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VIENNA - Natascha Kampusch said today she might have avoided her kidnapper but did not cross the street as he stalked her by car because she feared looking foolish.
Kampusch, 18, was forced to live in a cell beneath a house garage from 1998 until her dramatic escape last August, which turned her into an international media sensation. Her captor, a 44-year-old man, committed suicide hours after she slipped away.
Kampusch spoke in a 50-minute Austrian ORF television special that featured a dramatic reconstruction of her kidnapping, captivity and escape.
She recalled the day she was walking to school when Wolfgang Priklopil pulled alongside in a white van and forced her inside.
"I had already noticed him following me from some distance away and thought to myself, 'What is this guy doing here?' Somehow I had a gut feeling, I knew, that something was wrong, he seemed weird," Kampusch related.
"But I didn't cross the street because I was afraid to get run over. I thought it wasn't necessary. I didn't want to make a fool out of myself, so I just kept on walking."
As Priklopil drove off with his captive, Kampusch said, "I gave a silent scream ... I made peace with myself, (reckoning) that I wouldn't be around much longer."
Once marooned in the gloomy underground cell, she stayed awake for days for fear Priklopil might otherwise molest her.
"I couldn't see in the darkness, I could just hear things. I could hear my blood rushing. I could sense the narrowness, the cold, I pondered (my situation) a lot," Kampusch said.
"I had this crazy, unhealthy feeling of always hoping he (Priklopil) wouldn't die, so that I wouldn't rot away, never be found. On the other hand I prayed that something awful would befall him, so that this whole thing would end."
She also described how Priklopil kept her on a virtual starvation diet. "He had a very pronounced miserliness when it came to food. And he was almost like an anorexic who wanted to pass this (ailment) on to other people."
She said Priklopil gave her books, a television and a portable music player, but often behaved like a nasty child.
"But naturally there's a difference between a 3-year-old kicking you and screaming at you, getting angry with you ... and a 1.72-metre tall and strong man doing that."
On the day she escaped, Kampusch said, "I no longer had much bleeding or injuries, and I felt strong enough to run away".
She made her escape when Priklopil was distracted by a phone call as she was cleaning his car in the driveway of his home.
Reinhard Haller, a court psychiatrist who has been among Kampusch's counsellors as she reintegrates in daily life, said the kidnap investigation indicated that Priklopil had picked out Kampusch for abduction some time before he snatched her.
"It was not the case that she entered his realm purely by chance, rather he had been observing her for a while," he said.
"Priklopil was a lonely person with great problems making contact, especially with women. He wanted to form a person who would be there just for him, dependent on him..."
ORF said Priklopil inspected the rubbish from his house to ensure Kampusch had not slipped in a message calling for help.
He also appeared to have monitored Kampusch's family while he held her prisoner and told his young captive about it.
Brigitta Sirny, Kampusch's mother, said on ORF that her daughter told her after the escape that she knew her family had a new car and that her sister smoked.
- REUTERS
