Free Republic

'I thought only of escape. I felt like a poor chicken in a hen house' By Kate Connolly in Berlin (Filed: 07/09/2006) Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian teenager who was held in captivity beneath a garage for eight years, said yesterday she had thought "only of escape" during her imprisonment and dreamed of cutting off her kidnapper's head with an axe. Austrians watch the TV interview on a big screen in a café in Vienna Speaking to the media for the first time since her ordeal ended with her escape two weeks' ago, Miss Kampusch appeared self-confident, witty, articulate and strong-willed....

POLICE combing through the house where Natascha Kampusch was held captive for more than eight years have discovered her captor, a communications technician, used an obsolete computer. Gerhard Lang of the Federal Criminal Investigations Bureau said kidnapper Wolfgang Priklopil relied exclusively on a Commodore 64 computer - a model popular in the 1980s but now considered an antique. Lang told reporters the outmoded computer would complicate investigators’ efforts to transfer files for closer examination later, saying it would be difficult "to transmit the data to a modern computer without loss". Priklopil killed himself by jumping in front of a train...

Girl escapes after being held in cellar for 8 yearsBy Michael Leidig in Vienna     AN AUSTRIAN girl held prisoner in a cellar for eight years was reunited with her parents last night after making a dramatic dash for freedom. Police searching for a man suspected of kidnapping Natascha Kampusch and holding her prisoner said that the alleged kidnapper had committed suicide late last night by jumping in front of a train. Natascha vanished on March 2, 1998, while walking to school in Vienna. She was 10 years old at the time. She reappeared yesterday after leaping out...

NATASCHA KAMPUSCH, who was kidnapped at the age of 10 and held for eight years until she escaped her captor in Vienna this week, kept a diary throughout her ordeal, it was revealed yesterday. Rupert Leutgeb, a family spokesman, confirmed that Fräulein Kampusch had kept a record hundreds of pages long. He said that no details would be disclosed until Fräulein Kampusch decided what she wanted to do with the diary. The revelation came after police announced that DNA analysis had established beyond doubt that the young woman who was found distraught in a garden on Wednesday is Fräulein Kampusch....

Natascha weighs less than when kidnapped By Kate Connolly in Vienna (Filed: 26/08/2006) The full horror of Natascha Kampusch's eight-year kidnap ordeal became clearer yesterday as her mother said that the 18-year-old girl weighed less now than when she was abducted. Brigitte Sirny said she had been shopping for size 6 clothes for her daughter whose weight had dropped to 6st 6lb despite having grown to 5ft 3in. She said her daughter had "nothing" except for an orange dress she was wearing when she escaped her "master". Natascha has developed a formal, slightly stilted high-German accent similar to that of...