A woman was held captive, tortured and raped in an old barn for four years by a male suspect who has been described as “Poland’s Josef Fritzl”.
The victim, who has been identified only as Malgorzata and is now 30, met Mateusz J, a labourer, on a dating website in 2019 and went to visit him in his small village near Glogow, western Poland.
She was then allegedly imprisoned in a disused barn for over four years, being regularly beaten, raped and later impregnated just four metres away from the suspect’s neighbours, myGlogow, a local news site, reported.
Her 35-year-old captor, who was described by locals as a “loner” and “freak”, was arrested this week and now faces up to 25 years in prison on charges of mental, physical and sexual abuse.
Prosecutors said the victim had no access to electricity, running water, a toilet or hygiene products in the stone room with a bricked-up window, where animals used to be housed.
The victim revealed that, when she did not meet his sexual expectations, she was beaten, starved and tormented.
During the ordeal, she was reportedly impregnated by Mateusz J and taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Nowa Sol to give birth and then forced to give the child up for adoption.
“I couldn’t tell the doctors the truth. I was afraid, and he threatened me that if I complained it would get even worse,” the victim said.
The case echoes that of Fritzl, one of Austria’s most notorious criminals, who kept his daughter captive for 24 years in a dungeon beneath his home, fathering seven children with her.
Malgorzata was allegedly taken to hospital several more times over the course of the four years after the suspect broke her arm, then her leg, and last year when she was admitted to surgery with a damaged anus.
On Tuesday, she was in hospital once again with a dislocated shoulder and was able to alert doctors, who called the police.
Mateusz J, who was arrested on Aug 30, denies the charges.
