candy professionally If he didn't have sex with his own family he'd probably be in charge of Cadbury Know what I'm saving a few! Charming a few... I know what I'm listening to on the ride home today. If you're having problems with the content of the show right now, I would say stop, go listen to Carlotta Farts. I got a Carlotta Farts! Just try not to let that guy remind you of Joseph Preston. Ted Pilt.

You know, I think he was local. He was California boy. But that mugshot, the famous Joseph Fritzel mugshot that we all know, the one taken in 2008 when he was in his 70s, that betrays the successful man that Fritzel was when he was younger. He owned multiple properties in Austria and did quite well for himself in the worlds of both construction and real estate It takes a lot of fucking money to tear down a house and build up an entire new one with apartments and This fucking rape dungeon on top of all that I mean and he wasn't a cheat like he wasn't like fucking around. He wasn't HH homes not paying people

He had money. He was successful He wasn't H.H. Holmes, not paying people. He had money. He was successful. I'll just stop about that. It's been like, and he's not a cheap guy. No, cheat. I called him a cheat. Yeah, he's not a cheat.

I mean, at the very least. No, it cost a lot of money. To me, that makes him even more terrifying. Because if he was a cheat and he was always a piece of shit all the time, that's one thing. But this just regular Successful asshole has this shit in his fucking backyard. That's how you get away with it Yeah I would say that the the super power of the sis het male is the ability to compartmentalize None that way where he is the type of person that can just lot. He just locks it away

Well literally, but like you like literally compartmentalized it. It's the same in a compartment underneath his house. Truly we talk about this with another thing about like when they're homes when a serial killer's home sort of symbolizes the crimes themselves where like he put that version of himself downstairs and upstairs is the Yosef that everybody knows and he's then free to kind of do both and then he can be even worse when he goes downstairs And he can even be more normal when he goes upstairs because he's not trying to balance But that's the thing is that he was still a fucking horrible father Yeah, he's a horrible do it to his kids, but I don't think he was a nice man upstairs But they don't know how good they had it. Yes is their sister. Yeah, well really the only failure

It seems he had in the business world was when he tried starting his own mail order lingerie business Yeah, that's what's hard to say you got a drum up business, and they can't smell all like cigarettes and stuff I was trying to mail out lingerie for a while. It's weird. They get mad if they see buffalo wing sauce on it You can't get high on your own supply They're just chewing on lingerie That new fucking Menendez Brothers show like I've been eating a lot of buffalo wings. Yeah Talking about mr. Buffalo all the time

It could have worked. Yes, and I just I'm glad that they finally kissed in the new show Yeah, yeah, I Can't watch it Not just because of Ryan Murphy not because of Menendez Brothers. Understandable. Well, as one of Elizabeth's brothers put it, they believed that the pig, that's what they call Joseph Fritzl, they believed that he would beat them all to death one day. And one child was so traumatized that when he heard the key turning the front door lock, he'd hide in the corner and wet his pants.

Rosemary, meanwhile, resigned herself to a strained and cold marriage. I actually prefer it this way. When he was kissing me and hugging me, it wasn't good either. No. After Rosemary's seventh child, Fritzl announced to everyone that he would no longer have sex with his wife because she was too fat. Why are you telling us, dad? But Rosemary was all too happy to accept this declaration because she hated him just as

much as everyone else. The children, however, still met their father's focus all too often. Fritzl believed in an Austro-Hungarian tradition called Scheitelkanin, or crown kneeling. In this punishment, children were made to kneel for up to an hour on a sharply cut log of wood until they bled. Looking online though, the only instances of Scheitelkanin that I could find were pictures of old men

dressed in traditional Austro-Hungarian garb, drinking beer out of huge steins, kneeling on specially made Scheidel-Knein boards as a weird endurance competition. See, that makes sense. They just took that and they put kids on them. But that's the thing. No, that's the thing.

It's not even fun! It started as the punishment first. It's like how in America, like certain fraternal organizations... Paddle people. Yeah, they use fancy handmade wooden paddles to spank each other. It's just weird. I don't know why men across many white cultures turn extreme childhood punishments into adult endurance contests when we all get together and form clubs.

Because men that don't go and die in war, they turn everything into violent competition, according to Jung. That is true. Well this is just this is endurance. Yeah but after war it's experiencing pain. But I would imagine enduring pain. But it seemed as if many of the old German and Austrian men in these pictures quite possibly had gone to war at one point. Oh, but the wrong side! You know, this is why I like playing Connect Four when I go get drunk. It's a lot better than kneeling on wood. Did you ever have to do that? Did you ever? I know like the most medieval- I had to do like isometric push-ups and stuff like that.

The most medieval thing I was forced to do when in Sunday schools, and I had to be on my knees and I had a whole two Dictionaries and my hands. Yeah, was that like as a punishment? Oh see they used to make us do like sitting against the wall for yeah Well, yeah that stuff but it was all for like making us strong Yeah, and look up with you and they were right your father even though in many ways was abusive He was also many ways correct because look how big you are. No, he's sounding great today Was abusive he was also many ways correct because look how big you are now. He's sounding great today All these years of therapy being like my dad ignored me

But our punishments are just as valid our problems yeah, no what No, I don't think they are. You know, we'll save it. We'll save it for our therapy fund. Yeah, yeah. I'm not going to go and say, yeah, I'm glad that when I was at school, I would get beaten by wooden paddles all the time in public school. Yeah, that was very strange. Yeah. But look at you.

I think it gave you discipline in many ways, though. I don't think it did. No, probably not. No, it really didn't. No, especially because they'd fucking, especially when you were like an Adults like when you were 17 or 18 and then you'd have another grown man like paddling you And then you'd and then you'd like laugh afterwards, and you'd shake your hand you'd sign the paddle

I hate that stuff because that's just one that's fucking one step away from actively having sex with each other It's really fucking weird, guys. Yeah. It's really fucking strange. Yeah. I know a lot of you out there listening right now might not think it is. But it is. It's really fucking weird. Men play in horseplay as other types of activity.

You know what I mean? Join the wrestling team. Yeah. Yeah, then you can play grab ass for free. But as far as Joseph's other punishments went, he would make his children stand on rice on a marble floor in bare feet while balancing a book on their head. And if the book fell, the children would be whipped. I think tidy clume used to have to do that.

That's like the type of stuff they used to do to like Natalie in like ballet school. They used to hit her with a stick and stuff. Yeah, but it's the standing on the rice. Yeah. That's a really horrible part. It's a waste of rice. It hurts. Now in the summer of 1981, Elizabeth started pulling away from the Fritzl household,

although Joseph still maintained a degree of control. Fritzl got her a job as a server at a rest stop restaurant, intentionally coercing her into hospitality and service jobs so she would have the right skills to be in his words a good dungeon wife Which I don't really know because it's not like she's gonna be bringing stuff to a four-top in a rape dungeon I think it was just a part of the fantasy. Yes, like he wanted her to be able to be like a little housewife Yes, perfect servant turned on by a waitress on the other side of town and you wanted his daughter to do it or something. Yeah.

I mean, if it happens five times a day out in Los Angeles. Well, reluctantly Fritzl did allow Elizabeth to attend a technical college 100 miles south of Amstetten when she was 17. But it was there that Elizabeth would finally tell someone what had been happening to her at home since she was 11. In January of 1983, Elizabeth broke down in a bar and told a friend everything. They then decided to run away together, but when Fritzl discovered she was gone, he reported her missing and even got Interpol involved in the search. Elizabeth and her friends were found at a party in Vienna three weeks later, and since she was still a minor, Fritzl was able to bring her back to Amstetten.

This incident, however, had inadvertently given Joseph Fritzl the perfect cover story for when he finally locked her in the dungeon. From just a single instance of Elizabeth running away from home, Fritzl was able to create a narrative that Elizabeth had always been an unruly and troubled black sheep who constantly ran away because of her problems with drugs and alcohol. Elizabeth meanwhile figured that all she had to do was make it until she was 18 and she'd never have to see her father ever again. He knew that too though. Mm-hmm. What she didn't know was that in the fall of 1983 Fritzl was putting the finishing touches on the

dungeon where she'd spend the next 24 years of her life. The only thing left is to hang the mizuzah. Ah yes. You know, something about him makes me think he wasn't a mizuzah. I don't know. It's ironic, don't you think? We think he was Using an industrial winch Fritzel lowered massive concrete blocks and a concrete and steel door into place.

If I was Elizabeth, I would have been getting real nervous at this point. That made the underground dungeon an impenetrable fortress from which there would be no escape save his mercy. In Fritzl's world, his cellar was his kingdom that only he could enter. He said said quote, This is what everyone knew who lived in the area. That includes my wife, my children, and my tenants. And none of them ever managed to force their way into my kingdom, or asked me what I did

there. And indeed, even the city signed off on the dungeon when it was finished. Building inspectors gave final approval to Fritzl for his so-called nuclear shelter, apparently unconcerned about the hall of eight doors with multiple electronic locks that all locked from the outside. It's to keep out all the smoke. If you know how to smoke, it'll go everywhere. And this is why it's important to remember, you must not try.

Do! I'm sure they're all impressed! Everywhere and this is why it's important to remember you must not try But questions aside if there were any Fritzel was given a generous state grant when the dungeon was finished at the end of 1983. All he had to do now was find the right time to lure his daughter into the darkness. Perhaps Fritzl had to work up the nerve to actually imprison his daughter, because Elizabeth wasn't locked in the cellar until August of 84. Or, more likely, he may have wanted to give the so-called shelter time to cool off for a bit and let everyone forget that it even existed. I think that was probably why he waited.

Yeah I could also just see just like, you know, when is the perfect time? And that's as hard as that. There's no such thing as a perfect time, ever. It's always about now. Stop procrastinating. But either way, Elizabeth was working a new job and attending school when Joseph decided it was time. Quite suddenly, Joseph and Rosemary showed up where Elizabeth was living one day and

brought her back to Amstetten. Once home, Fritzl asked Elizabeth to help him move a heavy steel door in the basement. When they were in position, just in front of the dungeon door, Fritzl shoved his daughter inside, grabbed the back of her head, and rendered her unconscious with an ether-soaked rag. When she finally lost consciousness, Fritzl handcuffed her and dragged her down the hallway, passing all eight doors, then threw her on the bed in the dungeon. He then raped her repeatedly, and when he was done, he left her arms chained behind

her back, handcuffed her to a pole, and turned off the lights. Elizabeth would not see the sun or breathe fresh air again for almost nine thousand days. During those first nine months, time lost all meaning for Elizabeth because the only light she would ever see was when her father showed up to rape her. After he was done, he'd leave a bowl of food that Elizabeth would eat while manacled to the wall in total darkness. She'd scream for days on end, banging the walls in a vain attempt to be heard, but remember,

it was soundproof. After a few months, Fritzl unchained Elizabeth's hands from behind her back and tied an electric cable around her waist, then tied the other end to the metal pole. It was just long enough for her to reach a small toilet in the corner of the room. He decided to release her, I believe. Something had changed in his work life, where he decided that she had spent enough time, manacled, she could now then start to roam freely inside of here. Well, not even freely it she was still attached Yeah, she was tied to the with the electrical cable for quite a few months before she was allowed to walk freely

That's a sound horrible. Maybe he's just sick of cleaning up her shit. I can't Yeah, could be yeah that did sound horrible Yeah, that did sound horrible Fritzl also hadn't done a very good job designing the ventilation system Elizabeth barely had enough oxygen to breathe and spent the next 24 years Exhausted and lethargic it only got worse in the summertime when the dungeon became as hot as a sauna You figured that he'd wanted to be nicer for himself. Yep. I think part of it was the torture Yeah, I think he liked knowing that she was down there suffering and then when he went down there It was like a whole different like he made it better. Yeah, he's a good you see I'm here. I'm making everything nice now

It's gonna be a very loaded weird question. There is no right question to ask He loved her or did he hate her? Cuz he loved his mother and he imprisoned his mother he purported he love her or did he hate her? Cause he loved his mother and he imprisoned his mother. He purported to love her. Like that was his line was that he loved her. But this was in his perverted sense, the ultimate expression of his entire love, right? This idea of I've created a whole world where you're separate from everyone else and it's just you and me and I love you so much that you're too pure

You're too like the other people can have you I have to have you here Protected so that you and I can make this family together because one day you'll see Now when Elizabeth disappeared Joseph acted completely out of character in public by being concerned and empathetic, which everyone thought strange. It's weird to even try to make a crying noise in ways because it's just sounding like it turns me on crying. You know? That's fucked up.

That's fucked up. It is, Joseph. Thank you. I feel seen. But this was up. It is, Joseph. Thank you. I feel seen. But this was all a part of his plan. After a couple of days, Joseph and Rosemary went to the police to file a missing persons report, making sure to tell them that Elizabeth had done this sort of thing before. Fritzl then made a big show of searching for Elizabeth in train stations, homeless shelters,

and bars. Elizabeth, like looking in trash cans, homeless shelters, and bars. Fritzl however, knew that just giving her up for a runaway wasn't going to satisfy anyone. He needed people to think she was still alive somewhere, and he came up with what sounds like the dumbest fucking plan in the world, and it would be if it hadn't been 100% successful. About a month after Elizabeth was imprisoned, Fritzl forced her to write a letter to her parents explaining that she and a friend had run off to join a religious cult. The letter stated that she didn't want to live at home anymore and didn't want anyone to look for.

Fritzl then took the letter, drove a hundred miles away, and mailed it back to his own home. This was just the first of many letters that Fritzl would use over the years to convince everyone that Elizabeth had joined a mysterious cult that no one had ever heard of and no one could place. And all of her friends immediately were like, Elizabeth didn't join a fucking cult, she didn't hang out with us, how in the fuck was she going to have the time to go meet all of the people in the cult and go join the cult? Mm-hmm, but for Rosemary this was a relief because she was under the impression that her daughter had finally escaped ironically enough

I mean she was just that that woman was destroyed. Yes. She is like again one of those I think it will go throughout history about like how much was she involved what she knew but he really he really spent the most in majority of his mental energy hiding her she probably rosaried almost certainly knew that Elizabeth was being sexually abused while she was growing up I do not think that she knew anything about the seller yeah I don't think she knew anything I don't think anybody knew anything about the seller. Yeah, I don't think she knew anything I don't think anybody knew anything about the dungeon It's a common question every single time we see one of these is how much the other party know

It's just because it seems like it's a lot but it's just again I think in this time I think that we should also place this story in the time period where they all came from and Remember a lot of these people spend a lot of time being very good at not asking questions and not looking for answers Yep. Yeah, and it's also it's not just her. It's the other kids Other kids or something. Well, we'll get to all that here in a bit Yeah, well when the ruse passed the first hurdle fooling the wife Fritzl then took the letter to the police They called off their search efforts, but still kept her on record as a missing person.

Finally, and I think this was pushing it a little, Fritzl took the letter to the local newspaper and had them run a story about Elizabeth running off to join a cult. See, he was like, people knew him around town. He knew him. He was a known quantity. I don't know if they liked him. I don't know about that. But he was viewed as a serious businessman.

Yes. That makes decisions and you know, like just spent the last six years home building his own nuclear containment unit. So they all thought that he was just some very forthright and strong-willed German businessman. I'm sure he built half the buildings in town.

I mean he was involved in it. In all the shit pipes. Yep, definitely all the shit pipes Over the years Joseph and Rosemary would give further interviews to the press about Elizabeth's supposed disappearance Always playing the part of devastated parents who had lost their child to some mysterious organization But while the press tour might seem like it was gilding the lily, Joseph Fritzl successfully convinced anyone who might have cared that Elizabeth was gone but safe. From that point forward, Elizabeth Fritzl became just sort of a story people told if they remembered her at all.

It's like she was already dead. Yeah, he was successful at just erasing her. Meanwhile, the day Elizabeth turned 19 and the police officially called off the search, Fritzl celebrated the occasion by removing the cable leash from Elizabeth's waist so she could walk freely in her 15 foot wide, 15 foot long prison. This was seven months after her imprisonment began. Didn't you always just want to touch the south wall? Because that's crazy, right?

It's different temperature, different vibe. In order to just survive, Elizabeth resigned herself to a life in the cellar. As one psychiatrist put it, her psyche had to twist itself to find patterns of daily existence in order to normalize her experience. Basically, she shut down and went along to get along. Once she did this, Fritzl softened. Instead of just showing up to rape, beat, and feed her scraps, he started bringing clothes, blankets, other small presents, and what author John Glatt called a bizarre courting ritual.

This was his flirting. Yeah, this is him. He really is like, okay, now that I've broken you, we can now begin the process of our relationship together. He's making her his wife. Yes. The rapes also became less violent. And after he was done, he would sit and talk to her. He would tell her news about the rest of the family, his future plans for the garden. He'd sit and talk to her about what movies he'd seen E.T. Everybody's seen E.T. But even after being some semblance of civil, Joseph would be sure to remind Elizabeth that the steel door keeping her imprisoned was booby-trapped, and if she ever tried to escape,

she would be killed by a cloud of deadly gas. This wasn't true. As far as how Fritzl kept Elizabeth and his dungeon a secret, he told his family to never go into the cellar ever again because he'd transformed it into his private office. And since everyone was fucking scared shitless of him, they obeyed. This doesn't surprise me at all. No, definitely. I think that it does work because he set the rules. He set the rules in the house and everyone was just didn't want to deal with it. They just were trying to get the fuck out of this house essentially. And I think that it does work because he set the rules He's at the rules in the house and everyone was just didn't want to deal with it They just were trying to get the fuck out of this house essentially and I think that when you build your office

I mean like again, I'm not I'm not speaking positively at all But I will say that there's I have this idea of having what I call I've said this to Natalie my comedy lab And you know what I would love is to have a comedy lab out in the backyard somewhere, river of land. And it's just stuff like, don't ever come in there. Don't ever come into the comedy lab, especially if I'm laughing because that's when things are bad.

If I'm laughing inside of the comedy lab. No, no, that's when it's going bad because it's when it's silence. Cause that's when you know, I have a good idea because of the silence because I'm scribbling But just don't come to the comedy lab if it's a lot if the lab is a laughing don't come up grab it So in this way he died that's where I I'm not jealous Yeah, and plus I'm sure they were relieved whenever he was in his very much It's like oh, he's not in the house. Yeah, fuck it.

Stay down there. Do whatever you want down there. Yeah. They absolutely loved when he was gone on business trips, when he was, yeah, anytime he was out of the house, they said things were good. Also remember there were apartments looking down on this dungeon. I mean, tenants lived on the property. There were eight apartments on the property and these people were banned from both the cellar

and the backyard. In fact, nobody was allowed to take pictures of the backyard. He told them, do not take pictures of the backyard. But I don't know what justification Fritzl gave for this rule. Was he a Brooklyn landlord? Because it does sound like one of those,

you know, when you'd live in those places where you- Weird arbitrary rules. And you're not allowed to go and like, you know, there's a way to get arbitrary rules And you're not allowed to go and like you know there's a way to get there But you're not allowed to go into the back courtyard. You're not allowed to go on the roof You're not allowed to do these things don't take pictures of the backyard sure, okay, I Know is that everyone who lived there was terrified of Joseph Fritzl and even though many tenants said they would hear Mysterious sounds from the cellar over the years all of them were too frightened to investigate or even complain

I'd be like I'm renting here buddy. I'm not looking into this. I also don't I'm not quite sure about the whole mysterious sounds thing I'm not sure if that was like a remembered thing that they had or sounds like she was under inches of concrete Yeah, I don't know have any clue if they would be able to hear anything Yeah, also people like invent stories in their head after they're being exactly. Oh, yeah, of course because I actually view them as all like we talk about this with any one of these big true crime stories of how like The pain goes all the way down. They're all victims. They all were a part of this cover They were all folded into the story They are they are then of I imagine if you're sitting on top of this style of dungeon and all of this shit's going on

Afterwards you're racking your brain to try to figure out like You know, some many somebody must have seen something someone has been some known something I'm sure all their friends were like what the fuck you didn't didn't see nothing? Yeah, of course. If you lived above this, I'd be like, Henry. I'm fucking paranoid and I dig and I do look and I look in windows and I look in people's cars. People ask why I dig. This is why I dig. I did I love digging I like to look I like to see I also love the act of digging yes Well as far as Fritzl's justification for spending so much time in the cellar when he told his wife that he was working on a new Business venture and had to spend his nights down in his cellar office in order to figure out how to make it work

The second set of horrors however began in began in September of 1986, two years after Elizabeth was first imprisoned. See, Fritzl's plan, if you'll remember, was to create a second family underground that could be entirely under his control, and Elizabeth finally became pregnant that fall. But after she became extremely depressed and miscarried, Fritzl tossed the fetus into the incinerator and turned off the lights in the cellar to punish Elizabeth. I'm mad at you Elizabeth.

Kobe! I'm leaving. It's also possible that Fritzl took out the rage he felt in other ways. A month after the miscarriage, two divers fished the raped and beaten corpse of a 17-year-old girl out of a nearby lake, and the author of Secrets in the Cellar believed that Joseph Fritzl was responsible for this murder. I wouldn't put it past him. No.

Well, this happens a lot with serial killers or people that are capable of murder. If there's something very upsetting happens, you know, people lose a job, whatever, they take it out on somebody else. Yeah. And it's quite possible he took it out on this girl. The next year, it's thought that Fritzl may have committed even more heinous crimes during a trip to Thailand that he took with a friend of his. See, Fritzl went on trips fairly often, and when he was gone, he'd stock up a freezer

he installed in the cellar with food He would tell Elizabeth that if anything would happen to him while he was gone There was a failsafe mechanism on the cellar door that would release her after a certain period of time But of course that was a lie. Yeah, he died. He died. She would starve to death in there Yeah, god damn that's like the fucking worst thing on the face of the planet. Yeah, you think it's over You know I mean like maybe he's not coming back, and then it's like maybe he's not coming back. Yeah Would there be a light on when he would leave for months? Yeah? Yeah, yeah in reality Fritzl would leave Elizabeth entirely alone in solitary confinement for up to a month during these trips to Thailand, where he would abuse staff and sex workers

while sunbathing and riding elephants. Do you ever see that Netflix documentary they put out about Joseph Fritzl a little while ago and they had taken it down for some reason? I couldn't find it anywhere. But one of the details I remembered was the buddies talking about what those trips were like because now like sex tourism is like even more explicit then it was like a Business trip. Yeah, you know and so he'd go and but they would all talk about how like Fritzl was like Honestly, he's a jerk at home, but on vacation. He's hilarious

If you knew him in Thailand Thailand Joseph let his hair up. He was ready to go. You know what I mean? Like that's how they viewed it. But yes, he was extra- he was a fucking monster. Yeah. In 1988 though, four years after Elizabeth was imprisoned in the cellar, she's in there for four years now. She got pregnant again. This time however, the pregnancy stayed viable and Fitzl left Elizabeth medical books so she could learn how to give birth by herself. I'll be back. You squirt it out. I'll see you. The only small mercy was that when her pregnant became visible, Fritzl became disgusted by her body and would stop raping her for months at a time, which would be a pattern for each

of her pregnancies. Which would encourage her to get pregnant. Yep. When the baby came, however, Elizabeth was all alone. She cut the umbilical cord herself and named the baby Kirsten, the first of seven children Elizabeth would give birth to in the dungeon. Three would be raised upstairs, one would die, and three, including Kirsten, would be raised in the cellar. Kirsten herself would not see the sunlight for the first time until she was 19 years old.

And it's with the beginning of the underground family and Fritzl's eventual capture that we'll return next week for Joseph Fritzl Part 2. And everyone's excited. I think it's, I find this story to be obviously harrowing and terrifying. Yeah, it's fucking horrible. It's gonna get worse. It gets worse next week. But it is interesting. What we're also covering is that it was not the only one of these crimes happening in the same area at the same time.

We're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk a little bit more about the history. We're gonna have to talk about how the Austrian government had to release a whole statement saying, They're not just sex dungeons! Our country is so much more than sex dungeons! We've got clocks, Arnold Schwarzenegger, we've got cheese, and we are... what else? Clocks! I don't know, I think it's Swiss is what the clocks all seem to be. They got the Ferris wheel?

They do. They got that big Ferris wheel. And I feel like in that way, they're exonerated. Vienna is a beautiful city. But good work Marcus, and good work Eddie for not throwing up. Oh my god, it was fucking awful. I'm proud of you. So, but there was a lot of this shit.

It makes you think like, because this is around the same time as Castro in Cleveland. Ariel Castro was after this. Is after this. Yeah. So like at any point, there's probably lots of people in dungeons. At any point. Oh God, yes. You'd have to assume that this is happening in multiple places right now

Yeah, there worldwide. I would imagine this is happening at tens of thousands of people see I speak That's I feel like it's a lot, but I could say I could see a thousand Just a thousand side stories LP o TL a gmail.com. How many people do you think are currently kept inside of a dungeon? I would say I agree with Marcus considering there's like four billion people on earth Yeah, people kept in sexual to captain eight billion eight billion. That's a lot more. That's a lot of people We're wrong about the size of a flock of birds we might be wrong about this I mean to say I mean as far as it being like to this extent I would not say it's a lot of people. Yeah, this is the worst one. Yeah, this is it. Yeah, this is the The top. Yeah, you know I mean, it's like every pop star wants to be Michael Jackson, but no one ever will be

Yeah, but how many singers are there a lot a lot a lot of guys singing songs a lot of guys Melissa and kids But it's hard. It's hard to choose which one you like the most. I don't know. I don't know how to answer. Are you still being honest? Hey, honestly? First of all, honestly? Love the hair.

We can come back to that. Tonight will be one of those nights where I can finally go home and tell Julie, You can't ask me about my work. I'm going to my comedy lab. Don't you fucking come in that comedy lab. Pedro.com slash last podcast on the left is where you can watch video episodes of this show. You can also watch full episodes of side stories on YouTube. You can check us out on all the social medias at LP on the left. We're on TikTok and Instagram. You can also watch our streams, LPN TV on Twitch.

You can go to twitch.tv slash LPN TV and you can watch everything after the fact on our YouTube channel. And don't forget to go to last podcast on the left.com for all the shows we got coming up. We got Boston, we got London. We still have one show in London that is not sold out. So if you want to come see us, this is the only time we're going to be coming to that continent this year. And of course we still have tickets in Reykjavik. Yes, you need to. Yeah. In New York, we just released a bunch more tickets. Yep. We

just released a lot more tickets in Brooklyn for King's Theatre in December Cannot wait to hand can't back in Brooklyn Mookie Thompson is not coming with And as far as I know he may still be in Brooklyn so I do not know if he had any reason to leave it He's invited to come to the show He will be that he is in Brooklyn, yes We will Choose one

No, I got one for you hail the fighting American forces who And also the Soviets who took down the Jerry's in the other direction Pinch her Oscar hail Oscar Shindler