Austrian kidnapper buried under false name

updated 11:28 a.m. ET Sept. 8, 2006

VIENNA, Austria - The man who kidnapped Natascha Kampusch as a 10-year-old schoolgirl and held her for 8 1/2 years in an underground cell — then killed himself after she escaped last month — was buried Friday under a false name in an undisclosed location, officials said.

Only two mourners were on hand for the burial of Wolfgang Priklopil, 44, who jumped in front of a commuter train hours after Kampusch bolted to freedom on Aug. 23, said Maj. Gen. Gerhard Lang of the Federal Criminal Investigations Bureau. Authorities kept the location secret to keep away vandals, he said.

Kampusch, now 18, paid last respects to her former captor at the medical examiner's office in Vienna and was not present at Friday's funeral at a cemetery south of Vienna, Lang said.

He said Priklopil's mother and the sister of a former business partner were the only ones at the grave. The burial ceremony took only five minutes, and although the pair recited a prayer, no priest presided at the funeral, Austrian radio reported.

As nine police officers stood guard, the two mourners left wreaths of pink and red roses on the grave, the radio report said. It said Priklopil was buried in a light wood coffin under a false name.

Mystery finally solved
The communications technician committed suicide a few hours after Kampusch escaped from his home in the Vienna suburb of Strasshof while he was distracted with a cell phone call. Her disappearance while walking to school on March 2, 1998, had been Austria's greatest unsolved criminal mystery.

Kampusch has been resting at a secure and undisclosed location since her dramatic escape. Psychologists tending to her said she was exhausted after giving her first interviews about her ordeal, during which she described her fear at anger at being taken and the horror of being thrust inside the tiny windowless cell for the first time.

On Friday, Lang also warned that investigators had come across several bogus online appeals for donations to help Kampusch which had nothing to do with official campaigns set up in Austria to raise money for the teen, and he cautioned donors to carefully examine bank account information before giving.

Kampusch's lawyer, Gerald Ganzger, told the Austria Press Agency on Friday that she intended to use the donations to help people in need "and made it very clear that she won't spend a cent on herself."

Monika Pinterits, another lawyer advising Kampusch, said the young woman granted the interviews this week — including one broadcast on national television — "to give something of herself so the paparazzi would leave her in peace."

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