by Allan Hall
Prominent distinctive features in such cases are the active participation of the offender in the search for the missing person, putting up missing persons adverts or putting about self-accusations in a circle of close friends.
The Kurier newspaper introduced a new factor into the investigation when it hired the private detective Walter Poechhacker, a move that instantly put him at odds with the SB, who saw it as a public insult that they had hired a single man to do the work of their agency. After he had investigated it for a week, the newspaper paid him off but, convinced there was more to be found, he then carried on working on the case for free, and asked for his newspaper fee to be paid to the St Anna Children’s Hospital in Vienna. Poechhacker told the authors:
I had worked on nine missing children cases, and this was my tenth. I had solved all the other nine, and as soon as I started looking at it I was convinced that someone within the family or the community was involved. It just doesn’t happen that a child can vanish so completely and effectively if a complete stranger is involved. Such a clean disappearance only comes with careful planning and with someone who knows what and who they are looking for.
He admits that initially he suspected the father, but after talking to friends he soon realised there had been a strong bond of love between the two. Numerous people told him how happy Natascha had been with her father, and how much she enjoyed her time with him.
In a newspaper article, Poechhacker wrote: ‘All the evidence points to a kidnapping, that the answer to this case lies in the immediate environment of Natascha. If all those concerned were tested with a polygraph or lie-detector test, then the answer would quickly become clear.’
Convinced that a lie-detector test might settle the case and prove his theory that a member of the family was involved, Poechhacker invited a German professor to Vienna to test five principal suspects, including the mother and father. The £5,000 cost of the tests he paid out of his own money. But the procedure did not go as well as he had hoped: ‘The professor, who was 81 years old, was late getting here, and could only interview three candidates. The other two candidates had to be interviewed the next day.’
But he was particularly unhappy that it was not the professor but an assistant who had questioned the mother. He later learned that, in any case, the scientist’s work was discredited after he gave evidence that helped get a US soldier stationed in Germany convicted for murdering his wife, only for the real murderer to be found a month later. ‘It was really a shame that we had him and not someone else. Who knows what might have been uncovered at this point?’
Nonetheless, Poechhacker believes the exercise was not completely flawed. He claims that it revealed that there was one person connected to the family who was clearly guilty of something. He said: ‘One person who was tested was in a nervous state the like of which I have never before witnessed. That person smoked non-stop, their hands shook, and when I looked into their eyes we both knew what the other was thinking. I thought we were going to get a confession at that point.’ He refused to say who that person was.
After the tests were carried out Poechhacker had offered to give the results and the interview tapes to the police, but claims there was little of interest in them. The original lie-detector tests were carried out on 19 December 1998, and the tapes in fact remained with the detective until 28 February 2001, when he offered them again and the Natascha task force finally accepted them.
In a book he wrote on the case, Poechhacker states that he believes that the mother’s lovers and associates were not properly investigated by the police.
In television and newspaper appearances she [Frau Sirny] made an impressive figure, in contrast to Herr Koch, who seemed somewhat helpless and lost for words. She had a Madonna statue in her flat that was always in the background as she spoke about her daughter. There was a photo of Natascha next to it. She would explain to people who said she seemed cold that she merely seemed tough, and reserved her tears for the privacy of her own four walls.
One question that has not been properly answered remains: how strong were the connections between Frau Sirny, her married lovers including Ronnie Husek, and Wolfgang Priklopil, who all drank in the same bar over the years?
The detective Poechhacker was convinced throughout his work on the case that police were trying to deflect him from investigating Natascha’s mother and the men around her. He wrote in his book that he got the impression that there was ‘pressure from above’ for detectives ‘not to investigate in this direction’.
He says in his book that he stated quite clearly to police that it was his impression that all lines of inquiry relating to Brigitta Sirny were being closed down. He added that Max Edelbacher, chief of the SB from 1988 to 2002, when it was scrapped and he was demoted, had admitted in a telephone conversation that there was ‘resistance’ in the Natascha task force to investigating Frau Sirny’s connections, but he alone was unable to change it.
‘I sympathise with him,’ said Poechhacker, ‘but I do not understand why, if he is head of the SB, he didn’t simply just say to them, do it. I believe by this point there were already orders from above telling them to cover their mistakes by hook or by crook.’
At one point Poechhacker wrote to the Austrian Home Office to complain about the lack of progress and enthusiasm in the Natascha case, but nothing was done. He also suggested that senior detectives who were part of the investigation might not have been too keen to have a scandal erupting as they climbed the promotional ladder. In particular he named Edelbacher and Geiger, who at one time were both short-listed to head the new élite police force formed from the disbanded rump of the SB.
Photographic Insert
A school picture of Natascha taken in the last year before she vanished when she was rumoured to have been unhappy at home.
© ABC, Vienna
© Österreich
Natascha aged four, in 1992, when this picture was taken of her for a calendar, which her father kept throughout the long years of her imprisonment.
© ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics (CEN)/Grainger Laffan
This is the photo from the passport that she happened to have with her when she was seized in 1998. That fact led the police investigation in numerous wrong directions.
© ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics(CEN)
© EuroPics (CEN)/Grainger Laffan
The run-down Rennbahnweg housing estate where Natascha lived with her mother and from where she was kidnapped on her way to school.
© ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics(CEN)/Michael Leidig
A typical little girl’s bedroom, but Natascha spent many hours alone here. Her mother kept it untouched from the day Natascha disappeared.
© ABC, Vienna
© Franz Gruber
The block of flats where Priklopil used to live and where his mother still lived until she was forced to go into hiding by the tumultuous events of August 2006.
© ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics(CEN)/Michael Leidig
Priklopil’s BMW was his pride and joy. This is the car that Natascha was cleaning when she seized her chance to escape.
© ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics(CEN)/Michael Leidig
The warehouse where Priklopil and his friend Ernst Holzapfel based their renovations business.
© ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics(CEN)/Michael Leidig
The ‘Wanted’ picture of Wolfgang Priklopil, issued by police in the immediate aftermath of Natascha’s escape and just hours before he committed suicide.
© ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics(CEN)
Christine’s Schnellimbiss, the snack bar that Natascha’s parents and Priklopil all visited and that may have provided a link between Natascha and her kidnapper.
© ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics(CEN)/Michael Leidig
The junction at Melangasse and Rennbahnweg in Vienna, close to her school gates, from where Natascha was snatched by Priklopil.
; © ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics(CEN)/Michael Leidig
The white van that was used in the kidnapping, parked in a police yard. This vehicle provided the only concrete lead in the case, but it didn’t yield a result.
© ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics(CEN)
The sign at the town limits of Strasshof that Natascha was driven past by her kidnapper on the way to the cellar where she would spend the next eight years of her life.
© ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics(CEN)/Michael Leidig
In the aftermath of her daughter’s disappearance, Natascha’s mother Brigitta Sirny displays one of the police missing posters put up across the capital.
© ABC, Vienna
(Sipa Press)
The missing poster that was posted on the Internet as the hunt for Natascha went international and fears grew she had been sold into the child sex trade.
© ABC, Vienna
© Rex Features
Wolfgang Priklopil’s seemingly unremarkable home, where Natascha spent 3,096 days locked in a cellar.
© ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics(CEN)/Michael Leidig
The stairs from the garage leading down to a small workshop where there was a concealed entrance to Natascha’s dungeon.
© ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics(CEN)
Priklopil’s system of concealment was virtually foolproof. This is the cupboard in front of the hidden entrance.
© ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics(CEN)
The last of four doors that leads from the antechamber to the tiny dungeon. One of the four cellar doors nearly severed Priklopil’s finger in the early days of Natascha’s imprisonment.
© ABC, Vienna
© Rex Features
Courtesy Bundeskriminalamt, Vienna
A graphic representation of Natascha’s hidden dungeon home. The uniquely horrifying nature of her ordeal has been constantly stressed by all those who have been involved in the case.
© ABC, Vienna
Courtesy Bundeskriminalamt, Vienna
View from the entrance to the cellar room showing Natascha’s elevated bed.
© ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics(CEN)
The day before she was kidnapped, Natascha had told a friend she dreamed of having her own writing desk, not knowing how soon she would get her wish.
© ABC, Vienna
© Rex Features
A tiny space at the end of the hidden room was Natascha’s bathroom and toilet with no barrier between it and the living area where she passed the time.
© ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics(CEN)
Over the years, Priklopil bought Natascha clothes, books and toys. But despite the clutter, this could never be a normal teenager’s bedroom.
© ABC, Vienna
© Rex Features
Aerial view of the house showing the rear garden with the disused swimming pool (white circle) where Priklopil grew tomatoes and the rear garage with white van parked outside it. The green square just below that is a plastic sheet on which soil from the garden was placed for forensic analysis.
© ABC, Vienna
© Katarina Angerer/EuroPics(CEN)
The last image of Wolfgang Priklopil, recorded by a CCTV camera on the day of Natascha’s escape, shortly before he committed suicide.
© ABC, Vienna
© Reuters
At about the same time, Natascha is led from the Donaustadt police station under a blanket. She is wearing the dress and ballet slippers she escaped in and the marks on her legs are clearly visible.
© ABC, Vienna
(photo Karl Schoendorfer)
© EuroPics(CEN)/Michael Leidig
Natascha’s horrific ordeal and dramatic escape were front page news in Austria for weeks and the story quickly became an international phenomenon.
© ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics(CEN)/Michael Leidig
Natascha’s first TV interview was the most viewed programme of all time in Austria with over 2.7 million viewers, or 80 per cent of the market.
© ABC, Vienna
© EuroPics(CEN)/Michael Leidig
Natascha’s dad Ludwig Köch with a copy of one of the first pictures taken of his daughter after her extraordinary reappearance.
© ABC, Vienna
© First Look
Her mother Brigitta Sirny with a picture of her daughter after learning she had been freed.
© ABC, Vienna
© Junior Foto, Vienna
Natascha, her mum (in the red suit) and other family members go flat hunting. The return to normal life will be long and potentially difficult, even for someone as exceptionally resilient and courageous as Natascha Kampusch.
© ABC, Vienna
© AP/Empics/Helmut Stamberg
Geiger, 51, was head of the Homicide Commission of the Vienna SB from 1991 until 2002, and then became head of the Criminal Police Department. In 2005 he was decorated with a silver medal for merits in serving the country, but early in 2006 he was given a suspended three-month sentence for tipping off pimps about impending police raids on their illegal brothels.
Natascha’s mother meanwhile showed she was well capable of using the media to further her cause. At one point she triggered a huge debate across the country after she told the local public broadcaster the ORF that her family allowance for Natascha had been stopped just over a week after she vanished. She said: ‘They told me where there is no child there is no money.’ The family minister even got involved at one point, and messages of support from the public came flooding in, with offers of money to aid in the search for Natascha.
She also started a campaign of criticism of the SB for daring to suggest that a poor mother could be involved in the disappearance of her daughter. Her interview with one newspaper sparked a campaign against this police line of inquiry.
The police probe included questioning two of her married lovers. This infuriated the men in question, as, according to Poechhacker, they were terrified their wives would find out. One had been pulled out of his local pub and invited to allow police to search his flat, which he had agreed to as his wife was away at the time. They also tried to find a third man but never succeeded.
One of the other two, Ronnie Husek, is understood to have spent the weekend with Brigitta Sirny before Natascha vanished. He was known to be wealthy and it is believed he was the source of the funding that Frau Sirny had spoken about with Frau Glaser when she said she expected to start up in business again shortly.
With Natascha still missing and the finger-pointing increasing, the pressure on her parents also increased, and with no love lost between them they started blaming each other for the girl’s disappearance.
The accusations had first started on 22 March 1998, when Natascha’s mother told local newspaper Kronen Zeitung that on trips to Hungary the father had been in the habit of taking Natascha to nightclubs that in Austria you would need to be over 21 to visit. She said: ‘I asked him how an adult person could be so stupid as to take a ten-year-old child into a disco where go-go girls were performing.’
Hungary was quickly ruled out as a crime scene. Not only did Natascha’s schoolfriends, interviewed by police officers, emphasise how much she spoke of enjoying the time she spent there, but in addition, one hundred Hungarian officers had searched the village where Natascha’s father owned a house and questioned neighbours. The house itself was put under observation. Neighbours set up patrols and one policeman was stationed there. The result was they believed her father was telling the truth and had no idea where his daughter was.
For his part Natascha’s father, tormented with grief and not enjoying the best of relations with his ex, became convinced his wife was involved, and made a claim accusing her of involvement in their daughter’s abduction. He later retracted it, and when Natascha was finally found, apologised. He said: ‘The main thing is my little girl is back, anything else is unimportant. I don’t want to create any bad feeling.’
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br /> Natascha’s face then, as now, was all over Vienna as the increasingly desperate search dragged on. She stared out from posters plastered all over the capital. Her image was even pinned up in Christine’s truck-stop bar, no doubt giving Priklopil some strange satisfaction when he called in there for his apple juice and sausage snack.
She featured on an Austrian version of Crimewatch called Aktenzeichen XY Ungeloest or ‘Cases XY Unsolved’, during which a member of the public called in to say they had spotted Natascha in a car with Hungarian licence plates.
‘If we had a crime scene, it would be much easier,’ bleated Haimeder of the SB. After a summit in the Sicherheitsbüro the night before, police decided to change their strategy. ‘The time of big searching operations is over,’ he declared. The police were to switch to more detailed, smaller swoops.
Natascha’s parents reported that people continued to approach them, claiming to have seen their daughter. One man called repeatedly, asserting that he lived in Langenzersdorf and then also in Gänserndorf. ‘He said that he had kidnapped Natascha because she reminded him of his deceased daughter. That would fit the clues claiming our child had been driven away in a bus with Gänserndorf plates,’ said Ludwig. The capacity that other people had to play cruel mind games with them left them wounded, astounded and exhausted.
