An Austrian sexual predator could be released early from the life sentence he received for keeping his daughter as a sex slave for decades after being deemed “no longer dangerous.”
Josef Fritzl, 88, fathered seven children with his biological daughter over 24 years and has been in prison since 2009 for incest, rape, coercion, false imprisonment, and enslavement — as well as negligent homicide for the death of one of the children.
After serving 16 years of his life sentence, he will be eligible for parole in 2024 and could be released after a psychiatrist said he is “no longer dangerous,” reports Metro.
Fritzl kept his daughter, Elisabeth, locked in the cellar of his home in Amstetten from when she was 18 until she was 42. He also kept three of the children produced from his criminal acts in captivity.
One of the other children died shortly after birth, and Fritz and his wife, Rosemarie, raised the remaining two after he claimed they had been left on their doorstep.
“I am already in the process of obtaining a conditional discharge for him,” Fritzl’s lawyer, Astrid Wagner, told Austrian outlet Kronen Zeitung.
“If the application is approved, which I assume will be the case, I would like to ensure that he gets a place in a home for frail people,” she said, according to the Mirror.
A report was prepared by Heidi Kastner, a forensic psychiatric expert from Linz University, who concluded that Fritzl no longer poses a threat to the public.
She recommended that he be released, most likely to a nursing home.
The New York Post reports that the notorious felon “appears to be confused, regularly talks to a TV, believes he is a pop star and discusses visits from family members that never happened,” citing local media.
The incestuous monster has also been injured by multiple falls in prison and requires a walker.
His crimes were uncovered in April 2008 when he took one of the children he had with his daughter to the hospital with a “life-threatening illness,” according to the Post.
Elisabeth was given a new name after the trial concluded and now lives with her six surviving children between the ages of 17 and 31 in the Austrian countryside, reports the Mirror.
