Wearing a mismatched grey suit and a blue shirt, Fritzl did not hide his face behind a binder today as he had done for the last two days when led into the courtroom in St. “I should have recognised that the baby was doing poorly,” he added. “I don’t know why I didn’t help,” Fritzl said. Now 42, she was 18 when he imprisoned her in the cramped, windowless cell he built beneath the family’s home in the town of Amstetten.Įlisabeth 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.įritzl expressed regret that he did not get the sick baby out of the dungeon to hospital. However the court source confirmed that Elisabeth was in the courtroom on both days – suggesting her presence alone might have shaken Fritzl and prompted him to change his pleas.Įlisabeth was the prosecution’s key witness against Fritzl. Fritzl, jurors and the rest of the court had viewed 11 hours of her videotaped testimony during closed-door sessions on Monday and yesterday Tuesday. Prosecutors also had charged him with rape, incest, forced imprisonment and coercion.Īsked by the presiding judge what had led him to change his mind, Fritzl said it was the testimony from Elisabeth. He now admits being responsible for the death of one of the children, a twin only a few days old, that he left to die in the prison under his home after the baby became unwell.įritzl faces up to life imprisonment on that charge, which he initially had denied along with an enslavement charge. “I declare myself guilty to the charges in the indictment,” Fritzl, 73, told a panel of judges, referring to what he called “my sick behaviour.” Surprising even his lawyer, Fritzl calmly acknowledged his guilt on the third day of a trial that has shocked the world.
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