ST. POELTEN, Austria — Numbers told the story of one of Austria’s most notorious crimes: A father locked his daughter in a dungeon for 24 years. He raped her 3,000 times. She bore him seven children. And he let one — an infant — die in captivity.
On Thursday, a jury sentenced Josef Fritzl to life in a psychiatric ward, ending a case that has drawn revulsion worldwide.
Fritzl, 73, sat calmly and bowed his head as a jury convicted him of all the charges against him — homicide, enslavement, rape, incest, forced imprisonment and coercion. After locking eyes with his attorney, he waived his right to appeal, ending a case that has drawn revulsion worldwide.
The homicide count — “murder by neglect” in German — was the most serious charge, and the jury gave Fritzl the maximum punishment allowed.
“I regret it with all my heart. . . . I can’t make it right anymore,” Fritzl told the court hours before the verdicts were announced.
Fritzl remained under a suicide watch, said Erich Huber-Guensthofer, deputy head of the St. Poelten prison where Fritzl has been held. Court spokesman Franz Cutka said Fritzl eventually would be taken to a secure psychiatric ward for mentally deranged criminals.
Officials said Fritzl would not be eligible for parole for at least 15 years, and judges and psychiatric experts would have to concur with any decision to free him. He will also have to pay court costs.
Fritzl will undergo treatment as well as yearly assessments in the psychiatric ward of the prison he ends up in. Officials said if he was deemed cured, he would be transferred to the prison’s general population to serve the remainder of his sentence.
Fritzl changed his stance and pleaded guilty Wednesday to all counts against him after Elisabeth — the daughter he locked in a cramped, windowless cell when she was 18 — showed up in court as 11 hours of her prerecorded testimony were played.
Elisabeth, now 42, and her six surviving children, who range in age from 6 to 20, have spent months recovering in a psychiatric clinic and at a secret location. Prosecutors described her as a “broken” woman after enduring constant rapes.
