Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: The Wife Who Knew Nothing

I know I am supposed to feel sympathy for Joseph Fritzl's wife, but someh0w she revolts me instead. Fritzl, the Austrian monster who imprisoned his daughter, Elizabeth, for twenty-four years in a bunker under his home and fathered seven children with her, supposedly was one terrifying tryant who ruled his family with an iron fist. I guess the wife, Rosemarie, could simply have been scared of him but her sis talks of how she worked very hard to keep the family together. Then she gives some telling information.

As time went on, the relationship between Fritzl and his wife soured, the sister said.

"As far I know no sex took place in recent years," Christine R. said. "I believe it was because of his prior conviction, and because my sister had been getting bigger. And in any case he never liked fat women."

Let's stop and look at the "innocence" of Rosemarie, the wife who "knew nothing" of any danger to her children. Joseph Fritzl started abusing the daughter he later imprisoned at age eleven. He was visiting prostitutes and he brought them home to his dungeon. He is put away for a year and a half for rape and and threatening to kill his victim, a nurse who's apartment he broke into. When that happened says her sister, Rosemarie "reacted with "shock" but believed that "everyone makes a mistake" and focused on keeping her family healthy."

A mistake? Oh, please. Rosemarie has her sister snowed. Let's look at Rosemarie's ignorance of her children's nightmare. She has gotten fat (likely on purpose so she wouldn't have to engage in perverted and sadistic sex with her husband) and there is no sexual relationship any longer with him. Knowing his inclinations, she has to have some suspicion he is having sex elsewhere, like with the prostitutes and with his girl children. She knows he is a violent rapist. Yet she stays with him and allows her children to live with a violent sex offender and pervert. She has to know something bizarre is going on when hubby builds the bunker and spends an inordinate amount of time in it and will never let her enter. She has to be suspicious of what is going on down there when her daughter vanishes and three infant children arrived on her doorstep. So why does she stay with this man and endanger her children?

It is not uncommon for some wives who feel they benefit from some aspect of their relationship with her husband to look the other way when they suspect the husband is sexually abusing the daughters. For that matter, they may be relieved the pervert is no longer bothering them! They proclaim they were unaware of any misconduct but later it often comes to light that they were well aware of what was going on and simply looked the other way.

I believe this is likely true of Rosemarie. I hope the police do some very serious questioning of her and find out the truth. I believe Rosemarie knows more than she has admitted and she permitted her husband to abuse her children for her own gain. If this is true, she needs a prison cell of her own.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown