OXY MORAN

Oxy MorAn Page One

2008-11-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

Latest

Fritzl to be formally charged after shrinks rule him "mentally stable"; really?

"I was born to rape" Fritzl tells shrink

McCanns plan to sue lawyer who accuses them of child neglect

How to save millions of lives: stop worrying obsessively about Global Warming

Fritzl
Fritzl to be formally charged after shrinks rule him "mentally stable"; really?
Rosemarie Fritzl returns to the scene of the crime
Did Josef Fritzl rape his 19 year-old grandaughter Kerstin?
Josef Fritzl to face the music for murder by neglect; Kerstin plays loud music at 3am
Kerstin Fritzl, aged 19, has NEVER been outside: her first wish ...to meet Robbie Williams
Elisabeth Fritzl fast-forwards her police testimony to pay back her evil dad
Wakey, wakey! After 7 weeks, Kerstin Fritzl finally out of her coma
Elisabeth Fritzl will be well enough to testify against her evil father in July
"I had no idea," cried Rosemarie Fritzl on seeing a white haired stooping toothless Elisabeth

Madeleine McCann
New Aussie Book: Paedophiles discount kidnapping Maddie McCann for morbid sexual practices
Not being politically correct about McCann ruins another career
McCann: we're all going on a summer holiday; claim 2 year-old twins need a vacation
Maddie reconstruction: four of the Tapas 7 joined the McCanns in refusing to go back
McCann in the Mirror: from "Up Yours Senor" to "Bungling Portuguese Plods"
McCann could face 10 years if found guilty of negligence; but Judge's ruling sets back investigation
Enough said: McCann refuse to go back to crime-scene to help Police find Maddie
20 Maddie Clues need solving

Smiley Face Killer
Brandon Swanson? X-files? Smiley Face Killer? How to explain another student vanishing w/o trace?
Missing student Nicholas Garza found drowned: SFK victim?
Congressman asks FBI for 2nd look at Josh Szostak's death
Was perfect student Chris Jenkins a victim of SFK
Brit media buying into Smiley Face Killer; FBI not so sure
List of 48 possible victims of the SFK

Kercher "Extreme Sex" Murder
Kercher Murder: A leading US investigator convinced of Amanda Knox's innocence
Italian police forced Amanda Knox into false confession
Non capisco: Kercher police in fifth suspect fiasco
Vanity Fair concludes no case against Amanda Knox
Italian court rejects Knox's latest bid for freedom
Knox's legal team file for her immediate release
False confessions: Central Park jogger

Shannon Matthews Flying Circus
$5 million down the toilet: Police run up huge bill finding Shannon Matthews after fake abduction
Whats wrong with Dewsbury? Britain's Northern Killing Fields
No hiding place for Shannon Matthews "step-dad". Craig Meehan
The roller-coaster life of nine-yr-old Shannon Matthews
Shannon Matthews mom will not be standing by her man; Meehan's not the only fishmonger in the sea
Shannon reunited with younger siblings
Shannon Matthews mother goes bald to escape whupping

Knifetown, London Teen Murders
London's crisis is "desperate and awful" says Government
Cockney disgrace: now they're slaughtering teenage girls
How to stop the teen violence: massage and meditation
London violence worse than Detroit claims UK trauma surgeon
London Teen murder number 15 confirms guns, gangs and drugs form a deadly cocktail
Harry Potter cant save 14th victim, actor Robert Knox

Scarlett Keeling Goa Murder
Missing semen lands the case against Scarlett Keelings murderers in the toilet
Will the Indians mess with the semen? Mom fears more cover-up
Her ma claims the son of Goa politician killed Scarlett; come back, prove it, demand angry Indians
Hell no, we wont Goa
Mr Big : Indians say show us the beef;Mom returns home without kidney and liver
Government incompetence matches its corruption
Indians remove Scarlett's organs; coverup?

Zodiac Killer
Getting to know the Zodiac Killer
The Zodiac Kiler Part 1 1966-69
Dispelling 5 myths of the Zodiac Killer
Rick Marshall one time suspect never charged
Arthur Leigh Allan Wiki - Deceased suspect in Zodiac case
Details of all four confirmed murder locations of the Zodiac

Crime Files
Top 10 Most Famous Child Abduction Cases
British small store operator, father of 11, shot and killed; America's "right to bear arms" looks appealing
Czech Fritzl kept 5 women in secret camp; literally worked one to death
Frank Phel Murder: Beware of the Italian who offers you free cappuccino
Unsolved Tom Wales Assassination
Top 6 US Murder Cold Cases

Celebrity Infamy
Why Bowie, Michael Jackson, George Michael and Madonna do dumb things
Never mind the bruising, here's the Sex Pistols
Fritzl edges Wacko Jacko to win All-Time Best Father Honors
Heather Mills demanded $1.2 million annually from Paul for charity work; stiffs amputee for $20k
Who the **** is Carlos Slim? A: The World's second richest man
Old lady's balls-up almost cost Zoe Ball more than her all-round blonde good looks
Snooty Brits bust TV Star for hairy armpits; Mayor Boris bags busty Dynasty vixen

Sex Wars
Why men hate women to say no
Three men lose genitals; find silver clouds
Eating the sheep you have sex with is strictly prohibited
Auto erotic: man brags he's shagged 1000 cars .
Judge rules sex once a week more than enough
Man 93 caught in hooker sting: gets citation, deserves medal
Women more turned on that men by sexual images

Scarily Stupid People
I guarantee you wont guess where this Chinese restaurant keeps its fish
McDonalds introduces bumper cars at its drive-thru
Would you go on a Dreadlock Holiday with scarily stupid Heather Mills?
Frozen man frozen stiff after he joins female friend's frozen stiff in morgue freezer
Sexy Aussie Supermodel Rachel Hunter sends loved one to the doghouse
McEnroe was right; Wimbledon umpires jerks (video)

Community Chest
Not guilty by reason of huge breasts
Marilyn Monroe naked and Madonna in the buff: can you tell the difference?
Not guilty by reason of huge breasts part 2: Meet the World Record holder
Sucking breasts is good for kids brains
How does this blond make her breasts bounce (video)
Kathy Lee Gifford and her hubbie's busty blond mistress

Arts and Media
Feckless BBC Management Hates Dr Who
Oxy Moran's prediction for Best Picture Oscar: No Country (includes draft of movie script)
Three little pigs go the way of the Maddie forum
BBC Disses Fawlty Towers: Ranks only #5 in Top 100
Shameless: Sharon Matthews mother is a bloody fool
Yankee wife #3 takes Basil Fawlty to the cleaners

High IQ Animals
Rescue Dog save three lives; receives breathtaking reward
Mexican donkey goes directly to jail; does not pass Jose
Six cutest animals that could still kill you
I find the dead interview with sniffer dog handler
Have Eddie and Keela gone splitsville
Collie takes viagra; gives new meaning to give a dog a boner

Global Warming; Its Bloody Freezing
Oxy Moran's skepticism about Global Warming makes him as immoral as Josef Fritzl: WTF?
The end is nearer claims Al Gore
When will eco-socialists stop lying?
Ding dong ding dong, Al Gore got it wrong
Millions starving; nice one, Al Gore
Thinktank finds 35 errors in Gore's movie

Political Correctness Pricks
Tyson charges gullible Brits $400 to tell how he shed bad boy image; then goes to strip club
Rudd pleads guilty - Americans invade Australia
Parents not allowed to take pics of their own kids
Santa's ho ho ho falls victim to Imus
Nipple ring intifida earns woman bravery award
Prince William should bop vulgar Aussies who laugh at his mom's death

It's a Small World
50 ways to leave Obama
Brits restart Cold War; claim "We was robbed by Eastern bloc"
Obama gets the nod from Castro; kiss of death?
Iran lies about nukes: fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on Obama
Chinese takeaway: "I'm bored" means do you want to have sex
Send Paris Hilton to Iran?

The Beautiful Game
Is Roman broke? Chelsea target 6 year old
America's Man United beat Russia's Chelsea in All-English penalty squeaker
Watch video of drunken Glasgow Rangers fans rioting in Manchester
Jose Mourinho congratulates himself
Will Sir Alex use Sex Police to enforce 40 hour ban on nookie?
Manchester City FC in badge cock-up

Greatest Lists
Top 7 Dumbest Career Moves by Rock Stars
Top 10 All-Time Best Fathers
Top 10 Heists Demanding Huge Balls of Steel
Top 10 Most Famous Child Abduction cases in the world
Top 20 lawsuits: Part 1
Top 20 lawsuits: Part 2
Top 2500+ oxymorons ( New World Record for Oxy)
Top 100 Britcoms

Contact Oxy MorAn
1) E-mail Oxymoran1@gmail.com
2) Feel free to leave a comment.

McCanns plan to sue lawyer who accuses them of child neglect

2008-11-06T20:05:00.000-08:00

UK People source
McCanns fury over 'neglect'

Exclusive by Marc Baker

Missing Maddie McCann's furious parents have vowed to sue a lawyer who suggests they are guilty of child neglect.

Anthony Bennett, 61, is urging the Government to bring in a "Madeleine's Law" making it a criminal offence to leave children under 12 on their own.

His website attacks doctors Kate and Gerry McCann, both 41, over the disappearance of Maddie, now five, from their holiday flat in Portugal last year.

McCann spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "Our lawyers are watching him. They are constantly monitoring his claims, which we consider are libellous."

A legal source close to the McCanns, of Rothley, Leics, said: "They are more than annoyed and deeply offended. They say enough is enough. All they are trying to do is get their daughter back."

"I was born to rape" Fritzl tells shrink

2008-11-06T20:01:00.000-08:00

Source Guardian

Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who kept his daughter in a cellar for more than two decades and fathered her seven children, has told a psychiatrist he was "born to rape" and that his behaviour was a way of "compensating for the defencelessness and humiliation he felt as a child".

A report by a forensic psychiatrist leaked to the Austrian press said that Fritzl, 73, believed his behaviour had been tame. "I was born to rape," he is reported to have told the psychiatrist. "Bearing that in mind I controlled myself for quite a long time." He added: "I could have behaved a lot worse than locking up my daughter."

The 130-page report based on six lengthy interviews between psychiatrist Heidi Kastner and Fritzl details his destructive relationship with his mother. Describing himself as an "alibi child", Fritzl said his mother only had him to prove to her partner that she was not sterile.

He described a childhood in which he was neglected. During second world war bombing raids his mother would retreat to an air-raid shelter for safety, leaving Fritzl alone in the family home, he said.

Fritzl locked up his daughter Elisabeth, 42, for 24 years in a purpose-built cellar and fathered seven children by her, of whom one died shortly after being born and three lived with him and his wife in his house upstairs.

He said he had deliberately never looked his daughter in the face while he was raping her. Kastner said it had been his way of distancing himself from the situation. He said he stopped having sex with his wife, Rosemarie, on the day he allegedly sedated his daughter and took her into the cellar. "Finally I had someone who was just for me," he said.

He said he believed that she would always remain with him. "I only had so many children with her so that she would always stay with me, because as a mother of six she would no longer hold any attraction for other men."

Fritzl admitted that he often punished his "dungeon family" for rebellious behaviour by turning off the light or letting them go hungry for several days. He also taunted the children with photographs of other children playing outside in the sun to "show them there was another world".

Kastner said his sexual behaviour and his need to dominate women was his way of "compensating for the defencelessness and humiliation he felt as a child".

Fritzl said that he had tried to escape from the horror of his childhood by burying himself in books. As an adult he said he had thrown himself into his work as a way of suppressing his sexual desires. He described himself as a "volcano" who felt "torn" and had come to the conclusion that he possessed a "mean streak", and a "flood of destructive lava that was barely controllable".

Shortly after puberty Fritzl began sexually attacking girls and at the age of 32 he broke into the flat of a nurse and raped her at knifepoint.

In her report Kastner said that although Fritzl had deep psychological issues, a severe combined personality disorder and a serious sexual disorder, he was sane enough to stand trial. But she recommended that he should spend the rest of his days in a secure psychiatric unit and should never be set free, arguing he would always be a danger to society.

He was said to have a thin grasp of the gravity of his crime, after expressing a belief that he would spend his final days with his wife and pleading for a short prison sentence so that he could continue running his property business to enable him to provide for his family.

Elisabeth, her children and her mother continue to receive psychiatric care, but are believed to have been moved from a clinic to a secret location where they are trying to learn to lead a normal life.

Fritzl is expected to go on trial in the next few months.

Fritzl to be formally charged after shrinks rule him "mentally stable"; really?

2008-11-06T19:51:00.000-08:00

Austrian Josef Fritzl to be formally charged

Josef Fritzl, who locked his daughter in a cellar for 24 years, is expected to be formally charged on Friday after being declared medically fit to stand trial.

By Caroline Gammell
Last Updated: 9:48AM GMT 04 Nov 2008

Josef Fritzl is set to be charged after psychiatrists ruled he is 'mentally stable' Photo: GETTY IMAGES

The 73-year-old Austrian, who has already confessed to imprisoning Elisabeth, 42, in the cellar in his home in Amstetten and fathering her seven children, will find out what crimes he will be accused of in court.

There is speculation that he may be accused of murder as well as kidnapping, rape and incest because one of the children died soon after birth and was burnt in an incinerator.

It is thought the murder charge could be brought because Fritzl denied the child proper medical care.

Austrian police said a psychiatric report had concluded that the accused was mentally stable and responsible for his actions.

Although he will find out what crimes he faces by the end of the week, they will not be made public until November 14.

The only charge Fritzl is certain to face is incarceration, for having kept his daughter and their children in the dank cellar, an offence that can only be sentenced with 10 years in prison in Austria.

The Austrian penal code does not allow for consecutive sentences, which means Fritzl will serve only the period for the offence that carries the longest.

Shocker! Internet grassroots campaign could see virtual unknown win White House; not Obama

2008-06-17T12:39:00.000-07:00

Fritzl's Austria shows its true colors; refuses to extradite evil Nazi spotted at soccer match

2008-06-16T10:08:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to the Sun in the UK for outing wanting NAZI mass murderer Milivoj Asner at the European soccer championships which are currently being hosted by Austria.

Shame on the Austrian authorities! After claiming they wanted to rebuild the countries shattered image after the discovery of Josef Fritzl NAZI-like activities, the Austrian authorities are refusing him to extradite him to his home country of Croatia to stand trial. Their excuse...he's not well enough to stand trial.

Oxy Moran thinks its totally unacceptable for the Austrians to hide behind bureaucratic red tape. Any man who is well enough to wonder around his home town and then join a crowd of 50000 soccer fans to watch a match is more than well enough to stand trial.

He is one of several prominent Nazi criminals who resided in Austria without ever been brought to justice due to what is perceived as lenience on behalf of Austrian authorities.

There hasn’t been a trial of a Nazi criminal in Austria for over 30 years – but not for lack of Nazis, but rather because authorities are not willing to act

MINGLING with football fans in a pavement café, an elderly gentleman soaks up the atmosphere of Euro 2008.
Yet Milivoj Asner, out strolling with his wife, is no ordinary supporter welcoming his national side Croatia to his adopted Austrian town.
At No 4 on the list of most wanted Nazi war criminals, he instead stands accused of deporting hundreds of Jews, gypsies and Serbs to World War II death camps.
And he has been spared extradition only after Austrian officials insisted he was too poorly to face charges in Croatia of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
Asner, who lives under an assumed name in Croatia’s European Championships base of Klagenfurt, is the subject of an international arrest warrant and on Interpol’s Most Wanted list.
The Sun tracked down the 95-year-old former police chief and Gestapo agent and secretly filmed him as he strolled confidently for more than a mile, arm-in-arm with second wife Edeltraut.
Walking without a stick, he even roamed 8th May Street – named after VE Day.
He stopped several times to sit in cafés, chatting to waiters and sipping leisurely drinks alongside excited football fans. He was ignored by hundreds of armed police patrolling the streets, even though locals KNOW his real identity – and the unspeakable crimes for which he has yet to face justice.
The scenes made a mockery of Austria’s insistence that Asner is too sick to be sent home.
Yet ironically, on the day we captured his carefree three-hour outing, the country’s officials restated their decision to protect him from trial.
Last night Holocaust campaigners insisted The Sun’s exposé should shame Austria into finally sending Asner back to Croatia, where prosecutors are ready to haul him before court.
The Jerusalem-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which hunts Nazis worldwide, said our probe exposed the country for shielding a suspected war criminal.
Director Dr Efraim Zuroff said: “He is clearly enjoying a life that many hundreds of victims were denied when they were sent off to be murdered.
“The Sun found him healthy enough to stroll happily round his home town for hours. This is highly significant.
“Austria has long had a reputation as a paradise for war criminals and now they’ve been caught in the act. It is time for them to do what is right and help bring Nazi war criminals to justice.
“If this man is well enough to walk around town unaided and drink wine in bars, he’s well enough to answer for his past.
“He’s shown absolutely no remorse. It is our intention to bring this to the attention of the Austrian Minister of Justice Maria Berger and call for his immediate extradition.”
Asner fled his homeland after the war and has been living in Klagenfurt since 2006.
He was indicted a year earlier in Croatia for crimes committed when he was a Ustashi police chief under the country’s Second World War fascist puppet regime.
An Interpol arrest warrant was issued with the highest priority and his photo and personal details are listed on its Most Wanted website.
Anyone knowing his whereabouts is urged to call police.
The Sun traced Asner, whose first wife faked his death, to his smart third-floor flat near Klagenfurt’s stadium. The home, where he lives under the name Dr Georg Aschner, is opposite the Croatian cultural centre in a district where fellow ex-pats know his true identity.
One worker boasted how “an SS man” lived opposite.
She added: “He’s a super old man. His wife is ill, but he still takes a walk most days.”
Despite joining Croatian fans in the streets in the build-up to the team’s matches, Asner stayed indoors to avoid packed streets on the day of their opening game.

MILIVOJ ASNER is number four on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s Top 10 list of alleged Nazi war criminals living in freedom.

But one source said: “He’s fiercely patriotic and nationalistic, and there’s no doubt he’ll want Croatia to win. He may be old but his views haven’t changed – he wants them to win at everything.”
Edeltraut confirmed: “He’s a big Croatia football fan and watches all the games.”
Officials originally ruled Asner could not be sent to Croatia because he was an Austrian citizen.
In September 2005, they admitted he was NOT.
But they stalled again, claiming he was too ill for trial.
Six days ago, the Austrian government wrote to a Jewish group reaffirming its decision not to extradite Asner.
It said Ministry of Justice tests had proved “he is not capable enough to be questioned or go before a court”. But Dr Zuroff, whose group last year launched Operation Last Chance to nail the final surviving Nazis, said: “The passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the perpetrators.
“Time is running out, but Asner must face justice for the sake of all those who died in concentration camps.
“This is our chance for justice. I believe The Sun’s evidence could help it happen.”
Asner is alleged to have stood by in Pozega during 1941 and ’42 as Ustashi fascists burned the synagogue.
Other evidence against him is said to include papers ordering the deportation of Serbs and Jews.
Last night Asner confirmed his identity when asked by The Sun – but insisted he was NOT a war criminal.
And he denied taking part in deportations.
Asner said: “It is not true. It’s hilarious.
“I didn’t have anything to do with it. I was just an officer with the justice department – a lawyer. I never did anything bad against anybody

Rosemarie Fritzl returns to the scene of the crime

2008-06-16T09:26:00.000-07:00

Can you imagine what was going through Rosemarie Fritzl's mind as you took a look at the cellar where her husband repeatedly raped her daughter Elisabeth over nearly a quarter of a century and raised five of her daughter's children?

The more Oxy Moran talks to people about the case, the harder he finds it to believe that Rosemarie never once had the slightest interest in trying to figure out where her husband spent his time. How oculd she not once in 24 years have wondered why he was delivering food in a wheelbarrow to the cellar below her house. What about all the missing hand-me-downs of clothes previously worn by her upstairs kids?

Nevertheless we know she has adamantly denied knowing about what was taking place underneath her feet. We also know that Austrian police we're equally skeptical; have interviewed her twice and concluded she didn't know. Further we also know that Elisabeth is convinced her mother knew nothing. Again Oxy Moran has never suggested she had explicit details.

But its reasonable to wonder if she had a strong inkling and chose to play ostrich for fear of what she might find. I can certainly understand why she would be scared to know what could be down there. Can you imagine what meant through her mind in 2005 when the TV was providing around the coverage of the discovery of another little girl, Natascha Kampusch, in a cellar after being used eight years as sex slave. Based on what we've learned about Josef Fritzl being an incredible actor, and a huge hypocrite, I bet he was the first voice to stand up and condemn her captor.

By Kate Connolly in Berlin for the Guardian UK >
The wife of Josef Fritzl has visited the dungeon where he kept their daughter imprisoned for 24 years to collect personal items for her daughter and grandchildren, the Austrian authorities said.
Rosemarie Fritzl, 69, received police permission to return to the family home, which is still a crime scene, for the first time since details emerged of the secret family her husband had kept beneath their home.
She arrived at the house late last week, along with a plain-clothed female officer in a red VW Golf. Police who are standing guard round the clock at the house in Amstetten, Austria, opened a gate to let the car through.
Dressed in a pale blue blouse and beige trousers, Fritzl spent around 40 minutes on the property.
She emerged with two suitcases and a large bag full of clothes and toys for her daughter Elisabeth and her six children, all fathered by Josef Fritzl. Rosemarie Fritzl is living with Elisabeth and the children in a specially built apartment in a nearby psychiatric clinic.
"A request was made to be able to enter the house and was granted," said Gerhard Sedlacek, spokesman for the state prosecution service of St Pölten. He said that it was the first time any member of the Fritzl family had returned to the house since the horror story came to light at the end of April. He added it was likely that the house would be destroyed as no one now wanted to live there.
Rosemarie Fritzl is understood to have taken with her a list of requests for specific items which Elisabeth and the "cellar" children, Felix, five, Stefan, 18, and Kerstin, 19, who emerged from an artificially induced coma and returned to her family for the first time last week, were missing.
She also went to her house to pick up items of clothing for herself and the three children born to Elisabeth and her father - Lisa, 16, Monika, 14, and Alexander, 12 - who were brought up upstairs. Psychiatrists are attempting to bring the two sides of the family together.
Fritzl is still in custody in St Pölten and faces possible charges of rape, imprisonment and incest. A spokesman for the state prosecutor said last week he may go on trial later this year.
More details of the children's recuperation were revealed yesterday. Kerstin is said to be making a good recovery from an illness that nearly killed her. Felix is still wearing sunglasses as his eyes get used to UV rays, and the children who lived in the cellar are being taught how to climb stairs. Their favourite part of the clinic is said to be its botanical gardens.
Rosemarie has denied any knowledge of her husband's double life and investigators say they have no reason not to believe that she is telling the truth.

How to save millions of lives: stop worrying obessessively about global warming

2008-06-15T10:46:00.000-07:00

Chill out.
Stop fighting over global warming -- here's the smart way to attack it.

By Bjorn Lomborg WaPo
Sunday, October 7, 2007; B01

COPENHAGEN

All eyes are on Greenland's melting glaciers as alarm about global warming spreads. This year, delegations of U.S. and European politicians have made pilgrimages to the fastest-moving glacier at Ilulissat, where they declare that they see climate change unfolding before their eyes.

Curiously, something that's rarely mentioned is that temperatures in Greenland were higher in 1941 than they are today. Or that melt rates around Ilulissat were faster in the early part of the past century, according to a new study. And while the delegations first fly into Kangerlussuaq, about 100 miles to the south, they all change planes to go straight to Ilulissat -- perhaps because the Kangerlussuaq glacier is inconveniently growing.

I point this out not to challenge the reality of global warming or the fact that it's caused in large part by humans, but because the discussion about climate change has turned into a nasty dustup, with one side arguing that we're headed for catastrophe and the other maintaining that it's all a hoax. I say that neither is right. It's wrong to deny the obvious: The Earth is warming, and we're causing it. But that's not the whole story, and predictions of impending disaster just don't stack up.

We have to rediscover the middle ground, where we can have a sensible conversation. We shouldn't ignore climate change or the policies that could attack it. But we should be honest about the shortcomings and costs of those policies, as well as the benefits.

Environmental groups say that the only way to deal with the effects of global warming is to make drastic cuts in carbon emissions -- a project that will cost the world trillions (the Kyoto Protocol alone would cost $180 billion annually). The research I've done over the last decade, beginning with my first book, "The Skeptical Environmentalist," has convinced me that this approach is unsound; it means spending an awful lot to achieve very little. Instead, we should be thinking creatively and pragmatically about how we could combat the much larger challenges facing our planet.

Nobody knows for certain how climate change will play out. But we should deal with the most widely accepted estimates. According to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), ocean levels will rise between half a foot and two feet, with the best expectation being about one foot, in this century, mainly because of water expanding as it warms. That's similar to what the world experienced in the past 150 years.

Some individuals and environmental organizations scoff that the IPCC has severely underestimated the melting of glaciers, especially in Greenland. In fact, the IPCC has factored in the likely melt-off from Greenland (contributing a bit over an inch to sea levels in this century) and Antarctica (which, because global warming also generally produces more precipitation, will actually accumulate ice rather than shedding it, making sea levels two inches lower by 2100). At the moment, people are alarmed by a dramatic increase in Greenland's melting. This high level seems transitory, but if sustained it would add three inches, instead of one, to the sea level rise by the end of the century.

A one-foot rise in sea level isn't a catastrophe, though it will pose a problem, particularly for small island nations. But let's remember that very little land was lost when sea levels rose last century. It costs relatively little to protect the land from rising tides: We can drain wetlands, build levees and divert waterways. As nations become richer and land becomes a scarcer commodity, this process makes ever more sense: Like our parents and grandparents, our generation will ensure that the water doesn't claim valuable land.

The IPCC tells us two things: If we focus on economic development and ignore global warming, we're likely to see a 13-inch rise in sea levels by 2100. If we focus instead on environmental concerns and, for instance, adopt the hefty cuts in carbon emissions many environmental groups promote, this could reduce the rise by about five inches. But cutting emissions comes at a cost: Everybody would be poorer in 2100. With less money around to protect land from the sea, cutting carbon emissions would mean that more dry land would be lost, especially in vulnerable regions such as Micronesia, Tuvalu, Vietnam, Bangladesh and the Maldives.

As sea levels rise, so will temperatures. It seems logical to expect more heat waves and therefore more deaths. But though this fact gets much less billing, rising temperatures will also reduce the number of cold spells. This is important because research shows that the cold is a much bigger killer than the heat. According to the first complete peer-reviewed survey of climate change's health effects, global warming will actually save lives. It's estimated that by 2050, global warming will cause almost 400,000 more heat-related deaths each year. But at the same time, 1.8 million fewer people will die from cold.

The Kyoto Protocol, with its drastic emissions cuts, is not a sensible way to stop people from dying in future heat waves. At a much lower cost, urban designers and politicians could lower temperatures more effectively by planting trees, adding water features and reducing the amount of asphalt in at-risk cities. Estimates show that this could reduce the peak temperatures in cities by more than 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

Global warming will claim lives in another way: by increasing the number of people at risk of catching malaria by about 3 percent over this century. According to scientific models, implementing the Kyoto Protocol for the rest of this century would reduce the malaria risk by just 0.2 percent.

On the other hand, we could spend $3 billion annually -- 2 percent of the protocol's cost -- on mosquito nets and medication and cut malaria incidence almost in half within a decade. Malaria death rates are rising in sub-Saharan Africa, but this has nothing to do with climate change and everything to do with poverty: Poor and corrupt governments find it hard to implement and fund the spraying and the provision of mosquito nets that would help eradicate the disease. Yet for every dollar we spend saving one person through policies like the Kyoto Protocol, we could save 36,000 through direct intervention.

Of course, it's not just humans we care about. Environmentalists point out that magnificent creatures such as polar bears will be decimated by global warming as their icy habitat melts. Kyoto would save just one bear a year. Yet every year, hunters kill 300 to 500 polar bears, according to the World Conservation Union. Outlawing this slaughter would be cheap and easy -- and much more effective than a worldwide pact on carbon emissions.

Wherever you look, the inescapable conclusion is the same: Reducing carbon emissions is not the best way to help the world. I don't point this out merely to be contrarian. We do need to fix global warming in the long run. But I'm frustrated at our blinkered focus on policies that won't achieve it.

In 1992, wealthy nations promised to cut emissions to 1990 levels by 2000. Instead, emissions grew by 12 percent. In 1997, they promised to cut emissions to about 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2010. Yet levels will likely be 25 percent higher than hoped for.

The Kyoto Protocol is set to expire in 2012. U.N. members will be negotiating its replacement in Copenhagen by the end of 2009. Politicians insist that the "next Kyoto" should be even tougher. But after two spectacular failures, we have to ask whether "let's try again, and this time let's aim for much higher reductions" is the right approach.

Even if the policymakers' earlier promises had been met, they would have done virtually no good, but would have cost us a small fortune. The climate models show that Kyoto would have postponed the effects of global warming by seven days by the end of the century. Even if the United States and Australia had signed on and everyone stuck to Kyoto for this entire century, we would postpone the effects of global warming by only five years.

Proponents of pacts such as Kyoto want us to spend enormous sums of money doing very little good for the planet a hundred years from now. We need to find a smarter way. The first step is to start focusing our resources on making carbon emissions cuts much easier.

The typical cost of cutting a ton of CO2is currently about $20. Yet, according to a wealth of scientific literature, the damage from a ton of carbon in the atmosphere is about $2. Spending $20 to do $2 worth of good is not smart policy. It may make you feel good, but it's not going to stop global warming.

We need to reduce the cost of cutting emissions from $20 a ton to, say, $2. That would mean that really helping the environment wouldn't just be the preserve of the rich but could be opened up to everyone else -- including China and India, which are expected to be the main emitters of the 21st century but have many more pressing issues to deal with first.

The way to achieve this is to dramatically increase spending on research and development of low-carbon energy. Ideally, every nation should commit to spending 0.05 percent of its gross domestic product exploring non-carbon-emitting energy technologies, be they wind, wave or solar power, or capturing CO2emissions from power plants. This spending could add up to about $25 billion per year but would still be seven times cheaper than the Kyoto Protocol and would increase global R&D tenfold. All nations would be involved, yet the richer ones would pay the larger share.

We must accept that climate change is real and that we've helped cause it. There is no hoax. But neither is there a looming apocalypse.

To some people, cutting carbon emissions has become the answer, regardless of the question. Cutting emissions is said to be our "generational mission." But don't we want to implement the most efficient policies first?

Combating the real climate challenges facing the planet -- malaria, more heat deaths, declining polar bear populations -- often requires simpler, less glamorous policies than carbon cuts. We also need to remember that the 21st century will hold many other challenges, for which we need low-cost, durable solutions.

I formed the Copenhagen Consensus in 2004 so that some of the world's top economists could come together to ask not only where we can do good, but at what cost, and to rank the best things for the world to do first. The top priorities they've come up with are dealing with infectious diseases, malnutrition, agricultural research and first-world access to third-world agriculture. For less than a fifth of Kyoto's price tag, we could tackle all these issues.

Obviously we should also work on a long-term solution to climate change. Solving it will take the better part of a century and will require a political will spanning political parties, continents and generations. If we invest in research and development, we'll do some real good in the long run, rather than just making ourselves feel good today.

But embracing the best response to global warming is difficult in the midst of bitter fighting that shuts out sensible dialogue. So first, we really need to cool our debate.

Bjorn Lomborg, an adjunct professor

at the Copenhagen Business School,

is the author, most recently, of "Cool It:

The Skeptical Environmentalist's

Guide to Global Warming."

No clues in search for Brandon Swanson now missing one month

2008-06-15T10:24:00.000-07:00

Still no clues in the hunt for missing 19 year old Brandon Swanson. The college student simply vanished into thin air around a month ago. As time goes by the likelihood that he may have met with foul play grows. Naturally as he disappeared in the heart of Smiley Face Killer country his story has fuelled fears that the serial killer may have struck again. To this point, the FBI has not confirmed that there is a serial killer on the loose.

2 fathers share mission: Find missing teen

MARSHALL, Minn. (AP) David Francis, photo right, on the left, and Brian Swanson at right with glasses, are separated by 181 miles and 20 years but connected by heartache no father should have to bear. Each has searched for a lost son.

Francis, who lives in Stillwater, spent more than a year looking for his son, Jon, who disappeared while climbing in Idaho's Sawtooth Mountains in 2006.

Now Francis is helping Swanson, of Marshall, find his son.

Nineteen-year-old Brandon Swanson was returning home May 14 after a party in Canby when his car went into a ditch on a gravel road. He called home at 1:54 a.m. and asked his parents to pick him up near Lynd. He said he would walk toward town.

As Brian and Annette Swanson drove toward Lynd, Brian talked to Brandon on his cell phone.

''I talked to him for 47 minutes, and all of a sudden, he said, 'Oh, s--!' and the phone went dead,'' Brian Swanson said.

It was 3:10 a.m.

''We haven't been able to get in contact with him since,'' he said.

The Swansons kept calling but got his voice mail. About 6:30 a.m., they called the sheriff's office and reported their son missing.

They've been searching ever since.

David Francis is convinced Brandon will be found.

''We'll find him. We'll find Brandon,'' he said. ''But it's harder than we thought it would be. ... The ground teams have not found a single clue. We have no article of clothing, have no footprints, have no clear idea which direction he was traveling.''

David Francis said he is focusing on the moment that Brandon's phone cut off.

''I'm looking for the 'Oh, s---!' spot,'' he said. ''Where in his walk he might have slipped into the river, an abandoned cistern or a trench. I'm looking for the spot where we believe we had a mishap.''

David Francis and his wife, Linda, joined the search for Brandon around Memorial Day. A volunteer who had helped them search for Jon was helping the Swansons, too, and he put the families in touch with each other. After Jon disappeared in July 2006, the Francis family launched the Jon Francis Foundation, which is dedicated to getting information and advice to families searching for people missing in the wild.

David Francis, 64, is a former Navy captain and retired businessman who ran unsuccessfully for the Minnesota Senate in 2006. To help in the search for Jon, he raised money, took search-and-rescue classes, bought equipment and learned to climb. Two mountain guides found Jon's body in July 2007 on Grand Mogul Mountain, about 1,500 feet below the summit Jon had climbed.

The Francises have visited the Swansons three times and regularly communicate with the couple and offer advice. They made the trip to southwestern Minnesota again last weekend and helped organize a massive search that included 114 volunteers.

The official search for Brandon was called off six days after he disappeared. The Francises helped make ''Missing'' posters and suggested ways to organize food and water for volunteers and to raise money for the ''Search for Brandon Swanson'' fund. They also put the Swansons in touch with canine search teams and a professionally trained search manager, Gary Peterson, who is leading the search for Brandon.

When David Francis spotted Brian Swanson writing checks at the search headquarters last weekend, he said: ''Brian, you've got to get a treasurer.''

David Francis' organizational and search-and-rescue skills have been invaluable, Brian Swanson said, and Linda Francis has been a comforting presence.

''They've been very supportive. They talked with us, they listened to us,'' Brian Swanson said. ''Emotionally, that has really helped. Coming from somebody who has gone through this terrible situation. I hope nobody else ever has to go through this I wish it would never happen again to anybody. It's just so painful.''

Annette Swanson said she immediately felt better after talking to Linda Francis for the first time.

''When you're thrown into this and you're literally just thrown into this there's not a lot of people, especially in our rural area, who can comprehend what this is and how difficult it is,'' she said. ''To be able to connect with Linda was such a comfort. Unfortunately, she's been through it, but that enabled her to offer words of advice, words of comfort and just be there.''

Annette Swanson said her greatest fear is that people will forget her son.

''I want people to remember Brandon,'' she said. ''Talk about Brandon. Brandon is a real person. He touched a lot of lives, and don't forget him.''

He has a smile that lights up his whole face, his mother said, and is big-hearted and kind and really believed in doing the right thing.

Brandon graduated from Marshall High School in 2007 and spent the past school year studying wind energy at Minnesota West Community College in Canby. He planned to transfer this fall to Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and major in science.

On May 13, Brandon went to Lynd to visit friends and then drove to Canby to say goodbye to another friend from school. He was wearing baggy jeans, a blue-striped polo shirt, a black hooded sweat shirt, a white Twins baseball cap, wire-rimmed glasses and a silver necklace.

Brian Swanson, 44, was taking a class in St. Cloud on May 13, so only Annette was home when Brandon popped in to say goodbye. The couple also has a daughter, Jamine, 17, who just graduated from Marshall High School.

''I said the things I normally say to him,'' Annette said. '''See you later.

'''Be safe.'''

Saturday marked the one-month anniversary of Brandon's disappearance.

When Brandon called his parents May 14, he said he had crashed his green Chevy Lumina outside Lynd, a small town southwest of Marshall. As the Swansons drove toward Lynd, and Brian and Brandon talked by cell phone, Brandon said he was getting impatient and would meet them in Lynd. He talked about walking on a gravel road, taking a shortcut through a field and hearing water running.

After tracing Brandon's last cell phone call to a cell phone tower in Minneota, officials found Brandon's car about 2:30 p.m. near Taunton, about 30 miles from Lynd.

Since then, hundreds of volunteers have searched for Brandon, using cadaver dogs, horses, boats and ultralight aircraft. For the most part, the search has concentrated on areas in and around the Yellow Medicine River.

Since Brandon's car was found near the Lincoln-Lyon county line, law enforcement officials from both counties were involved in the search. Officials say there is no evidence of foul play or that Brandon staged his own disappearance.

''If I had to lay any money down, I'd say we're missing him somewhere in the water,'' said Lyon County Sheriff Joel Dahl. ''He's in an eddy somewhere, being held down by a log. He's got to be here. Everything is consistent that he was walking and something happened to him.''

Lincoln County Sheriff Jack Vizecky said Brandon was likely the victim of a tragic accident. If Brandon, who was 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed about 125 pounds, went into the Yellow Medicine River, it could take weeks for the body to emerge from the cold water, he said.

''I would say every day that goes by, hope is extremely diminished,'' Vizecky said. ''I would like to bring some closure to the family.''

Vizecky said the Jon Francis Foundation's involvement in the search has been helpful. ''It's certainly given us the ability to look longer,'' he said. ''We've had more eyes and ears since we had to formally stop this. We want to find Brandon, and that's the whole thing.''

''I just keep thinking he's got to be out there somewhere,'' Annette Swanson said. ''We want to bring him home.''

''We're going to keep looking,'' said Brian Swanson. ''That's all we can do until we find him. There's no way I could stop until I know where he is. Either way it ends, it's closure.''

Brian Swanson said no large organized search was organized for the weekend. But he went out searching.

It was Father's Day, after all, and he wanted to be with his son.

''It is awful,'' he said. ''Every day has been awful, to be honest with you.

''But we're going to find him eventually, and hopefully, he'll be OK. Maybe somebody's found him, and they're taking care of him, and they don't know he's missing.''

But after more than a month, reality is setting in.

''If he's no longer with us, which, unfortunately, is the most likely scenario, that hurts,'' Brian Swanson. He said he gets some comfort from knowing that Brandon ''really enjoyed the life that he lived.''

Annette Swanson said she clings to a thread of hope that Brandon is alive.

''I do still hope,'' she said. ''There are times when I think maybe I don't, and then, all of a sudden, somebody says something, and I'll think, 'But he could still be out there.' Sometimes I surprise myself with it.''

But she has stopped searching.

''I just can't be the one who should come across him,'' she said. ''That's not how I want to remember him.''

Annette Swanson has gone back to work at Southwestern Center for Independent Living in Marshall. Brian, who previously worked in construction, is studying to be an insurance salesman.

The Swansons say they will leave the porch light on for their son. It's been burning since May 14.

''That morning when we left, we turned the porch light on for him,'' Annette Swanson said. ''Well, we haven't turned it off since. We're leaving it on till he comes home.''

Did Josef Fritzl rape his 19 year old granddaughter Kristin?

2008-06-15T09:44:00.001-07:00

As Oxy Moran wrote last month, its hard to believe that Josef could have not only raped his 42 year old daughter, but also his 19 year old granddaughter Kerstin. No sooner has the younger woman opened her eyes are a 50 day coma, than the media, and doubtless the police are anxious to know the answer to that awful question . Of course, Oxy Moran is wondering why Elisabeth wouldn't know the answer to that question. We know Elisabeth never left the cellar, and we know the cellar didn't provide for any privacy, see at right, so surely the girl's mother would know?

Rape quiz for Fritzl's cellar girl
By Marc Baker from The People UK
Cellar coma girl Kerstin Fritzl is to be asked if she was raped by her evil incest father.
Kerstin, 19, who was held captive since birth in a dungeon, was reunited with her family last week after a month in hospital.
Cops plan to ask her if she was sexually abused by her twisted dad Josef, 73, who imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth, 42, in a basement under his home for 24 years and fathered seven children with her.
A source close to the case in Amstetten, Austria, said: "The police want to speak to Kerstin but are waiting for the go-ahead from doctors.
"They want to know if she too was abused and raped like Elisabeth.

Meanwhile, the Aussie media asks the identical question at the Age.com, and also notes that earlier this week Kerstion shocked the world by announcing that for the first of what will hopefully be many happy outdoor excursions Kerstin would like to take a boat trip AND take in a Robbie Williams concert. What an ego trip for the man who's albums include the multi-million selling, "The Ego has landed"

Fritzl may face more abuse JOSEF Fritzl may face fresh abuse and incest charges as police prepare to quiz one of his daughters.

Kerstin, 19, spent all her life in the cellar.

She became seriously ill in April, was taken to a hospital, and Fritzl's reign of terror came to an end.

This week she was brought out of an artificially induced coma, and police hope to be able to question her soon to see if she was molested by her father.

So far Fritzl, 73, has confessed to raping another daughter, Elisabeth. Elisabeth bore him six children in the cellar over 24 years, six of whom survived.

Kerstin has been taken to her family's new apartment at a clinic where Elisabeth, her five siblings and her grandmother Rosemarie - Elisabeth's mother - are trying to recover from the nightmare of abuse.

An insider who works as a nurse at the clinic near Amstetten told the Austrian daily newspaper Oesterreich that the family would stay there for at least a few more months.

"Elisabeth is guarded like the crown jewels," she said. "She often visited Kerstin in hospital. Since Kerstin woke up, Elisabeth appears to be relaxed, almost merry."

The fear of the paparazzi remains, although the Fritzls are taking their walks in the hospital grounds one at a time and accompanied by three bodyguards in plain clothes.

Felix, 6, continues to play outside for about half an hour every day with his dark sunglasses on. His 18-year-old brother, Stefan, is not adapting as quickly as Felix though. "He is thin as a rake and pale," the insider said. "For the first few weeks he only moved very slowly, but his motor functions are getting better and better."

Kerstin is longing to take her first boat ride and attend a pop concert after taking her first steps outside the cellar, according to her doctors.

They revealed the 19-year-old was making good progress after waking from a medically induced coma, and had enjoyed an emotional reunion with her family.

She had suffered failure of various organs after years of imprisonment. After three weeks in an artificially induced coma, Kerstin awoke on May 15. After greeting her doctors with a quiet "hello" when she awoke, Kerstin confided that what she wanted most in the world was to go on a boat ride and let her hair down at a concert.

Dr Berthold Kepplinger, who heads the psychiatric clinic of Amstetten-Mauer, where the family was being treated, said Kerstin had been communicating well with the medical team treating her and was able to read and write.

One of the specialists treating Kerstin, Dr Albert Reiter, said: "She wanted to go and see a Robbie Williams concert, which is something that even three days before her breathing apparatus was removed she was somewhat lying there almost dancing in her bed listening to Robbie Williams."

Enjoy this uplifting video about 14 yr old Elizabeth Smart abducted for 9 months and safely recovered

2008-06-14T07:28:00.000-07:00

With it being Father's Day this weekend, for a change of pace and mood Oxy Moran enjoyed watching this 2 to 3 minute clip about the abduction and safe discovery of 14 year old Utah girl Elizabeth Smart. Elizabeth was abducted six years ago this month. After the initial massive search yielded no results, suspicion quickly fell on her father and uncle.

Followers of the Hunt for Maddie will be aware that the girl's father, Ed Smart, and Gerry McCann have become close friends. Gerry considers Ed to be a beacon of hope. Ed provided Gerry with counsel about keeping the hunt for his daughter in the media. For those of you not familiar with Elizabeth's uplifting story, Oxy Moran has included her Wiki after my comments.

Oxy Moran will never forget where he was and what he was doing when the amazing news of Elisabeth's discovery came through on the radio news, (driving along of the freeway, and having to get off so I could safely channel surf and listen to the joy and disbelief coming over the airwaves. Frankly, everyone had written off the possibility of finding the attractive blond Mormon teenager from Salt Lake.

Elisabeth's disappearance had occurred in that never to be forgotten summer of 2002 when America seemed to be in the grip of a rash of abductions of young children. Elizabeth's was one of around four that tugged on our heartstrings. The first three ended badly when child after child was discovered murdered. But Elisabeth was simply gone...and despite Ed's efforts, out of sight became out of mind. That's why when she was found there was much skepticism about the veracity of the initial reports.

Thankfully this one turned out to be true, and proves that you really cant give up on a missing person. Lets hope there will be similar happy ending to some of the cases we've been following including Madeliene McCann, Brendon Swanson, Natalee Holloway and many other of the literally thousands of children missing around the world.

Elizabeth Ann Smart (born November 3, 1987) is an American woman who was abducted from her Salt Lake City, Utah bedroom on June 5, 2002 at the age of 14. She was found alive nine months later on March 12, 2003 in Sandy, Utah, about 18 miles from her home, in the company of Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Ileen Barzee, who were indicted for her kidnapping but ruled unfit to stand trial. Her abduction and recovery were widely reported and were the subject of a made-for-TV movie and a published book. She is now a music student at Brigham Young University and a political activist.

Abduction

Ed and Lois Smart, with their six children, resided in the upper middle class neighborhood of Federal Heights in Salt Lake City, Utah.[1] On the evening of June 4, 2002, the family attended an award ceremony at Elizabeth's school. After the family returned home and got ready for bed, Ed made sure the doors were all locked, but he did not turn on the alarm. "If the children got up and moved (in the night), it would set the alarm off. And so we just said we’re not going to bother with it," Lois later explained.[2]

In the early hours of the morning, Brian David Mitchell broke into the home and came to the bedroom that Elizabeth shared with her 9-year-old sister, Mary Katherine.[3] While Mary Katherine pretended to be asleep,[4] she watched the abduction,[5] and later gave these hints as to what happened:

* A white man about the height of her brother Charles (5 ft 8 in)[6] about 30 or 40 years old, wearing light-colored clothes and a golf hat.[7][8] (He was actually wearing black, did not have a golf hat and was 49.)[9]
* He had dark hair, and also dark hair on his arms and on the back of his hands.[8]
* The man threatened Elizabeth with a gun.[8] (It was actually a knife, but Mary Katherine thought it was a gun.)[9]
* When Elizabeth said "ouch" after stubbing her toe on a chair, Mitchell said something that sounded like: "You better be quiet, and I won’t hurt you."[10]
* She heard Elizabeth ask "Why are you doing this?" and though the answer was not clear, Mary Katherine thought the answer might have been "for ransom."[11][12]
* Mitchell was soft-spoken — even polite, calm, and nicely dressed.[8]
* Although Mitchell spoke to Elizabeth quietly, Mary Katherine thought Mitchell's voice seemed somehow familiar, but she couldn’t pinpoint where or when she had heard it.[13]
* She never got a good look at Mitchell's face.[14] This fact was kept a secret by the police during the investigation.[15]

By listening to the creaking floor as Elizabeth and Mitchell walked, Mary Katherine thought she could tell where Mitchell and Elizabeth were, so when it seemed safe she hopped out of bed to tell her parents, but froze in terror when she nearly ran into Mitchell and Elizabeth as they seemed to be looking into her brothers' bedroom.[16] Fearful that she had been spotted by the abductor, she crept back into her bed. "I thought, you know, be quiet, because if he hears you, he might take you too, and you're the only person who has seen this," Mary Katherine said in a later interview. "I was, like, shaking."[9] She hid for an undetermined amount of time. Investigators later concluded that she may have been hiding over two hours before she felt safe enough to come out.[17]

Just before 4 a.m., Mary Katherine came to her parents' bedroom and woke them up. She told them Elizabeth was gone, but her parents thought she was having a bad dream. Ed went from room to room, and didn’t find her. Mary Katherine told him, "You’re not going to find her. A man took her. A man took her with a gun."[18] Still, the parents found this hard to believe until Lois spotted a screen window downstairs that had been cut with a knife.[19] They immediately began contacting authorities, neighbors, family, and friends. The neighborhood was searched thoroughly and many of the neighbors were immediately there to help.[20] Although this caused some problems with crime scene contamination, it was not considered a major cause for problems in the investigation.[21] One of their neighbors who came to help was Jake Garn, a retired United States senator.[22]

That morning, Ed went on television and asked the kidnapper to return his daughter.[23] A massive search for Elizabeth began.[24]

Search and investigation

A massive community search effort, organized by the Laura Recovery Center, looked for Elizabeth in the days immediately following her abduction. Up to 2,000 volunteers a day were dispatched to the area surrounding her home trying to find any trace of the missing girl. Word spread quickly as an impromptu coalition of websites facilitated the distribution of information about Elizabeth Smart with pre-formatted flyers that could be downloaded for printing or immediately circulated online by email or Internet fax. Volunteers combed the hills near her family's home and extended the search using search dogs and aircraft. After many days of intensive searching, the community-led search was closed by the local volunteers and efforts were directed to other means of finding Elizabeth.

Although police had an eyewitness, Mary Katherine's report was not very helpful to investigators. Furthermore, there was almost no significant forensic evidence such as clear fingerprints or DNA samples to help identify the abductor, hindering the investigation. For reasons unclear, a search using bloodhound dogs was unsuccessful in following Mitchell and Elizabeth's path on foot. Police questioned and interviewed hundreds of potential suspects including one individual, Bret Michael Edmunds, a 26-year-old drifter who was pursued across the country but ultimately was cleared of suspicion in the case after being located in a West Virginia hospital suffering from a drug overdose. One by one, the leads that were pursued often put at-large criminals back in prison, but they did not produce the desired result of finding Elizabeth. Ultimately, the Salt Lake City police signaled that their prime person of interest was Richard Ricci, being held in custody for unrelated reasons. Ricci, a handyman hired by the Smarts, was on parole for a 1983 attempted murder of police officer Mike Hill. He was charged with felony burglaries of homes in the area similar in circumstances to the break-in at the Smarts. Ricci later died in jail from a brain hemorrhage a few weeks after he refused to provide a confession to Utah corrections officers. With his death, it seemed that all leads were exhausted.

The Smarts and their extended family persistently maintained a presence in the local and national media, in order to keep Elizabeth's name in the press, providing the media with home videos of her as both a teenager and as a child, and created a website to serve as a resource center.

After many months, a breakthrough came in October 2002, when Mary Katherine was cleaning her room, and suddenly remembered where she had heard Mitchell's voice, of which she informed her parents.[25]

The Smarts sought to help unemployed people in the community by paying them for odd jobs or handy work around the property.[26] Mary Katherine now identified Mitchell as a man who had worked in the home for one day in November 2001, but who went by the name "Emmanuel." Lois and some of the children had met him downtown as he was asking for spare change. He was clean, soft-spoken, well-groomed, Caucasian, 5’8" tall, had dark hair, and was "about 45 years old". It seemed clear[citation needed] that "Emmanuel" was not his real name, but had something to do with his self-proclaimed calling as a minister to the homeless. He worked at the Smarts' home for five hours, helping on the roof and raking leaves. While they worked together on Ed's roof, he told Ed that he was traveling to different cities preaching to the homeless.[27][28][29][30]

When this was reported to the police, they had doubts as to its reliability. Mary Katherine had barely heard the suspect's voice, for only a few minutes, in a whisper, several months previously, and after coming out of a sleep. That she suddenly remembered it as the voice of a man she had met for a few moments a year earlier was not seen as a trustworthy lead.

Tensions developed as the parents accused the police of not thoroughly following up on this lead. The family used the services of a sketch artist to draw "Emmanuel"'s face from memory. In February, this drawing was released to the media, with the assistance of John Walsh, who revealed it in an appearance on Larry King Live and on his own series, America's Most Wanted. The drawing was recognized by Emmanuel's family, who reported his actual name, Brian David Mitchell, to the police, and provided them with contemporary photographs of Mitchell.

On March 12, 2003, just over nine months after the abduction, Mitchell, who was now wanted by police for questioning, was spotted traveling with two companions in Sandy, Utah by an elderly couple who had heard of the kidnapping on America's Most Wanted the night before, and alerted police. The companions were Elizabeth Smart — disguised in a grey wig, sunglasses, and veil — and Wanda Ileen Barzee. Smart was finally recognized by the officers during questioning, and was promptly reunited with her family. Mitchell and Barzee were taken into custody as suspected kidnappers.

Mitchell was a polygamist who believed it was his religious right to have more than one wife, even by force.

Abduction timeline
*4 June 2002 -- Smart Family arrives late at the Bryant Middle School awards function. Elizabeth receives awards in physical fitness and academics but does not play her harp as planned. Family returns home and retires to bed.

* 5 June 2002 -- Elizabeth is abducted from her bedroom in the early hours of the morning. Mary Katherine, her sister, is a witness to the crime. Elizabeth is taken to a secret camp in Emigration Canyon where she is held prisoner.
* 6 June 2002 -- Bounty for her return is at $250,000.00.
* 7 June 2002 -- A milkman reports suspicious activities of Bret Michael Edmunds in neighborhood.
* 9 June 2002 -- Ed Smart is questioned and polygraphed.
* 12 June 2002 -- Manhunt for Bret Michael Edmunds.
* 14 June 2002 -- Suspect Richard Ricci is arrested on unrelated charges.
* 21 June 2002 -- Bret Michael Edmunds caught at City Hospital in Martinsburg, West Virginia and questioned the next day.
* 24 June 2002 -- Richard Ricci arrest announced.
* 11 July 2002 -- Richard Ricci charged with theft in the Smart home. Denies any involvement with Elizabeth's kidnapping.
* 24 July 2002 -- Attempted kidnapping at Elizabeth's cousin's house.[citation needed]
* August 2002 -- Mitchel, Barzee and Elizabeth leave Emigration Canyon and go to Salt Lake City
* 27 August 2002 -- Richard Ricci collapses.
* 30 August 2002 -- Richard Ricci dies of brain hemorrhage.
* 17 September 2002 -- Police suspend regular briefings with the Smart family.
* 27 September 2002 -- Police arrest Mitchell for shoplifting and later release him.
* 8 October 2002 -- Mitchell, Barzee and Elizabeth leave Salt Lake City and head to San Diego.
* 12 October 2002 -- Mary Katherine remembers the voice of the kidnapper as that of the man they knew was "Emmanuel".
* 3 February 2003 -- Smart family releases the sketch of the man known as Emmanuel.
* 12 February 2003 -- Mitchell arrested in El Cajon for breaking into a church. Not recognized as the person wanted in Utah.
* 15 February 2003 -- America's Most Wanted features Emmanuel and requests responses.
* 16 February 2003 -- Mitchell's family steps forward and identifies him as the man known as "Emmanuel".
* 17 February 2003 -- Newly released, more recent photographs of Mitchell made available.
* 5 March 2003 -- Mitchell, Barzee and Elizabeth leave Lakeside, California.
* 12 March 2003 -- Elizabeth Smart found alive in Sandy, Utah.
* 18 March 2003 -- Mitchell and Barzee charged with aggravated kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated burglary.
* 30 April 2003 -- Elizabeth makes her first public appearance after her return.
* 27 October 2003 -- Dateline NBC Interview with Elizabeth.
* 26 July 2005 -- Mitchell declared mentally incompetent to stand trial.
* 18 December 2006 -- Mitchell again declared unfit to stand trial.
* 30 April 2008-- Ed Smart appears on Madeline McCann One Year On.

Notes

1. ^ "S.L. girl taken from her home", Deseret News, June 5, 2002, Page A01
2. ^ CBS News Article: Elizabeth's Road Home, March 12, 2003
3. ^ "Kidnap theories expand", Deseret News, June 13, 2002, Page A01
4. ^ "Details Emerge", Deseret News, June 19, 2002, Page A01
5. ^ "Sister reported the abduction relatively quickly", Deseret News, June 16, 2002, Page A15
6. ^ "Utah Girl, 15, Is Found Alive 9 Months After Kidnapping", New York Times, March 16, 2003 Section A, Page 1, Column 3,
7. ^ "S.L. girl taken from her home", Deseret News, June 5, 2002, Page A01
8. ^ a b c d "Police add details to data on abductor", Deseret News, June 18, 2002, Page B01
9. ^ a b c Sister Recounts How She Helped Find Elizabeth Smart (2005-07-21). Retrieved on 2007-02-10.
10. ^ "Elizabeth's Road Home", CBS News, March 12, 2003. Retrieved on 2007-02-10.
11. ^ "Sister thought abductor was after a ransom", Deseret News, January 11, 2003, Page A01
12. ^ "Elizabeth's Road Home", CBS News, March 12, 2003. Retrieved on 2007-02-10.
13. ^ "Kidnapper's voice sounded familiar, but the sister of Elizabeth Smart cannot identify it yet", Deseret News, August 2, 2002, Page B01
14. ^ Elizabeths Smart's Younger Sister Speaks Out Publicly. Retrieved on 2007-02-10.
15. ^ Sister of Elizabeth Smart is Prime Witness. Retrieved on 2007-02-10.
16. ^ Elizabeth's Road Home. Retrieved on 2007-02-10.
17. ^ "Sister's story: New details emerge", Deseret News, June 19, 2002, Page A01
18. ^ MSNBC, "Bringing Elizabeth Smart home". Retrieved on 2007-02-10.
19. ^ "Girl's family clings to hope", Deseret News, June 9, 2002 Page A01
20. ^ "S.L. girl taken from her home", Deseret News, , June 5, 2002, Page A01
21. ^ "Smart scene unsealed for hours", Deseret News, September 7, 2002, Page A01
22. ^ MSNBC, "Bringing Elizabeth Smart home". Retrieved on 2007-02-10.
23. ^ Father pleads for kidnapped Utah girl CNN, June 6, 2002
24. ^ "Elizabeth's Road Home", CBS News, March 12, 2003. Retrieved on 2007-02-10.
25. ^ "Smart's younger sister speaks publicly for first time". Retrieved on 2007-02-10.
26. ^ "The Miracle Girl", People Magazine, March 20, 2003 "Lois and her husband, like many Mormons, often made such offers to people in need."
27. ^ CourtTV site with extensive information on the case from its inception
28. ^ Mind Games audio report episode of This American Life (8 April 2005) with a story about why people did not notice Elizabeth Smart on the street. Preserved in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
29. ^ Criminal Complaint against Mitchell and Barzee 18 March 2003
30. ^ The Making of Immanuel December 2003

Top British pol bicycles to work to serve as Green role model; his Lexus follows with his briefcase

2008-06-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

Come back Al Gore all is forgiven. For years former Vice-President Gore has been top of the Eco-wacko Hypocracy Charts. But after reading about Britain's David Cameron, its clear that even Gore has met his match.

Hypocrisy claim over Cameron bike

Mr Cameron says he cannot carry document boxes on his bike

Conservative leader David Cameron has been attacked over his green agenda because he cycles to work - but then has his car follow with his briefcase.

Conservative officials say they have never made a secret of the arrangement.

They say Mr Cameron likes cycling but just cannot carry all his boxes of documents to work. They also stress he has opted for a less gas-guzzling car.

Labour's Stephen Hepburn told the Daily Mirror it was "hypocrisy" showed he was "conning people about the environment".

'Unbelievable'

The environment has been high on the Tory agenda ahead of next week's local elections, with the party using the slogan "vote blue, go green".

Mr Cameron has been much-photographed cycling to Parliament on his mountain bike and plans to install a wind turbine in his home.

He has also said people need to walk or cycle on shorter journeys if they are serious about tackling climate change. But the Daily Mirror newspaper has published photographs of the MP's driver taking his shoes and briefcase in a car following him to work.

Steven Hounsham, from campaign group Transport 2000, said: "It's unbelievable. If there's a good reason for making a car journey to transport shoes, a case and a shirt, then I'd like to hear it."

Motor change

A spokeswoman for the Tory leader was relaxed about people knowing about Mr Cameron's car following his bike.

"We've never made any secret of it," she said. "David has always enjoyed cycling and if he could carry all of the boxes of documents for work on his bike, then he would.

"But he has changed his car for one that has lower carbon emissions and has also made other personal changes to help the environment, such as making his new home more energy-efficient and changing his electricity supply to renewable energy."

Mr Cameron has swapped his government-provided Vauxhall Omega - with emissions of 276g per kilometre - for a commercially-leased Lexus with a hybrid engine giving off 186g.

But critics say he should have taken a Toyota Prius, which emits 104g per kilometre.

Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne said Mr Cameron's behaviour made a nonsense of his commitment to cycling as the greenest way to get to work.

"If everyone with green leanings now needs a shoe chauffeur the environment will be ruined," he said.

"As a matter of urgency, I will personally buy and deliver to Mr Cameron a pannier for him to put over his back wheels so that he can cycle to work while leaving his shoe chauffeur at home."

BBC.com 4/28/06

Mr Bean gives Greens a much-deserved bad name

2008-06-13T09:13:00.000-07:00

Here's the Aussie perspective on British politics...and its headline sums of the tone of this very funny article

Poms, they're a weird mob

POMMY politicians are a strange lot. Take London's new Tory mayor, Boris Johnson. His bright idea to counter Britain's epidemic of knife crime is to make disadvantaged kids learn ancient Greek and Latin.

Or Andy Burnham, the Labour minister responsible for clamping down on teenage binge drinking. As a student at Cambridge, he was a leading member of the Mornie Onion Society -- a drinking club with an initiation ceremony that involved chug-a-lugging a yard of ale with an onion floating on top while naked or wearing only a towel.

Eccentricity and politics go hand in hand in the UK.

A London newspaper columnist the other day recalled a wonderful story about a former British prime minister, the late Edward Heath, at left below.

A campaign bus carrying Heath and a group of staffers and journalists had a minor bingle with another vehicle.

There were no injuries, but a middle-aged woman thrown to the floor was obviously shocked.

"Heath immediately called for brandy, impressing the rest of the bus with his decisiveness and compassion," the columnist wrote. "When the brandy arrived, he drank it himself."

Now the British have another PM they can laugh at. (If they didn't laugh at him, they'd have to cry.)

Gordon Brown, who took over from Tony Blair, has proved so hopeless he is widely known as "Mr Bean".

Like the Rowan Atkinson character, Brown can do nothing right.

In the space of just 12 months he has become a joke.

When the "Mr Bean" nickname was first applied to Brown by a Liberal Democrat MP, Vincent Cable, the House of Commons erupted in a great roar of laughter.

Even Labor MPs joined in, and some members of Brown's Cabinet privately congratulated Cable on the Gibe.

The Tories put out posters: "Mr Bean Goes to Westminster" and "Mr Bean's Parliament".

It stuck.

Brown will never shake it off.

All this makes watching British politics an entertaining pastime.

But, while I have enjoyed the entertainment during a visit to the UK, it has also become clear that there are some serious lessons in this country for Australian politicians.

For example, in the current debate over why it has all gone wrong so quickly for Brown, there are echoes of the concern in Australia over Kevin Rudd's 24/7 work ethic and his control freak reputation.

Andrew Rawnsley, who has just produced a BBC TV documentary to mark the first anniversary of Brown's move into No. 10 Downing St, wrote in The Observer last Sunday: "His response to adversity was not to take a pause for breath and concentrate on the bigger picture, but to slog even harder and work even longer hours. Gordon Brown made the strain on himself worse by trying to micro-manage everything."

The Australian PM would do well to take note.

He should also look at, and learn from, the trouble Brown has got himself into over gas, climate change, and so-called "green" taxes.

Tory Opposition Leader David Cameron had been using climate change to win brownie points from voters.

He got headlines for cycling from his home in West London to Westminster to reduce car emissions, and was only slightly embarrassed when it later emerged that a chauffeur-driven limousine followed behind, carrying his briefing papers and shoes.

Like Rudd, Cameron knows the value of a bit of cheap political symbolism.

Cameron's Tories also pushed for tax measures to encourage the use of more fuel efficient motor vehicles.

The Liberals in Australia are considering the same line, as an alternative to including liquid fuel in an emissions trading scheme.

But in the past month Cameron has changed his tune, arguing that - with gas prices soaring and families feeling the pinch of rising grocery prices - now is not the time to clobber the motorist.

The Tories have decided that the voters - once preoccupied with green issues - have moved on.

They are doing the same.

As a result, when Brown introduced increases in excise duty on high polluting cars - not just new vehicles, but those registered since 2001 - Cameron took up the cudgels against the tax hike.

Brown had made it easy for him by designing the excise change so that it could be easily portrayed as a revenue grab rather than a measure to protect the environment.

It was the same mistake Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan made with their Budget excise increase on alcopops.

The claim that it was primarily an anti-binge-drinking measure aimed at teens failed to convince.

British Treasury projections showed that, while the higher vehicle excise duty will see billions of pounds pour into the government coffers, carbon dioxide emissions from motoring will hardly change at all.

The Tories branded it a "stealth tax".

The Greenpeace director said: "It's the kind of measure that gives green taxes a bad name because it does not change behaviour."

And, because older vehicles are included, low income families would be hardest hit.

Cameron humiliated Brown in Parliament. The Labour Government's fortunes took another dive.

Mr Bean had struck again.

Brendan Nelson has shown, with his proposal for a 5c a litre cut in petrol excise, that he is prepared to be every bit as populist as Cameron.

Nelson, too, thinks voters have moved on from their preoccupation with green issues as economic conditions tighten and prices at the bowser rise.

So Rudd needs to avoid Brown's mistakes.

Clearly the Australian government, like all governments, should be taking action through the tax system to improve energy efficiency and reduce the use of fossil fuels.

Rudd will not be able to avoid the issue when Cabinet tackles the hard decisions on an emissions trading scheme later this year.

Either gas will be included, which will hit motorists, or the Government will hit them in a different way through measures to promote greater fuel-efficiency.

The lesson from the last few weeks in Britain is that, if so-called "green taxes" are to be accepted as genuinely aimed at protecting the environment, they need to be revenue neutral. Otherwise the "stealth tax" line of attack will bite in Australia as it is biting here.

At the height of the row over Brown's ill-conceived scheme, a spokesman for the Tories set out the approach Cameron would adopt in government.

He said: "We will increase the proportion of taxation raised through green taxes by rebalancing taxation away from taxing 'good' things, like jobs and investment, towards taxing 'bad' things, like pollution and carbon emissions."

In other words, when "green" taxes are imposed, other taxes will be reduced.

This is the only way to counter opposition opportunism and voter skepticism.

Nelson and the Liberals will no doubt take inspiration from Cameron.

Rudd should avoid making Mr Bean his role model.

Laurie Oakes is political editor for the Nine Network. He appears each week on the Sunday program and his column appears every Saturday in the Herald Sun.

Irish eyes are smiling; British eyes are glaring

2008-06-13T08:19:00.000-07:00

You've got too love the Irish. Do they want to be part of the Euro-BS? Of course not. And that's why today, the Irish voted to reject their proud Nation signing up for the inept, bureaucratic, European Community's sovereignty busting constitution.

Irish voters have rejected the proposed EU Lisbon Treaty with the result from only a handful of constituencies still to be reported.

The latest figures show 53.7% of those voting saying 'No' to the reforming legislation with only 46.3% in favour.
Academics had predicted that a 45% turnout was the minimum required to deliver a 'Yes' vote but outside Dublin levels fell far short of that figure.
The 'No' vote will cause a major headache for the European Commission and member states.
The Lisbon charter is designed to streamline decision-making for the enlarged EU's 27 member states.
Ireland has been the only country holding a public vote on Lisbon because it will have to amend its national constitution to accept the Treaty's provisions.
But 18 of the 27 members states have already ratified the accord.
PM Brian Cowen had warned that a 'No' vote would effectively kill off the scheme for the rest of Europe, where 18 states have already ratified the accord.
The poll was a crucial test for Mr Cowen, who last month replaced Bertie Ahern as PM and as leader of the main government party Fianna Fail.

Meanwhile in Britain, the Irish decision to just say, Non merci, has left Brits wondering why their highly unpopular Prime Minister, Scot Gordon Brown refuses to give his population the chance to tell the Euro-bunglers to stick their treaty where the sun don't shine.

The Magna Carte has served the UK effectively as its constitution for about 800 years, so it should come as no surprise that Brits are not anxious to sign up for this latest version of a constitution to emanate from the home of the Sprouts in Brussels.

Oxy Moran's guess is the Irish result will further turn the screws on PM Brown, a man whose current popularity levels, 28% approval, by comparison make US President George W Bush , approval 32%, seem as popular as a pay raise.

Irish EU referendum: what it means for Gordon Brown

Calls for British PM to hold referendum on treaty in UK resume as Miliband prepares government's response

An election offical opens a ballot bag during the count for the Lisbon treaty referendum in Dublin today. Photograph: Peter Muhly/AFP/Getty Images (The photo stands in contrast to the melee that surrounds US polls these days)

Gordon Brown, seen at right, will press ahead with ratification of the EU treaty even if, as now seems inevitable, the Irish announce later this afternoon that the treaty has been rejected in a referendum.
Pushing the European Union (amendment) bill through parliament has been politically damaging. But the bill has now cleared almost all its key stages in the Commons and the Lords and Downing Street seems to think that it would be pointless to drop it now.
Brown is also keen to honour the promise he has given to other EU leaders to ratify the treaty by the end of this year. The bill will have its third reading in the House of Lords on June 18, it will receive royal assent shortly afterwards, and the UK's formal ratification of the treaty will take place later in the summer.
The process has been damaging for Brown because Labour gave a commitment in its 2005 election manifesto to hold a referendum on what was then the proposed EU constitution. But he would not call a referendum on the EU treaty, even though in many respects its provisions are very similar.
The result in Ireland will encourage Eurosceptics to renew their demands for the treaty to be scrapped, or for British voters to be offered the chance to have their say in a referendum if the treaty is not entirely abandoned.
Even before the result of the Irish vote was formally announced, John McDonnell, a Labour Eurosceptic, said: "The British government must now give the British people a say on the EU treaty. Brown must immediately announce a British referendum."
The Foreign Office said it would not comment on the result until it was official. But if, as expected, the result is no, David Miliband, the foreign secretary, will deliver Britain's initial response in a statement to the media later this afternoon.
Following a no vote, the European Union could either ask the Irish to think again, change the treaty in the hope of making it more acceptable, or decide to abandon it altogether.
Miliband is not expected to offer a clear proposal. The government takes the view that a no vote would predominantly be a problem for the Irish, and the Irish government should take the initiative in proposing a way forward.
But the Irish cannot decide how to proceed in isolation and Miliband will be dragged into a discussion about the way forward at a long-planned meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday.
On Thursday and Friday next week Brown will be in Brussels for an EU summit where what to do about the treaty will also be at the top of the agenda.
According to government sources, Miliband and Brown will argue against substantial rewriting of the treaty. "The last thing we want to do is have another prolonged period of introspective navel-gazing," said a source.
Other EU leaders could propose tinkering with the treaty in a minor way in the hope of making it acceptable to the Irish. But anything that would involve parliament having to pass another bill would be unacceptable to Brown.
Source Guardian UK

Just, in case you were absent from school the day your history teacher discussed the Magna Carta, and are therefore are wondering about Oxy Moran's facetious reference to one of civilization's most famous documents:

Magna Carta (Latin for Great Charter, literally "Great Paper"), also called Magna Carta Libertatum (Great Charter of Freedoms), is an English charter originally issued in 1215. It required the King to renounce certain rights, respect certain legal procedures and accept that his will could be bound by the law. It explicitly protected certain rights of the King's subjects, whether free or fettered — most notably the writ of habeas corpus, allowing appeal against unlawful imprisonment.

Magna Carta was the most significant early influence on the extensive historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law today. Magna Carta influenced the development of the common law and many constitutional documents, such as the United States Constitution. Many clauses were renewed throughout the Middle Ages, and continued to be renewed as late as the 18th century. By the second half of the 19th century, however, most clauses in their original form had been repealed from English law.

Magna Carta was the first document forced onto an English King by his subjects in an attempt to limit his powers by law. It was preceded by the 1100 Charter of Liberties in which King Henry I voluntarily stated that his own powers were under the law.

In practice Magna Carta mostly did not limit the power of the King in the Middle Ages; by the time of the English Civil War, however, it had become an important symbol for those who wished to show that the King was bound by the law.

Magna Carta is normally understood to refer to a single document, that of 1215. Various amended versions of the Magna Carta appeared in subsequent years however, and it is the 1332 version which remains on the statute books of England and Wales.
Wiki

Josef Fritzl to face the music for murder by neglect; Kerstin plays loud music at 3 am

2008-06-13T01:36:00.000-07:00

Its fantastic to learn that doctors are reporting that the cellar girl, Kerstin Fritzl is acting like a normal rambunctious teenager. After 19 years cellar-bound, she has to make up for lost time. I suspect she'll be forgiven for using her ghetto-blaster at 3am morning! Her choice of music...dddhh...her dream-man...Robbie Williams.

Also good to see that Austrian authorities are likely to hold evil Josef Fritzl accountable for all his crimes including failing to get medical help for a twin who was born sick. The child was left alone to die and tossed like a piece of garbage in Fritzl's cellar incinerator.

For a month, Elisabeth Fritzl kept a bedside vigil as her daughter battled life-threatening organ failure before beginning to improve.

On May 12th, attending doctor Albert Reiter began reducing the medication keeping her unconscious.

"She opened her eyes for the first time at 9am on May 15th and slowly started showing signs of emotional reaction," he said. "By June 1st she was more alert and, after greeting her with 'Hello Kerstin', she replied with a 'Hello'.

"It was an extremely dramatic moment," he said.

Far from a sickly victim who grew up without daylight, Dr Reiter painted a picture of a resilient, restless teenager.

"Sometimes I have to intervene at 3am to get her to turn down the music and get some rest," he said. "I'm particularly proud that she was able to walk the distance to her new residence and her new life."

Elisabeth Fritzl and her six children are now living in a self-contained apartment on the grounds of the Amstetten clinic.

All are receiving psychological treatment and tutoring. Doctors said that Kerstin was able to read and write. Her testimony could prove important for the prosecution and result in an even tougher sentence for Josef Fritzl.

He is likely to face multiple charges of rape and imprisonment, as well as "murder by neglect" following the death of a newborn son, which he disposed of in the cellar furnace.
Irish Times

Kerstin Fritzl aged 19 has never been outside: her first wish.... to see Robbie Williams

2008-06-13T01:03:00.000-07:00

Robbie Williams has a secret admirer. After spending 19 years in an dingy cellar and 50 days in a life-threatening coma, Kerstin Fritzl has expressed her first wish. Get me to a concert to see rock superstar, Robbie Williams. Hopefully it wont be long before that dream becomes a reality for the spunky 19 year-old. In fact, if Robbie was a decent guy, which he is, I wouldn't be surprised if he dropped in on her as she recovers in her Amstetten hospital...assuming the docs say her heart could stand the excitement.

Of course in the long term, Kerstin may face some steep competition to win Robbie's heart. The British singing sensation was photographed recently with a bevvy of Hollywood beauties including superstar
Lindsey Lohan see photo below, a woman not known for wearing too much surplus clothing.

Kerstin, 19, was admitted to hospital with multiple organ failure on April 19, which led to the discovery of a "dungeon family" imprisoned by Fritzl, 73, under his house in Amstetten, Austria.

The teenager has made a "surprising recovery" after waking last month, her doctors said, and she expressed "many wishes" – including going on a boat ride and seeing Robbie Williams live.

Kerstin, the eldest of seven children born to Elisabeth Fritzl during the 24 years of imprisonment and abuse by her father, was reunited with her family in a "touching moment" on Sunday.

Dr Albert Reiter, who had treated the teenager since her admission, said that her awakening – the first time she would have seen natural daylight – had been "very emotional".

"She opened her eyes and showed emotion for the first time. We smiled at her and she smiled back," he said.

"She would listen to Robbie Williams until 3am even before we removed life support."

Elisabeth Fritzl was at her daughter's side the whole time and spent most of her days speaking to Kerstin after she woke, Dr Reiter said.

According to Dr Bernhard Kepplinger, the head of the Amstetten psychiatric clinic where the Fritzl family is being cared for, Kerstin is being treated for a weakness of muscles after a month in coma and is to receive vaccinations to make her immune system functional after the time spent in isolation.

He said Kerstin was "communicating normally", was able to read and write well, and was expected to make a "full recovery" together with the rest of the family.

Fritzl chose three of the children he had with Elisabeth – Lisa, 15, Monika, 14, and Alexander, 12 – to live with him and his wife Rosemarie, while the other siblings, Kerstin, Stefan, 18, and Felix, five, had to spend their lives with their mother underground.

Dr Kepplinger said: "The condition of the whole family is stable, but they are used to an entirely different rhythm of life. Some things are too fast for one part of the family but too slow for the other. (Telegraph)

Based on the good Doctors last comment I suspect she wont be receiving a visit from Robbie just yet.

Brits find a 52% increase in injuries from traffic accidents on Friday the 13th: Best stay home

2008-06-13T00:29:00.000-07:00

Which came first the cart or the horse? Are traffic accidents up because its Friday the 13th or because its Friday the 13th are people so freaked by reading articles such as this one that they crash their cars. Either way, best spend today Friday the 13th in bed and don't move until the clock strikes midnight.

LEGEND HAS IT: Never change your bed on Friday; it will bring bad dreams. Don't start a trip on Friday or you will have misfortune. If you cut your nails on Friday, you cut them for sorrow. Ships that set sail on a Friday will have bad luck – as in the tale of H.M.S. Friday ... One hundred years ago, the British government sought to quell once and for all the widespread superstition among seamen that setting sail on Fridays was unlucky. A special ship was commissioned, named "H.M.S. Friday." They laid her keel on a Friday, launched her on a Friday, selected her crew on a Friday and hired a man named Jim Friday to be her captain. To top it off, H.M.S. Friday embarked on her maiden voyage on a Friday, and was never seen or heard from again.

LEGEND also has it: If 13 people sit down to dinner together, all will die within the year. The Turks so disliked the number 13 that it was practically expunged from their vocabulary (Brewer, 1894). Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue. Many buildings don't have a 13th floor. If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil's luck (Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names). There are 13 witches in a coven.

Paraskevidekatriaphobia: Friday the 13th Origin, History
Source About.com
I have before me the abstract of a 1993 study published in the British Medical Journal provocatively titled, "Is Friday the 13th Bad for Your Health?" With the aim of mapping "the relation between health, behaviour, and superstition surrounding Friday 13th in the United Kingdom," its authors compared the ratio of traffic volume to the number of automobile accidents on two different days, Friday the 6th and Friday the 13th, over a period of years.

Incredibly, they found that in the region sampled, while consistently fewer people chose to drive their cars on Friday the 13th, the number of hospital admissions due to vehicular accidents was significantly higher than on "normal" Fridays.

Their conclusion:

"Friday 13th is unlucky for some. The risk of hospital admission as a result of a transport accident may be increased by as much as 52 percent. Staying at home is recommended."

Paraskevidekatriaphobics — people afflicted with a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th — must be pricking up their ears just now, buoyed by seeming evidence that their terror may not be so irrational after all. But it's unwise to take solace in a single scientific study, especially one so peculiar. I suspect these statistics have more to teach us about human psychology than the ill-fatedness of any particular date on the calendar.

Friday the 13th - The Most Widespread Superstition?

The sixth day of the week and the number 13 both have foreboding reputations said to date from ancient times, so their inevitable conjunction from one to three times a year portends more misfortune than some credulous minds can bear. Some sources say it may be the most widespread superstition in the United States. Some people won't go to work on Friday the 13th; some won't eat in restaurants; many wouldn't think of setting a wedding on the date.

Just how many Americans at the turn of the millennium still suffer from this condition? According to Dr. Donald Dossey, a psychotherapist specializing in the treatment of phobias (and coiner of the term "paraskevidekatriaphobia," also spelled "paraskavedekatriaphobia"), the figure may be as high as 21 million. If he's right, eight percent of Americans are still in the grips of a very old superstition.

Exactly how old is difficult to say, because determining the origins of superstitions is an inexact science, at best. In fact, it's mostly guesswork. 13: The Devil's Dozen

Though no one can say for sure when and why human beings first associated the number 13 with misfortune, the belief is assumed to be quite old, and there exist any number of theories — all of which have been called into question at one time or another, I should point out — purporting to trace its origins to antiquity and beyond

It has been proposed, for example, that fears surrounding the number 13 are as ancient as the act of counting. Primitive man had only his 10 fingers and two feet to represent units, this explanation goes, so he could count no higher than 12. What lay beyond that — 13 — was an impenetrable mystery to our prehistoric forebears, hence an object of superstition.

Which has an edifying ring to it, but one is left wondering — did primitive man not have toes?

Don't sit down for dinner with 12 other people

One of the earliest concrete taboos associated with the number 13 — a taboo still observed by some superstitious folks today, evidently — is said to have originated in the East with the Hindus, who believed, for reasons I haven't been able to ascertain, that it is always unlucky for 13 people to gather in one place — say, at dinner.

As if to prove the point, the Bible tells us there were exactly 13 present at the Last Supper, see Da Vinci's depiction above. One of the dinner guests — er, disciples — betrayed Jesus Christ, setting the stage for the Crucifixion.

Did I mention the Crucifixion took place on a Friday?

The astute reader will have observed that while we have thus far insinuated any number of intriguing connections between events, practices and beliefs attributed to ancient cultures and the superstitious fear of Fridays and the number 13, we have yet to happen upon an explanation of how, why or when these separate strands of folklore converged — if that is indeed what happened — to mark Friday the 13th as the unluckiest day of all.

There's a very simple reason for that — nobody really knows, though various explanations have been proposed.

The Knights Templar
Some say Friday's bad reputation goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.
It was on a Friday, supposedly, that Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit. Adam bit, as we all learned in Sunday School, and they were both ejected from Paradise. Tradition also holds that the Great Flood began on a Friday; God tongue-tied the builders of the Tower of Babel on a Friday; the Temple of Solomon was destroyed on a Friday; and, of course, Friday was the day of the week on which Christ was crucified. It is therefore a day of penance for Christians.

In pagan Rome, Friday was execution day (later Hangman's Day in Britain), but in other pre-Christian cultures it was the sabbath, a day of worship, so those who indulged in secular or self-interested activities on that day could not expect to receive blessings from the gods — which may explain the lingering taboo on embarking on journeys or starting important projects on Fridays.

To complicate matters, these pagan associations were not lost on the early Church, which went to great lengths to suppress them. If Friday was a holy day for heathens, the Church fathers felt, it must not be so for Christians — thus it became known in the Middle Ages as the "Witches' Sabbath," and thereby hangs another tale.

The Witch-Goddess

The name "Friday" was derived from a Norse deity worshipped on the sixth day, known either as Frigg (goddess of marriage and fertility), or Freya (goddess of sex and fertility), or both, the two figures having become intertwined in the handing down of myths over time (the etymology of "Friday" has been given both ways). Frigg/Freya corresponded to Venus, the goddess of love of the Romans, who named the sixth day of the week in her honor "dies Veneris."

Friday was actually considered quite lucky by pre-Christian Teutonic peoples, we are told — especially as a day to get married — because of its traditional association with love and fertility. All that changed when Christianity came along. The goddess of the sixth day — most likely Freya in this context, given that the cat was her sacred animal — was recast in post-pagan folklore as a witch, and her day became associated with evil doings.

Various legends developed in that vein, but one is of particular interest: As the story goes, the witches of the north used to observe their sabbath by gathering in a cemetery in the dark of the moon. On one such occasion the Friday goddess, Freya herself, came down from her sanctuary in the mountaintops and appeared before the group, who numbered only 12 at the time, and gave them one of her cats, after which the witches' coven — and, by tradition, every properly-formed coven since — comprised exactly 13.

One theory, recently offered up as historical fact in the novel The Da Vinci Code, holds that it came about not as the result of a convergence, but a catastrophe, a single historical event that happened nearly 700 years ago.The catastrophe was the decimation of the Knights Templar, the legendary order of "warrior monks" formed during the Christian Crusades to combat Islam. Renowned as a fighting force for 200 years, by the 1300s the order had grown so pervasive and powerful it was perceived as a political threat by kings and popes alike and brought down by a church-state conspiracy, as recounted by Katharine Kurtz in Tales of the Knights Templar (Warner Books: 1995):

On October 13, 1307, a day so infamous that Friday the 13th would become a synonym for ill fortune, officers of King Philip IV of France carried out mass arrests in a well-coordinated dawn raid that left several thousand Templars — knights, sergeants, priests, and serving brethren — in chains, charged with heresy, blasphemy, various obscenities, and homosexual practices. None of these charges was ever proven, even in France — and the Order was found innocent elsewhere — but in the seven years following the arrests, hundreds of Templars suffered excruciating tortures intended to force "confessions," and more than a hundred died under torture or were executed by burning at the stake.

A Thoroughly Modern Phenomenon

There are drawbacks to the "day so infamous" thesis, not the least of which is that it attributes enormous cultural significance to a relatively obscure historical event. Even more problematic, for this or any other theory positing premodern origins for Friday the 13th superstitions, is the fact that no one has been able to document the existence of such beliefs prior to the 19th century. If people who lived before the late 1800s perceived Friday the 13th as a day of special misfortune, no evidence has been found to prove it. As a result, some scholars are now convinced the stigma is a thoroughly modern phenomenon exacerbated by 20th-century media hype.

Going back a hundred years, Friday the 13th doesn't even merit a mention in E. Cobham Brewer's voluminous 1898 edition of the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, though one does find entries for "Friday, an Unlucky Day" and "Thirteen Unlucky." When the date of ill fate finally does make an appearance in later editions of the text, it is without extravagant claims as to the superstition's historicity or longevity. The very brevity of the entry is instructive: "A particularly unlucky Friday. See Thirteen" — implying that the extra dollop of misfortune attributed to Friday the 13th can be accounted for in terms of an accrual, so to speak, of bad omens:

UNLUCKY FRIDAY + UNLUCKY 13 = UNLUCKIER FRIDAY

If that's the case, we are guilty of perpetuating a misnomer by labeling Friday the 13th "the unluckiest day of all," a designation perhaps better reserved for, say, a Friday the 13th on which one breaks a mirror, walks under a ladder, spills the salt, and spies a black cat crossing one's path — a day, if there ever was one, best spent in the safety of one's own home with doors locked, shutters closed and fingers crossed.

Kercher murder: A leading US investigator convinced of Amanda Knox's innocence

2008-06-11T01:30:00.000-07:00

The man hired by CBS to conduct a thorough investigation into the murder of Meredith Kercher is convinced that Police have their man already in custody. He strongly believes that as soon as a reasonable Court looks at the case against Amanda Knox, seen at left, she will be immediately released.

In the meantime, 21 year old Amanda, a student at the University of Seattle remains in isolation in a stark Italian jail cell, pining for the family, friends and beautiful Pacific Northwest location she left behind when she went on her ill-fated exchange program last August. According to Oxy Moran's "Waiting for Justice for Amanda Clock" its been

American investigator: Amanda Knox is coming home

To Paul Ciolino, at right, there's no doubt about it. Amanda Knox is innocent. And pretty soon, she's coming home.

"It might be five months or five years, but she's getting out," the renowned private investigator said of Knox, a 20-year-old former University of Washington student now into her seventh month in an Italian prison, still not charged with any crime.

Ciolino, a 30-year Chicago-based investigator with an impressive resume, was hired by CBS to fly to Perugia, Italy and take a second look at the investigation surrounding the brutal November killing of British student Meredith Kercher.

The case, a comment magnet on this blog and a favorite plaything of sensational European tabloids, faces increasing criticism that it's been botched by Italian authorities.

The way Ciolino put it in a CBS 48 Hours story, it was a "railroad job from hell."

"She is coming out of there, because reasonable, bright people are going to get hold of this -- eventually," Ciolino told me Tuesday over coffee.

His conclusion: When you look past the hype, the coverage and the lingering rumors, there's no physical evidence to tie Knox to the crime.

An early confession was thrown out, he said, and after a suspicious kitchen knife was re-examined, investigators are left with no conclusive DNA evidence placing Knox at the scene. That means the only thing tying her to the killing is a damning statement from Rudy Guede -- a fellow suspect Ciolino believes is Kercher's real killer.

"Rudy Guede. , at left, broke into the apartment, he robbed her, he raped her and he killed her," Ciolino said.

In April, Italy's highest appeals court said it was "evident and indisputable" that Guede took part in some way.

"Rudy's statement -- that's the best evidence they have in this case (against Knox). They know it, I know it, everyone knows it."

How can Ciolino be so sure?

He was in Italy 10 days after having researched the case for two months for the CBS report, he said. He read "every document," spoke with investigators and saw crime scene tapes that "boggled my mind."

It wasn't an all-access look, but it was enough to convince him that investigators' zeal for their initial theory about a drug-fueled sex killing, egged on by wobbly leaks to a hungry press, blinded them to more likely scenarios. The fact that Knox's prosecutor is charged with abuse of power in an unrelated incident doesn't help.

"They don't care about anyone else. They want to get Amanda," Ciolino said.

That's a strong statement from an investigator hired by an American TV news program. Ciolino took five convicted killers off death row in Illinois. He's no amateur. But others are not so ready to proclaim Knox innocent, as the UW Daily reported this month.

Still, all we know about this case is what investigators choose to release -- and even that can be sketchy. So, really, we don't know much at all.

So much has been doubted, challenged and retracted so publicly in the last seven months that the investigation has played more like a bad reality show than a serious crime drama.

What you believe about Amanda Knox's guilt -- if you choose to take a stand at all -- comes down to your gut.

If Knox does come home, as Cilolino believes she will, it won't be to the same world. Even if her name is cleared in the books, it won't be cleared online. The thousands of hateful comments and stories that turn up on a Google search can't be easily erased.

Ciolino's advice? She should change her name.

"We stole this girls' innocence," he said. "Amanda will come out a very damaged, changed person."

at June 10, 2008 6:30 p.m.

Source

Meredith Kercher Murder Files
6/3 Italian police forced Amanda Knox into false confession
5/25 Non capisco: Kercher police in "fifth suspect" fiasco
5/25 Kercher Murder: The fifth Suspect?
5/15 Vanity Fair concludes no case against Amanda Knox
5/15 Italian court rejects Amanda's latest bid for freedom
5/8 Amanda's legal team file for her immediate release
5/5 False confessions: Central Park jogger
5/5 Guede creates fantasy to blame Knox
5/2 Italian police get something right; get a lot wrong
4/28 Italian police use band-aids to stitch up Knox?
4/24 Knox must stay in prison due to poor attitude
4/23 Rice already cooked; crime scene gone
4/21 Murder brings unsolved Petar Suklovic case to life
4/19 All fingers point to Guede who says not me
4/13 Knox victim of "railroad job from hell"
4/12 Judge believed Kercher killed during rape; wrong!
4/11 CBS documentary exposes flimsy case v Knox
4/7 3 Suspects, 2 Knives, 1 Dead Student
4/6 Conveniently timed 60 yr old witness saw Knox
3/28 Not Credible! Police find bloody footprint
3/19 Juran Van Der Sloot attorney advises Knox
3/15 The Harry Potter Clue
2/20 Meredith Inquest Stunner
2/13 Q and A in Seattle Times
2/4 Was murder a bungled theft?
2/3 Amanda Knox bullied into confession
2/2 Transcript of 2020 investigation
2/1 Amanda Knox says, "I am innocent"
1/31 The Case for Knox's innocence
1/25 Witness Claims Knox threatened him with knike
1/19 Amanda Knox's Prison Diary
1/12 New DNA Evidence places 3 suspects at scene
12/23 Knox placed at murder scene by friends
12/21 The Seattle Perspective
12/4 4th Suspect saw knife in killer's hand
12/3 Was Meredith Killed Over Money
11/23 Murder Most wired - Newsweek
11/20 Extreme Sex Murder
11/20 Drug Dealer pleads his innocence
11/15 Death in Perugia
11/13 Video Contradicts Knox's story
11/12 Q and A
11/12 Kercher Critical Timetable
11/11 Was Murder Premeditated?
11/10 Knox invited strange men to appartment
11/9 Judges states grounds for holding Amanda Knox
11/9 Knox could be held without trial for a year
11/9 Bloody Trail leads to killer
11/8 Who posted drug & rape stories online?
11/8 Meredith killed after refusing orgy
11/8 Knox & Solletio witness statements
11/5 British Girl Student murdered in Italy
11/4 Killer leaves bloody trail

Elisabeth Fritzl fast-forwards her police testimony to pay back her evil father

2008-06-10T00:56:00.000-07:00

The UK Sun is reporting the daughter of incest monster Josef Fritzl has brought forward her testimony to police to make sure he faces trial soon.

The move comes as Elisabeth’s eldest “cellar” daughter Kerstin, 19, woke from her coma.

Doctors had repeatedly refused officers’ requests to quiz traumatised Elisabeth over her 24 years of rape and imprisonment.

But when Elisabeth, 42, learned Fritzl could not face justice until she gave her statement, she insisted on speaking to cops.

An insider said: “She’s determined to ensure her father, who may claim he is too ill to go on trial, doesn’t escape justice.”

Her eldest daughter Kerstin has now been taken to live with Elisabeth and her six other children in the clinic where they are recovering from their ordeal.

Fritzl, 73, who locked Elisabeth in a cellar in Amstetten, Austria, is in a remand cell.

This good news follows yesterday's fantastic report that her daughter Kerstin was finally

out of her coma

Wakey wakey! After 7 weeks, Kerstin Fritzl is finally out of her coma

2008-06-09T15:16:00.000-07:00

Fantastic news has now been confirmed by Reuters, Daily Telegraph. After 49 long days, Kerstin Fritzl awoke from her coma and was reunited with her family. Maybe this positive development also explains Elisabeth's sudden burst of health which led only this morning to news she would be testifying against her father in July.

REUTERS
Kerstin, along with her mother Elisabeth and two brothers, was imprisoned from birth by her father Josef Fritzl

Doctors were unsure how Kerstin - who had only ever seen her mother Elisabeth and two brothers, as well as her father, Josef Fritzl - would react when she woke from her coma and were keen to make sure the family was reunited as soon as she became conscious.

Kerstin, 19, was allowed out of the dungeon on April 19 after falling gravely ill, triggering a series of events which led to her mother Elisabeth, 42, and two other imprisoned brothers, Felix, 5, and Stefan, 18, being released from the cramped cellar under their home in Amstetten.

She had become desperately sick, probably because she had suffered a life without fresh air, light, exercise or a good diet. In a rare act of mercy, Fritzl, 73, chose to release her and take her to hospital after she collapsed in his underground lair.

Doctors made an appeal on national television to find her mother, who, Fritzl claimed, had run off to a sect. Police visited Fritzl's home and discovered his secret "second family".

None of the three children held underground had ever seen daylight before. They were released to be reunited with their three other siblings - Lisa, 16, Monika, 14, and Alexander, 12 - who were living above ground after being taken in by Fritzl on the pretence they had been abandoned.

Doctors put Kerstin into an induced coma to allow her to recover and have been preparing for her to wake to an entirely new life.

As soon as it was clear she was awake they moved her as fast as possible to be reunited with her mother and brother's in a special room designed to recreate the cellar environment at the Amstetten-Mauer clinic.

Rumours spread yesterday that she had recovered from her coma and were later confirmed by hospital authorities.

According to the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation ORF's Lower Austrian regional studio, the teenager was transferred to her mother's side before the move was made public.

This would mean Kerstin has met her mother Elisabeth for the first time outside the dungeon. There was no further information about her health. She would also, for the first time, be aware that people outside her family existed.

Medics feared Kerstin - the first child born to Elisabeth during her 24 years in captivity - would die when she suffered multiple organ failure and was hooked up to a life support machine. Last month, there were unconfirmed reports she had showed flickers of life and at one point had opened her eyes.

It was also reported that police will quiz Kerstin on whether Fritzl sexually abused her, and will also quiz her brothers about their ordeal underground.

Elisabeth, who had been imprisoned by Fritzl as a sex slave since she was 18, is on the mend with her five other children in a separate clinic near the hospital. Her mother, Rosemarie, 69, has also gathered strength after health problems sparked by the discovery of her husband's "second family". The family recently symbolised Kerstin's presence by circling her name with a heart in a poster of personal messages which was released to the public, see photo above

The family are expected to stay in their clinic for several months while doctors and counsellors prepare them for the outside world.

$5 million down the toilet: Police run up huge bill finding Shannon Matthews in fake abduction

2008-06-09T01:58:00.000-07:00

Britain's version of Susan Smith, Karen Matthews, has already cost the local police an arm and a leg. The $5 million that its reported they incurred is before they complete the prosecution of several members of her family for their alleged roles in hiding 9 year old Shannon in an attempt to raise sympathy funds from the public. Seeming the idea for the alleged crime was inspired by the British sitcom Shameless.

The Shannon Matthews investigation has so far cost West Yorkshire Police £2.7m, the Yorkshire Post can reveal.

Costs of policing the high-profile case after the schoolgirl was reported missing can be unveiled after a Freedom of Information request was submitted to West Yorkshire Police.

Previously it had been estimated that overtime and additional resources had left the force with a bill of about £1m – but the figures obtained by the Yorkshire Post show the total costs of the inquiry are significantly higher.

The reply said: "To date the Shannon Matthews investigation has cost the force £2,659,000."

Shannon was discovered hidden in the base of a bed in a flat just one mile from her home in Dewsbury Moor after a 24-day search by West Yorkshire Police.

More than 250 uniformed officers and 60 detectives flooded Dewsbury and the surrounding area in a relentless search for the nine-year-old.

It was one of the biggest manhunts undertaken by West Yorkshire Police.

Shannon's mother Karen Matthews, formerly of Moorside Road, Dewsbury Moor, has been remanded in custody in connection with her daughter's disappearance, in February.

Matthews, 32, is charged with perverting the course of justice and child neglect.

She is due to go on trial alongside Michael Donovan 39, of Lidgate Gardens, Batley Carr, who is charged with Shannon's kidnapping and false imprisonment.

Shannon went missing from Dewsbury Moor on February 19 following a school swimming trip.

Matthews and Donovan, uncle of her former partner Craig Meehan, are due to go on trial on November 11. They will next appear at Leeds Crown Court for a plea and case management hearing on September 5.

Yorkshire Post

Elisabeth Fritzl will be welll enough to testify against her evil father in July court hearing

2008-06-09T01:42:00.000-07:00

First the good news. Doctors say Elisabeth will be well enough to testify against the Incest Monster by July. Second more good news: the family wont have to see their evil father:he'll be able to see nad hear them via video-link up from prison.

Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, will be questioned by a judge, prosecutors and her father's lawyer in a court session which will be beamed to her father via video link.

Doctors treating Elisabeth Fritzl and her children have confirmed that following a month of therapy her condition has improved drastically and that she would be able to give evidence, although it is possible that a psychiatrist would be present during the questioning, which is due to happen in early July.

Her children, aged five to 19, will also be questioned at a later stage.

Fritzl, 73, confessed to imprisoning his daughter Elisabeth in the cellar of his home in Amstetten for 24 years and fathering seven children with her following continuous sexual abuse. One of the children died at birth and Fritzl burned his body in an incinerator.

The family's testimony is necessary for prosecutors to complete their case against him, who is facing a string of charges including manslaughter, rape and incarceration and is expected to appear in court in autumn.

His family will however not have to face him at the hearing and they are expected to give evidence either during pre-recorded sessions or via video conference.

The hearing in the regional capital St Polten's court is expected to be closed to the public.

More than 100 people have been questioned by police and prosecutors relating to the case, most of them relatives, neighbours, friends and work colleagues of the Fritzl family.

Christiane Burkheiser, the prosecutor in charge of the case, has questioned Fritzl two times already, and he is said to be "co-operative".

Fritzl is also being examined by a forensic psychiatrist who is visiting him in prison to determine whether he is fit to stand trial.

Source Telegraph

New Aussie Book: Paedophiles discount kidnapping Maddie McCann for morbid sexual practices

2008-06-08T12:39:00.000-07:00

In this extract from Vanished,a book by Danny Collins, the Madeleine McCann mystery is again under the spotlight. While much of this extract is already in the public domain, this is the first time Oxy Moran has read confirmation that paedophiles would have no use for such a young child.

Vanished (Extract)
By Danny Collins

June 08, 2008"Residents from the resort also joined in the hunt, set in motion by Judicial Police Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral, fresh in from Faro.

One such resident was Anglo-Portuguese real estate agent Robert Murat, 34 and divorced, see photos left with his girlfriend who lived with his 71-year-old mother, Jennifer, in a villa not 150m from the Praia da Luz apartment where Madeleine disappeared.

As a bilingual expat, Murat often worked for local police as a translator in cases involving English-speaking tourists.

In fact, it would later be revealed that he had acted in the role of interpreter for the Portuguese police during their questioning of two of the McCanns' dinner companions, now dubbed the "Tapas Seven'' by the ever-epigraphic UK press.

Journalists at the scene reported Murat's obvious desire to help, even admitting to being slightly overwhelmed by his passionate interest in the case.

Some even remarked on his constant presence at the compromised crime scene, where he was often observed to be engaging officers in conversation inside the apartment of 5A.

Meanwhile, the search of the surrounding countryside went on, the investigation fuelled by reported sightings of cars and strangers, the latter always acting suspiciously, near the apartment on the night Madeleine went missing.

Interestingly, some of those sightings were reported in statements taken from four of the McCanns' companions.

Mystery surrounds Robert Murat's whereabouts on the night Madeleine went missing. He insisted to police that he remained in Casa Liliana, the villa owned by his mother, all that evening. But there were those who would dispute his story.

Certainly, three of the "Tapas Seven'' - Fiona Payne, Rachael Oldfield and Russell O'Brien - were confronted with Murat during a police interview on May 11 and all of them identified him as the man they saw hanging around the McCann apartment between 10.30pm and 11pm.

Murat's girlfriend, Michaela Walczuch, 32, also came under fire from various witnesses.

A Portuguese lorry driver told investigators he saw her driving a hire car on a road near the town of Silves, 40km from the coastal village of Praia da Luz, on May 5, when he also witnessed her hand over a child (whom he believed to be Madeleine McCann) wrapped in a blanket to a man in a black car.

The sighting of Madeleine in Morocco on June 15 also identifies Walczuch as being nearby, moments after a child resembling Madeleine was seen with a woman in a Muslim headscarf.

Walczuch, see left with Murat, herself is adamant these sightings are all untrue, claiming that on June 15 she was in conference with Murat and his lawyer, Francisco Pagarete.

Further reported sightings of Murat on the night of May 3 followed. Dr Payne and Mrs Oldfield claim they again saw him at the Ocean Club complex as late as 11.45pm.

Another of the McCanns' holidaying group, Russell O'Brien, also recalls seeing the man with dark wavy hair and a distinctive lazy eye at the complex that night, with his statement allegedly confirmed by a Mark Warner resort employee, now identified as child-minder Charlotte Pennington.

As late as the end of December 2007, reports of sightings of Robert Murat near the McCanns' apartment on that fateful night continued to arrive at the Judicial Police HQ in Portimao, when two British tourists who holidayed in Praia da Luz in May, 2007 reported they had told the Leicester police of seeing Robert Murat near the Ocean Club complex at 10.30pm, half an hour after Mrs McCann raised the alarm that her daughter was missing.

Even more ominous was their recollection of seeing two men, who appeared to be watching the area from the window of an unoccupied apartment, overlooking the tapas bar, in the days before Madeleine vanished.

It should be noted that there was no reason whatsoever why Robert Murat shouldn't have been among members of the public gathered near apartment 5A after Madeleine McCann was reported missing.

Indeed, given his role as part-time police interpreter, this was even more likely. However, the die was already cast and Murat was given the status of arguido (declared person of interest) in May. (See Murat on the left and one of several Murat look-a-likes living in the Algarve region at far right.)

Eight reports placed him at the crime scene on May 3, 2007. His mother, Jennifer, still supports his alibi of a quiet evening spent at home in her company. Murat himself claims he knew nothing of Madeleine's disappearance until he received a telephone call from his sister in England the following morning.

Should Robert Murat have been in the area of the complex that night? Strangely, in the face of his many protests, there is no reason why not - he was often employed by the local police as an interpreter and it would seem likely that, having heard of the tragedy (Praia da Luz is, after all, a small village), he might have made his way to the complex to see if his services were required.

Why should he, then, go to such pains to deny that he ever left Casa Liliana?

Having produced no positive results, searches were halted on May 11. Meanwhile, police examined photographs taken by holidaymakers in the hunt for identifiable suspects, although no clear motive for taking the child had been put forward.

At this time, under area chief Goncalo Amaral, the Judicial Police (the equivalent of the UK's CID) were pursuing two theories and relevant lines of investigation: abduction by an international pedophile network, or by an illegal adoptions agency and the involvement of Gerry and Kate McCann.

What seems to have been overlooked at that time, by the star-struck Portuguese police, was the possibility that Madeleine might have been taken by a local intruder in a crime of opportunity, not linked in any way to the international kidnapping scene.

It is difficult to imagine why international criminal operatives - if they were planning to kidnap a child, for a wealthy sponsor in some far-off country - should choose Praia da Luz as their base of operations, unless a local had told them of a child ripe for kidnapping because of the observed lack of security, which would have called for a large number of events to have occurred over a short period of time.

Nevertheless, for an organised group to do so in the low holiday season makes it even more unlikely.

Equally, the small Algarve resort would have been an unattractive venue for international pedophiles, who would have been far more likely to prowl the soon-to-be crowded resorts of Spain's nearby costas than to chance the slim pickings on offer in Portugal in early May.

Self-confessed pedophiles to whom I talked while researching this book - an investigative journalist's lot is not always a happy one - also spoke deprecatingly of the idea of kidnapping a three-year-old for morbid sexual practices, pointing out that such a small child would only appeal to a limited few (shades here of Dr Hort's regression theory) and would have no value in the perverted marketplace of commercial pedophilia.

Again, a more likely possibility is that Madeleine left the apartment of her own accord by the route left open to her and from there begins the mystery of her fate.
However, the Portuguese investigators were moving in an entirely different and far less logical direction.

Source Australia's Sunday Telegraph

Note that Robert Murat has filed multiple lawsuits against around a dozen UK media organizations for libel. Murat remains an arguido, similar to a suspect, in the eyes of the Portuguese police. One of his business acquaintances had his car blown up earlier this year and the perpetrator wrote the word "talk" near the explosion

"I had no idea" cried Rosemarie Fritzl on seeing a white-haired, stooped and toothless Elisabeth

2008-06-08T06:24:00.000-07:00

Heres the German perspective on the Fritzl story, which the author recaps effectively. She also adds detail to the unforgettable moment when Rosemarie first saw Elisabeth who was so pale she looked like the "living dead."

Amstetten: Notes on a Catastrophe
by Lydia Stryk in Brooklyn Rail

THE BUNKER
It is not unusual for homes in Lower Austria, balanced as they were on the edge of the Iron Curtain through the long cold war, to have bunker-like cellars with thick concrete and steel reinforced doors. In 1978, Joseph Fritzl readily secured permission from the planning board in the town of Amstetten to build his bunker. In fact, he would likely have received a generous subsidy to help him along. The threat of a nuclear war was real. The construction of bunkers was encouraged.

Fritzl constructed his bunker as an extension of the cellar beneath the large building he owned at No. 40 Ybbstrasse which contained his home on the upper floors and several rental apartments below. To gain entrance to the bunker, you would have had to pass through five locked doors even to reach the extension and then to pass through three more metal and electronically operated doors. Only Fritzl knew the numeric code that opened the innermost door.

By most accounts, it was the middle of the night in late August of 1984, when Joseph Fritzl drugged, handcuffed and carried his fourth daughter, 18-year-old Elisabeth, whom he had been sexually abusing since her eleventh year, down into this bunker while his wife, Rosemarie, and Elisabeth’s three brothers and three sisters slept. Apparently, no one heard a thing.

For twenty-four years this sound-proofed bunker became Elisabeth’s torture cell and prison. For the first five of these years Elisabeth’s only contact with the outside world was her rapist father. And then she gave birth to the first of seven children he would force upon her. The first two, Kerstin, 19 (now lying critically ill in an artificially-induced coma) and Stefan, 18, would remain in the bunker with her. The next three would be removed and taken up into the light of day to be raised by their grandmother and grandfather/father. The twin of one of the “upstairs” children, ill at birth, had been tossed into the incinerator by Fritzl.

The last child, Felix, now five, whose fate it was to stay in the bunker, is said to have squealed “Is this heaven?!” on seeing the world above ground for the first time from the inside of the police van.

THE LIVING DEAD

Upon seeing her daughter, Elisabeth (who had become white-haired, stooped and toothless in the bunker), after twenty-four years, Rosemarie Fritzl is said to have cried out, “I had no idea.” Elisabeth Fritzl, now 42, is so pale she is translucent, like the living dead.

Some things are beyond the imagination, beyond any idea. Even when they are under your nose, so to speak. In your own cellar. It comes as no surprise—the evidence has been in since the beginning of recorded history—that patriarchal cultures commit unspeakable crimes against their daughters. What’s startling is Elisabeth’s life. What she endured and how that must have been and how she survived it. For twenty-four years.

Being locked in a windowless, sound-proofed, five and a half-foot underground prison consisting of three small rooms, a bathroom and a padded cell in which you are raped on a regular basis by your own father, is just something you can’t quite grasp as being humanly endurable. Giving birth in an airless tomb. Six times over. And then the children, new life, down there, from him.

Hearing of the quake in Sichuan Province with its tens of thousands buried alive, its children buried under their schools, the sick under their hospitals, the mind springs into action, we know what happened and we know what to do. There is work to be done, aid to be donated. But the Amstetten disaster calls out for an as yet uncalled-for response. Seismologists can’t help us figure it out.

The team of detectives sent in to investigate the bunker rooms in the cellar are said to have been forced to come up for air at least once an hour.

FREUD AND HITLER

Elisabeth Fritzl (Liesel, her father called her) had the cataclysmic misfortune, if we are to believe Joseph Fritzl, to remind him of his beloved mother. Raised alone by her, thus the only “man in the house,” as he puts it, Fritzl loved his mother in ways he refrained from acting upon. The daughter, Elisabeth, was to become “an addiction”—the “forbidden fruit” he could not resist.

In a very real way, which he himself has articulated by way of defense, the phenomenon, Fritzl, might be explained by the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s two most famous sons.

If one were to take Sigmund Freud’s theories to their most concrete and thus radical conclusion, you’d uncover Friztl in his bunker with the little family born of incest he buried alive there. The repressed and repressive bourgeois culture Freud put on the couch and dissected also produced Adolf Hitler. Seventy-five year old Fritzl volunteered under questioning that the iron discipline he maintained in his upstairs life was a value he learned as a boy under the Third Reich. Fritzl’s extensions under the earth were the ultimate extension of Nazi family ideology: a good wife and mother stays put in the home.

Elisabeth, already beaten into the kind of shy, submissiveness that often signals abuse, needed disciplining. She’d taken to drinking and had run away twice. She needed to be kept away from the influence of the outside world—by force, if necessary, Fritzl has explained. He built the prison as her punishment, to be sure, but also as a bunker to protect her and as a womb from which a second family might spring from his loins. He wanted her children. Fritzl told authorities he did his best to make it nice for them down there. He brought Liesel flowers and the children stuffed toys. Eventually, he brought them down an old television set—their only view of the world outside. He told authorities how he would watch sports and videos with the children, while Liesel cooked them “their favorite meals,” and then they would all sit down together and eat. While he raped her in the padded cell, the children watched that television.

The Austrian journalist, Franz Schandl, asks why we are so surprised. After all, the primary crime scene is the family. “The nucleus of protection is the nucleus of attack,” Schandl writes.

AUSTRIA AND US

Friztl, already a convicted rapist it turns out, constructed an elaborate lie to explain his daughter’s sudden disappearance that summer of ’84. He told the Amstetten police department and apparently his wife, that Elisabeth had sent word of having joined a cult in a foreign land, and that they were under no circumstance to look for her. He forced her to write a letter in her own hand as proof. And he later elaborated on this remarkable lie—producing letters, again forced from her own hand, announcing that Elisabeth couldn’t care for this or that baby and begging her parents to raise them. None of this was ever questioned. Nor were the appearance of the babies on the doorstep, seemingly out of nowhere. The authorities stamped approval of the first child’s adoption and the fostering of the two who followed.

While the nation’s current chancellor, Alfred Gusenbauer, vows a campaign to resuscitate his country’s “image problem,” a number of prominent Austrians have weighed in on “The Land of Dungeons” in ways sure to undermine his efforts. And how could one not begin to wonder whether something might be terribly wrong? Two short years ago saw the at-that-time unparalleled horror of the Natascha Kampusch case, in which a ten-year-old girl was abducted in a Vienna suburb and held in an underground bunker for eight years before escaping. As in this case, nobody seemed to question what in hindsight appears to be disturbing, telling signs.

As the writer Thomas Glavinic puts it, “Austrians hardly ever notice anything that might cause them discomfort.” Didn’t the Austrians welcome Hitler, their native son, with open arms? And then choose to play the victim role later, burying the discomfort of their complicity? Meanwhile, the nation’s Nobel- prize winning author, Elfriede Jelinek, equates the Fatherland, Austria, with the psycho-sexual oppressiveness of a fascist father, with Fritzl as its inevitable incarnation.

“I’m no monster,” Fritzl explains, while Glavinic asks of his countrymen: “How many more of the 700 people officially missing in this country are sitting in some underground prison as we speak?” And how many, he might have added, will join them now that the genie is out of the bottle?

The foundations are shaken and not just in Austria. Perhaps, if we listen too closely, we will hear someone banging on heating pipes for hours on end as the bunker family is said to have done, below our own feet.

No one mentions a happy ending to the story of Amstetten because there isn’t one. The capacity to endure the unthinkable disturbs as much as it provides solace of any kind. Elisabeth Fritzl and her bunker children are now above ground with us. One remains near death, the others are said to be adjusting quite well, “given the circumstances,” to the light and space and noise and air. Little Felix coos with delight at the world—at the sun and moon and stars. At cars and cell phones. If there is anything we can salvage from the horror story of Amstetten to go on with, it resides in that little soul whose chances for recovery are seen as realistic.
Lydia Stryk is a writer and playwright based in Berlin. www.lydiastryk.com

6/6 Kerstin's coma and Elisabeth's frailty slow down case
6/5 Despite being sex machine, Fritzl's weak heart could kill him
6/4 Josef Fritzl receives love letters from 300 Eleanor Rigbys; where do they all belong?
6/3 Josef Fritzl:"My mom was the best woman in the world...I was her husband in some way"
6/2 Rosemarie did not help the Incest Monster
5/31 Post-Fritzl Stress Disorder
5/30 No to $20 million: one TV show on Austrian TV; voice and face disguised
5/29 Elisabeth Fritzl kisses off the media millions; new IDs for the family
5/29 Fritzl's dungeon door weighed close to 666 lbs; the mark of the Beast
5/28 Forgotten victims of the Fritzl tragedy?
5/27 She's coming back! Kerstin Fritzl being eased out of coma
5/26 Elisabeth too frail to go on TV; 3 books in works
5/26 Josef Fritzl's vagina
5/25 Kerstin miracle recovery: longer term worries for all four
5/24 Kindergarten Cop offers to pay for Fritzl kids to meet him in California
5/23 After a lifetime in a cellar, selfish paparazzi may force Fritzl incest kids to go underground
5/23 Devious Bastard: Fritzl claimed $5600 a MONTH for looking after his 3 upstairs-incest kid
5/22 Planning to visit Fritzl's Austria? Dont eat the chocolate
5/22 Message from Elisabeth Fritzl to evil incest Dad: Show me the money
5/21 Elisabeth Fritzl gave her kids a good time in their dungeon; taught them 3R's
5/20 Evil Fritzl would spend all night in his rape-vault with Elisabeth; what was Rosemarie thinking?
5/19 Fritzl paid for holiday sex in Thai with rent-boys and male transvestites
5/19 Elisabeth to make millions from TV interview May 26
5/19 Fritzl casualties mount i9 scramble for 1st pic of Elisabeth
5/18 Felix Fritzl takes first trip to McDonalds; duelling shrinks
5/18 Condition of Kerstin Fritzl is improving...albeit slowly
5/17 Stefan and Felix marvel at sun, woodlands and pond fish
5/17 Police probe link to dead hooker: Hospital staff try to sell pics
5/17 Amstetten ignored Fritzl 24 yr; Zagreb ignores body 35 years
5/17 Fritzl told lies on top of lies with bluffs sandwiched
5/16 Ex sex slave claims Fritzl only loves himself
5/16 To save his own evil butt, Fritzl delayed Kerstin's hell
5/16 After a life in a cellar, Stefan and Felix scared of outside
5/16 Aussie - no crime in her 2 incest kids; wants Fritzl get life
5/15 Elisabeth Fritzl: My dad first raped me when I was 11
5/14 Take a look at picture drawn by cellar-kids to say thanks
5/14 Austrian Incest Monster Josef Fritzl has a Wiki
5/14 After 18 yrs in cellar, Stefan loves sun, fresh air
5/14 The Irish find silver lining in Fritzl atrocities
5/13 Police believe they may yet find bodies in Fritzl's maze
5/13 Austria co-hosts Euro2008,Fritzls house #1 attraction
5/13 Herr Fritzl was a flasher
5/13 Austria's right wing would cut off Fritzls balls
5/13 Lodger almost certain Rosemarie knew; Fritzl loves wife
5/12 Austrians respond to Fritzl image crisis: expose genitals
5/12 Long Dong Fritzl probed me with his 12 inch dipstick
5/12 Is Hannibal Fritzl too nuts to pay price for his sins?
5/12 Fritzl wins top parenting honors for April
5/12 Police prolong torture by letting Josef off arson
5/12 How could Rosemarie not know people were in cellar?
5/11 After 24 years as sex slave Elisabeth has love/hate for Josef
5/11 Why Elisabeth loves her monster dad: Stockholm syndrome
5/10 Upstairs, downstairs; Fritzl kids live close in different worlds
5/10 Grandson's evidence could send Fritzl to jail till he dies
5/10 Introducing the 14 children fathered by evil Josef Fritzl
5/10 Could Josef Fritzl be Dr Evil in disguise?
5/10 Viagra glutton Fritzl wanted to have sex with his mother
5/9 Fritzl may have raped granddaughter Kerstin: she's in a coma
5/9 Josef Fritzl: The Nazis made me do it
5/8 "I knew that i was hurting her; it was addiction"
5/8 Why he HAD to lock her up: she broke his rules
5/7 Fritzl excuse; mom beat him: Commies raped him?
5/7 Grandkids were inches away while mom raped
5/7 Austria prison pop is one sixth of Georgia US
5/7 Fritzl wants credit for not killing his family
5/7 Fritzl family receives cash from ex-victim
5/7 Austria's hookers tried to avoid kinky Fritzl
5/6 Fritzl raped; manacled to iron pipe; feed; rape
5/5 Fritzl tied up his daughter with a dog leash
5/4 Good Samaritan? Tenant knew Fritzl raped
5/3 Fritzl kids awestruck by the site of the moon
5/3 Austria's NAZI past may be key to Fritzl's behavior
5/3 Jovial by day; evil NAZI by night
5/1 Why some Austrian's obsessed with gassing? NAZI
4/30 From Sound of Music to sound of child abuse
4/28 Austrian child abuser should be strung up by balls

Kerstin's coma and Elisabeth's frailty slow down the building of the case against Josef Fritzl

2008-06-06T21:58:00.000-07:00

No big surprise. Police have received permission to detain rapist Josef Fritzl for two more months while they painstaking build the case against him. However, it is interesting to learn that Austria which Oxy Moran criticised for its seemingly light sentencing guidelines has a law allowing Police to detain a suspect for up to 2 years without starting a trial. This is even more draconian than the Italian laws which are currently allowing the wrongful detention of Amanda Knox in the Kercher murder case.

The latest delay is further confirmation that no matter how fast the media wills Kristin to make an instant recovery and for Elisabeth to be healthy enough to do TV, both women have a long way to go.

The specter of continuing delay is likely what led to the reports in the last 24 hours that Josef Fritzl might live long enough to see a trial.

Oxy Moran suspects that no trial would suit the Austrian government just fine as it tries to rebuild its shattered image as the country that Julie Andrews once graced in her role as savior of the Van Trappe family in the Sound of Music.

Fritzl held for two more months

A judge in Austria has extended by two months the detention of Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter in a cellar for 24 years.
The ruling came during a closed-door hearing in St Poelten, where Mr Fritzl has been held since the end of April.
The state prosecutor's office said more time was required to gather evidence.
Forensic experts are still examining the cellar where Mr Fritzl allegedly raped his daughter, Elizabeth, fathering seven children by her.
On Monday, prosecutors said they believed Mr Fritzl had acted without an accomplice despite the questions which have since been raised by former lodgers in his house in the town of Amstetten.
Evidence hunt
A spokesman for the Lower Austria state prosecutor's office, Gerhard Sedlacek, said Mr Fritzl's lawyer had not contested the extension of his detention at court on Thursday.

In Austria, a suspect can be held in custody for up to two years pending trial. No date has been set but Mr Sedlacek said Mr Fritzl was unlikely to be charged for another three or four months.
He said prosecutors were hoping to start interviewing Elisabeth Fritzl and her family in early July, but that the timing would depend on their state of health.
Doctors last month began bringing her eldest child, 19-year-old Kerstin, out of the coma they had induced to help her fight serious infections which may have damaged her brain.
Mr Fritzl's actions came to light when Kerstin became seriously ill in April. She was allowed out of the cellar and admitted to hospital.
Police then issued an appeal to Elisabeth to contact them about her daughter, and later picked up Mr Fritzl and Elisabeth nearby.
Elisabeth told police her father had started sexually abusing her when she was 11. In reported conversations with his lawyer, Mr Fritzl admitted repeatedly raping his daughter in the cellar, saying it had been "like an addiction".
Elisabeth and her children are continuing to be cared for at a psychiatric clinic, see photo at right, Their lawyer has said they are likely to be given new identities

Source BBC.com
Fritzl Files
6/6 Kerstin's coma and Elisabeth's frailty slow down case
6/5 Despite being sex machine, Fritzl's weak heart could kill him
6/4 Josef Fritzl receives love letters from 300 Eleanor Rigbys; where do they all belong?
6/3 Josef Fritzl:"My mom was the best woman in the world...I was her husband in some way"
6/2 Rosemarie did not help the Incest Monster
5/31 Post-Fritzl Stress Disorder
5/30 No to $20 million: one TV show on Austrian TV; voice and face disguised
5/29 Elisabeth Fritzl kisses off the media millions; new IDs for the family
5/29 Fritzl's dungeon door weighed close to 666 lbs; the mark of the Beast
5/28 Forgotten victims of the Fritzl tragedy?
5/27 She's coming back! Kerstin Fritzl being eased out of coma
5/26 Elisabeth too frail to go on TV; 3 books in works
5/26 Josef Fritzl's vagina
5/25 Kerstin miracle recovery: longer term worries for all four
5/24 Kindergarten Cop offers to pay for Fritzl kids to meet him in California
5/23 After a lifetime in a cellar, selfish paparazzi may force Fritzl incest kids to go underground
5/23 Devious Bastard: Fritzl claimed $5600 a MONTH for looking after his 3 upstairs-incest kid
5/22 Planning to visit Fritzl's Austria? Dont eat the chocolate
5/22 Message from Elisabeth Fritzl to evil incest Dad: Show me the money
5/21 Elisabeth Fritzl gave her kids a good time in their dungeon; taught them 3R's
5/20 Evil Fritzl would spend all night in his rape-vault with Elisabeth; what was Rosemarie thinking?
5/19 Fritzl paid for holiday sex in Thai with rent-boys and male transvestites
5/19 Elisabeth to make millions from TV interview May 26
5/19 Fritzl casualties mount i9 scramble for 1st pic of Elisabeth
5/18 Felix Fritzl takes first trip to McDonalds; duelling shrinks
5/18 Condition of Kerstin Fritzl is improving...albeit slowly
5/17 Stefan and Felix marvel at sun, woodlands and pond fish
5/17 Police probe link to dead hooker: Hospital staff try to sell pics
5/17 Amstetten ignored Fritzl 24 yr; Zagreb ignores body 35 years
5/17 Fritzl told lies on top of lies with bluffs sandwiched
5/16 Ex sex slave claims Fritzl only loves himself
5/16 To save his own evil butt, Fritzl delayed Kerstin's hell
5/16 After a life in a cellar, Stefan and Felix scared of outside
5/16 Aussie - no crime in her 2 incest kids; wants Fritzl get life
5/15 Elisabeth Fritzl: My dad first raped me when I was 11
5/14 Take a look at picture drawn by cellar-kids to say thanks
5/14 Austrian Incest Monster Josef Fritzl has a Wiki
5/14 After 18 yrs in cellar, Stefan loves sun, fresh air
5/14 The Irish find silver lining in Fritzl atrocities
5/13 Police believe they may yet find bodies in Fritzl's maze
5/13 Austria co-hosts Euro2008,Fritzls house #1 attraction
5/13 Herr Fritzl was a flasher
5/13 Austria's right wing would cut off Fritzls balls
5/13 Lodger almost certain Rosemarie knew; Fritzl loves wife
5/12 Austrians respond to Fritzl image crisis: expose genitals
5/12 Long Dong Fritzl probed me with his 12 inch dipstick
5/12 Is Hannibal Fritzl too nuts to pay price for his sins?
5/12 Fritzl wins top parenting honors for April
5/12 Police prolong torture by letting Josef off arson
5/12 How could Rosemarie not know people were in cellar?
5/11 After 24 years as sex slave Elisabeth has love/hate for Josef
5/11 Why Elisabeth loves her monster dad: Stockholm syndrome
5/10 Upstairs, downstairs; Fritzl kids live close in different worlds
5/10 Grandson's evidence could send Fritzl to jail till he dies
5/10 Introducing the 14 children fathered by evil Josef Fritzl
5/10 Could Josef Fritzl be Dr Evil in disguise?
5/10 Viagra glutton Fritzl wanted to have sex with his mother
5/9 Fritzl may have raped granddaughter Kerstin: she's in a coma
5/9 Josef Fritzl: The Nazis made me do it
5/8 "I knew that i was hurting her; it was addiction"
5/8 Why he HAD to lock her up: she broke his rules
5/7 Fritzl excuse; mom beat him: Commies raped him?
5/7 Grandkids were inches away while mom raped
5/7 Austria prison pop is one sixth of Georgia US
5/7 Fritzl wants credit for not killing his family
5/7 Fritzl family receives cash from ex-victim
5/7 Austria's hookers tried to avoid kinky Fritzl
5/6 Fritzl raped; manacled to iron pipe; feed; rape
5/5 Fritzl tied up his daughter with a dog leash
5/4 Good Samaritan? Tenant knew Fritzl raped
5/3 Fritzl kids awestruck by the site of the moon
5/3 Austria's NAZI past may be key to Fritzl's behavior
5/3 Jovial by day; evil NAZI by night
5/1 Why some Austrian's obsessed with gassing? NAZI
4/30 From Sound of Music to sound of child abuse
4/28 Austrian child abuser should be strung up by balls