www.justiceforchandra.com

[gozgals]

Austrian girl's suspected kidnapper kills himself



VIENNA (Reuters) - A 44-year old man suspected of having kidnapped and imprisoned a girl for the past eight years has committed suicide after his victim managed to break free on Wednesday, Austrian police said on Thursday.

The man, identified as Wolfgang P., had thrown himself in front of a night express train in Vienna after running away from police, authorities said according to Austrian news agency APA.

The communications technician is suspected of having imprisoned Natascha Kampusch for the past eight years in a small cellar in his house in Strasshof, a hamlet on the outskirts of Vienna.

Following her eight-year ordeal, the now 18-year old woman showed up on Wednesday in a garden close to the house where she had been kept and identified herself to a neighbor as the girl who went missing nearly a decade ago.

Kampusch's disappearance without a trace on her way to school had sent shockwaves through Austria.

Her re-appearance sparked a major manhunt for her captor n Wednesday. Neighborhood witnesses said they had seen a car speeding away shortly after the girl re-emerged.

Police said they later found the red BMW sports car abandoned in a parking lot in Vienna and the key in Wolfgang P.'s pocket after his suicide.

Authorities said they had little doubt that the woman was really Kampusch. Kampusch's passport was found in her prison and she bore a scar that is identical to one of the missing girl.

Police said, however, that they were still awaiting a final DNA test.

Police said Kampusch was in good physical health, although she looked pale and shaken when she was discovered. She bore no indications of having suffered sexual abuse.

The woman had been allowed occasional outings with her captor, yet had not fled because she apparently suffered from "Stockholm Syndrome" -- a psychological condition in which long-held captives begin to identify with their kidnappers.


Source: Reuters- Netscape Connect News

[gozgals]

Austrian Teen Held for Eight Years Defends Captor

18-Year-Old Calls Man a 'Part of My Life' and Begs for Privacy

By VERONIKA OLEKSYN, AP

VIENNA, Austria (Aug. 28) - An Austrian teenager who spent more than eight years in a dingy underground cell until her dramatic escape last week issued a statement Monday defending her captor as "part of my life" and insisting she didn't miss anything during her long ordeal.


In remarks read to reporters by a psychologist, 18-year-old Natascha Kampusch said she understood what a "strong impression" her case has made and how she is faring since she bolted to freedom last Wednesday, but she pleaded with journalists, "Please leave me alone for a while."

"Everyone wants to ask intimate questions, (but) they don't concern anyone," she said. "I feel good where I'm at now."

Police said Monday they had only begun to question Kampusch about her abduction at age 10 in March 1998 by Wolfgang Priklopil, who killed himself within hours of her escape by throwing himself in front of a commuter train.

Police Maj. Gen. Gerhard Lang of the Federal Criminal Investigations Bureau said investigators are continuing to follow up on "every lead" in the case, which until last week was one of Austria's greatest unsolved criminal mysteries.

Although authorities have released photographs and video footage of the cramped, windowless basement cell where Kampusch was kept, she referred to it simply as "my room" in her statement, read by criminal psychologist Max Friedrich.

"It's my room, and not destined for the public to see," Kampusch said.

She also denied ever calling Priklopil her master, even though she said the 44-year-old communications technician wanted her to.

"He was not my master. I was equally strong," her statement read. "I didn't cry after the escape."

"In principle, I don't have the feeling that I missed something," Kampusch said, but acknowledged that her youth was different to those of others. Still, she said, she was spared of some things - such as not starting to smoke and drink or having "false friends".

On a typical day, she would have breakfast with Priklopil, Kampusch said. The rest of the day would be spent doing various things around the house.

"Housework, reading, TV, talking, cooking. That was it, for years. Everything tied to the fear of being alone," she said.

She used an Austrian expression to indicate that at times Priklopil treated her very well, but at other times very badly.

"He carried out the kidnapping by himself. Everything was already prepared," she said. She added that they then decorated her "room" together.

"In my eyes his death would not have been necessary," she said.

"He was a part of my life, that's why I also mourn for him in a certain way."


8/25/2006 12:52:32

Comments: Poor girl, a definite case of "Stockholm's Syndrome." Maybe the media should leave her alone to get on with her life, let us hope so.

The Associated Press.

[rd]

but she pleaded with journalists, "Please leave me alone for a while."

"Everyone wants to ask intimate questions, (but) they don't concern anyone," she said. "I feel good where I'm at now."


good for her.

rd
_________________
ralph@ee.net

[gozgals]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=2401426&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Girl Speaks Out After Eight Years of Captivity

Girl Was Kidnapped When She Was 10 and Held in a Windowless Room


By MIKE LEE


Sept. 6, 2006 — At first, she could have been mistaken for a young TV soap opera star — or a singer — promoting her latest show or album on Austrian TV.

Eighteen-year-old Natascha Kampusch wore a fashionable purple head wrap and matching blouse with sequins, and had had her face made up for the cameras. As she began to speak, she smiled and laughed.

But a few minutes into the interview, which was broadcast nationally in Austria on Wednesday, the tears came, her voice cracked, and the audience knew that the story she was telling slowly was one of absolute horror.

"When he first grabbed me, I was going to scream," she said. "I opened my mouth to scream but nothing happened. I could not scream."

Kampusch, who had long been assumed dead, stunned the world when it came to light that, on Aug. 23, she had escaped from a tiny underground cell after eight-and-a-half years of captivity in a windowless cell in the basement of her captor's home.

Now, often rubbing her hands together and blotting tears away with paper tissues as her story poured out, she seemed to need to tell as many people as she could reach about her years of hell.

"I suffered from claustrophobia and I thought I was going crazy in there," said Kampusch. "I was very distraught and very angry," she told the interviewer for Austria's ORF television. That seemed an understatement, considering what Kampusch had been through.

Early in her captivity, Kampusch said, she threw water bottles at the wall in frustration and despair. The wheezing of a ventilator that pumped air into her cell was "unbearable," Kampusch said in the interview — a 40-minute prerecorded account that gave Austrians their first glimpse of the young woman whose nightmare entranced the nation.


Continued
1. 2. 3. 4. NEXT»

[rd]

Truly a courageous young woman, goz. Thanks for that update. It sounds like her story has touched the heart of her whole country, and many elsewhere as well.

rd

[gozgals]

Your welcome RD. The story has definitely touched me. What a brave young women. I think she has handled her "ORDEAL" with such maturity, and much better than most of us would have especially at her age.

I found the story fascinating.


Good weekend to you RD.

Goz