A WOMAN who was drugged, kidnapped and held hostage by a man dubbed Sweden’s Josef Fritzl has revealed the one mistake he made that eventually saved her.
Isabel Eriksson, now 39, shared the ordeal she suffered at the hands of Dr Martin Trenneborg and said her captor kept her in a dark bunker and tormented her with sick masks.
Isabel Eriksson has shared her story in a new documentary[/caption]
Martin Trenneborg, pictured in court, told cops he had kidnapped her to keep her as a girlfriend[/caption]
He used masks to disguise Isabel as he transported her to his bunker[/caption]
The harrowing story of the Swedish national is depicted in the new Amazon series The Bunker.
Her second date with twisted Trenneborg turned into a nightmare after he used drug-laced strawberries to knock her out and kidnap her taking her to a remote farm, some 350 miles from her home in Stockholm.
His plan was to keep her as a sex slave in a fortified soundproof bunker.
Recalling the moment she regained consciousness Isabel said: “I’m dazed. My mouth is dry, and I slowly open my eyes.
“I look straight up at the ceiling. It smells bad. I don’t know what day it is or what time of day. I realise I don’t know where I am.
“I’m lying under a blanket wearing a pair of jeans and a pink jumper. My body feels slow and it aches. When I turn over. I couldn’t feel any underwear under my jeans. It’s cold…”
Isabel said she tried to attack him and escape but Trenneborg warned her not to try it again.
“He said that if I try again he would fix me up in chains in bed and feed me only with crispbread. I was completely panicked. I felt powerless.”
He later bought her a sandwich and told her he would paint the walls in a colour she would prefer.
She continued: “He gave me three books to read; they were about women who had been raped and murdered.
“I didn’t know how to interpret it. He shows me a room in the bunker, he said it would be a torture chamber.
“I didn’t know if he would build a real torture chamber, like he said, or if it was just some kind of sick game to really scare me.”
The traumatised woman said her captor made it clear he wanted to keep her locked up “as a girlfriend”, to “have sex two or three times a day, clean and cook”.
She said he would leave her alone while he was at work, she spent her time walking in the room, doing sit-ups and push-ups.
Isabel – whose name has been changed to protect her – was working as an escort at the time of the kidnapping in September 2015.
At one point he entered the bunker wearing one of the masks, leading Isabel to think she might be rescued before realising it was him.
He took blood and vaginal samples from her which he tested at a lab at work – confessing to cops that he did this to ensure she didn’t have any STDs.
Isabel explained: “He said that he wanted to have unprotected sex with me. I got some pills from him, it was birth control pills and he told me that he did not want me to get pregnant.”
Josef Fritzl’s twisted timeline
Josef Fritzl has spent the last 15 years behind bars after he confessed to raping and imprisoning his daughter over a horrific 24-year period.
1977: Fritzl’s daughter Elisabeth claims she was abused for the first time as an 11-year-old.
August 28, 1984: Fritzl asks Elisabeth to help him install a door in his cellar before drugging her with an ether-soaked towel.
The daughter is tied up and chained to a bed for the next 24-years.
August 29, 1984: Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie report their daughter missing.
1988-1990: The first children are born after Fritzl continuously rapes Elisabeth – Kerstin first followed by Stefan.
May 19, 1993: Nine-month-old baby named Lisa found on the families doorstep with a ‘letter from Elisabeth’ – Rosemarie raises Lisa with Fritzl.
December 15, 1994: Monika is also found outside by the parents and once again looked after.
1996: Elisabeth gives birth to twins Alexander and Michael but Michael dies at birth due to breathing issues and is tossed in an incinerator.
1997: Alexander appears outside the house just like Lisa and Monika and is taken in.
December 2002: The final child is born in the cellar as Felix is kept trapped in the hellhole with his two other siblings.
April 19, 2008: Kerstin, 19, becomes seriously ill and needs medical help so is taken by Fritzl to the hospital in Amstetten.
April 19-26, 2008: Elisabeth is allowed to leave the cellar with her two children after police ask to contact Kerstin’s mother.
April 26, 2008: Police arrest Fritzl, who is with Elisabeth near the hospital.
April 27, 2008: Cops explore underground cellar as all the siblings meet for the first time.
April 28, 2008: Fritzl confesses to his horrific crimes.
2009: Fritzl sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to rape, false imprisonment, manslaughter by negligence and incest.
March 2024: The perverted pensioner becomes eligible for parole after 15-years behind bars.
April 30, 2024: Fritzl is moved from a high security prison to a normal one.
On the fifth day Trenneborg showed up with a gun in his hand.
“At first, I think he’s going to shoot me. Maybe someone has found him out. But instead he says he’s had it in his mouth, but not dared to pull the trigger.
“He gives me the gun, forces it into my hands. I’ve never held a gun before. He says, the doors are unlocked. I just have to shoot then I’m free,
“He was the only one who knew I was there. Nobody would find me. It was horrible.
“I’m freaking out. my hands just shake, even if it’s my way out, I don’t dare. I cry. I give him back the gun.”
On the sixth day of her ordeal, Trenneborg returned like nothing happened and told her she was in love with him.
Trying to be on his good side, Isabel kept up the charade and told him she needed some clothes from her apartment – to which he miraculously agreed.
They travelled from Kristianstad to Stockholm but they struggled to get into her flat, as because she had been reported missing, police had changed the locks.
Trenneborg brazenly took her to a police station in central Stockholm pretending she had been visiting a friend.
Isabel’s moment came when she was left alone with a police officer in an interogation room and was able to explain what happened.
He later told cops he struggled in his personal life and he had kidnapped Isabel to keep her as his girlfriend.
Trenneborg was found guilty of kidnapping but acquitted of rape in 2016 and sentenced to ten years in prison.
Speaking under a pseudonym, Isabel told Metro: “Who knew that a person could have so much darkness in them?
“I didn’t know him that well, but he was someone I trusted. He was a doctor. No one ever thought he could do anything like that.”
Her chilling story echoes Josef Fritzl who was jailed for life in 2009 after keeping his daughter Elisabeth as a sex slave for 24 years.
He began sexually abusing his daughter in 1977 when she was just 11 years old, keeping her trapped in a high-security cellar inside the family home.
Over the years of horrific sexual abuse and rape Elisabeth gave birth to seven children.
In 2008 she was able to tell police in Austria about what her father had been doing after Fritzl allowed her out to visit her daughter Kerstin in hospital.
Trenneborg’s bunker included a covered external courtyard[/caption]
An external view of the bunker where Isabel was held[/caption]
The bunker – like the one used by Josef Fritzl – included a kitchen and toilet[/caption]
Isabel was working as an escort at the time of the kidnapping[/caption]