Regaining her life, Kamputsch returns to normal life
The dungeon where Kamputsch was held captive
The kidnapper who committed suicide by lying on the railway tracks out of fear of punishment
Now 22 years old, Viennese girl Natasha Kamputsch was abducted at the age of 10 by a perverted man named Priklopil. She was confined in a dark dungeon for 8 years as a "female slave" until she escaped in August 2006. The kidnapper then committed suicide by lying on the railway tracks. In her autobiography "3096 Days," set to be published on September 16th, Natasha vividly recounts her "dark life" in the dungeon. Natasha claims that Priklopil would beat her at least 200 times a week and demanded that she refer to herself as a "slave," working half-naked while calling him "my master."
On September 6th, the UK's Daily Mail dedicated five pages to serializing some of the shocking chapters from "3096 Days."
■ The First Day of Abduction
I was brought to a cold dungeon
On the morning of March 2nd, 1998, I made a decision: from that day on, I would try to make myself stronger - but I didn't expect that I would encounter the most terrifying event of my life that day. My parents had already separated, and the night before, my father took me to his house and returned me to my mother's house later than usual. My mother got very angry and said I could never see my father again. So the next day when I went to school, I decided to punish her by not saying goodbye or kissing her. But as I walked down the street, I started crying. At that moment, I saw a truck parked two meters away with a man standing beside it. He stared straight at me with an empty look, as if he were lost. I even felt the urge to help him.
Everything happened so fast. As I was about to pass him, he suddenly grabbed my waist and threw me into the car, then drove off wildly... He ordered me to sit on the floor at the back of the car. Then I heard him frantically dialing phone numbers, trying to make a call. I knew I had to talk to him. Absurdly, I asked him what size shoes he wore. I remembered a crime TV program that said even the smallest clue could be important for solving a case, but he didn't answer me. So I continued asking, "Do you intend to sexually harass me?" He replied, "You're too young. I won't do that. I'm going to take you to a forest and hand you over to some other people, and we will never see each other again."
I was terrified because the media often reported on child molestation crime gangs. Finally, the car stopped in a pine forest. The kidnapper made another call, and something seemed to have gone wrong. He looked very panicked and uneasy, and said to me, "They're not coming."
He took me to another place. He wrapped me in a blanket and carried me down a few steps like a package. Eventually, I found myself sitting in a cold, dark dungeon. The room was only 5 square meters.
■ The First Night
He read me "The Princess and the Pea"
He asked me what I needed, and I said, "I need a comb, a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste..." He picked up my backpack, and I begged him to return it to me, but unexpectedly, he exploded with anger: "You might have hidden a transmitter inside. You might use it to ask for help. Do you want to deceive me? No way!"
It wasn't until today that I realized this was a sign of his mental illness... I became a prisoner of a paranoid schizophrenic.
I hoped everything happening was just a dream, so when night fell, I pleaded with him to read me a bedtime story like my mother would, and I even asked for a "goodnight kiss." He found a book from my backpack and read me the story of "The Princess and the Pea." Finally, he kissed my forehead and left the dungeon.
■ The Second Day
His expression was like washing a car
On the second day, I finally got a clear look at him. This kidnapper brought me some of his old clothes, a sun lounger, an electric heater, an electric grill, a small oven, a VCD player, and a television, filling the dungeon completely. He threatened me, saying, "If you don't behave well, I'll tie you up." He told me that my parents refused to pay the ransom, so I had been abandoned by them.
When night came again, he ordered me to undress in front of a stainless-steel sink in the dungeon and then washed me. His expression while using a towel to wash my body was like he was cleaning a car.
As time passed, he became increasingly domineering. He wouldn't allow me to stare at his face. Every time I wanted to stand up, sit down, or even speak, I had to get his permission. Once, when he was drilling a hole in a bookshelf, I asked him, "Why are you drilling a hole in that board?" He immediately roared at me and threw the heavy drill at me. I quickly ducked to avoid it.
■ Six Months Later
I discovered I was sealed in concrete
Six months after being held captive, I begged him to let me take a bath in the room upstairs. He ordered me to follow closely behind him. When I discovered that the door leading upstairs was made of reinforced concrete, I was utterly shocked: I had been sealed inside the concrete all along.
One and a half years after my abduction, he suddenly said to me, "You're no longer called Natasha. Now you belong to me." He ordered me to choose a new name, thereby completely depriving me of my sense of identity. I chose "Bibian." Not long after, he told me his name was Wolfgang Priklopil. The moment he revealed his name, I knew he would never let me leave alive.
■ Two Years Later
He frequently kicked me suddenly
At the age of 12, I entered puberty, and the kidnapper's behavior became quite bizarre. When I passed by him, he often kicked my calf. He also subjected me to some minor sexual harassment.
From that point on, he began taking me to the ground-floor room to do housework. While I knelt to work, he would often suddenly kick my body or calves hard. When I cried out in pain, he would grab my neck, drag me to the sink, and press my head underwater until I almost suffocated and lost consciousness. Once, when Priklopil punched my head, I even heard the sound of my vertebrae cracking, but I couldn't feel the pain, as if I were watching him beat a 12-year-old girl from afar.
Priklopil often reopened my healed wounds. One time, he threw a knife at me, and the blade pierced my knee, causing me such pain that I almost vomited. Two years later, I learned a method of "passive resistance." Whenever he was about to hit me, I would punch my own face first until he told me to stop. At the age of 15, I twice punched his abdomen, and he looked somewhat surprised. He began beating me more frequently, sometimes hitting me at least 200 times in a week. Each time I was beaten, I would record it in my diary, which I still keep to this day.
■ Four Years Later
He began sleeping in the same bed with me handcuffed
At the age of 14, I was allowed to spend my first night in the ground-floor room. He made me sleep in his bed. To prevent me from escaping, he handcuffed me to him with plastic cuffs. During those nights when I was handcuffed and slept in the same bed with him, he did not sexually assault me. This frequent abuser and captor clearly had something else in mind: he just wanted something to hug.
At the age of 15, I was allowed to stay in the ground-floor room for longer periods, but Priklopil required me to always maintain a distance of one meter from him, neither more nor less, or he would become enraged. Whenever I mentioned my parents, he would explode in anger: "I am your family... It is me who created you!"
He expected me to be a humble "female slave." He told me, "I am your king, and you are my slave. I've always wanted to have a slave."
Depriving me of food was his most effective way to punish me. He constantly told me, "Look at you, fat and ugly." Due to eating very little, my weight dropped below 38 kilograms, and I often experienced severe stomach pain. It took me a long time to realize that he was using hunger to keep me weak and obedient.
He required me
to do household chores half-naked
He also had "paranoid delusions" about my hair. He worried that the police might find my hair in his home, so he required me to wear a plastic bag on my head at all times, making my head ache and itch. When I complained, he angrily said, "If you become bald, there won't be this problem." Eventually, I cut off all my hair with scissors.
Although I was frail, with protruding ribs and full of scars on my arms and legs, he still required me to do housework half-naked to prevent me from escaping. Usually, I only wore a hat and a pair of loose pants. Later, he allowed me to work in his garden but required me not to wear shorts. In fact, I never wore complete clothing on my body.
One afternoon, I asked him to open a window, and he immediately roared at me, "You want to scream and run away once the window is opened, right?" He dragged me to the front door, tightly grabbing me and pushing me outside, roaring, "Run! Run! See how far you can go!" At the same time, he threatened, "If you scream, I'll kill you immediately!"
Hearing
my name on the radio
Surprisingly, once I actually heard my name on the radio. A writer investigating missing persons stated on the radio that there were no clues about my disappearance, and no body had been found. At that moment, I just wanted to shout, "I'm here! I'm still alive!"
After that, I knew only one thing could free me: taking my own life.
At the age of 14, I attempted to strangle myself with clothes several times. At 15, I tried to commit suicide by cutting my wrist with a large sewing needle. This time, I placed toilet paper on the stove and lit it, wanting the dungeon to fill with smoke so I could suffocate and die. However, when I was coughing from the smoke, my instinct for survival made me cover my mouth with a pillow. Then I put wet clothes over the burning paper.
Finally, on August 23rd, 2006, while helping him wash his car in the garden, there was a moment when he turned around and stopped looking at me. I seized the opportunity to escape and immediately ran as fast as I could. I jumped over many fences, so panicked that I sought anyone I could meet... Eventually, I fled to a neighbor's garden, and that neighbor helped me call the police. After a long 10-minute wait, the police arrived at the scene, and from that moment on, I finally escaped from the nightmare-like dungeon life that lasted for 3096 days. (Huashang)
An Austrian girl publishes a book recounting her life as a sex slave for eight years. Source: Shenzhen Satellite TV's "Noon 30 Minutes." Watch the video.