Carl Eric "Charlie" Brandt (February 23, 1957 – September 13, 2004) was an American serial killer who murdered at least four women: his mother in Indiana and a homeless woman, his wife, and his niece in Florida. Growing up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Brandt shot his parents in their family home on the night of January 3, 1971, when he was 13, killing his pregnant mother and wounding his father.

The Fritzl case emerged in 2008 when a woman named Elisabeth Fritzl (born 6 April 1966) informed investigators in the city of Amstetten, Lower Austria, that she had been held captive for 24 years by her father, Josef Fritzl (born 9 April 1935). Fritzl had assaulted, sexually abused, and raped his daughter countless times during her imprisonment inside a concealed area in the cellar of the family home.