Millionaire Kills Self; Guilty of Holding Nanny as Sex Slave

DUESSELDORF, West Germany — A millionaire industrialist convicted of holding the family’s 17-year-old nanny in bondage as a sex slave for more than a year was found hanged in his prison cell today.

Dieter Engelbrecht, 46, a cable manufacturer who was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison for raping, torturing and imprisoning the girl, hanged himself in his cell overnight, a police spokesman said.

Engelbrecht’s 28-year-old wife, Helga, was also convicted in the case. She was sentenced to six years in prison.

The Engelbrechts were accused of torturing and sexually abusing the girl, Sylvia, after imprisoning her in a windowless cellar room of their palatial villa.

As soon as she arrived at the house to start her work, according to court testimony, she was forced to strip and was handcuffed and chained by the neck to the wall of a secret basement cell which then became her quarters.

The months of torture that followed left permanent scars and marks on her body and may have caused irreparable psychological damage, the court was told.

Sylvia managed to escape her captors in May, 1983.