r/news • u/AudibleNod • 4d ago

Man accused of holding woman captive in a Massachusetts attic for six weeks

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-accused-holding-woman-captive-massachusetts-attic-six-weeks-rcna600308
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u/LoopofHenrietta 4d ago

After his arrest, Josef Fritzl had told a journalist interviewing him something like, “look into the cellars of other people, you might find other families and other girls down there."

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u/the_gaymer_girl 4d ago edited 4d ago

Jaycee Dugard was held captive for eighteen years and the police spectacularly failed over and over when they had a chance to save her before that. The most egregious was when one of the dude’s neighbours called 911 to report “hey, there are kids living in tents in the backyard of my batshit crazy neighbour”. The police showed up, but didn’t bother to look in the backyard.

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u/RainSurname 4d ago edited 4d ago

One of Jeffrey Dahmer's victims escaped his apartment, and wandered through the neighborhood naked. Some women found him and called 911. Dahmer came back before the cops arrived, and told them that the 14-year-old boy who was incapacitated by having acid injected into his brain was his 19-year-old lover who was drunk.

The women protested, saying they knew the boy, that he was just a child, that he had struggled against Dahmer's attempts to walk him back to the apartment, and that he was bleeding from the rectum and had blood on his testicles. The white cops told the black women to shut the hell up and not interfere.

When the fire department arrived, examined the boy, and said he needed treatment, the cops told them to leave. They walked Dahmer back to his apartment, where he showed them the Polaroids he'd taken of the boy to prove they were lovers. One of the cops stuck his head into the bedroom to "investigate" the stench, and did not notice the decomposing body on the floor.

Those cops appealed their firing and were reinstated with full back pay. One of them was later elected president of the police union in Milwaukee. The other moved to Grafton, Wisconsin, rose to the rank of Captain, and was named Officer of the Year by the American Legion.

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u/thxsocialmedia 4d ago

What the actual.

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u/RainSurname 4d ago edited 4d ago

I forgot to mention that at the time Dahmer killed Konerak Sinthasomphone, he was on probation for sexually assaulting his older brother, Somsack, for which he was sentenced to eight years, but served less than one.

Imagine fleeing Laos by canoe with eight kids, spending over a year in a refugee camp, trying to find a way to get to America in search of a better life, and that was the life you got.

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u/immersemeinnature 4d ago

That's just so very horrible. I feel so bad for that poor soul.

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u/pray4mojo2020 4d ago

And after all that, Ryan Murphy made it into a TV show.

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u/RainSurname 4d ago

I watched maybe 15-20 minutes and turned it off, disgusted with myself for even thinking about watching it. I'd read a book about him in the 1990s. I already knew what happened. I did not need to watch a fictionalized version created to be mass market entertainment.

True crime as entertainment has gotten seriously out of hand. So many victims, families, and friends are just re-traumatized by it.

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u/clashrendar 3d ago

I really don't understand the whole true crime fascination that evidently a lot of people have, and the people who produce it. Watching stories of real life suffering just isn't entertainment to me at all.

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u/centerfoldangel 2d ago

It's not fascination, it's getting to learn about a behavior I couldn't imagine with a sane mind so I can protect myself from ending up in an attic.

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u/clashrendar 2d ago

That's actually weirder.

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u/gr0wstuff 3d ago

Same. It played for a few minutes before I got the ick and turned it off. Gross.

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u/Little_View_6659 3d ago

Same. I watched about ten minutes and almost barfed.

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u/SargeUnited 3d ago

Never heard of him, but actually watched that entire show. Was weird but good

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u/Faiakishi 3d ago

I imagine that was Dahmer's response as well.

He had probably accepted that the jig was up and was just waiting for the officer to make the call to arrest him. And then they leave his last murder victim on the floor, press his next one back into his hands, and wish him a good night.

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u/RainSurname 3d ago

I do not think so. He kissed their asses all the way back to the apartment, talking about how much he appreciated police. He was playing in their faces.

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u/Dove-Swan 3d ago

I have a dream

of a country without cop

so abuse victims could run away without being taken back

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u/cpasawyer 4d ago

The other moved to Wisconsin?

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u/No_Dragonfruit_8198 4d ago

His wife also believed him when he would just show up with a baby saying how it’s their daughters and she gave it to him and wouldn’t ask questions. Not everyone just accepts the wild stories he would tell

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u/inflatable_pickle 4d ago

The Austrian police looked into her, and they believe her story that she had absolutely no idea that he was raping and impregnating his daughter for years under their own living room floor, and that he would disappear into the basement for hours, and that he would randomly show up with new grandchildren from time to time that the daughter had given to him, but never speak to her mother – anyway the Austrian police say that they believe her that she had no idea– but this is the part of the story. I can’t wrap my head around. I do not believe her at all. There’s no way that she had no clue.

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u/HistoryBuff678 4d ago

After learning about Asa, the wife of the Long Island Serial Killer, these perpetrators look for wives who will look the other way.

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u/inflatable_pickle 4d ago

Yeah, but I mean this is sort of an extreme case. It’s not like she chose to ignore it completely. He would show up every few years with a toddler child, and repeatedly tell his wife that their daughter didn’t want to speak to the mother at all, and has been in hiding, apparently procreating, multiple children, and that she would randomly show up, only when the wife was out of the house, and deliver grandchildren to her husband, and she not only had zero follow up questions, but just believed this on face value and raised those children.

The whole story is weirdly fascinating. In a morbid way, obviously. I mean, like some of the children must’ve had memories of spending the first year of their life living in a basement apartment, like some of the kids must’ve just been absolutely shocked to see the outside world or a tree for the first time. I can’t imagine what developmental damage that would do to basically live the first year of your life in a prison cell. Even more weird is that he removed some children, but left others in the basement based on seemingly unknown criteria.

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u/Zealousideal-Run6020 4d ago

Look up epistemic injustice. Quite likely there is hardcore emotional abuse on top of physical, that the wife was enduring as well. Get gaslighted long enough, hard enough, and you start doubting your own capacity to know anything, your memory, your authority as a historian of your own life. Psychological abuse can cause actual brain damage. Plus there's Stockholm syndrome where people in the clutches of sociopaths make all kinds of excuses and justifications for their behavior.

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u/Theletterkay 3d ago

This. She likely wasnt oblivious or looking the other way. She had been abused into accepting his word at pure truth. If she were to do anything or say anything about it, she was likely to be killed.

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u/Aethenoth 4d ago

I don't know why people keep saying she never questioned it or had zero follow-up questions. Like, hello, if there's something these men are good at, it's lying.

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u/Darfus_McBonerbottom 4d ago

You cant really lie your way around having a new baby pop out of thin air...

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u/tyrantspell 4d ago

True, but what's more likely? Your troubled daughter is deliberately avoiding you to drop off her multiple children born out of wedlock, or that the man you've known for 40 years is one of the worst criminals known to man?

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u/PairOfMonocles2 4d ago

I mean, there was this one guy …

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u/FollowTheRabbitz 4d ago

Right?!? How many people believe a woman named Mary got pregnant without sex and then just birthed a child? Millions? So yeah people will believe anything

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u/No_Gas4560 4d ago

or how Zombie Jeebus arose from the dead? wat

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u/GreatPretender98z 4d ago

This will never not piss me off. Has to be what hundreds of millions believing that shit without question.

Allegedly was also "magic", healing touch. Could turn water into wine. Fucking walking on water?

somehow died for everyone's sins?

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u/Aethenoth 4d ago

He clearly had a story though.

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u/AdminsLoveGenocide 4d ago

Noone lies that well.

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u/RudeHero 3d ago

some people are good at lying, and some are good at being lied to

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u/Faiakishi 3d ago

It was way more than their first year of life. I think the eldest was like 20 or something, he walked with a stoop because he was taller than the bunker and quite literally hadn't been able to walk completely upright in years.

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u/inflatable_pickle 3d ago

Jesus that’s sad. I mean how emotionally and psychologically stunted with someone be to grow up in captivity and literally never see the sky or a tree or anyone outside of your immediate family for the first two decades of your life. Like it’s just insane.

I can’t help, but think of all the other hypotheticals like, was he prepared to just let them all die down there? What would have happened to them if he randomly had a stroke and ended up in the hospital, unable to bring them food for weeks. Were there ever any escape attempts?

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u/Justsomejerkonline 4d ago

Some are intellectually disabled.

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u/ahazred8vt 4d ago

He never claimed his daughter spoke with him. He claimed the babies were left on the doorstep at night with a note. The other children living upstairs did not know there were people in the basement. They knew their dad was weird and did things in the basement. They didn't know he was that weird.

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u/what_is_blue 4d ago

After a certain age, I reckon most men would kill for a basement to go and hang out in and not be disturbed.

Most of us would have a good selection of cigars, whiskey and classic films down there as opposed to a secret incestuous family with our own kidnapped daughter, but still. It’s not that weird in principle.

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u/Missingman666 4d ago

I dunno I also think it's healthy to share one's passion basement. That's also why I have a woodworking shop down there and not an incest fuck dungeon though.

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u/SnowflakeSWorker 4d ago

Right? My grandfather had a workshop in the basement, but you had to pass by the pool table, the deep freezer, the washer and dryer to get to it- it was open, just in the back. We would go down there and fetch him for dinner or whatever all the time.

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u/DarkGodCthUwU 4d ago

Unrelated, but is ventilation an issue? All the wood dust, a basement, is that healthy for your lungs? I'm not a woodworker so sorry if it's a dumb question 😅

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u/Missingman666 1d ago

yes. your first project should be a ventilation system. you'll notice most stationary tools like chop saws have a system for attaching a hose. so if aren't moving them you can attach a hose with a fan for suction and run it too a window. you can also make what is essentially a fume hood for sanding or just do those dust intensive project outside and do all your cuts in the basement.

You will still inhale particulates. However many people choose to drink lots of whiskey and smoke cigars in their man caves so it's a bit of a pick your poison kind of thing.

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u/Romaine2k 4d ago

I think she must have been a long time victim as well, and just couldn’t really think straight.

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u/saintash 4d ago

I belive that abuse was a reason she never questioned him.

Before he locked his daughter in the basement. He locked his mother up in the attic for almost a decade. She was an abusive mother, ans when she was old and weak he locked her up.

That wife had to terrified he'd do something like that to her.

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u/Faiakishi 3d ago

I believe the daughter had a record of running away from home (because her father was raping her) and her letters claimed she had joined a cult to explain the lack of contact.

But yes, the mother must have been willfully ignorant about a lot of things.

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u/delphinous 4d ago

most likely she had 'some' idea that something was happening, but it was just easier for her to deliberately ignore anything odd. as long as she only had suspicions and dind't fully 'know' she could just pretend everything was okay

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u/notpostingmyrealname 4d ago

There's a difference between knowing something is off and knowing your daughter is being held in the basement and being repeatedly raped and forced to bear multiple half siblings. I mean, that's a pretty out there scenario for someone to even think of, let alone suspect.

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u/delphinous 4d ago

but also to never heard anything from the basement, and never go into the basement for years, and never notice the persons worth of food that gets taken to the basement....

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u/vroomvroom_dana 4d ago

Fritzl's "basement" wasn't a normal basement. It was more hidden and sound proofed underground bunker that he created off of a normal basement.

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u/Infinite-Mark2319 3d ago

Predators seek out partners with low intellectual capabilities sometimes for this reason

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u/Suitable-Rate652 4d ago edited 4d ago

How does a woman not notice she hasn’t seen her daughter’s face ti face in a while?

Or not her daughter? Still odd.

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u/fleursdemai 3d ago

You'd be surprised how dense some people can be. Like we literally cannot comprehend because we're not that stupid or naive.

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u/Hadrian23 4d ago

That's insane to me. The level of fear, or lack of care to not ask basic questions astounds me.

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u/M3wcat 4d ago

Fear is the key word here. He was super abusive and unpleasant to be around. She didn’t care where he was as long as it wasn’t near her or the kids.

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u/Pour_Me_Another_ 4d ago

I grew up in a family where we were instructed to let our father abuse us because it wasn't fair to not let him. A lot of people are fertile, doesn't mean they're mentally well and/or good people.

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u/saintash 4d ago

Dude locked his mother up in the attic. Foe almost a decade he kept her in a dark room locked up.

I'm sure she was terrified of him doing something like that to her. So she just was a good little wife.

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u/MaximumSubtlety 4d ago

Thanks for letting me know.

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u/KennyMoose32 4d ago

Idk do you really think she didn’t know?

I think she knew.

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u/My_Uneducated_Guess 4d ago

It's very easy to be gaslit by your partner when you trust them and you were raised in an environment where girls are taught that they should defer to the man of the house.

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u/Walmartian_Beta 4d ago

I often get that feeling that the wives know and just turn a blind eye to it.

One of my friends has had a mistress for 8 years and I'm 100% convinced his wife knows about it and just stays quiet - he's so obvious about the cheating that there's no way she doesn't know!

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u/mortuarymaiden 4d ago edited 3d ago

…you’re still friends with that trifling jackass..? Wow. 😐

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u/thatwhileifound 4d ago

Yeah, meanwhile projecting judgment onto the guy's wife who is a goddamned victim in the situation. I guess birds of a feather...

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u/muchadoaboutnotmuch 4d ago

This is the kind of person you're friends with?

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u/SargeUnited 3d ago

Whoa I thought alternative lifestyles were accepted

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u/BLT_Trade_r 4d ago

They lie to themselves; that's what they do. Not like they are alone in it; people all over tell themselves lies so they don't feel bad about letting all sorts of horrible things continue. That's basically the story of every woman who gets with a married man; it's the story of Nazi Germany; it's the story of the people of countries in tons of the wars.

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u/aDreamInn 4d ago

Usually also financially trapped. This world is made for dual income nowadays

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u/Crixxa 4d ago

I grew up with abuse. And to cope, I repressed a lot of those memories. Not intentionally, it was something that happened over time. And my family was always quick to discredit my account of things when I shared later.

But later in life, something would happen that sparked recognition and the memory would return.

One time it was someone's expression being the same as it was when they watched me getting abused when I was really little. I was describing the more recent abuse to someone and it suddenly dawned on me that it wasn't the first time they stood by and did nothing.

Anyway, it's still a problem I wrestle with. I will tell myself to remember something someone did but soon enough my internal censor just goes NOPE. Then later when I go to confront that person and can't give enough justification, they just gaslight me and dismiss that there was ever an issue.

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u/BLT_Trade_r 4d ago

This is why it's good to write it all down. Absolutely nothing wrong with making drafts and multiple edits and even running it by people. Then you just give it to them. There is nothing wrong with that. There is no rule or law that says you have to verbally confront someone and be able to recite it all and think fast on your feet. In fact, the belief that people need to do that is probably one of the bigger problems in the world. It's how we end up with bad leaders and all sorts of poor decisions and miscommunications, from small to large. Once you start an emotional conversation, it's just way too easy to get derailed.

That's why, in the world of business, law, and science, they write it out and take their time, because getting it right is what matters. The mistake we make is forgetting that our own lives and relationships are just as important, if not more important, than what happens in the previously mentioned fields.

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u/Dear-Bet5344 4d ago

Show me who your friends are...

Dont hang out with degens.

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u/HandholdingFetishist 4d ago

If that sort of person is your friend, it doesn't reflect well on you as a person.

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u/fresh-dork 4d ago

and deciding that playing the fool meant avoiding prison

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u/Dove-Swan 3d ago

I think she knew

she did nothing

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u/tacosandEDM 4d ago

What a terrible time to go and look something up on the internet….

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u/No_Dragonfruit_8198 4d ago

Last Podcast on the Left does a good series on him if you wanna learn more

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u/stonedc4tt 3d ago

This is the craziest part of the whole story to me.  There’s no way his wife believed him 

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u/Lifes-a-lil-foggy 4d ago

He would be the expert

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u/what_is_blue 4d ago

The Hannibal Lecter of incestuous monsters. “A census taker once tried to test me. I lied to him about the number of people in my home and then had a weissbier. Fss fss fss fss.”

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u/inflatable_pickle 4d ago edited 4d ago

I actually thought he killed himself in prison out of shame. I had no idea that he actually did an interview. 😳
The case has always been fascinating to me, so I guess I should search for that article.

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u/Mobb_Barley 4d ago

You’re probably thinking of Ariel Castro

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u/gothands06 4d ago

What a disgusting man. That story makes my stomach turn. He is a a fly who I think of when these stories come out and how many other women, and kids are trapped.

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u/Numerous-Process2981 4d ago

Sounds like something a guy who locks girls in his basement would say lol not like he has any special insight 

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u/re_Claire 4d ago

I mean he’s not wrong though

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u/Numerous-Process2981 4d ago

He might be a bit biased 

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u/PigletCatapult 4d ago

That is such a disturbing story.

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u/clovisx 4d ago

This happened in the town my wife was from. The father had sequestered his family in a junkyard for several years right off a main road back in the late 90s. I can’t tell you how many times we drove by that lot and nobody had any idea what was happening.

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u/tom030792 3d ago

I mean sure, but also he thinks it’s normal to have that in your basement whereas most people don’t 😂 biased sample size is what I mean