A woman has been arrested and charged with keeping her stepson captive for 20 years in conditions so extreme that he resorted to setting his room on fire in a last-ditch effort to break free. Connecticut woman Kimberly Sullivan, 56, was arrested on Wednesday and charged in connection with the horrifying case.
Her disturbing treatment of her stepson came to light about a month ago when a fire broke out at the family's home in Waterbury, according to the police. Sullivan fled the scene, while her 32-year-old stepson was later rescued by firefighters on February 17. Court records reveal he weighed only 68 pounds at the time of his rescue.
Shocking Living Arrangement for Captive
While receiving medical care for smoke inhalation and burns, he told emergency responders that he had intentionally started the fire inside a small storage area where he had been forced to sleep.
"I wanted my freedom," the man said. He revealed that he had been held captive since around the age of 11 in a small 8-by-9-foot room without heating or air conditioning.
Following a detailed investigation, authorities now believe the man was held captive for more than two decades, subjected to ongoing abuse, malnutrition, extreme neglect, and cruel treatment.
Police said that the victim was severely malnourished and had gone years without medical checkups or dental care.
According to a warrant affidavit obtained by WFSB, he told investigators that as a young child living with Sullivan, his father, and siblings, he sometimes drank from a toilet because he was only given two cups of water per day.
The documents also mention that, during elementary school, he resorted to stealing food from others and even scavenged from the trash due to extreme hunger before eventually being withdrawn from school.
As he grew into his teenage years and adulthood, the victim said he was forced to use bottles and newspapers as makeshift toilets, the affidavit revealed.
"The facts of this case, quite frankly, the facts are something out of a horror movie," Supervisory Assistant State's Attorney Don Therkildsen said, according to CT Insider. "That's without exaggeration."
He further said that the victim set the fire " knowing he very well could have died."
According to the warrant, the stepson lit the fire using hand sanitizer, printer paper, and a lighter he had found a year earlier in the pocket of one of his late father's jackets. "The suffering this victim endured for over 20 years is both heartbreaking and unimaginable," Waterbury Police Chief Fernando Spagnolo said in a statement.
Dangerous Treatment and an Attempt to Escape
However, Sullivan's attorney said that when he went over the allegations with her, "she was blown away, she was stunned by what is being said." "She is innocent and she has every intention of defending this case and we are confident she will be vindicated," Kaloidis added.
He argued that there was food available in the house and insisted that the stepson was not confined to a room.
"Does he have health issues? I'm sure he does. But she's the stepmom, there was a biological father that was responsible for his care, who dictated his care," the lawyer said, noting the father died last year.
A neighboring couple told The New York Post that Sullivan and her family were mostly private, and they never saw the stepson outside their home on Blake Street. However, Zeffery Guarnera and Suzette Baker said that over a decade ago, when their daughter was growing up, she once saw a boy in the window of the room where the fire later broke out.
"He waved at her, she waved at him, she didn't think nothing of it," Guarnera said. "And hasn't seen him since."
"He was probably around the same age as my daughter," he added.
"Maybe actually a little bit older ... but I guess if he looked emaciated, he might have looked younger because that's why even the investigators said to me, 'Did you see a man who may look like a child?'
"So that's why my daughter might look and think he was much younger than he may have been."
Guarnera said that they may have unknowingly seen the victim doing yard work over the years without realizing he was Sullivan's stepson. Baker added that whenever she met Sullivan and her two daughters in the neighborhood, their conversations were limited to their shared love of animals.
A judge set Sullivan's bail at $300,000, and Kaloidis indicated it would likely be posted by Thursday.
