In this week’s episode, Tom and Ben take a very dark and very deep dive (quite literally) into the disturbing case of Josef Fritzl - better known as The Amstetten Monster.

The height of Summer, 1984 – Amstetten, Austria. Children play with disregard as adults unwind in the open, peaceful streets of this small, easy-going little town - not a care in the world; life is good today. Suddenly, whispers gather pace and news moves from person to person, neighbour to neighbour, family to family... that 18-year-old waitress Elisabeth Fritzl has suddenly vanished and gone missing from the family home where she had grown up. Disappeared into thin air amidst the summer blue sky. Her parents, understandably frantic with worry, raise the alarm to the local police. Her mother, Rosemarie, hastily files a missing person’s report, while her father, Josef, thanks concerned friends and neighbours for their sympathy and support. As weeks turn to months without a word from her, everybody starts to fear the worst and the last embers of hope begin to burn out. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a letter arrives from Elisabeth, claiming she had grown tired of living with her parents under their rules in their house, and decided to run away. Josef, awe-struck and overwhelmed, tells police he has no idea where she has gone, but that she had likely joined a religious cult, something that she had threatened to do many times previously. But the apparently concerned, middle-class father, a respectable salesman and good family man, knew exactly where his daughter was - and it was just a few feet below where the officers and Josef Fritzl were standing...

So how exactly was Fritzl able to build such an elaborate underground cellar dungeon? Was Rosemarie, Fritzl’s doting wife, aware and complicit in the 24 years of abuse her daughter would suffer? What ultimately allowed Elisabeth and her children to escape the basement prison? How was Elisabeth able to mother 7 children without medical or educational support? And are the rumours true about Fritzl and his mother?

Tune in and all will be revealed!

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Josef Fritzl: The Amstetten Monster

I Could Murder A Podcast