A woman has been dramatically rescued after three months of being chained up, raped and made to drink from a dog bowl during a horrifying ordeal.
The 27-year-old was allegedly tortured by a man named in local media as truck driver Karel N, 40, for over three months in the basement of a house in the village of Sirem, Louny region, in the north-west of the Czech Republic.
She was held in squalid conditions and forced to eat and drink from a dirty dog bowl. The woman finally managed to escape the Josef Fritzl-like hell at around 3am on February 16 and woke up neighbours to beg them for help.
‘She had no hair and a thick chain with a huge lock around her neck. She was just skin and bones,’ a resident who helped the frightened victim told the Czech newspaper Mlada fronta Dnes.
‘She said he shaved her head and rarely gave her anything to eat, just sometimes a little bread and water from a bowl, like a dog,’ the woman said about the victim’s ordeal.
‘He stripped her naked, chained her up, beat her, raped her and did other crazy things to her.’
The woman and her husband helped the victim pry off the chain around her neck with a bolt cutter and called an ambulance as well as the police.
‘She [said she] was tied to a heavy bed. She managed to pull the chain out and use it to climb out of the window,’ the rescuers told local media.
The case eerily resembles that of incest monster Josef Fritzl, who held his daughter captive to abuse her under his house in Austria for years.
The 27-year-old was allegedly tortured by a man named in local media as truck driver Karel N. (pictured), 40, for over three months in the basement of a dilapidated house in the village of Sirem, Louny region, in the north-west of the Czech Republic
The house of horrors where the woman was chained up and abused in the basement for three months
The victim ‘managed to escape at night when he was not home’, according to a local resident.
Karel N. reportedly knew the 27-year-old victim and has been described by his neighbours as ‘sociable’. He has since been arrested.
Czech media revealed that Karel N. previously held and brutally abused another woman at a house in Kryry, Louny, in 2021 after luring her to his home, promising her she would get a job after she recently lost hers.
He allegedly put a dog head mask on the 22-year-old woman, hung her with chains on all fours and gave her electric shocks. An female acquaintance reportedly helped Karel N. with the torture.
‘She was then held in a torturous manner, one could even say tortured in various ways, and her human dignity was humiliated. There was also a certain form of sexual intercourse,’ Hana Bachova, the president of the Louny District Court, told local outlet CNN Prima News reports.
The young woman managed to escape the ordeal after a day.
Karel N. was jailed for three years for rape and deprivation of liberty, but he was released early on probation in 2022 following an appeal.
He swore at the time that he would never do anything like this again and the judge ruled that the three-year sentence Karel N. had been handed was disproportionately harsh, according to CNN Prima.
‘She said he shaved her head and rarely gave her anything to eat, just sometimes a little bread and water from a bowl, like a dog,’ a witness said. Pictured are dog bowls outside the house
Czech media revealed that Karel N. (pictured) previously held and brutally abused another woman at a house in Kryry, Louny, in 2021 after luring her to his home, promising her she would get a job as a hostess
A Czech broadcaster showed footage of the house of horrors, with a yellowed name tag seen on the letter box outside the house
Karel N. is now awaiting trial for the recent abduction and abuse of the second victim and is in custody due to being a flight risk as he travels frequently due to his job as a truck driver.
‘He is a person who often travels outside the Czech Republic, so the reason for his detention was found to be a fugitive,’ Katerina Dousova, deputy of the Regional State Prosecutor’s Office, said.
‘At the same time, not all witnesses were heard and there is a risk that he could influence their statements and also repeat his criminal activity.’
If found guilty, Karel N. faces up to 12 years in prison.
