Wednesday, April 2, 2025 - Police in Waterbury, Connecticut, USA, have released photos from inside a house where a man was allegedly held captive by his stepmother for 20 years.
The unnamed man in February escaped the house by starting a
fire with printer paper and hand sanitiser, then told police he was locked in a
small room secured with plywood and a lock.
He says that for years, he was given minimal food and water
WFSB have obtained over 100 photos which reveal the true extent of how dire conditions were for the man who police say emerged “extremely emaciated” –– 32-years-old, 5-foot-9, and weighing roughly 70 pounds.
Many of the photos WFSB received from Waterbury police show
the inside of the house in evidently poor condition with some rooms clearly
charred from a fire, and others cluttered and decrepit from a lack of
maintenance.
Mold and broken floorboards are seen throughout the house, with some carpeted areas covered in dirt and trash. Part of the house’s ceiling appeared broken, with beams exposed. Many of the windows are covered with plywood.
In one photo, a bedroom with a bright pink wall is littered with random
objects, including a printer. Another photo of a bathroom shows broken wall
insulation, and glass and cardboard boxes on the floor.
The man’s stepmother, Kimberly Sullivan, managed to escape her burning house and has since been arrested by authorities for kidnapping her stepson and starving him for decades.
Last week she pleaded not guilty to kidnapping and felony assault charges
and was released on a $300,000 bond.
“As horrible as the allegations are, and as much as people don’t want to hear it, she is not guilty in the eyes of the law, and that’s not going to change anytime soon, no matter how many millions of people hate her,” Sullivan’s attorney Ioannis Kaloidis said.
The Waterbury Department of Children and Families recently said it found
archived records from 2005 naming Kimberly Sullivan and her stepson, according
to WFSB, after previously stating that unsubstantiated claims were deleted five
years after the police were in the house for a welfare check.
“After we have completed a
comprehensive assessment of our prior involvement, the Department will be as
transparent as possible in sharing our results while working within the
parameters of both federal and state confidentiality laws,” DCF Commissioner Jodi
Hill-Lilly said in a statement to WFSB.
The man told police he met with DCF twice when he was in fourth grade to
complain about his living conditions before his stepmother pulled him out of
school.
He told police his stepmother instructed him at that time to tell the department everything was fine. Police conducting the welfare checks reported there was nothing suspicious
The last time the man left the property was with his father when he was
around 14 or 15. After his father died in 2024, the alleged captivity got more
restrictive, he told police.
The man stated “It got to a point
where the only time he would ever be out of the house once his father died was
to let the family dog out in the back of the property,” according to an
affidavit.
Those outings were “only about 1 minute a day” as he “essentially, was locked in his room between 22 to 24 hours a day,” the sworn statement said
A year ago, the man told police, he found a lighter in a jacket that
belonged to his late father. That’s when he started devising a plan to escape.
“There’s a lot of physical therapy that he’ll have to go through,”
Waterbury Police Chief Fred Spagnolo said. “There’s a lot of healing that he’ll
have to go
through mentally.”
Waterbury police officers, themselves shaken by the inhumanity they say
they’ve been investigating, took up a collection to buy the man clothes, books
and other items that might make him more comfortable.
As for the newly freed man, Waterbury Mayor Paul K. Pernerewski said,
“We’re committed to supporting him in every way possible as he begins to heal
from this unimaginable trauma
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