Snatched from the streets, lured into basements, and held captive by their own fathers – these are the grisly true stories of women and children who have suffered unspeakable abuse at the hands of depraved, sex-crazed monsters.
In one of the most high-profile and disturbing cases of its kind, Austrian Josef Fritzl became globally-recognised as the notorious serial rapist who held his daughter Elisabeth captive in a basement dungeon that he built under his house before fathering seven children with her.
Many copycats have since followed in his footsteps, with several ‘Fritzls’ appearing across the world from Russia to Argentina, after constructing their dingy lairs and waiting to pounce on their oblivious, innocent victims.
And while several perpetrators have died or been caught following their stomach-turning atrocities, it remains impossible to know how many people could still be living in similar situations.
From being imprisoned in underground bunkers aged seven, to being forced to live half-naked and shaven-headed for eight years, MailOnline has taken a look at some of the most despicable kidnapping cases in recent history.
Austrian Josef Fritzl (pictured during his 2009 trial) became globally-recognised as the notorious serial rapist who held his daughter Elisabeth captive in a basement dungeon that he built under his house before fathering seven children with her
Natascha Kampusch, 10, Austria
Natascha Kampusch was kidnapped aged 10 in 1998 while walking to school on her own before spotting a suspicious man lurking by a white minivan.
As she walked past him, Wolfgang Priklopil dragged her off the street and tossed her into the back of his vehicle.
He dashed her to his dungeon where she would go without any light for days on end and was starved, given only small amounts of food, and suffered regular beatings at the hands of her abductor throughout the years she was locked in the cellar.
As she hit puberty at age 12, Priklopil would start treating his young victim even more harshly – subjecting her to degradation and extreme sexual abuse, turning the young girl into his sex slave.
He would tell the young girl that she was his slave, while speaking admiringly of Adolf Hitler and telling her he was an evil Egyptian god.
Speaking out on her horrifying ordeal after making a miracle escape eight-and-a-half years later in 2006, she said that food deprivation was one of Priklopil’s most effective strategies at keeping her in line.
Natascha Kampusch aged ten, the year she was kidnapped by Wolfgang Priklopil
Priklopil (pictured) starved Kampusch and turned her into a sex slave
A hidden room in the house where kidnapped Natascha lived for eight years
The cellar where Natascha was kept was concealed by a trap door located in the house’s garage
Kampusch’s windowless bedroom (left) was reached by the stairs on the right
At age 14, Kampusch spent her first night since the day she was snatched above ground – but her captor forced her to lay handcuffed to him in his bed and she wasn’t allowed to make a sound.
But the skin on her back, beaten black and blue by Priklopil, was so sore she struggled to lay still which often landed her in trouble with her abductor.
Priklopil did not just use this opportunity to have sex with the child, however, but satiated his sickening romantic and emotional urges by cuddling her during the night too.
By 15, Kampusch was trusted to spend more time upstairs and outside the four walls of her cramped cellar.
But even though she had a small taste for freedom beyond the lair, Priklopil’s paranoia made it near impossible for her to ever relax.
The teenager was forced to stand and walk one metre away from him otherwise he would explode into a fit of rage – and if she dared cry, he would leave her abandoned in his dungeon in total darkness.
Kampusch was not allowed to mention her parents or family, as her captor believed he was her ‘everything’.
The girl, from a young age, was expected to take on the role of a submissive female – akin to that of a traditional 1950s wife.
She was expected to be a hard-working woman who had her captor’s dinner ready on the table in time, who didn’t talk back, and who did the housework perfectly.
When Kampusch turned 16, her food rations were significantly reduced to just a quarter of what an adult requires.
Breakfast became just milk, tea, and two tablespoons of cereal – and never a single bite more.
Her weight dropped to less than 6st before she realised she was deliberately being kept from food to keep her weak and submissive.
Focused on her appearance, Priklopil became paranoid about her hair and forced her to wear a plastic bag over her head, leaving the teenager with itchy and sore patches across her scalp until she ended up shaving her head bald.
Hairless, thin, and covered in bruises, twisted Priklopil began finding Kampusch’s new look attractive and demanded her to work in the house half-naked.
She would wear only a cap and knickers around him, but when she worked in the garden, she was not allowed to wear any underwear at all.
Priklopil knew that the young girl would not dare run out onto the street naked – and she later admitted he was right.
Priklopil hid her in a room under his basement, which was covered by this cupboard
Kampusch was kept in this windowless room during her most formative years, where she was subjected to sexual abuse and beatings
Kampusch spent eight-and-a-half years being raped and psychologically abused at a house near Vienna – and now lives there. This image shows her at the property
He would cruelly tease her – giving her a false taste of freedom by opening the front door and telling her she could run away if she wanted to.
But Kampusch, blinded by fright, feared a stranger would see her bruised and naked and deny her help in an instant.
And so she remained under Priklopil’s watchful eye, enduring a torrent of abuse that involved knives being thrown at her, and having her captor punch her over 200 times in a week.
The violent outbursts and vicious treatment became so unbearable that the young girl attempted to take her own life.
Shoving paper and toilet rolls onto her dungeon’s hotplate, she hoped her cell would fill with smoke until she gently drifted away, and out of a life that was no longer her own.
But when the acrid smoke reached her lungs and she inhaled deeply, she began to cough and the will to survive kicked in.
She held her pillow in front of her mouth and threw wet clothes on top of the blistering paper. The next morning, the dungeon still smelled like a smokehouse.
When Priklopil came in, he yanked her out of her bed and scolded her for her desperate attempt to escape his clutches.
After several years of continual abuse, Kampusch reached the age of 18 and the life she had known for over eight years was about to come crashing down.
For the first time ever – she was allowed to leave the house and enter her captor’s car.
Natascha escaped in 2006 when Priklopil had to take a phone call while she was cleaning his car, allowing her enough time to sneak out through a garden gate
While she hoovered Priklopil’s vehicle that was parked in the front drive of his home, Kampusch was left with a fleeting moment of hope when he received a phone call and became momentarily distracted.
As he stepped away to speak to the recipient, the scared woman realised the gate – which was usually closed or blocked with heavy objects – was left open to the street.
Paralysed with fear, Kampusch considered her options before leaving the hoover whirring and sprinting to the gate to her freedom, bringing an end to the ordeal that had begun in March 1998.
Priklopil was found decapitated on train track same day she disappeared in what detectives believed to be a suicide.
Kampusch has since written a book about her life called Ten Years of Freedom but her ordeal went on.
A probe concerning the alleged suicide of Priklopil was launched when two coroners who examined the case files determined that he might have been murdered.
Kampusch later acquired the house and car of her captor as palpable links to a past that psychiatrists encouraged her to move on from.
She spent weekends at the house where her childhood was stolen, living in the rooms where she suffered unspeakable abuse at the hands of the man who had snatched her from her loving family.
The exterior of the house where Kampusch was held – and constantly watched
Kampusch revealed that she ran past two houses without asking for help, fearing that Priklopil might find her
Malgorzata, 20s, Poland
In August 2024. a woman, 30, was found to have been held captive and raped in a barn for over four years after meeting Mateusz Jach, dubbed ‘Poland’s Josef Fritzl’, on a dating website in 2019.
The victim, known only as Malgorzata, was in her 20s when she travelled to visit him in the village of Gaiki, near Glogow in western Poland.
But the potential love story took a sinister turn when Jach, 35, wound up holding the young woman hostage in disused animal barn and subjected her to regular beatings, rape, and mental abuse.
Jach would also carry out twisted ‘experiments’ on his victim that left her with all of her teeth and both of her lips removed – leaving her with just a hole for a mouth.
Sources close to the investigation told MailOnline in September that while the woman was in hospital for a broken shoulder, she had begun talking to another patient about what had happened to her.
The patient had then told a doctor about the abuse Margorzata was facing in captivity, and that she was in a serious condition both physically and psychologically.
‘The woman said he [Jach] was doing some kind of trial on her. He was experimenting on her. He was trying out different things on her.
‘One of those who saw her last week said that although only in her thirties she looked ‘well over 50’ due to her physical condition, the source said.
The stone barn where Margorzata was being held was devoid of any light and without access to running water, a toilet, electricity, or heating, and had previously been used to house animals.
A victim, only known as Malgorzata, 30, was imprisoned in a disused barn after meeting a man via a dating website in 2019
The home where Mateusz Jach and his parents live. It is alleged that he kidnapped the woman while on a date and held her captive for five years in a barn on the property
Malgorzata was reportedly held in a disused animal barn, and was subject to regular beatings, rape, and mental abuse
Her alleged captor, Mateusz Jach, 35, was charged with mental, physical and sexual abuse, after the woman arrived at hospital to be treated for a dislocated shoulder
It was divided into two, with a small fake window with lace curtains on one side.
Through the window all that could be seen is another wall, which is said to have been filled with insulation and soundproofing.
Tall conifer trees were planted around the property so it could not be easily seen from cars passing on the road, while a sheep’s skull sat on a ledge of the building.
At the back of the barn, a dirt track led out to a forest where neighbours said Jach would be seen at night, sometimes walking through the woods with a flashlight.
Another barn, falling apart, a few metres from the other, would sometimes be covered in curtains at nighttime, with neighbours speculating that is where the victim was washed with a hose.
During her four long years of imprisonment, Malgorzata had also been impregnated by Jach.
Mateusz had taken his victim to the hospital to give birth, but she was later forced to give up her child for adoption, local media reported.
But this was not the only time Malgorzata had to be dashed to hospital as she previously required surgery to her anus after it was left scarred by a stake.
The twisted suspect, who was described as a ‘loner’ and a ‘freak’ humiliated and controlled his victim, and offered her no access to hygiene products while she was under his captivity.
Mateusz denied any wrongdoing, but was arrested and charged with mental, physical, and sexual abuse on August 30.
Mateusz denied any wrongdoing, but was arrested and charged with mental, physical, and sexual abuse on August 30, 2024
A window in the barn used as a prison with a false window and curtain
An animal skull placed on a window frame of the barn where the woman was held
Isabel Eriksson, 30s, Sweden
Dr Martin Trenneborg, known as Sweden’s Josef Fritzl, kidnapped, drugged, and locked Isabel Eriksson in a dungeon after he fed her strawberries laced with date rape drug Rohypnol.
The Swedish doctor kept the woman, who was in her thirties, as a sex slave in his soundproof, home-made bunker for six days in 2015.
Trenneborg abducted his victim after meeting her for a date in Stockholm while she was working as an escort.
He used a wheelchair to transport her as well as two rubber masks, of a bearded man and an older woman, to hide their identities.
The cruel doctor then drove her 350 miles from her Stockholm flat to his remote farm near Kristianstad in southern Sweden where he locked her in his cell that he had been building for five years.
The concrete-reinforced walls were 12.5 inches thick and the bunker had a bedroom, functioning toilet and a fully fitted kitchen, Swedish police reported.
The bunker even had a small, covered courtyard, where the woman could go outside without being seen by neighbours.
Trenneborg repeatedly raped his victim over the course of the six days, while also withdrawing blood and taking vaginal samples which he tested at a lab in his place of work, later confessing that he did this to ensure she did not have any STDs.
Martin Trennebourg (pictured), a doctor branded the ‘Swedish Fritzl’, was sentenced to eight years in prison for abducting the woman and locking her in a homemade bunker at his home in Sweden
Isabel shared how she is overcame the horrendous ordeal by setting up an OnlyFans page
Police found two rubber masks in the man’s bedroom, which he reportedly intended to use as disguises during their journey from Stockholm to Kristianstad
The two masks were found in the doctor’s bedroom in his home in Kristianstad
Trenneborg’s home near Kristianstad in southern Sweden where he locked Eriksson in a soundproofed cell inside this home-made bunker
The doctor drugged the woman using strawberries laced with Rohypnol in her flat in Stockholm, and drove nearly 350 miles to his home in southern Sweden
The kitchen in the bunker, which the man had spent five years building on his rural property
The bunker even has a functioning toilet, and police believe the doctor had planned to keep at least one person there for ‘several years’
The bunker also has a small covered courtyard so the person held captive could go outside without being seen by the neighbours
He is also believed to have forced the woman to take contraceptive pills so he could have unprotected sex with her.
According to a police report seen by Swedish media, the woman was bound or cuffed for a majority of her time in captivity, including when the doctor raped her.
After a few days the doctor drove back to the woman’s home in Stockholm to bring her some personal possessions, only to discover that she had been reported missing and police had broken into her flat.
The doctor is believed to have panicked, and brought the woman to Stockholm where they visited a police station together in September 2015.
Prosecutors say the doctor forced the woman to tell police a fake story that she was safe and well, in order to call off the search, but officers grew suspicious and took her to one side.
The woman then told police the full story of her horrific ordeal, after which the doctor was arrested for eight years.
Eriksson revealed in a 2017 interview how she woke to see a ‘tin roof and a man sitting on a chair next to me, just looking at me’.
Plastic bag seized by police during a raid of the doctor’s home, which includes used condoms and syringes
Police images taken inside the bunker indicated that it was still a work in progress
After he drugged and raped in her home in Stockholm, the doctor used a wheelchair (pictured) to get the sedated woman into his car
Police found traces of flunitrazepam – Rohypnol – on the juice and champagne bottles and the glass in the woman’s flat. The doctor drugged the woman using chocolate-dipped strawberries, marking which of the berries he had laced with Rohypnol by drawing on the stem leaves
She said: ‘I remember that he fed me strawberries. That I do remember. It is very hard to talk about. But after that I fell asleep everything was completely black.
‘I saw a tin roof and a man sitting on a chair next to me and just looking at me. And I saw that I had a needle in my arm which I hurriedly pulled off. Then he said that he has kidnapped me and will have me locked up for a few years.
‘First when I woke up in the bunker, I tried to attack him to escape. I attacked him with two spikes but I was still sedated, so it was not a good attempt.
‘He said that if I try again he would fix me up in chains in bed and feed me only with crispbread.
‘I did not know if I’m above or below ground, it was very cold and dusty. On the stone floor there were cement bags. He say that he had built everything himself, and he was proud of what he’d done’.
Eriksson went on to launch an OnlyFans page to get through her trauma – where users could pay £12 a month to see the former escort in a series of semi-naked pictures of her which she described as ‘artful’ and ‘tasteful’.
Eriksson revealed in a 2017 interview how she woke to see a ‘tin roof and a man sitting on a chair next to me, just looking at me’
Eriksson spoke about the ordeal and wrote a book after escaping from Trenneborg’s lair
Elisabeth Fritzl, 18, Austria
Perhaps one of the most notorious abduction cases, Josef Fritzl imprisoned and raped his daughter in a basement for 24 years during which he fathered seven incestuous children with her.
Elisabeth was just 18-years-old when she disappeared in 1984, and she would not reappear until April 2008, when she was discovered in a clandestine cellar beneath her father’s home in Amstetten, Austria.
Fritzl had intricately set up his underground prison, which featured a heavy metal door hidden behind a shelf in his workroom.
He had made sure only he could gain access to it, installing a keyless, secret code entry only known to him – while his wife and six other children, upstairs, knew nothing whatsoever about his double life.
He was able to drag his daughter down into his lair after he rendered his teen daughter unconscious with a rag soaked in ether. She was allegedly Fritzl’s favourite child – and he specifically groomed her to become his sexual partner, after first abusing her when she was just 11.
Elisabeth was manipulated by her father into thinking that the door was electrified, so that she would be killed if she tried to flee from the shocking abuse.
Over the course of her 24-year-imprisonment, Elisabeth became a mother to seven -three of which remained in captivity with her.
Tragically, he was not so generous to his baby son Michael with his daughter Elisabeth; the boy died in the cellar and Fritzl incinerated his body without a second thought.
The other three were brought up by Fritzl and his wife, Rosemarie, after he managed to pass them off as ‘foundlings’.
He would even take long vacations to places like Thailand, leaving his victims to deal with power cuts, rats, overflowing sewage and rotting food in their underground prison.
Reflecting on his crimes, Fritzl said in his memoir: ‘At first it was just a mind game I played. But I got used to it. The idea, which had previously seemed so absurd, so monstrous to me, took shape.
Police handout photo Austrian Josef Fritzl after his arrest
Elisabeth Fritzl (pictured as a schoolgirl), now 56, was held prisoner by her father Josef in the cellar of the family’s Austrian home from 1984 to 2008
‘One day I knew what I had to do. All that remained was to wait for the right opportunity. On that rainy Saturday morning the time had come. The thought had become action.’
Describing how 24 years of horrific crimes began, Fritzl said: ‘The next morning, I filed a missing person report with the local gendarmerie.
‘The officer carefully logged everything and declared: ‘She’s over 18 and can do whatever she wants.”’
Fritzl made Elisabeth write letters to her mother explaining that she needed time away from home, then posted them in faraway towns. He told neighbours she had run away to join a cult.
‘It wasn’t easy, because the thoughts of what I had done were constantly circling within me,’ he said.
‘I was constantly energised. There was no one I could confide in. I had to look ahead and continue on the path I had chosen.’
Fritzl visited his captive at least three times a week, bringing food and sometimes flowers, he says, for Elisabeth.
The monster was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2009 for incest, rape, coercion, false imprisonment, enslavement and for the negligent homicide of one of his infant sons.
Elisabeth has not had any contact with her father since he was jailed and lives under a new name in an unknown part of Austria with the children conceived during the decades her own father brutally raped her.
Fritzl reveals how he carefully prepared his underground prison in his shocking new memoir
In 1984, Fritzl had rendered his own daughter, Elisabeth, unconscious with a rag soaked in ether and entombed her in an underground prison
Elizabeth Shoaf, 14, South Carolina
Vinson Filyaw was sentenced to 421 years in prison for the kidnap, torture and rape of a 14-year-old girl he kept hidden in an underground bunker rigged with explosives for 10 days.
In September 2006, Filyaw kidnapped Elizabeth Shoaf after she got off a school bus in Elgin, Kershaw County.
Filyaw had hidden in a bush and waited for Shoaf to leave the bus stop before jumping out in front of her.
He falsely told her she was under arrest because her family was growing marijuana and handcuffed her.
According to reported case evidence, Filyaw then handcuffed Shoaf and led her into the woods where he raped her and placed a necklace on her that he claimed was full of explosives.
He warned young Shoaf that if she tried to escape, he would detonate the necklace and kill her younger brother.
The kidnapper then took Shoaf deeper into the woods to a site where he had built a six-feet-deep underground bunker.
The horror lair was booby-trapped with explosives and had a camouflaged door.
Vinson Filyaw was serving a 421-year prison sentence for the kidnap, torture and rape of a 14-year-old girl whom he kept in bunker rigged with explosives
Filyaw held Elizabeth Shoaf hostage in a six-feet-deep underground bunker that he had built (pictured). The lair was booby-trapped with explosives and had a camouflaged door
Shoaf (pictured) secretly sent a text to her mother from her captor’s phone, which eventually led to her rescue and Filyaw’s arrest
Authorities initially believed Shoaf was a runaway and did not issue an amber alert following her sudden disappearance.
Gradually, the teen persuaded Filyaw to let her play games on his phone before taking the opportunity to text her mother one night while her captor was asleep.
The quick-thinking actions led authorities to the make-shift lair, where Shoaf was held hostage for more than a week.
When he realised he was being pursued by authorities, Filyaw fled, allowing his teenage hostage to escape and be rescued.
He was arrested and tried in 2007 and pleaded guilty to a raft of charged including kidnapping, rape, and impersonating a police officer.
Filyaw claimed he had abducted Shoaf and held her captive as revenge on the Kershaw County Sheriff’s Office, which had allegedly wrongfully accused him of a sex crime.
Evidence during his trial revealed Filyaw had put chains around Shoaf’s neck to prevent her from escaping and had used a handmade badge while posing as an officer.
Prison records stated Filyaw’s projected release date as being in the year 2353.
But he was found unresponsive in his cell at McCormick Correctional Institution in South Carolina in May 2021 after having served just 14 years of his sentence.
The trailer where Filyaw lived in Lugoff, South Carolina, is pictured in 2006
A handwritten note posted on the fence in front of Vinson Filyaw’s trailer is seen in September 2006. It reads: ‘Anyone who tries to get past this gate will be shot no questions asked. This includes cops’
Pictured: Filyaw was arrested in 2006 and sentenced the following year
Unnamed boy, 7, Russia
A Russian man, Dmitry Kopylov, was arrested in 2020 after kidnapping a seven-year-old boy and holding him hostage in an underground bunker for 52 days.
The 26-year-old computer geek snatched the young boy while he was walking home and was alleged to have sexually abused him during his time in the hellhole basement.
Kopylov was snared after allegedly boasting about holding the boy in chats between paedophiles on the dark web.
Footage later released of the underground stone lair showed the barren room with its bare walls and low ceiling.
It also included a jail-style bed and small heater and was sound insulated beneath Kopylov’s house in Makarikha, Vladimir region, some 185 miles from Moscow.
A large hatch led down to an even lower level while the kidnapper lived just above the child’s head on a floor above.
In 2020, Russian special forces stormed the home and rescued the little boy who was sitting with his captor on the sofa.
The spooky underground bunker with a jail-style bed and a heater was sound insulated beneath Kopylov’s house in Makarikha, Vladimir region
Dmitry Kopylov (pictured) was alleged to have have sexually abused the boy while he was holding him hostage
Within the stony bunker was a hatch that led to an even deeper level
They were forced to cut through a steel door and broke a window to enter the lair where he was held.
While still in the hell hole, the boy – in the arms of a plainclothes Russian policeman – in footage was heard berating the officers for smashing the window when they broke in.
The seven year old said: ‘You shouldn’t have broken this window.’
The officer told him not to worry since he would soon be going back to his mother and father.
Sources at the time said the boy had been ‘brainwashed’ by his abductor, and a huge search involving thousands of police, army, and volunteers had been launched to find the boy.
There were acute fears locally that he had been killed – but his parents always maintained hope he would be found alive.
The scene was akin to 1963 thriller The Collector by British author John Fowles when a psychotic young man kidnaps a female art student, said TV Zvezda reporter Alexey Kazannikov at the time, who witnessed the newly built basement.
The young boy was reunited with his parents after a tip off by Interpol based on intelligence from the West.
Kopylov was snared after allegedly boasting about holding the boy in chats between paedophiles on the dark web
The chilling low-ceilinged basement with stone walls became home to the young boy for 52 days before he was rescued
Russian special forces cut through a steel door and smash a window to enter the lair where he was held
The seven-year-old hugged his parents after he was rescued by Russian Special Forces in 2020
Unnamed girl, 9, Argentina
An Argentinian bricklayer was arrested in 2020 after allegedly fathering four children by his own daughter in a 20-year rape ordeal.
The four children, aged between 11 and 19 at the time, were found living in a rundown bungalow in Arequito, Santa Fe, after his daughter alerted authorities to the alleged abuse she said had lasted decades.
The victim told officers her father had sexually abused her since she was nine-years-old and that she had given birth to four children as a result of the abuse.
Police seized two guns from the bricklayer’s property, which was at the time branded the ‘House of Horrors’.
A bricklayer was arrested in Argentina in 2020 after he allegedly fathered four children by his own daughter
The four children, aged between 11 and 19, were found living in a rundown bungalow in Arequito, Santa Fe
Investigators believed he used two guns seized from his home to intimidate his daughter and make her submit to his sexual desires
The children – then aged 11, 13, 17, and 19 – were said to have all been given biblical names.
State prosecutor Juan Pablo Banos said in 2020 that a ‘triggering event’ led to the daughter reporting her father, adding: ‘The threats she allegedly received probably led to her living trapped in a world she couldn’t escape’.
The deranged bricklayer kept his daughter inside their rundown property, hiding her away from neighbours while she raised their children in the shadows.
Investigators believed he used two guns seized from his home to intimidate his daughter and make her submit to his sexual desires.
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