Background
Lydia gave birth to six children, all by her father. During her imprisonment, she escaped and phoned legal aid, but her father recaptured her in a family residence in Melun. She was finally freed in 1999 when her father died.
Lydia gave birth to six children, all by her father. During her imprisonment, she escaped and phoned legal aid, but her father recaptured her in a family residence in Melun. She was finally freed in 1999 when her father died.
The abuse took place from 1971 to 1999. Abuse took place from when she was eight years old. Lydia claimed to have run away from her father when he hit her too hard but was always brought back by the police when she was a minor.
She claimed to have not realized that the abuse was unusual.
She bears the scars of her torture from her neck to her ankles from where her captor burned her with boiling water and hydrochloric acid. She still lives in the same house with the attic where she was locked up in, however she does not venture up there anymore.
She admitted that it was the worldwide news of the Fritzl case that made her talk. She described being behind shutters.
Gouardo believes the world "ignored her ordeal" as an incest and abuse victim.
In her book she criticizes the media and authorities for neglecting her case, if it weren"t for the Fritzl case. Her stepmother was convicted in a closed-door trial for failure to report the crimes she was aware of and for sexual abuse against one of Lydia"s children, and was given a four-year suspended jail sentence. Police also suspect Raymond Gouardo of being implicated in the murder of four other girls in the Paris area in 1987.
deoxyribonucleic acid tests on one of the victims have not shown any link with Gouardo and other evidence is circumstantial.