John
03-20-2009, 07:32 AM
The 73-year-old 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.
She described how he imprisoned her in a dungeon underneath their home and repeatedly raped her, fathering seven children.
The eight-person jury accepted the argument of prosecutors that Fritzl was responsible for murder, the gravest charge, in the death of a boy born underground because he failed to seek help despite knowing the infant's health was in danger.
He surprised his legal team in Austria when he changed his plea to guilty on all charges.
"I cannot do anything more about (what happened) ... I regret this from the bottom of my heart," Fritzl said in his closing statement at his trial.
Court officials in St Poelten, west of Vienna, said Fritzl would return to a regional jail for the time being before being transferred to an institution for mentally ill offenders where he could get therapy.
They said his condition would be re-evaluated in 15 years and, in theory, if he were deemed cured, he could be released. But both Fritzl and his lawyer has said they expected he would have to spend the rest of his life incarcerated.
Elisabeth was 18 when she was imprisoned in the cramped, windowless cell her father built beneath the family's home in the town of Amstetten.
She 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.
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.
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.
She described how he imprisoned her in a dungeon underneath their home and repeatedly raped her, fathering seven children.
The eight-person jury accepted the argument of prosecutors that Fritzl was responsible for murder, the gravest charge, in the death of a boy born underground because he failed to seek help despite knowing the infant's health was in danger.
He surprised his legal team in Austria when he changed his plea to guilty on all charges.
"I cannot do anything more about (what happened) ... I regret this from the bottom of my heart," Fritzl said in his closing statement at his trial.
Court officials in St Poelten, west of Vienna, said Fritzl would return to a regional jail for the time being before being transferred to an institution for mentally ill offenders where he could get therapy.
They said his condition would be re-evaluated in 15 years and, in theory, if he were deemed cured, he could be released. But both Fritzl and his lawyer has said they expected he would have to spend the rest of his life incarcerated.
Elisabeth was 18 when she was imprisoned in the cramped, windowless cell her father built beneath the family's home in the town of Amstetten.
She 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.
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.