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Archives > Volume 7 Issue 18 - March 17, 2009 Fritzl admits rape, incest at beginning of murder trial...A verdict in the case of Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man accused of keeping his daughter in a cellar for decades and fathering her seven children, could come as early as Thursday, a court official told reporters Monday. CNN News story here 
As his trial began behind closed doors Monday, Fritzl pleaded guilty to incest and other charges, but denied charges of murder and enslavement - the most serious charges against him.
He pleaded "Partly guilty" to multiple charges of rape, but did not elaborate. "Partly guilty" is a plea option in Austrian courts. Franz Cutka, a spokesman for the Landesgericht St. Poelten court, said the "partly guilty" plea might mean that Fritzl contends he is not guilty of all the individual rape charges or that the violence used was not as severe as rape. Cutka was not in court for the plea and does not speak for the defendant. Fritzl's attorney was not immediately available to explain what he meant. Fritzl arrived at the courthouse in St. Poelten covering his face with a blue binder to shield himself from reporters, television cameras and photographers and escorted by a phalanx of police officers. Fritzl faces six charges at a closed-door trial in St. Poelten, 45 miles (70 km) east of Amstetten, where Fritzl lived. Cameras were removed from the court. Fritzl was charged in November with incest and the repeated rape of his daughter, Elisabeth, over a 24-year period. But he was also charged with the murder of one of the children he fathered with her, an infant who died soon after birth. State Prosecutor Gerhard Sedlacek said Michael Fritzl died from lack of medical care. In all, Fritzl is charged with: murder, involvement in slave trade (slavery), rape, incest, assault and deprivation of liberty, Sedlacek's office said. He could face a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of murder. Mayer said Sunday that Fritzl expected to spend the rest of his life in prison. The case first came to light in April, 2008 when Elisabeth's daughter, Kerstin, became seriously ill with convulsions. Elisabeth persuaded her father to allow Kerstin, then 19, to be taken to a hospital for treatment. Hospital staff became suspicious of the case and alerted police, who discovered the family members in the cellar. See more on the history of this case at vol6_iss78. "Light off: rape." To make the point, the Austrian prosecutor Christiane Burkheiser threw the switch in the courtroom. "Light on. Josef Fritzl leaves the cellar." The Times news story here The trial of Fritzl - on charges of imprisoning and raping his daughter for almost a quarter of a century and murdering one of the seven children he fathered with her - was never going to be routine. It was indeed billed as Austria's Trial of the Century. But no one had reckoned with the concentrated drama that was packed into the first day of hearings - from the moment Fritzl appeared with his head buried in a blue folder to shield him from the cameras, to the prosecution's attempts to recreate the atmosphere of the dungeon, to the claims by his defense that he was no monster but a caring family man. Ms. Burkheiser's task was to make the jurors feel like temporary prisoners of Fritzl. First, she had the height of the adapted cellar - he had told the authorities he was building a nuclear bunker - marked on the doorpost of the courtroom in St Pölten: 1.78 meters (6ft). Then, she passed to the jury objects retrieved from the cellar where Elisabeth gave birth to her children. "Smell!" said the prosecutor. And the jurors retched at the sheer pungency of 24-year-old mold. 
"They had to crawl on their knees in order to get around the dungeon," she told the court. "It was damp and moldy. The dampness crept into their backs and into their bones."
To drive home her point, the prosecutor threaded the phrase "light on, light off" throughout her speech. Fritzl, she made clear, wanted absolute control over his downstairs family. MSNBC has a video reconstruction of that cellar at MSNBC News video. "How do you explain yourself? How can you abuse your daughter for 24 years?" asked Austrian television reporters, thrusting their microphones into the dock. He did not answer. Fritzl did eventually speak, after the cameras were excluded from the courtroom. Only then was the face exposed. Josef Fritzl claimed that he had been abused as a child, as the retired electrical engineer went on trial for imprisoning his daughter in the cellar as a sex slave for 24 years. The Times news story here "I had a very difficult childhood," Fritzl said in a trembling voice at his trial in St Pölten, Austria. "My mother didn't want me. She was 42 when she had me. She simply didn't want a child and she treated me correspondingly. I was beaten." The first part of the video testimony of Elisabeth, now 43, was shown to the jurors and to Fritzl in the darkened courtroom. Little notes - scribbled on the back of shopping bills left behind in the cellar by her father - constituted a kind of secret diary by Elisabeth, a chronicle of abuse. Austria's strict laws on privacy and the protection of victims does not merely restrict reporters in what they can say or write; if the judge so requires, it keeps them out of the courtroom altogether. Even the court spokesman, delegated with briefing the media at 4pm, would barely divulge anything, saying it was all confidential. In other news... 
Prosecutors in Houston say they have tracked down and arrested a man who allegedly committed an online sex crime - though technically he didn't even have a computer. ABC News story here All he needed, the prosecutors say, was a game console - a Sony PlayStation 3. They allege that the man, Anthony Scott Oshea of Somerset, Kentucky, persuaded an 11-year-old girl in Houston to e-mail nude pictures of herself from her PlayStation to his. Oshea was taken into custody this afternoon by local police near his home. Houston authorities say they will try to bring him to Texas for trial. "People don't realize how the PlayStation is like a regular computer," said Eric Devlin, the Harris County, Texas, prosecutor who has been leading the case. The suspect, Devlin said, "threw his old computer out because he didn't need it." Devlin said this is the first time his office has pursued a sex crime case involving a gaming console. His office is charging Oshea, 24, with three felony counts, including online solicitation of a minor and promotion of child pornography. One charge carries a maximum sentence of 99 years in prison.
MySpace and Facebook help link friends. But lately, the two social networking sites have helped link cops to criminals. CBS News story here In Pittsburgh, a Facebook page showing an out-of-control Super Bowl celebration led to arson charges against two men, reports CBS News correspondent Daniel Sieberg. In Baltimore, police charged a student after her attack on a teacher was placed on a personal MySpace page. And in St. Paul, Minnesota, a woman was charged with vandalism after she posted pictures of her ex-boyfriend's ransacked apartment. "It's definitely a great investigative tool," said Detective Diana Tilton, who works in McKinney, Texas. Tilton used a murder suspect's own Web page to help send him to death row. Accused of four murders, Raul Cortez testified that he was no longer a gang member. But Tilton turned Cortez's gangster-filled MySpace page against him. "The MySpace page and its contents was one of the two things the jury asked for during their deliberations on whether he was going to be sentenced to death," Tilton said. Neither MySpace nor Facebook would reveal how many investigations they help each year, but both say they work with authorities by maintaining a 24-hour law enforcement hotline, issuing manuals and request forms for police departments, and even training officers on how to better use their sites.
A new study of teen inhalant abuse suggests a need for more prevention and treatment efforts. MSNBC News story here The government numbers do show that fewer teens are sniffing glue, lighter fluid, shoe polish and other easy-to-find substances. But it finds the number of teens who actually abuse inhalants - as opposed to just giving them a try - has remained stable over a five-year period. An official with the Office of National Drug Control Policy says "most parents don't realize how dangerous inhalants can be." He says they're among the most popular and deadly substances that kids abuse. The study finds that nearly 1 million youths aged 12 to 17 used some kind of inhalant in 2007. That's about 3.9 percent of adolescents, compared with 4.4 percent the previous year. The study found that the rate of "initiation," or teens trying inhalants for the first time, was also slightly lower in 2007 - about 2.1 percent of teens. The complete report is available online at National Survey on Drug Use and Health. For more information on teens and addiction see eGuide/drugs and alcohol.
An Indiana couple who ran a baby-sitting service out of their home videotaped themselves performing sex acts with children, some as young as 2 months old, police said. AP News story here Stephen E. Quick, 31, and Samantha Light, 25, both of Veedersburg in western Indiana, were being held on $100,000 bond in Fountain County Jail. Both faced preliminary charges of child molestation and child exploitation. Jail staff did not know whether either one had an attorney. Police who searched the couple's home found a videotape depicting sex acts involving Quick and Light and at least four different children between the ages of 2 months and 6 years old, said Fountain County Sheriff's Deputy Bob Kemp. "In 15 years of doing this job, it's the worst thing I've ever seen or imagined," he told WRTV. "Just horrible, just horrible It's a new low." Police searched the couple's home after the parents of a 3-year-old girl reported that she told them Quick and Light had touched her inappropriately and photographed her at their home on February 28. 
Austrian police said they have broken an Internet child porn ring that stretched across 170 countries, charging nearly 200 men and confiscating 14,000 computers, hard drives and diskettes. News.com.au story here The site was visited 12 million times before it was shut down. "Unfortunately there were people involved who work closely with children, like teachers," presiding federal police investigator Harald Gremel said. Officers said it was the biggest crackdown ever on child porn in the Alpine republic and the year-long inquiry was assisted by police in Croatia where the site was registered and monitored. So far 189 Austrians have been charged with downloading and dealing in child pornography and another 97 were under investigation. Gremel said 624 individuals had been cleared after it was shown they had looked at the site, which is legal in Austria, but not stored or passed on images to others. Doctors, civil servants, politicians and a lawyer were also among the suspects, he said. "I'm convinced we'll be able to get 200 people to face trial," the prosecutor added.
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