Vienna – Authorities insisted that a young woman who resurfaced after being held captive in a dingy dungeon for more than eight years was free to do as she pleased, but her mother said Sunday the 18-year-old was being “locked away again.”
Natascha Kampusch was abducted on her way to school when she was 10 and escaped last week while her kidnapper was busy with a phone call. Wolfgang Priklopil, 44, committed suicide hours after she fled by throwing himself in front of a commuter train.
Kampusch had a brief and emotional reunion with her family after her escape but has not seen them since.
“Psychologists and doctors are all well and good, but a daughter also needs her mother,” Brigitta Sirny told the the Austrian newspaper Kurier in an interview published Sunday. “Why can’t I see my daughter?”
Kampusch was to spend Sunday night at the same undisclosed location where she has been since Friday evening, but what happens next is “her decision,” Police Maj. Gen. Gerhard Lang of the Federal Criminal Investigations Bureau told the Austria Press Agency.
A medical exam showed she was capable of making her own decisions, Lang told APA.
“If Natascha decides to go into … Vienna’s inner city and get a coffee, then she can do that,” Lang said. “If she wants, she can go everywhere.”
Monika Pinterits, a lawyer who said she spent several hours with Kampusch on Saturday and Sunday, said the woman was “in a good mood” and engaged in excited conversation with young people her age and enjoyed their company.
Kampusch’s father, Ludwig Koch, begged police to be allowed to have a cup of coffee with her and snap a few photographs to share with the extended family, APA reported Saturday, citing a senior investigator.
Police declined, fearing the photos would end up in newspapers and on television because of intense interest in the case, long one of Austria’s greatest unsolved mysteries.
But Koch later told reporters his daughter, who has her mother’s maiden name, sent him a letter that read, in part: “We’ll have all the time in the world.”
The young woman’s parents are no longer together.
Investigators planned to decide early this week if and when Kampusch would be ready to continue speaking with them about her experience, Lang said Sunday on Austrian radio.
Investigators continued to search Sunday for clues in the home where Kampusch was kept. Police were trying to determine if Priklopil had an accomplice, but Lang said, “Questioning of Natascha has shown that there was no second offender.”
