By now everyone knows about the astounding case of incest, etc. in Austria. No doubt some are going to excuse Josef Fritzl by suggesting that he must be a mad man. Others (for instance here) will find fault with society.
These rationalisations are because for regular people the immensity of the crimes are blinding. But there are enough clues already that what Fritzl is is a psychopath and as such is responsible for his actions.
Take one small detail – the alleged role of drugs in the case.
Franz Polzer, the Austrian police chief leading the investigation, said Fritzl had given the impression, during protracted interrogations, that after 24 years he now actually believed the web of lies he had constructed to keep his incest a secret from his own family, the police and the public.
“Fritzl insisted that he chose Elisabeth as his favourite daughter, built the bunker just for her and felt that he had to lock her up because he was frightened that she was about to become involved with drugs.”
The reality was quite different. When his daughter was 18, Fritzl lured her into the elaborate cellar which he had built under his home during the Cold War in the late 1970s with the help of a government grant available for constructing domestic shelters against nuclear fall-out.
Police said he drugged his daughter with ether and handcuffed her to a wall in the cellar. During the first years he is alleged to have “kept her like an animal”.
Isn’t this classic? The kernel of truth is something to do with drugs, but see the evil inversion of the lie: he was trying to save her from drugs when in fact he used drugs against her.
(I wonder what thoughts readers have about Fritzl’s wife, Rosemarie, who police say was wholly ignorant of the matter. Asked why Mrs F was not being investigated, Colonel Polzer replied: “Let me ask you a counter question: would any wife accept such a thing if she knew about it?”)
0-0 = handcuffs? OMG, I LOVE it! Thanks!!
And you’re right, it’s not equal payback- but it’s WAAAAY more than he thought he’d see- and proving a p wrong is worth more than just money! hehehe!
Just noticed he is now on the sex offender registry too… and labeled a predator. It’s such a feeling of relief. My daughter was a real trooper. She exhibited more strength and courage in the last 2 yrs than some people manage their entire lives. I’m very proud of her.
This has been one of those weeks that everything I touch turns to POO–but some good things have happened too, I thought the coyotes got a 6-day old baby calf that has been missing for several days–mama is walking the fence and crying so I know she didn’t know where it was either. Well, I drove back from deliveriing donations to the community center where we are taking up things for the 15 families that are homeless due to last week’s tornadoes—our community is really turning out…whole farms were destroyed, so not just their homes, their livelyhoods, livestock etc….and there was my baby–I had walked the hills looking for her until I was so tired…and I decided to name her “Heidi” and laughed.
Then I saw your post that you had gotten some justice just before my son called 200 miles from home and said the car broke down on the road…and then I checked back, and you got a laugh out of my “handcuffs” and that cheered me up.
It is silly such little things that make me go up and down like a yo-yo sometimes, but I just have to keep my sense of humor, and realize that this is just LIFE, not disaster. That the Universe is not “out to get me”—that stuff happens and we just have to go with the flow, and “not sweat the small stuff, and remember it is all small stuff” (well unless you are dealing with a P) I try to keep a + attitude and to realize that even as bad as my P-situation was and yours, and Elizabeth’s etc. that we have all survived—some taking more hits than others, but come out alive. As long as we are alive there is room for growth. Sometimes we get “justice” and sometimes nothing, not even validation…but in the end if we live through it we can heal and grow.
All I have to do to know how fortunate I am is drive one mile, ONE mile, up the road and look at the foundations of the homes that are GONE, or to read the obits in the paper where the people lost their lives as well as their homes.
I am so thankful for being alive, for having the chance to heal, and getting SOME justice out of it all, and SOME vindication out of it all, and to BE ABLE TO LAUGH again at silly things, or share a joke with a friend.
Godspeed Glinda, I am really happy for you!
I wonder what is his defense thinking? He says that “he knew that he is hurting his daughter, and that he is doing a wrong thing”
doesn’t it mean in legal terms that he knew the difference between right and wrong? How is he going to plead insanity?
He says that “he wanted to have kids with his daughter”, are they going to say that “normal people do not want to have kids with their children and therefore he is insane”? is that their defense?
I am aware that he is a P anyway so you can toss his words into a trashcan, but nevertheless his lawyer says that tere is no proof that there was a “rape”…gosh, is he saying it was a mutual consent?
The insanity plea is normal in a case like this .. his lawyer will try ANYTHING at this point to absolve Fritzl of his crimes or to lessen the trauma and make the world feel sorry for him. It’s what lawyers do, regardless of whether they think the client is wrong or right. By virtue of Fritzl’s statement that he “KNEW he was hurting his daughter but continued”, has verified that he is not insane, as we all know. The world in general, thinks he is insane simply because the case is so far beyond even movie-makers imaginations. Now that there’s an insanity plea he will be professionally assessed and already the lawyer has said he will get 2nd and 3rd opinions if the diagnosis is not in accordance with the plea .. i.e. if the assessment comes out as “sane”. In our opinion, and I’m sure that of the Psychiatrists too, an assessment is not necessary because the behavioural patterns are quite obviously those of an extreme psychopath and I hope that the psychiatrists who do assess him are fully versed in Psychopathy.
Does anyone know if Dr Robert Hare has commented on Fritzl yet and if he’s going to be called in to do the PCL-R test on him. Dr Hare should do the assessment for sure. I can’t find any information on the net. Perhaps Dr Leedom or Dr Steve can answer this ?
What I’d like to know is if this lawyer was appointed by the courts or if he’s been privately hired. If he has been appointed he has to do his job, and that is to defend Fritzl. If he’s taken the case privately I wonder if he’s aware that no self-respecting person will ever hire him after this case AND that he won’t be getting paid for these services because Fritzl is deeply in debt (1.5mil Pounds). Like you said, “what is he thinking?” … high profile cases are ‘the ultimate’ for any lawyer but under these circumstances? Hmm, I wonder. Maybe someone should check if HE has a bunker with a dark, dirty secret at his own home. Birds of a feather.
here is the lawer thing: I never heard of Rudolf Mayer before. Now I know this name. Its like a self advertisement case. Even if he wont get paid he made his name.
Maybe the Lawyer is a Narcissist or psychopath too, and took advantage of the situation—yea, Cell is right! Now we know his name, he is getting his “15 minutes of fame” and if he can get Josef off or a reduced sentence, he will have plenty of high paying Ps flocking to his door.
Though WE have little or no doubt what Josef is—most people will see this as “insane”—out of his mind, out of touch with reality and so not “responsible”—hasn’t anyoone ever heard the term “MEAN, EGOTISTICAL, SELFISH, SOB”? (MESS) That’s not very complex, and it doesn’t take a PhD to “diagnose” that—-would be interesting to get Dr. Hare’s take on this though.
interestingly I know who Rudolf Mayer is, but I do not know WHO is the prosecutor (“defending” Elizabeth”).
but…I guess well…lawyers are lawyers, its like doctors have to take care of the patient whether the patient is P or not regardless. Same for lawyer, P is his client…
I am extremely confused by some of the posts in this thread by those who claim both that they believe Fritzl to be a psychopath, and that he ought to be severely tortured in some creative way for what he has done. (Or that they wish he could be, but that it is wrong, etc.)
While I don’t find the wish for revenge, vengeance, punishment, or even pure sadism particularly perplexing, I am quite astonished that anyone who believes in the specific reality of the sociopath/psychopath, would find torturing one satisfying. Surely the sociopath is incapable of feeling regret, no matter how much pain or suffering he or she experiences, since the lack of susceptibility to fear-based condition is a cardinal trait of psychopathy, and also results in never learning to associate one’s own pain or suffering with the consequences of one’s actions?
Indeed, that anyone is suggesting that the wish to torture psychopaths “because they deserve it” means that if we indulged it we would become “like them” confuses me all the more — surely no psychopath has ever tortured someone “because they believed the victim deserved it,” but rather because the psychopath could get away with it (or thought they could) and felt like it.
Or do I not understand what is meant here by sociopath and psychopath?
Of course I’m not suggesting that he is “innocent” by virtue of “insanity” and so deserves some sort of leniency. Personally I think he should be taken out and hanged. But why go to the expense and trouble of torturing (or even incarcerating) someone who is thoroughly depraved on the most fundamental levels of consciousness? Where does the retributive satisfaction originate, except in a vain desire for the psychopath to be *just like his victims?*
Would you want to “pull out all the claws of a cat” one by one if it, for example, tortured your baby as if the baby were a mouse? What if this hypothetical ‘cat’ could think and reason, but was no more capable of identifying with “fellow creatures” than you might be capable of identifying with spiders?
An equally good (or bad) analogy: If a thinking machine (like Data from Star Trek; or better, his “evil” brother Lore), even one with simulated emotions, committed horrible crimes, would it be satisfying to torture the android in retaliation? If so, why so, and if not, why not? It seems obvious that if the term “psychopath” has any meaning whatsoever, then the psychopath is at least as alien on an ethical level as an intelligent cat or an emotion-capable android.
Or am I missing something obvious to experts in this field?
Loki,
I don’t think you are missing anything—it is just that I for one felt such anger at Josef for what he did. Yes, he did enjoy what he did is my thought, but I also believe that he believed that she “deserved” it–and it is in my opinion wrong to seek vengence against anyone–that doesn’t mean I don’t FEEL that way sometimes, even though I think it is wrong.
Anytime I think that someone tortures someone, say in a prisoner of war camp, the victims are viewed as “the enemy” and “deserving of torture” or ill treatment. It is the “us” vs. “them” and “they are not deserving” of human kindness.
It frustrates me when someone does something so EVIL and so horrible…and it is expressed as anger, a wish for vengence. I try my best not to dwell on these feelings or to act on them at all…because I DO think that vengence, revenge, etc. is not a good thing, it hurts the doer as much or more than the person who it is done to.
Justice, on the other hand is to let the LAW render justice. Somtimes in my opinon, the law doesn’t do an adequate job of it, but that doesn’t mean I should go out and seek vengence.
In anger it might be “satisfying” to seek vengence, but in the end, it would make me feel that I had acted just as a psychopath (sociopath/Antisocial Personality disorder) would.
Yes, I agree that the P is just as alien on an ethical level as a cat or a snake. They are what they are, they do what they do. The only difference is that the P “knows” what is right or wrong, but just doesn’t care. The cat or snake has no knowledge of “right” or “wrong” or empathy for the victim.
To me, the thing that makes us accountable as a human is the “knowledge of good and evil.” A person who is very young or confused or psychotic is not held accountable for their actions by the law because they do not know the difference between good and evil. The Psychopath does. He jjust doesn’t care.
I know that I was frustrated by the horror of this man’s behaviors and the lack of even potential justice that met the horror of the crime (in my opinon).
Good post, thanks for pointing this out.
He is a P. P must stay in jail. They are evil by definition, this is what they do. Therefore they must be in jail (or better yet…eliminated as much as possible)