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I'm Hannah. I'm Sireeti and welcome to Redhanded. Today's case is one that has been requested so many times.

Probably one of our most requested ever cases, but we didn't want to do it until we felt like we could really do it justice.

It's such a big well-known case, but here goes. So because it's such a big case, this is going to have to be a two-parter guys, and this is part one on none other than Yosif Fritzel.

In 2006, when 18-year-old Natasha Kampush escaped an underground dungeon, where she had been imprisoned for 10 years by her abductor in Lower Austria.

Everyone was horrified, but they thought what they were seeing was just an anomaly, a free case, the likes of which Austria would never see again, at least not in that lifetime.

But then just two years later, there was Yosif Fritzel and the horrors of his cellar.

In preparation for this case, like we always do, we went out, we watched all the usual documentaries, we read all the major articles out there on the Fritzel case,

but it kind of just felt like none of them really offered an in-depth explanation as to not necessarily what had happened, but maybe more why.

Like a real deep dive into Fritzel's childhood, what shaped him to become the man that he was.

And it wasn't really until we read the book, The Crimes of Yosif Fritzel, uncovering the truth, written by Bohan Pan-Siveski and Stephanie Marsh, that we felt we really got a serious understanding of this case.

So I cannot recommend that book, highly enough, we'll leave a link below to where you can purchase it. It's such a good book. Go read it, go support those authors, it's excellent.

So saying all that, Austria today begins not with Yosif, but with his grandmother Anna, in a place called Most Vietel in Lower Austria.

And this part of the country is like a typical fairy tale landscape, it's what you think of when you think of Austria, it's all rolling hills, woody meadows, cutel, villages and babbling brooks.

Fun fact about Most Vietel, it actually has over a million pear trees there. And apparently, you'd be hard pressed to find a shop that didn't sell pears, pear drinks, pear key rings, pear t-shirts, they just fucking love pears.

I fucking love a pear. Who doesn't love a pear? Who doesn't? I mean the Austrians do, especially the people of this town.

And it was in this pear loving town that they stood number 40 Yibstrasza, home to the Fritzel family. And the Fritzel's had a daughter named Anna. And at some point, near the end of the 19th century, she married a rich mill owner.

For a few months, the marriage was quite a happy one. That is until it became clear that the pair of them were unable to conceive a child.

After this, the miller started to beat Anna mercilessly for not getting pregnant.

Determined not to let rumours about his lack of virility begin circulating, the miller began raping one of his servants.

And soon enough, this servant fell pregnant. And being the righteous godfaring gentleman that he was, the mill owner then threw the servant out and forced Anna to keep the baby and raise it as if it was her own.

So he's just proven as point that it's not his fault, basically.

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