A woman was chained up in a basement and repeatedly raped and forced to eat and drink “like a dog” from a bowl in a house of horrors in the Czech Republic, authorities say.
The 27-year-old victim, who escaped with a chain still around her neck, had her head shaved and was heinously tortured and starved to the point that she looked like she was “from a concentration camp,” a resident told local outlet iDNES.cz.
“It’s horrible. I never would have dreamed that something like this could happen here,” another local told the Czech publication Zatecky Denik, speaking from the village of Sirem, about 30 miles northwest of the capital of Prague and once home to the country’s most famous literary figure, Franz Kafka.
The woman’s accused torturer is a man known only as Karel N., a 40-year-old truck driver who reportedly did not live in the village but drove to the derelict property, where he kept his victim for three months — in a case that has drawn eerie similarities with that of Austria’s most notorious sex fiend, Josef Fritzl, the Daily Mail said.
The Czech victim had been trapped in the basement since November, local media said.
She was miraculously able to escape at night last week when her captor wasn’t home and she fled to a nearby neighbor.
“I was woken up by the doorbell at three in the morning,” the resident told iDNES.cz. “I looked out the window, and there was a young woman standing there. I was terribly scared. She looked miserable.
“I took her inside, she collapsed, cried and kept begging desperately for help,” the neighbor added to Zatecky Denik. “She said that her acquaintance raped her, tied her up with a chain, starved her and tortured her. He only occasionally gave her water and food in bowls like a dog.”
Another resident told iDNES, “She had a chain around her neck, and it was bone and skin like from a concentration camp.”
Police spokesman Kamil Marek told reporters, “In connection with this case, we arrested a 40-year-old man and subsequently charged him with the crimes of deprivation of personal liberty, rape, and extortion.”
The suspect remains in custody, as he is considered a flight risk because of his regular travels across the border as a truck driver, authorities said.
Czech media reported that the man had previously abused and tortured another woman at the house four years ago after luring her there with the promise of a job.
He was jailed for three years for rape and deprivation of liberty before being released early on probation in 2022 after appealing.
“I knew the defendant through my aunt, whom he was dating,” the female victim in that case told a local court at the time.
“He approached me saying I could work as a hostess. I was unemployed, I was looking forward to having [a job]. We agreed that he would pick me up at home and that I would go to his place to take some photos and sign a contract.”
Instead, the 22-year-old woman had a dog mask put on her head and was hung from chains on all fours and given electric shocks, she said.
A female accomplice reportedly helped Karel N. with his crimes.
If found guilty of the latest offenses, he faces up to 12 years in prison.
In the unspeakable case of Fritzl, he held his own daughter hostage in a basement dungeon for 24 years and repeatedly raped her, fathering seven children with her, before his horrific crimes were uncovered in 2008.
