EVERY morning inmate number HNR90632 wakes up in his high-security prison cell and tends to the tomato plants growing on his window cell.
Minutes later guards deliver him a breakfast of coffee, eggs, sausage and toast with cheese spread alongside a pile of supplements including vitamin C, magnesium and zinc.
Hours will pass watching TV before he occasionally shuffles to the window on a mobility walker, raising his face to the sun and pushing his arms through the bars to feel its warmth.
He avoids going outside for fear of attacks from other inmates but will later share a meal of wiener schnitzel with his only friend - a cannibal killer who murdered a Hungarian prostitute and made goulash from her remains.
This is the bizarre prison life of incest monster Josef Fritzl, who kept his daughter captive in the basement of his home in Amstetten, Austria - fathering seven children with her.
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Electrical engineer Fritzl was sentenced to life in 2009 after locking Elisabeth, now 57, away for 24 years.
Despite his twisted crimes, the sick dad could be freed from maximum security psychiatric prison Stein, in Krems, on the River Danube, to serve out the rest of his sentence in a nursing home after developing dementia.
Reports from local media outlets say he is confused, believes he is a pop star who appeared on a talent show and talks about visits from relatives that never happened. He is also rewriting history with a book that claims he is a “good person and family man”.
He is said to believe Elisabeth will marry tennis ace Boris Becker and that he will live to be at least 100 if he drinks enough water.
His lawyer Astrid Wagner says Fritzl now isolates himself away from everyone except for her and his only friend Alfred U, a cannibal killer given life for dismembering a 28-year-old prostitute and creating goulash from her body parts.
It is a chilling friendship which reflects Fritzl’s sinister past.
While his lawyer Astrid claims she would “be happy to live with him” because he has no sexual drive, British experts have cast doubt on whether he should be allowed to live the rest of his life in comfort in a care home.
'Sexual threat'
Clinical and forensic psychologist Dr Naomi Murphy says dementia patients can display overt, inappropriate sexual behaviour which could leave other nursing home residents vulnerable to Fritzl.
She said: “This was a man indulging his fantasies at any cost and that fantastical thinking appears to have become more prominent with his dementia.
“When you commit this kind of crime, there’s already a degree of madness about the behaviour. It’s far removed even amongst the population of people who commit very serious crimes.
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“Dementia can cause people to become sexually disinhibited quite quickly. How does anyone really know he has no sexual drive whatsoever?
“Sex played a huge part in his life so I’d be very surprised if it was not still part of the picture.
“It might be that he can be placed in a lower security prison but I don’t think a nursing home is the right place for someone who committed this type of offence. He probably has a sadistic strand to his personality which could play out with other residents.
“He might use a walker but he can still get around and what’s to stop him acting out with more vulnerable people in that sort of setting?”
Dr Murphy said Fritzl, who claimed to have kept his daughter prisoner to pull her out of the "misery” of drinking and smoking, showed an “entitled, grandiose narcissism” in his efforts to live longer than anyone else.
She said: “It shows the dissolutional quality of his thinking. The idea that he will survive longer than anyone else is not part of dementia, it shows someone estranged from reality.”
The expert also questioned the psychological impact on Elisabeth Fritzl, who is now living a life of anonymity with six of her children. The seventh died shortly after birth.
Dr Murphy said: “This could be absolutely devastating for her.”
Elisabeth was 18 in 1984 when her father called her down to the cellar of their home, knocked her unconscious with an ether-soaked towel and kept her locked up for over two decades.
Fritzl and wife Rosemarie raised three of their grandchildren after he unbelievably claimed they had turned up on the doorstep.
Elisabeth escaped after Fritzl allowed her to take her eldest daughter to hospital after she became seriously ill in 2008.
The children, now aged between 20 and 34, live with Elisabeth in a sleepy Austrian village after being given new identities. They are said to sleep in rooms with doors permanently open after their ordeal inside the cellar.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun through his lawyer last year, Fritzl boasted he would see his family again one day and strangely claimed he was still married to wife Rosemarie, who divorced him 11 years ago.
He also said he wanted to live to 130.
In a statement to The Sun, he revealed his food and vitamin regime, adding: “I also drink lots of water throughout the day. I recently read that it has been scientifically proven that human beings can actually live to 150 if they eat well and exercise.
“So I want to live to 130 - that’s my plan."
He boasted of exercising and is said to have a love of gymnastics but it appears his physical and mental health have now both gone downhill.
'Erratic & delusional'
Fritzl, who is guarded by four men, has barely left the prison building in years after having his teeth knocked out in an attack in 2016.
He got into a fight after fellow inmates set up a fake dating profile in his name.
The beast quickly dropped the surname Fritzl for his middle name of Mayrhoff in the hope of anonymity - despite other prisoners knowing who he is.
Psychologist Emma Kenny said Fritzl’s behaviour in jail has been “erratic and delusional”.
She said: “His belief in living to an old age through a strict regime, his delusions about his daughter marrying Boris Becker and changing his name for anonymity all point towards a detachment from reality.
“This could be indicative of a psychotic disorder or severe cognitive distortions stemming from other mental health issues.
“His fear of other inmates leading him to barricade himself, and the reported dementia, suggest a state of paranoia and cognitive decline."
She said his relationship with Alfred U demonstrates “skewed social interactions and possibly a need for control, even within the prison environment”, while claiming to be a “family man” in a book could be a sign of “denial, a defence mechanism” or “inability to accept the reality of his actions.”
Emma said: “The question of his release is a complex one.
"Given his history and the severity of his crimes, there are significant concerns about public safety and the moral implications of his release.
“Many would understandably question why he should ever be released after his heinous actions.
“He would have been happy to let his own daughter rot in a prison he constructed had he not been found out….maybe he should be afforded a similar and certainly fitting fate.”
