A documentary about former captive Natascha Kampusch has been scrapped at the last minute by Austria’s national broadcaster after her family revealed she is suffering serious health problems which have left her ‘in her own world’.
Natascha, 38, was abducted aged 10 in 1998 by Wolfgang Přiklopil while walking to school in Austria and held prisoner in a secret basement cell in his house for eight years.
She was beaten, starved and turned into his sex slave before fleeing in August 2006.
Přiklopil, a technician in his 30s at the time who lived in his mother’s home, jumped in front of a train at a nearby station after learning she had escaped.
The ORF, Austria’s public broadcaster, produced a documentary about her to mark her 20th anniversary of freedom.
The documentary titled ‘Natascha Kampusch – Trapped in Freedom’ focused on her life today and was supposed to air tonight.
The channel released snippets of the programme last week, including comments from her sister claiming Natascha is ‘in a kind of prison again’ as she suffers from mental health problems which have left doctors ‘overwhelmed’.
But the documentary has now been postponed with the ORF claiming ‘differing opinions regarding Natascha Kampusch’s personal rights’ were behind its cancellation amid a row over its release.
Natascha, 38, was abducted aged 10 in 1998 by Wolfgang Přiklopil while walking to school in Austria
Přiklopil, a technician in his 30s at the time who lived in his mother’s home, jumped in front of a train at a nearby station after learning she had escaped
Natascha’s doctors were said to be opposed to the programme, while Austrian media lawyer Maria Windhager said it was a ‘massive violation of the most personal sphere of life.’
An Austrian victim charity had also initiated legal proceedings to prevent it airing.
Natascha wrote a book about her kidnapping, was the subject of a film and even presented her own TV talkshow in the years after.
But in the documentary, her sister Claudia Nestelberger revealed she is now ‘completely gone’.
She said: ‘Everyone knows how Natascha used to speak in front of the camera. That’s completely gone now.
‘She’s mostly in her own world. She’s in a kind of prison again. It’s heartbreaking and we feel helpless.’
In 2023, Natascha admitted she was ‘positive and hopeful’ about her future prospects.
She was designing her own jewellery collection and involved in building a hospital in Sri Lanka.
‘I spend a lot of time in nature and with my horse,’ she said.
Previously describing her time in captivity, Natascha said she was kept in a trapdoor in a garage which was just five by five metres, soundproofed and windwless.
She was beaten ‘up to 200 times a week’, chained to a bed at night and made to clean while half-naked.
She said from age 12 she imagined breaking out but regressed ‘to the age of a dependent toddler,’ asking to be tucked in and read bedtime stories.
Walking to school by herself on March 2, 1998, Natascha recalled how she noticed a strange Priklopil waiting by his white minivan.
‘I thought I don’t want to pass him,’ she said. ‘I thought “that’s strange, why is this person waiting there?” It didn’t make sense.
Natascha pictured aged 10 before her kidnapping in 1998. Since her escape, she has recounted her ordeal in a book titled 3,096 Days which was adapted into a movie of the same name
‘That’s when I wanted to switch to the other side of the road just to be safe. But then I thought “no, I have to do this” so you can say, “Okay, you had the courage to walk past him.”‘
However, as she went past him, Priklopil grabbed her and put her in the back of the vehicle before taking her to his house, where he kept her in a dungeon underneath the floor of his garage.
When she became a teenager, Priklopil would sometimes keep her upstairs with him to sleep but would tie her to the bed so she couldn’t escape.
‘He seemed to think it was his right to control me and use violence,’ said Natascha, who suggested her captor at this point imagined they were husband and wife.
She was warned by her kidnapper that there was no way out of her ordeal, with Priklopil saying he would kill her if she ever tried to escape.
Her mother Brigitta Sirny was originally accused of killing her child and admitted she ‘wanted to end it all’ after the allegations.
Brigitta previously said: ‘[A] private investigator said I killed her and threw her in the lake. That made me even more upset. It was very hard to go through all that. I stood outside on the balcony and I wanted to jump.
‘I wanted to end it all. Thank God I went back inside. But then I didn’t go on the balcony for three months. It caused very deep wounds.’