IN THE end it was Josef Fritzl himself who delivered the final twist to his sensational trial in Austria yesterday, eliminating any lingering thoughts that he would ever walk free from prison.
Just three minutes into the penultimate day of his trial, he surprised the judge, jury and even his own defence by announcing: “I realise that I am guilty to all points in the indictment.”
It was a dramatic change from his first appearance on Monday when, in a gruff voice, he negotiated the details of the charges read out against him as if he were haggling over a secondhand car.
On Monday he agreed he was guilty of incest and false imprisonment, but only “partly” guilty to charges of rape and coercion. On the most serious charges of murder and enslavement, he pleaded not guilty. After yesterday’s surprise guilty plea he could face 20 years to life in prison.
What prompted his last-minute change of heart? Was it simply an honest expression of remorse, as Fritzl claimed, after sitting through 11 numbing hours of testimony from his daughter Elisabeth Fritzl? It was, after all, the first time her tormentor heard what it felt like to be raped and locked up for 24 years. “It was yesterday’s evidence about my sick behaviour,” he assured judge Andrea Humer in a steady voice.
His defence lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, dismissed suggestions that the complete guilty plea was a high-risk tactic to mitigate his sentence, revealing that Fritzl had asked to see a psychiatrist after Tuesday’s proceedings.
“I believe that he was really shaken by seeing his daughter on the video,” said Mr Mayer.
Court-appointed psychiatrist Adelheid Kastner provided a more complex explanation: the reality Fritzl had created and dominated to protect himself from psychological scars inflicted early on by his mother had simply collapsed.
In sessions with Dr Kastner he admitted feeling like a “volcano . . . with an unstoppable flood of destructive lava”.
In this reality, he “saw the world as he chose to see it”, portraying to outsiders a “conventional exterior”, while at home he was a tyrannical father to his wife and children.
Fritzl was just one branch of a dysfunctional family tree, she said. Fritzl’s mother, Maria, was the result of an affair by her father with another woman and later “adopted” into the marriage with his infertile wife.
History repeated itself when Maria Fritzl became pregnant by another man, Dr Kastner said, “to prove to her husband that the problem wasn’t with her”.
“That was the sole function of the unloved ‘alibi’ child, Josef Fritzl . . . His mother viewed him as a nuisance,” said Dr Kastner.
Years of humiliation at the hands of his dysfunctional mother were transformed in later life, she said, into a need to exercise absolute physical and sexual power over women.
Perhaps the real reason for Fritzl’s last-minute confession to all charges lies in the hands of his victim.
On Monday, as soon as journalists were ushered out of court, the grey-haired 42-year-old reportedly slipped in and sat alone in the public gallery.
She was there again on Tuesday, a silent witness letting her own damning video testimony do the talking.
If she swung the complete confession, it was a final victory for a victim chosen by her father because she posed the greatest challenge, the psychiatrist said, “as obstinate and strong as himself”.
Today, when the jury pass verdict on whether to lock him up, they will know it was Fritzl, with his late confession, who threw away the key.