VIENNA —Austrian police said on Friday they were searching for possible accomplices of a kidnapper who held a young girl in a tiny room under his garage for eight years until her dramatic escape this week.
Natascha Kampusch, who was 10 years old when kidnapped, managed to evade her abductor when he took a phone call as she was cleaning his car. Her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil, committed suicide shortly after she escaped.
"We are not chasing a particular suspect but we are chasing the theory that several people were involved," Gerhard Lang, a senior officer at Austria's Federal Police Agency, told Reuters.
Kampusch was abducted on her way to school in Vienna in 1998. A school friend said at the time she saw two men pulling her into a white van. This triggered a probe of almost 1,000 owners of similar vans -- including Priklopil.
Priklopil had told police he needed the van to clear debris from building work at his home in the commuter village of Strasshof. With no previous criminal record, he was quickly eliminated as a potential suspect.
One neighbour in Strasshof, 25 km (15 miles) northeast of Vienna, said Priklopil appeared to have built the underground prison where he kept Kampusch a long time before he snatched the 10-year-old.
"He started building the workshop pit maybe a year or half a year before the kidnapping," said the neighbour, who declined to be named. "It really looks like he planned this well in advance.
Kampusch was pale and trembling when she escaped and weighed only 42 kg (93 lbs), less than she did as a 10-year-old.
Chance to Flee
After spending the first years locked below ground in a room stuffed with books, soft toys and magazines, Kampusch began helping her kidnapper in the house and garden. She was later allowed to make occasional outings to the village.
As Priklopil lowered his security measures, Kampusch's chance to flee arose. When she cleaned his car on Wednesday, the gate to the street was open.
"He told her to vacuum the car. Then he got a phone call and stepped a few metres away to avoid the noise," Lang, told a news conference in the Federal Police Agency's headquarters.
"Natascha took advantage of the situation and fled."
When he realised the girl had escaped, 44-year-old Priklopil drove to Vienna. He parked his car and called a friend for help, pretending he was being chased by police for drunk driving.
He later threw himself in front of a train. His friend was questioned by police, but Lang said he was not a suspect.
Police said they would give Kampusch a break until Monday before they continued interviewing her, an agonising process for the girl after years with only one person, who told her to call him "master", to talk to.
"She's in a completely new world," said Interior Minister Liese Prokop. "She's got to learn to breathe in this new world."
Experts said Kampusch was probably suffering from "Stockholm Syndrome" -- a psychological condition in which long-held captives begin to identify with their captors.
"If you cannot cope with the fear for your life you start to identify with your aggressor, you try to understand what happens inside (the mind of) your captor, what is driving him," said Reinhard Haller, an Austrian forensic psychiatrist.
A DNA test on Friday formally confirmed Kampusch's identity.
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