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Kidnapped at 10 and held for eight years. The girl in the cellar
On the first day that she was allowed to walk to school alone, 10-year-old Natascha Kampusch was abducted by a man driving a white van on the streets of suburban Vienna. She would spend the next eight years in a nightmare — locked in a windowless room that her kidnapper built beneath his basement and suffering unimaginable abuse at his hands. But through it all, Kampusch never lost faith that she would escape.
She even experienced visions of her 18-year-old self, who promised her she would one day be free. Finally, after 3,096 days of captivity, she escaped, just when her older self said she would.
See the photos and learn her harrowing full story by clicking the link in our bio.
Vienna press conference.
The investigation into what had happened over the past eight years centres on Heine-Strasse 60 - a detached house in the grimy hamlet of Strasshof, 15 miles north of Vienna.
Trees and a heavy iron gate surround the yellow and brown painted house, which is next to a busy road.
It was here that Natascha, who told police she had to call her captor "master", was held in a homemade dungeon - and, police suspect, subjected to years of sexual abuse. The only way in to the cellar-like prison, Priklopil's sealed garage, was via a steel door.
Priklopil, a communications technician, had fitted a sophisticated alarm, with video cameras, to alert him should Natascha try to escape, police said. "He was a perfectionist. He was very careful. He did everything he could to make sure she couldn't get out," Armin Halm, spokesman for the Bundeskriminalamt, or federal criminal bureau, said.
Inside, the garage looked like a normal teenage bedroom. It was equipped with a bed, bookshelf, TV, and desk. Clothes were piled in a heap; nearby was a dictionary. There was even evidence that Priklopil helped Natascha with her studies. "She can read and write," Mr Halm said.
At weekends Priklopil's elderly mother dropped by to cook and clean for her unmarried son. He had only two friends, police said. Neither appears to have known anything about the girl hidden in his cellar. "We didn't suspect anything," said one elderly couple living down the road.
Police say it is unclear if Natascha had ever tried to escape before, or why her meticulous kidnapper suddenly grew careless. Last night it was reported he recently had allowed her occasional outings in the village in his company.
In the end, he was distracted by a phone call - thus enabling her to flee, investigator Erich Zwettler told Sky TV. "He found his victim had escaped, panicked, jumped in his car and drove away fast," Mr Zwettler said.
However, police also suggested Natascha might have become fond of Priklopil over her years of captivity.
Yesterday, there were embarrassing questions as to why investigators had failed to trace Natascha. Immediately after her abduction one eyewitness described how she had seen Natascha get into a white van.
Detectives tracked 1,000 white van owners in the area and interviewed Priklopil in April 1998, a month after Natascha disappeared. He told them he used the van for work. They believed him - and left without searching either the house or garage.
On Wednesday when they arrived at the house the van was still there. They also found Natascha's passport, which she had with her the day she vanished. Another neighbour, retired policeman Franz Hafergut, had also complained to the authorities because Priklopil used a .22 rifle to shoot pigeons. Police officers knocked on his door - but left.
Yesterday Natascha's father, Ludwig Koch, said he recognised his lost daughter immediately. In an interview with Austria's Kurier newspaper, he said she looked in bad shape physically and had wasted away. "She has very, very white skin and marks all over her entire body. I don't want to think about where they came from," he said. After being reunited on Wednesday they had both wept. "She told me: Papa, I love you. And her next question was, Papa, do you still have my toy car?'
"I told her I did, and we had never given it away. We still have all her dolls as well." Mr Koch said he did not know his daughter's kidnapper, adding: "I feel enormously joyful, but at the same time I feel like crying the whole time ... I just hope Natascha can lead a normal life. That she can get an education, find a job, and, who knows, perhaps even be happy. That's my great wish. I know now at last that the waiting has been worth it, and my life has a purpose."
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