Ten years after escaping from a house where she was repeatedly raped and abused, Natascha Kampusch has revealed she now lives there.
Kampusch was caged at the property in the leafy Viennese suburb of Strasshof by deranged loner Wolfgang Priklopil for eight-and-a-half years and 10 years on relived her ordeal, demonstrating how she escaped through the front gate and ran to freedom.
Kampusch explained how after fleeing she attracted the attention of a woman in a nearby house who called the police.
She knocked on her window and whispered 'please help me' but has never spoken to the woman since.
Natascha Kampusch spent eight-and-a-half years being raped and psychologically abused at a house near Vienna - and now lives there. Photo / AP
Kampusch, now 28, now lives part-time in the lair left to Priklopil by his family.
After being his captive - she was beaten, starved and turned into his sex slave - Kampusch decided to flee on August 23 2006.
On that day Kampusch recalled in an interview with Germany's Bild newspaper: "I was told to clean his car.
"He wanted to sell it and had told me to clean it really thoroughly and completely. I remember that I felt like I could eat a horse because I had to make him jam sandwiches for breakfast but got nothing myself."
At 12.56pm Priklopil, 44, took a call on his mobile phone and was momentarily distracted.
Kampusch went on: "Previously he has observed me all the time. But because of the vacuum cleaner whirring in my hand he had to walk a few steps away to better understand his caller."
The room where Kampusch was held. She vanished in 1998 on the way to school. Photo / AP
Kampusch, who received his house in his estate - he died beneath the wheels of a train later that night - said: "I crept to the gate which was usually closed or blocked by heavy objects, but not on this day.
"I could hardly breathe. I felt solidified, as if my arms and legs were paralysed. Jumbled images shot through me."
At 12.58pm she opened the gate and ran to freedom, bringing an end to the ordeal that had begun in March 1998 when Priklopil snatched her as she walked to school.
"I looked to the right and left without knowing which way to go," she said. "Then I ran."
Natascha walked past two family homes where she could have asked for help but didn't explaining: "I was afraid he would follow me here so I wanted to get further away and hide."
She decided to run to a local allotment.
The room where Kampusch was held. She vanished in 1998 on the way to school. Photo / AP
She said: "There I met two men who were travelling with a boy. I asked them to make a call with their mobile phone but they ignored me and simply went further along.
"Then I saw a woman in a garden house and knocked on her window and whispered 'Please help me!'
"She asked what I was doing in her garden and then called the police."
Kampusch has been reliving her ordeal on the 10th anniversary of her escape. Photo / AP
Kampusch has had no contact with the woman who saved her since.
Kampusch has written a new book about her life called Ten Years of Freedom but her ordeal goes on.
A new probe is underway concerning the alleged suicide of Priklopil. Two coroners who examined the case files determined that he might have been murdered and that is now being investigated.
Kampusch acquired the house and car of her captor as palpable links to a past that psychiatrists say she should move on from.
She spends weekends at the house where her childhood was stolen, living in the rooms where the days often passed as slowly as weeks and she felt as if she were drowning in quicksand.
Areal view of the estate where Austrian teenager Natascha Kampusch spent eight years. Photo / AP
Kampusch seems incapable of rebooting her life.
Despite garnering a fortune estimated at 5 million pounds from TV interviews, her books and movie collaboration, she remains the little girl lost she was during her captivity.
Still confused and awkward in social situations, two years ago she announced she had cut herself off from people and social media sites - and even stopped driving lessons - because she felt uncomfortable being in a car that could "take me away".
Kampusch claims to have an advertising and graphics company called Consolea but it is not entirely clear what it does.
She quit high school because the appearance of fellow students was a "horror" she said, the result of having just her captor for company during her formative years.
Natascha Kampusch. Photo / AP
She once said: "Although people may still be discreet and sympathetic, for me it is very un-relaxing to be in a room with many of them."
"Optimal" weather for her is to go out when it is raining and stormy and people have their umbrellas pressed to their faces and so are not on the lookout for her. "That's ideal," she said.
She quit Facebook because she was branded a fake and doesn't bother with Twitter "because I will not burden people with my visions of the future."
Shortly after her release she said she had dreamed of having children, but no longer. Psychiatrists believe she has a mental block in letting go of the past.
