Josef Fritzl was sentenced to life in a psychiatric hospital today for locking up and raping his daughter in a cellar over 24 years, fathering seven children with her, and causing the death of an infant son.
Fritzl (73) had pleaded guilty to incest, rape, enslavement, coercion and murder, by neglect, in the death of a newborn boy underground. He initially denied the murder and slavery counts but reversed his plea after watching 11 hours of videotaped testimony from daughter Elisabeth screened in court on Tuesday.
Fritzl was found guilty of murder of the newborn, the most serious charge, because he failed to seek help despite knowing the boy was in danger of dying.
Prosecutor Christiane Burkheiser earlier demanded the maximum punishment in her closing arguments in Fritzl’s trial in St Poelten, west of Vienna, in Austria.
Yesterday he surprised his legal team in Austria when he changed his plea to guilty on all charges after being confronted in court by 11 hours of his daughter's harrowing testimony.
Fritzl acknowledged his guilt on the third day of the trial.
"I declare myself guilty to the charges in the indictment," he said yesterday, referring to what he called "my sick behaviour".
Asked by the presiding judge why he had changed his mind, Fritzl said it was the testimony from Elisabeth.
She attended the hearing on Monday and Tuesday, the first time the 42-year-old has faced her father since his arrest last year.
He watched 11 hours of her videotaped evidence, describing how he imprisoned her in a dungeon underneath their home and repeatedly raped her, fathering seven children.
One child, a twin boy, died at three days old and the changed plea means Fritzl (73) has admitted killing him through neglect - a charge that carries a potential life sentence.
Initially he denied responsibility for the baby's death, along with an enslavement charge. He had already admitted rape, incest, forced imprisonment and coercion.
Elisabeth was the key witness against Fritzl. She was 18 when he imprisoned her in the cramped, windowless cell he built beneath the family's home in the town of Amstetten. Elisabeth and her six surviving children, who range in age from six to 20, have spent months recovering from their ordeal in a psychiatric clinic and at a secret location.
Fritzl did not hide his face behind a binder yesterday as he had done for the last two days when led into the courtroom in St Poelten, near Vienna.
DNA tests prove Fritzl is the biological father of all six of Elisabeth's surviving children, three of whom never saw daylight until the crime came to light 11 months ago.
Three of the children grew up underground in Amstetten and the other three were taken upstairs to be raised by Fritzl and his wife, Rosemarie, who apparently believed they had been abandoned.
Prosecutors said Fritzl refused to speak to his daughter during the first few years of her ordeal, coming downstairs only to rape her. They said the rapes sometimes occurred in front of the children, and described Elisabeth as a "broken" woman.
Agencies