Lydia Gouardo, now 45, said her nightmare began when she was only nine years old. She said she was often raped three times a day. “My stepmother sometimes helped him,” Gouardo said.

The last time she was abused was on November 13, 1999, one week before her father died.

Unlike Fritzl, Gouardo was not locked up. “I thought what he did was normal. I only ran away when he beat me,” she said. Her father’s death freed her and eventually led to charges being filed against Gouardo’s stepmother.