Well before Josef Fritzl began the torture of his daughter Elisabeth Fritzl, he had already likely abused several women, including one that resulted in a conviction and prison sentence. In 1967, Josef was a suspect in a case where a man attempted to assault a woman after dragging her into the woods, but she was able to escape, and he was not charged. Another woman also claims that in the late-1960s, Josef broke into her house and raped her at knifepoint, though she did not file a police report.
In October 1967, a month after the attempted assault in the woods, Josef broke into another woman’s house and attacked her, but this time the victim reported the rape to police and Josef was quickly arrested. However, the judge considered Josef to be a relatively upstanding citizen, took into account his wife and four children — Elisabeth was born the year prior in 1966 — and only gave him a year and a half in prison. Josef was 32 years old at the time, and it was a very lenient punishment considering the violent and appalling circumstances.
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Nonetheless, even though he had been convicted and ended up serving almost a year in prison, his wife, Rosemarie Fritzl, still stood by him. She apparently believed, or wanted to believe, that Josef was innocent and was wrongly convicted. Eventually, the conviction would disappear from Josef’s record, but in hindsight, it was a clear foreshadowing of what was to come.
