Josef Fritzl's daughter falls in love with bodyguard

Updated on: 02 June,2009 03:43 PM IST |
Agencies |

Elisabeth Fritzl, the 42-year-old Austrian daughter who was held captive, abused and raped in a cellar for 24 years by her father Josef Fritzl, has reportedly fallen in love with her bodyguard

Elisabeth Fritzl, the 42-year-old Austrian daughter who was held captive, abused and raped in a cellar for 24 years by her father Josef Fritzl, has reportedly fallen in love with her bodyguard.

Thomas was assigned to guard Elisabeth and the six children she bore by her dungeon dad while she was imprisoned in the cellar at their home in the Austrian town of Amstetten, two hours from Vienna, for over 24 years.

"They are a couple. Everyone saw from the beginning how secure she felt with him," a source close to Elisabeth was quoted by the Austrian newspaper as saying. In fact, the relationship is said to have given her "renewed strength" and she is currently taking driving lessons while spending many hours a week in therapy to help her cope with the post traumatic stress of her ordeal.

Elisabeth was 18 when she was drugged by her father and imprisoned in a windowless dungeon he constructed beneath the family home in the Austrian town of Amstetten two hours from Vienna. For 24 years he raped her an estimated 3,000 times.

She had seven children in the darkness, one of whom died three days after birth. She was freed by her father in April last year after her daughter Kerstin, 19, fell gravely ill.

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