Imprisonment Began as Detox for Daughter: Fritzl

Austrian incest dad Josef Fritzl defended his imprisonment of daughter Elisabeth as necessary to stop her abuse of household chemicals, the Daily Mail reports. “She had been sniffing cleaning fluids and I decided I should talk with her in my cellar,” Fritzl said of the day in 1984 that marked the beginning of her captivity. “She reacted to my accusations with a couldn’t-care-less attitude.”

“And because … she showed no improvement in her attitude,” Fritzl continued, “I decided to keep her locked up.” The statement comes from a psychological evaluation completed ahead of Fritzl’s trial, to begin in two weeks. The accused rapist’s benevolent streak carried over to his secret family, he said: “They didn’t miss anything as I really tried to make their life in captivity as pleasant as possible.” (More drug abuse stories.)