10-Year-Old Girl Was Abducted Off the Street. After 8 Years Beneath a Trapdoor, She Seized Her Chance to Escape By Christina Coulter

For eight years, Natascha Kampusch lived entombed beneath a suburban home — a child stolen off a Vienna street and hidden behind a trapdoor, her world reduced to concrete walls and the man who controlled, beat and humiliated her. She was 10 when she was abducted — and 18 when she finally ran to freedom.

Her abductor, 36-year-old Wolfgang Priklopil, had built a soundproof cellar beneath his home in Strasshof, Austria. The concrete bunker — accessible only through a hidden hatch and steel door — became her world, The Guardian reported.

“It was beneath a trapdoor in the garage, down some stairs, through a hollowed-out concrete wall hidden behind a cupboard,” she told the outlet. “It was five by five meters, bare, soundproofed, windowless — and filled with the rattle of a fan.”

Kampusch said she was beaten “up to 200 times a week,” describing injuries so severe she once heard bones crack, per CNN. Prikopil often made her clean half-naked and sometimes chained her to his bed at night.

In her memoir 3,096 Days, she declined to spell out intimate details but wrote that the sexual abuse was “minor,” per The Guardian. Years later, a 2013 film adaptation titled 3096 Days dramatized her ordeal — including scenes of sexual assault that Kampusch herself has not confirmed or discussed publicly.

In one account from her memoir, Kampusch recalled the night he bound their wrists together and pulled her into his bed. She braced for rape, but instead, “the man who beat me… wanted to cuddle,” she wrote.

Over time, Kampusch found ways to survive by controlling what she could. Early on, she said she regressed “to the age of a dependent toddler,” asking to be tucked in and read bedtime stories, she told The Guardian. At 12, she imagined her 18-year-old self promising to one day overpower her captor — a pact that kept her alive, she told the publication.

She also clung to routine, describing days of reading, cooking and cleaning “year in and year out,” according to ABC News Australia. As she grew older, she began to fight back in small ways, refusing to call Priklopil “Maestro” despite his orders.

“I proved to myself that I was strong … that I hadn’t lost my self-respect,” she told A&E.

On August 23, 2006, while she was vacuuming the same white van used in her abduction, a phone call distracted Priklopil.

“I stood frozen,” she recalled in her memoir. “Then everything happened so fast. I dropped the vacuum cleaner and bolted to the garden gate. It was open.”

A neighbor called police. Hours later, DNA confirmed Kampusch’s identity. But before he could be apprehended, Priklopil died by suicide.

After her rescue, Kampusch drew attention not just for her survival but for the compassion she expressed toward her captor.

“I mourn for him,” she told The Guardian after his death. “Had I met him only with hatred, that hatred would have eaten me up and robbed me of the strength I needed to make it through.

Now 37, Kampusch still lives in Vienna. She has written several books, hosted a talk show, and bought the Strasshof house to prevent it from becoming a shrine.

“I want to reclaim the interpretation of my own story,” she said.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.