Elisabeth Fritzl's incestuous father Josef bought erotic lingerie for his captive daughter during Thai vacation
Horror father Josef Fritzl had purchased erotic underwear for his sex-slave daughter Elisabeth while vacationing in Thailand.
Friends of the incest father — whose chilling activities were documented in Lifetime film 'Girl in the Basement' released last month — saw him purchasing lingerie during a month-long holiday in the South East Asian destination.
They grew suspicious after realizing the garments wouldn't fit his middle-aged wife, the Daily Mail reported.
"He was really annoyed when he turned around and saw I'd been watching him," Fritzl best pal Paul Hoerer said, according to the British newspaper. "He then admitted he had a woman 'on the side'. Josef asked me to keep it secret and not to tell his wife."
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Fritzl reportedly took several holiday breaks to foreign destinations while his daughter Elisabeth and her children remained locked up in the cellar. In 2008, Fritzl's friends recalled how he had "another agenda" when they stayed in Pattaya, a hotspot for attracting sex tourists from across the globe.
Rainer Wieczorak, 74, revealed how he traveled there with Fritzl, Hoerer, and his girlfriend Andrea Schmitt in 1998.
"I need to go there because the warm climate is much better for my health, but Fritzl had other interests," Wieczorak said. "While we would all sit around the hotel bar enjoying a few quiet drinks, he was off on his own. We did not speak about where he went but it was pretty obvious that he had another agenda in mind. We almost never saw him, he was usually sleeping things off during the day, having a massage on the beach and a late breakfast."
Pattaya is a hot destination for Western sex tourists who are also looking for sandy beaches and a warm climate. Fritzl indulged in Thailand's perks while his daughter continued to be held under his home in Amstetten. Three of the seven children she birthed after being repeatedly raped by her father were buried alive under the basement. According to the Daily Mail, Fritzl stockpiled food in the basement so that his secret family could survive in his absence.
Hoerer, 86, who was Fritzl's best friend of more than 30 years, revealed how Fritzl bought children's gifts and dress for a woman who wasn't his wife. He reportedly told them he had a mistress "on the side," who is now understood to be his daughter Elisabeth. "Our friendship was so good that we even went on holidays to Thailand together," Hoerer said. "One was for almost a month, between January 6 and February 3, 1998, the other was about three weeks. He (Fritzl) traveled alone without his wife, he told me she had to look after the children."
"Once we were at a market in Pattaya, and he did not know I was behind him when he bought an evening dress and underwear for a thin woman. It would not have fitted his wife," Hoerer continued, before noting how Fritzl became "really annoyed" at him discovering his purchases and asked him "to keep it secret."
Hoerer revealed he had visited Fritzl's home in Amstetten at least three times and had met Elisabeth before she was locked up. His other children Lisa, Monika, Alexander, and wife Rosemarie were allowed to live upstairs.
"The children were well-mannered and well-behaved," Hoerer recalled. "I knew that the cellar was totally out of bounds but never gave it a second thought. When I think about what was lying there, I feel ill." He added: "You would never have guessed from looking at the house, everything was perfect."
Elisabeth was held captive for 24 years by Fritzl, who assaulted, sexually abused, and raped her numerous times in the basement of their home in Austria. Elisabeth gave birth to seven children and three of them remained in captivity with their mother. One of them died just days after birth at the hands of Josef and the other three were brought up by Fritzl and his wife, Rosemarie, having been reported as abandoned babies. Fritzl was later arrested and pleaded guilty to charges of murder by negligence of his children as well as the decades of enslavement, incest, rape, coercion, and false imprisonment of his daughter. In 2009, he was sentenced to life in prison.