Josef Fritzl, the man who kept his daughter locked in a cellar for 24 years, and had seven children with her, was a big fan of The Sound Of Music, and may have been trying to recreate it in his home, police in Amstetten have said.
Herr Fritzl, who is 73, was known to his family as Captain von Trapp, presumably because he had 'trapped' them, and the nutcase named his seven captive offspring after the children in the 1965 film starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.
It seems that Fritzl hated his wife, and had, for several years, advertised in the local newspaper for "an actress in the Julie Andrews mould", but staff at the offices of the Amstetten Gazette thought he was just a local eccentric who liked old films.
Fritzl forced the seven children - Liesel, Fredrick, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta and Gretel - to sing So Long, Farewell every night before he lay down with his daughter to 'rock' her to sleep. Others they were made to recite were My Favourite Things, Sixteen, Going On Seventeen and Do-Re-Mi.
The Lonely Goatherd, though, was banned, as Fritzl thought it was "obscene".
The policeman heading the investigation, Detective Hans Anschluss, told members of the media circus:
"This is what watching too much TV does to you."
The family are now planning an escape over the Alps into Switzerland.
