Josef Fritzl: The Monster of Amstetten

The case of Josef Fritzl shocked the world, in 2008 it emerged the 73 year old Austrian had held his own daughter captive in the cellar of his house for 24 years subjecting her to continuous physical and sexual assault. Perhaps most shocking he got his daughter Elisabeth Fritzl pregnant on eight occasions, four children lived below ground with their mother, three lived with Josef and his wife Rosemarie and one was a miscarriage.

In this 2013 documentary reporter Fred Dinenage tracks the history of the events from 1984 when Fritzl imprisons Elisabeth in a purpose built dungeon through to her release in 2008. How could such a sick act occur and how could Fritzl live an ordinary life outside of the dungeon to the extent his wife Rosemarie did not know what was happening below her own house. Dinenage meets with reporters, police and neighbours of Fritzl to try and answer those questions.