ESCAPE
Kampusch escaped from a garden outside the house of the kidnapper, who police
identified as Wolfgang Priklopil, in Strasshof, a hamlet 25 km (15 miles)
outside the capital Vienna and about 10 km from her home, police said.
Ludwig Koch, who wept
''she is 100 per cent my daughter'' after being reunited. He had not seen
Natascha since she was 10. [HANS KLAUS TECHT/EPA]
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"It seems there was a moment when she was not observed (when) the suspect was
busy and she had a chance to escape ...," Chief Inspector Johan Fruestueck told
Reuters Television.
She showed up in another garden nearby and identified herself to a neighbour.
Her captor equipped a 6-sq-metre cell beneath the house's garage with running
water, toilet, washing facilities, bed, books, radio and occasionally
television, police officials said.
Police said they wanted to know details of the relationship between Kampusch
and the man, given that she appeared to come down with "Stockholm Syndrome", a
psychological condition in which long-held captives begin to identify with their
captors.
Kampusch's captor had recently loosened his security measures, allowing her
occasional outings in the village with him. He was distracted by a phone call,
allowing her to flee, investigator Erich Zwettler told Sky Television.
"He noticed his victim had escaped, panicked, jumped into his car and drove
away fast," Zwettler said. Priklopil's red sports car was found abandoned in a
Vienna parking lot.
Police said it was virtually certain Priklopil was the man who committed
suicide while a manhunt was under way. While the body was mutilated by the
train, he had the key to Priklopil's car in his pocket and wore his clothes.
Priklopil, a communications technician, had been questioned by police soon
after Kampusch's disappearance, just like hundreds of owners of white vans
similar to the one a schoolfriend had seen Kampusch get into the day she
vanished.
The hunt for the teenager had never been dropped. Sightings had been reported
in Hungary, divers searched ponds and police flew over the region with infrared
cameras.
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