He stated that he was alone at home on the morning of the kidnapping, and the police were satisfied with his explanation that he was using the minibus to transport rubble from the construction of his home. A massive police effort followed in which 776 minivans were examined, including that of her kidnapper Přiklopil, who lived about half an hour from Vienna by car in the Lower Austrian town of Strasshof an der Nordbahn near Gänserndorf. A 12-year-old witness reported having seen her being dragged into a white minibus by two men, although Kampusch did not report a second man being present. The 10-year-old Kampusch left her family's residence in Vienna's Donaustadt district on the morning of 2 March 1998, but failed to arrive at school or come home. However, Kampusch asserted that her mother was not abusive and that her home life was better than life in captivity. In Kampusch's 2010 book about her kidnapping, 3,096 Days, she stated that her parents slapped her, and that she was considering suicide on the day of her abduction. This assessment was denied by Brigitta Sirny, and Adamovich's statement was found to be defamatory by a criminal court, and he was fined €10,000. Ludwig Adamovich, head of a special commission looking into possible police failures in the investigation of the kidnapping, claimed that the time Kampusch was imprisoned 'was always better than what she had known until then'. At the time of her abduction, she was a student at the Brioschiweg primary school. Kampusch spent time with both of them, and had returned to her mother's home from a holiday with Koch the day before her kidnapping. Sirny and Koch separated while Kampusch was still a child and divorced after her abduction. Kampusch's family included two adult sisters, and five nieces and nephews. Kampusch was raised by her mother, Brigitta Sirny (née Kampusch), and her father, Ludwig Koch, in Vienna. She has written a book about her ordeal, 3,096 Days (2010), which was later adapted into a film released in 2013. Upon her escape, Přiklopil killed himself by stepping in front of a train at a nearby station.

At the age of 10, on 2 March 1998, she was abducted and held in a secret cellar by her kidnapper Wolfgang Přiklopil for more than eight years, until she escaped on 23 August 2006. Natascha Maria Kampusch (born 17 February 1988) is an Austrian author and former talk show host.

Trapped in the R.A.W. by Kate Boyes