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Archives > Volume 7 Issue 23 - March 31, 2009 Fritzl speaks of "sudden realization"...
An Austrian magazine, News, published an interview Josef Fritzl gave to his lawyer one week after the 73-year old was sentenced to life in prison. The Telegraph news story here
It was only when he was confronted by his daughter's testimony in open court that Fritzl realized the magnitude of the harm he had inflicted on daughter Elisabeth and the seven children he had fathered in an incestuous relationship. "I had such a strange feeling which I can hardly describe but when she was there I can only say I felt somewhat different, knowing she was in the vicinity of me," he said. "After that, I want only the hardest punishment. Until the end." "As I noticed that she was here, in the court room, and I finally turned, into the auditorium and looked and saw her myself, I was suddenly so ashamed. I could hardly bear hearing what she was saying," said Fritzl who, until that moment, had denied murder and slavery charges. "I wanted the hardest punishment." Fritzl, who changed his pleas at his trial last week to guilty on all counts including raping Elisabeth 3,000 times and the murder of a newborn who died in his dungeon, again tried to justify his perverse "love" for his secret family. "I tried to make life in the cellar as pleasant as possible for my second family - and in the course of the years, a partnership between my daughter and myself," he said. "But I deserved nothing better. I do not deserve indulgence. I knew I had to confess everything, I could not varnish over the truth any longer, before anyone." The following day he entered court and changed his pleas to guilty on all charges. "I understood, finally, what suffering I brought to my family." "The Italian Fritzl"... In a case that has shocked Italy and drawn comparison with Josef Fritzl in Austria, Italian police have arrested a 64-year-old Turin man for allegedly sexually abusing his daughter over 25 years and encouraging his son to follow his example. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5989020.ece 
The 41-year-old son is also behind bars, accused of abusing not only his sister, now 34, but his own young daughters, aged 6, 8, 12 and 20.
"It seems that in this family there was a sort of droit de seigneur of the father over the daughter," Pietro Forno, the Turin prosecutor, said. The two men deny the charges. Italian newspapers identified the father as Michele Mongelli, and his son as Giuseppe. The 34-year-old daughter was identified with the pseudonym Laura. Police said that the 64-year-old mans daughters and granddaughters had been kept in "conditions of slavery and mistreatment", with Laura often locked up in the dark in her bedroom. However Mr. Forno said Laura was "strictly speaking free, though she did nothing without her father, who completely dominated her psychologically". He said Laura was the eldest of nine children, and "according to a family rule, the eldest daughter was reserved" for the father. "The young woman is suffering from personality disorders because of the prolonged incestuous situation and mistreatment," he said. "A psychiatric evaluation has determined that the situation was one of very serious distress." He said Laura had a "totally passive personality before her father, who made her live in a climate of threats. She complained to the authorities of sexual abuse as early as 1994, when she was 19, but her complaint had been judged "unreliable" on the ground that she was "disturbed". "It appeared to be a normal family," Mr. Forno said. The man and his son, both street traders dealing in scrap metal who moved to Turin from Apulia in southern Italy, are accused of rape, incest and obscene acts in public because some of the alleged sexual abuse took place in a car. Reports said Laura was forced to leave school in her early teens. "This is a terrible story of sexual violence, perversion, humiliation, abuse and tyranny in a Turin family," reported La Repubblica. "It is a story just like that of the monster Josef Fritzl." It said the abuse had come to light because of police telephone taps "but everyone knew about it in the family." The 34-year-old woman and her four nieces have all been taken into care and are being given psychiatric help, police said. "The Colombian Fritzl"... A Colombian man accused of fathering 11 children with his daughter says he's not guilty because she's not his biological child. The 59-year-old man allegedly has been raping his daughter, who is now 35, since she was a child. The Sydney Morning Herald news story here 
Arcedio Alvarez - dubbed "monster of Mariquita" by the local press - has been taken to jail under police and army protection and is being held in custody, news agency Reuters reported. He denied rape and incest charges when he appeared in court in the central Colombian region of Tolima, saying his daughter was adopted. "We agreed to have a romantic relationship because we really loved each other. But she was not my own child," the BBC reported he told the court. The woman, Alba Nidia, told police the abuse started when she was nine. She'd been in her father's care since her mother died when she was five. She says she has given birth to 11 children, three of whom have died. The surviving children, reportedly aged between one and 19, are now in state care. "I always respected him as my father and he is my father," she was quoted as saying on the BBC. "He never spoke about (incest), about why we were doing it. Sometimes I would ask him and he would say it was God's will." She said in an interview with the daily newspaper El Tiempo that a Christian pastor had convinced her to reveal the allegations. "I took this decision according to the will of God, thanks to a pastor who prayed for me many times," she said in the interview. "That is what gave me the strength." The case has prompted comparisons with the high-profile case of Austria's Josef Fritzl, who was recently convicted of holding his daughter captive for 24 years in the basement of his house and fathering her seven children. Colombian media reported that the woman decided to file a complaint against her father when she saw television reports about Fritzl, news agency DPA reported. In other news... The founder of a religious order that treats Roman Catholic priests who molest children concluded in the 1950s that offenders were unlikely to change and should not be returned to ministry, according to his letters, which were obtained by plaintiffs' lawyers. AP News story here The Reverend Gerald Fitzgerald, founder of the Servants of the Paraclete, was so sure of the priests' inability to control themselves that he tried to buy an island to isolate them. Fitzgerald discussed the issue with Pope Paul VI and in correspondence with several bishops, according to the National Catholic Reporter, an independent newspaper that reported the full content of the letters Monday. The documents challenge recent statements by U.S. bishops that before the clergy sex abuse scandal erupted in the 1980s and again in 2002, they were unaware of the risks of moving predators among parishes. "I myself would be inclined to favor laicization for any priest, upon objective evidence, for tampering with the virtue of the young, my argument being, from this point onward the charity to the Mystical Body should take precedence over charity to the individual," Fitzgerald wrote in a 1952 letter to Bishop Robert Dwyer of Reno, Nevada. "Moreover, in practice, real conversions will be found to be extremely rare," he continued. "Hence, leaving them on duty or wandering from diocese to diocese is contributing to scandal or at least to the approximate danger of scandal." The Los Angeles law firm Kiesel, Boucher & Larson, which has brought many abuse cases against California dioceses, persuaded a judge in New Mexico to unseal the letters in 2007, according to Helen Zukin, an attorney at the firm. For more on clergy abuse see eGuide/clergy abuse. 
An influential government-appointed medical panel is urging doctors to routinely screen all American teens for depression - a bold step that acknowledges that nearly 2 million teens are affected by this debilitating condition. Fox News story here Most are undiagnosed and untreated, said the panel, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which sets guidelines for doctors on a host of health issues. The task force recommendations appear in April's issue of the journal Pediatrics. And they go farther than the American Academy of Pediatrics' own guidance for teen depression screening. An estimated 6 percent of U.S. teenagers are clinically depressed. Evidence shows that detailed but simple questionnaires can accurately diagnose depression in primary-care settings such as a pediatrician's office. The task force said that when followed by treatment, including psychotherapy, screening can help improve symptoms and help kids cope. Because depression can lead to persistent sadness, social isolation, school problems and even suicide, screening to treat it early is crucial, the panel said. The task force is an independent panel of experts convened by the federal government to establish guidelines for treatment in primary-care. Its new guidance goes beyond the pediatrics academy, which advises pediatricians to ask teen patients questions about depression. Other doctor groups advise screening only high-risk youngsters. For more on teen depression, see eGuide/depression.
State Health Department officials say group sex parties may have led to an outbreak of 10 cases of syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease, among teenagers in central Oklahoma. NewsOK story here While syphilis is not rare and can be cured, officials are concerned because its not often seen in youths and can lead to serious health problems if untreated. They also are worried the outbreak could spread to other parts of the state. Health officials said the outbreak may be linked to teens attending parties where unprotected group sexual activity is encouraged. Ten cases of teens with syphilis were reported to the department in the past four weeks.
Prosecutors agreed to some unusual terms to win a guilty plea from a former religious cult member charged with starving her 1-year-old son to death: If the child is resurrected, her plea will be withdrawn. AP News story here Ria Ramkissoon, 22, also agreed Monday to testify against four other members of the now-defunct religious group known as 1 Mind Ministries. All four are charged with first-degree murder in the death of Javon Thompson, whose body was kept in a suitcase packed with mothballs and fabric softener sheets long after he died. Ramkissoon's lawyer said the resurrection clause Ramkissoon insisted on shows that she is still "brainwashed" and needs the psychological treatment that is planned as part of her sentencing. According to a statement of facts, the cult members stopped feeding the boy when he refused to say "Amen" after a meal. After Javon died, Ramkissoon sat next to his decomposing body and prayed for his resurrection. Ramkissoon's attorney, Steven D. Silverman, said Ramkissoon believes the resurrection will occur. She agreed to plead guilty only after prosecutors said they would drop the charges if the child comes back to life, Silverman said.
A 14-year-old New Jersey girl has been accused of child pornography after posting nearly 30 explicit nude pictures of herself on MySpace.com - charges that could force her to register as a sex offender if convicted. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29912729/ The case comes as prosecutors nationwide pursue child pornography cases resulting from kids sending nude photos to one another over cell phones and e-mail. Legal experts, though, could not recall another case of a child porn charge resulting from a teen's posting to a social networking site. MySpace would not comment on the New Jersey investigation, but the News Corp.-owned company has a team that reviews its network for inappropriate images. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children tipped off a state task force, which alerted the Passaic County Sheriff's Office. If convicted of the distribution charge, she would be forced to register with the state as a sex offender under Megan's Law, said state Attorney General Anne Milgram. She also could face up to 17 years in jail, though such a stiff sentence is unlikely. Maureen Kanka - whose daughter, Megan, became the law's namesake after she was raped and killed at age 7 in 1994 by a twice-convicted sex offender - blasted authorities for charging the 14-year-old girl. The teen needs help, not legal trouble, she said.
CBS News takes a sympathetic look at parents who dropped off children under Nebraskas previous Safe Haven Law in an effort to get them mental health treatment. CBS story here The safe haven laws are also exposing serious cracks in the nation's mental health system. "With many of the safe haven parents, they're struggling right now in the courts to get their child back in their home," said Nebraska State Senator Amanda McGill. "They don't want to be separated from them; they just want to get the services their kid needs so that the child can try to lead a normal life." For more on this story see vol6_iss78.
Texas jurors have sentenced a Roman Catholic priest convicted of child sex abuse to 50 years in prison, a term double the original sentence he received during his first trial for the crime. Houston Chronicle news story here The Reverend Thomas Teczar had been sentenced to 25 years by a judge in 2007 for raping and molesting an 11-year-old boy. But his convictions on three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child were overturned on appeal last fall because of testimony from a witness. During his retrial, an Eastland County jury took less than an hour to find Teczar guilty of the same charges. On Friday, his 68th birthday, jurors settled on his sentence. *for access to member only sites like the New York Times, use the ID "JohnDoeID" and the password "whatever". On sites asking for an email address, feel free to use "info@childprotectionprogram.org" |
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