| Date | Key event |
| 1977 | Fritzl begins sexually abusing his 11-year-old daughter Elisabeth. |
| 1980 | Fritzl's mother, Maria, dies in captivity in Fritzl's attic. |
| 1981–1982 | Fritzl begins to turn the hidden cellar into a prison chamber. |
| 28 August 1984 | Fritzl lures 18-year-old Elisabeth into the basement and imprisons her. |
| November 1986 | Elisabeth has a miscarriage in the tenth week of pregnancy. |
| 30 August 1988 | Kerstin is born, and lives in the cellar until the age of 19 in 2008. |
| 1 February 1990 | Stefan is born. He also stays in the cellar until 2008, aged 18. |
| 29 August 1992 | Lisa is born. In May 1993, at nine months of age, she is discovered outside the family home in a cardboard box, allegedly left there by Elisabeth with a note asking for the child to be looked after. |
| 1993 | After repeated requests by Elisabeth, Fritzl allows the enlargement of the prison, putting Elisabeth and her children to work for years digging out soil with their hands. The prison was enlarged from 35 to 55 m2 (380 to 590 sq ft). |
| 26 February 1994 | The fourth child, Monika, is born. |
| December 1994 | Monika, at ten months of age, is found in a pushchair (stroller) outside the entrance of the house. Shortly afterwards, Fritzl's wife Rosemarie receives a phone call, asking her to take care of the child. The caller sounds like Elisabeth, but it is assumed that Fritzl used a recording of her voice. Rosemarie reported the incident to the police, expressing astonishment that Elisabeth knew their new, ex-directory phone number. |
| 28 April 1996 | Elisabeth gives birth to twin boys, Michael and Alexander. The first one dies after less than three days and Fritzl removes and cremates the body. The surviving twin, Alexander, is taken upstairs at fifteen months old and "discovered" in circumstances similar to those of his two sisters. |
| 16 December 2002 | Felix is born. According to a statement by Fritzl, he kept Felix in the cellar with Elisabeth and her two eldest children because his wife could not look after another child. |
| 19 April 2008 | Fritzl arranges for critically ill 19-year-old Kerstin to be taken to a local hospital. |
| 26 April 2008 | During the evening, Fritzl releases Elisabeth, Stefan, and Felix from the cellar and brings them upstairs, informing his wife that Elisabeth had decided to come home after a 24-year absence. Later that evening, after an anonymous tipoff during a visit to the hospital, Fritzl and Elisabeth are taken into police custody where she reveals her decades-long imprisonment during questioning. |
| 19 March 2009 | After a four-day trial, Fritzl pleads guilty to the charges of the murder by negligence of his infant son (and grandson) Michael, as well as the decades of enslavement, incest, rape, coercion and false imprisonment of his daughter Elisabeth, and is sentenced to life imprisonment. |
