Girl in the Cellar (13 page)

The next step for police was the murky netherworld of child molesters and paedophiles. A list of twenty major suspects was drawn up, all guilty of child abduction or assault in the recent past. All had an alibi for the time Natascha went missing.

One man called the SB saying he was holding Natascha and wanted a million schillings in ransom. He called again and, while officers kept him talking, an armed team was dispatched as technicians rapidly traced the call. He turned out to be an alcoholic loser trying to cash in. Instead of a ransom he ended up with a jail sentence.

What set the Natascha case apart from other child abduction incidents was the complete and utter lack of clues after the initial disappearance. Haimeder from the Sicherheitsbüro called it ‘highly unusual'. Struggling children usually drop possessions or their pleas are heard. Apart from the sighting of her being pulled inside the van there was a distinct lack of forensic evidence. Haimeder added: ‘With all the resources at our disposal we have nothing. No traces, no clothes have been found, nothing.'

After the suspect from Graz was eliminated from police inquiries, the focus switched back once more to the child witness who saw the white van. The twelve-year-old girl who claimed to have seen Natascha getting into it was interviewed again at length. She said she saw Natascha around 7.15 a.m. near the round-about in Melangasse with a white van on the right-hand side of the road. The girl stated that the van appeared to be rather new, and had a high roof, dark side windows, and a single back window. As Natascha walked past the vehicle, one of two people reached out and pulled her inside.

She spent many hours with police, who trawled through manufacturers' brochures finding different models of vans. The girl identified the van she saw as a ‘Ford Transit-ish'—what Priklopil actually had was a Mercedes, a vehicle similar enough in appearance to merit him the visit from the police.

Hannes Scherz, meanwhile, was increasingly convinced there was something wrong with the picture he
was getting: ‘I have never experienced anything like it, something is wrong,' he said. ‘It is very rare that children of Natascha's age run away from home. And if they do, they come back after a few days. And if it should be a sex crime, the site of the crime is usually close to the home of the victim.'

Well, Priklopil was indeed only a short car journey away.

‘Natascha's family informed us that she never went off with strangers,' Scherz added. Could the family themselves be behind the disappearance of Natascha? The question that had become the chatter of Vienna's pubs and cafés was put to him in a newspaper interview. He replied: ‘Of course we also considered that. But the father has been absolutely eliminated from the suspect list.' About the mother he was less emphatic, but said: ‘She does not seem to have anything to do with it. At least, we don't have any clues.'

Hans Girod, a criminology professor at the University of Berlin, speculated at the time about the profile of the possible kidnapper:

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:

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.

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.

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)