Girl In The Cellar + Priklopil

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'Self reliant, good with his hands and fastidious in his habits, he never drank, didn't smoke, didn't gamble and certainly had no time for women'

'At some point, the loner who shared his life with cats, who doted on his mother,whose idea of a wild night was to read electronics magazines and technology journals, crossed the rubicon from fantasy to reality and began to convert a cellar into a customised subterranean dungeon'

'His parents used to worry about his lack of school friends. He was happiest reading in his room or completing huge Jigsaw puzzles of famous structures like the Eiffle Tower. He also liked model-making and plastic aircraft kits. Essentially, he was into all kinds of solitary pursuits that kept him separate from his peers'

'He was the kind of obedient student teachers pray for, even if his academic prowess was less than stellar'

'She recalls priklopil's mother complaining that her son was obsessed with technology and that just getting into the family's house in Strasshof was 'a real effort'

'The only thing I was surprised about is that he never spoke about girls, not once. And he was such a handsome man. He also looked a lot younger than he was'

He is described as 'A petrol head who really only became animated when talking about machines, not his fellows'

About women he said 'all girls are tarts. They don't interest me. I want a partner who will understand when I want to be alone, who can cook well, is happy to be only a housewife, who looks good but does not consider looks important. I want a woman who will simply support me in everything I do'


These are just some things said of Wolfgang Priklopil, the man who kidnapped Natascha Kampusch when she was 10, and kept her until she was 18 and managed to run away (in 2006)

Personally, I have found everything I have read points to somewhere on the autistic spectrum...it is almost as if he wanted to build and train himself his ideal woman because he was incapable of achieving anything in real life with females...what do others think?

I think he made Natascha slightly autistic too, and since she already seemed to be almost if not on the spectrum... she's the kind of person I can identify with, anyway... she got along with him well and was able to identify with him, they developed an understanding, etc.


All German people seem to look autistic, some more than others... Natascha in some pictures looks like that.

I don't believe she is autistic. She is extroverted, sociable, intelligent, got on well and was popular among her peer group, and had no obsessions from what I have read... although she did interract well with adults, but that would come from being highly intelligent, and she clearly is as she worked out Priklopil's inadequacies right away as a child and worked out how to get the best out of the situation. Nope, I think the understanding came because both had a high level of intelligence and maybe to a degree, she had some understanding of what it is to suffer.

It is natural she might appear autistic on her emergence simply because he has been her only human contact for over 8 years, and she has been, for a large period, locked in a tiny, soundproof dungeon with someone else controlling her every breath.

He, on the other hand, appears to have displayed almost every trait one would expect in a person with Aspergers...there is extensive material on his background and mannerisms in the book.

One psych said he didn't take priklopil to be psychopathic, but more neurotic.
I think he thought he could mold a female child into his ideal companion, but hadn't bargained on picking one so intelligent and so strong willed...stronger than he was.

Exactly... he wanted to make her autistic like him, so that she would understand him and know how to meet his needs, how to keep him company and be his soul mate. Any NT who understands autism is a bit autistic themself, or how would they understand it?

One does not have to be slightly autistic to understand autism anymore than one has to be slightly NT to understand being NT.
We all have a little of all of the human conditions within ourselves anyway, I am guessing, but there is no evidence that is the slightest bit autistic.
The impact of a lack of human contact is entirely different to the brain wiring that encompasses Autism.

One does not have to be something to be able to gain a reasonable understanding of it.
Anyone with a decent brain and keen observational skills would have been able to figure out Priklopil, and anyone with a decent brain would have done what it took to keep him in a good mood.

Hate to break it to you, but we're all slightly NT. Yourself included.

Yes, which is exactly why in my last post, I said

, but then what do you define as NT eh ? And just because one might say all of those with Autism have a little NT in them is not to say all of those who are NT have a little Autism in them...and anyway, how can your qualify that? NT= neurotypical=normal brain wiring. Those with Autism supposedly have a differently wired brain, so how are you qualifying 'NT' ?
Maybe it is, as I said, that we all have elements of the human condition, as much as anything.
Afterall, the sense of isolation is not something confined to those with Autism anymore than the desire to be social is confined to so called 'NT's

His problem isn't autism, it's narcissism. He defines "good" as "good for me" and looks no further.

He made 'Rome' come to him rather than trying to build real relationships. But I read he was sadistic towards her. But yes he sound more like a narcissist possibly with autism.

I think at the beginning he did the old classic of telling her that no-one was looking for her, that no-one cared, then he made her sit through reports on the search for her.
Later on, it would seem she ended up living more with him up in the house, doing cooking, shopping, watching movies, although she always had to return down to her dungeon room at night.
It is a difficult one as there are so many facets.
One thing of note that Natascha has said is that he never invaded her privacy. She kept a diary and he did not read it. He always knocked before coming into her space or asked... isn't that a little odd for someone who kidnapped a child? I find it so.

However, he did use certain forms of torture, namely not giving her food for days on end.

I think at the beginning he did the old classic of telling her that no-one was looking for her, that no-one cared, then he made her sit through reports on the search for her.
Later on, it would seem she ended up living more with him up in the house, doing cooking, shopping, watching movies, although she always had to return down to her dungeon room at night.
It is a difficult one as there are so many facets.
One thing of note that Natascha has said is that he never invaded her privacy. She kept a diary and he did not read it. He always knocked before coming into her space or asked... isn't that a little odd for someone who kidnapped a child? I find it so.

However, he did use certain forms of torture, namely not giving her food for days on end.

I think at the beginning he did the old classic of telling her that no-one was looking for her, that no-one cared, then he made her sit through reports on the search for her.
Later on, it would seem she ended up living more with him up in the house, doing cooking, shopping, watching movies, although she always had to return down to her dungeon room at night.
It is a difficult one as there are so many facets.
One thing of note that Natascha has said is that he never invaded her privacy. She kept a diary and he did not read it. He always knocked before coming into her space or asked... isn't that a little odd for someone who kidnapped a child? I find it so.

However, he did use certain forms of torture, namely not giving her food for days on end.

Yep there is no doubt he was trying to create an ideal. But what would he want with a 9 year old girl? How far into the future was he planning? We can't be sure what happened to her, she said she is not going to talk about it which is fair enough.

Yes it is true that is hard to see obvious sadism but then again isn't it sadistic to deny a child a childhood? That is a sort of sadism of someone who wants to have control beyond just violence that would be too easy and possibly short lived.

It be equated to loneliness, sort of. But we know from his own words he was looking for someone to look up to him and call him master. That is quite narcissistic. It was for his benefit, he was trying to mould someone to be his ideal companion.

I think we can fail to take into account others point of view and also not realise we are being unreasonable but I'm not sure that it automatically follows that we would do such a thing.

I do think there is as very strong possibly that he is on the spectrum, but I think he developed a high degree of narcissism. They say that usually happens early childhood, his autism might have caused his parent to treat him differently. Narcissist apparently see children as an extension of themselves so maybe this guy saw this girl as an extension of him.

Hmmm. I do wonder about his childhood. There is a degree about it in the book. He was cruel to animals, making his own weapons and shooting birds with it, and taking pot shots at dogs, but he never harmed cats as he had a respect for their solitary and independent ways.

I shall read up more on NPD. It seems that it is actually rare for AS to exist entirely on it's own anyway...almost all I have seen have something or other running in tandem, whether it be depression, OCD, bi-polar or anxiety disorder. With Priklopil, whatever else co-existed with his Autistic traits clearly came to the forefront.

One has to wonder though at Kampusch's reluctance to speak ill of him.
She speaks of some of what he did, but she does not like ill being spoken of him around her and it is as if she has some sort of respect for the man.
I do wonder if she will ever release the full details... maybe she is being rather calculating and plans on writing it all in a book one day, and is revealing as little as possible now... I think she has and had her own issues, to be honest, along with a shrewd and calculating mind.

Priklopil committed suicide of course, once she left, but I am thinking he let her go. He wasn't an idiot.
He must have realised if he turned his back outside, she would be off, regardless of any understanding they had built up.
She claims he even said things throughout the years that hinted he almost wanted her to escape from him.

It is a shame he is dead now as we will never really get to find out what diagnoses he would have got.

Cruelty to animals is something that is something that is characteristic in sadism, sociopathy / psychopath and other personality disorders.

I've heard some of these people would give these animals an unnecessary cruel death such as kicking a dog to death. It is known that someone saw hilter kicked a dog when he was in the front in WWI.

We should never forget that psychiatric diagnoses are just bunches of criteria describing a person`s behavior (including verbal and behavioral accounts about emotions, thoughts, perceptions etc.), so there are lots of criteria belonging to different diagnoses and people can fulfill the criteria for one or more diagnoses and show some criteria of others. A psychiatric diagnosis is not a disease but just a name for a way of human functioning seen as more or less maladaptive.
The concept of personality traits and personality disorders seems to be somehow parted from the autism/NT differentiation. By definition, a person can be on the autistic spectrum and fulfill the criteria for any personality disorder. Nevertheless, formally, once a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder is made, that may exclude a diagnosis of a personality disorder. In DSM 5, concerning personality disorders, it says: “The impairments in personality functioning and the individual’s personality trait expression are not better understood as normative for the individual’s developmental stage or socio-cultural environment.” and “The impairments in personality functioning and the individual’s personality trait expression are not solely due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., severe head trauma)”. It can be argued if being on the spectrum should be considered a developmental stage or a general medical condition. My guess is, by professionals it is often considered to be one of those.

Behavioral phenomena like Priklopil`s childhood cruelty to animals, Hitler`s kicking a dog (can´t remember ever having noticed a report about that in any of the five biographical books I have read about him, by the way) or Priklopil`s repeated gross violence against his captive can be found in people with antisocial personality disorder but also in some of those on the autistic spectrum.
Generally, intelligence seems to be negatively correlated to the probability of aggressive behavior; in people on the spectrum maybe more so than in neurotypical persons. A meltdown can lead to socially inacceptable behavior. Wild aggression is a phylogenetically old and quite basic pattern of action in mammals (or all vertebrates?) under high stress.

Taking the different aspects of his reported behavior into account I consider the rudimentarily controlled aggressive bursts Natascha Kampusch had to suffer expressions of panic about the lack of subjective control by Priklopil, who was one of us on the spectrum as far as I can see.