UPDATE:Austrian Josef Fritzl Pleads Guilty To Incest Imprisonment and One Count of Assault

UPDATE:Austrian Josef Fritzl Pleads Guilty To Incest Imprisonment and One Count of Assault, even though he is charged with Murder, Rape, Incest, Coercion and Enslavement. He has denied charges of murder and enslavement. When asked to enter a plea on a charge of rape, Fritzl replied: “Partly guilty.”

There is no partial guilty, Fritzl…either you are or you are not! But, Franz Cutka, a press 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 wasn’t as severe as rape.

Regardless, Fritzl still faces six charges at a closed-door, no cameras, trial in St. Poelten, 45 miles (70 km) east of Amstetten, where Fritzl lived, his double life.

The trial is scheduled to last five days, but his attorney Rudolph Mayer expects it to be shorter.

Fritzl was charged in November with incest and the repeated rape of his daughter, Elisabeth, over a 24-year period, he is 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 little Michael Fritzl died from lack of medical care.

In an opening statement, prosecuting attorney Christiane Burkheiser handed a damp and moldy smelling items from the cellar where Elisabeth and her children had lived to jurors to give them an idea of the deplorable conditions in which they were locked up, for over 24 years.

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.

“This man obviously led a double life for 24 years. He had a wife and had seven kids with her. And then he had another family with his daughter, fathered another seven children with her,” said Franz Polzer, a police officer in Amstetten, the town where Fritzl lived, at the time of his arrest.

Elisabeth’s daughter, Kerstin, became seriously ill with convulsions and she persuaded her father to allow Kerstin, then 19, to be taken to a hospital for treatment, where hospital staff became suspicious of the case and alerted police, who then discovered the family members in the cellar.

Fritzl has confessed to authorities that he raped his daughter, kept her and their children in captivity and burned the body of the dead infant in an oven in the house. Elisabeth confirmed to the authorities that the infant was one of a set of twins, who died a few days after birth.

When Elisabeth gained her and her families freedom, she told police her father began sexually abusing her at age 11. On August 8, 1984, she told police, her father enticed her into the basement, where he drugged her, put her in handcuffs and locked her in a room.

Fritzl explained Elisabeth’s disappearance in 1984 by saying the girl, who was then 18, had run away from home. He backed up the story with letters he forced Elisabeth to write and gave them to his wife to explain her disappearance.

Elisabeth and four of her children lived in the specially designed cellar beneath her father’s home in Amstetten, Austria, just west of Vienna. The other three children lived upstairs with Fritzl and his wife. Fritzl explained them by leaving them on his own doorstep, pretending the missing Elisabeth had dropped them off.

Under Austrian law, if Fritzl is convicted on several offenses, he will be given the sentence linked to the worst crime.

The Charges Fritzl Faces Are:

• Murder: The infant who died in 1996 died from a lack of medical care, the state prosecutor said. The charge carries a sentence of life in prison.

• Involvement in slave trade: From 1984 until 2008, prosecutors allege, Fritzl held his daughter, Elisabeth, captive in a dungeon, abused her sexually and treated her as if she were his personal property, in a situation similar to slavery. If he is convicted, the sentence could range from 10 to 20 years in prison.

• Rape: Between August 30, 1984, and June 30, 1989, Fritzl “regularly sexually abused Elisabeth,” according to the authorities. The sentence could be from five to 15 years in prison.

• Incest: Parallel to the rape charge. It carries a sentence of up to one year.

• Withdrawal of liberty: Three of the children Fritzl had with Elisabeth were illegally held captive in a dungeon with no daylight or fresh air, according to authorities. That charge carries a sentence of one to 10 years.

• Assault: Between August 28, 1984, and April 26, 2006, Fritzl repeatedly threatened Elisabeth and their three children with gas and booby traps as warnings in case they tried to escape, authorities allege. The sentence would range from six months to five years.

Most of my regular readers know how I feel about child abusers and this man is on my top ten list of most despised. I am not one to turn the other check, I am more the eye for an eye-a tooth for a tooth, type of person. They should not allow him to cover his face. He should be known by sight for what he, is a true monster. He should be given the same treatment he gave Elisabeth and her children and probably the children who lived above ground as well. One can only imagine that he terrorized those children and his wife as well.

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