A man rescued from a burning home in Connecticut told a shocking story of cruelty and constant hunger as he was held captive in a single room for 20 years by his father and stepmother, according to a newly released arrest warrant.
The man told authorities his confinement began when he was about 11 years old. He said he was locked in a room without heat or air conditioning nearly all day and night and given limited food and water.
With no access to a bathroom, he devised ways to dispose of his waste, including using a series of straws that led to a hole in a window. Pieces of his teeth would break off when he did eat because of a lack of dental care. He saved some of his daily ration of two small water bottles to bathe without soap and cut his own hair.
The years of cruelty ended Feb. 17, when he set fire to the house in Waterbury in a deliberate effort to save himself and told his story to responding police and firefighters, according to the arrest warrant charging his stepmother with kidnapping, cruelty to persons and other crimes.
Police are now trying to determine how this could have happened without anyone noticing and whether any warning signs were missed. Investigators want to look at records from city schools and the state child welfare agency, Waterbury Police Chief Fernando Spagnolo said at a news conference Thursday.
The man, now 32, is identified as “Male Victim 1” in police records. The stepmother, Kimberly Sullivan, 56, posted $300,000 bail Thursday and was released from custody after appearing in Waterbury Superior Court, said her lawyer, Ioannis Kaloidis. He said Sullivan, who was arrested on Wednesday, denies any wrongdoing. Her next court date is March 26.
“I would encourage people not to rush to judgment,” Kaloidis said in a phone interview. “This woman is presumed innocent.”
The man’s father died last year, while his biological mother has not been a part of his life, authorities said. He and Sullivan lived in the home that he set on fire.
Medical personnel said the man was near starvation and had wasting syndrome, a condition of weight loss and muscle deterioration, when he got to a hospital, the warrant says. At 5 feet, 9 inches tall (1.75 meters tall), he weighed only 69 pounds (31 kilograms).
He was treated for smoke inhalation and diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Spagnolo said the man faces a long road of physical and mental treatment. He said police are supporting him, including taking up a collection to buy him clothes and other items.
The man told police that he was constantly hungry. When he was in school, he would ask classmates for food, steal food and eat out of the garbage. In later years when he was out of school and confined to the house, he would get two sandwiches a day and some water while locked in his room.
The police’s only interactions with the family were in 2005, the chief said. One was a welfare check after children who attended school with him before he was pulled out expressed concern about him.
The second and final time was after the family made a harassment complaint against school officials for reporting them to state child welfare officials. Officers who went to the home said that they spoke to the man, then a child, and reported there was no cause for concern, Spagnolo said.
Officials with the state Department of Children and Families, which investigates child abuse, said Thursday that they have not found any records of agency involvement with the family but were continuing to look. They added that reports of neglect or abuse deemed unsubstantiated are erased five years after investigations are complete.
“We are shocked and saddened for the victim and at the unspeakable conditions he endured,” the department said in a statement. “The now adult victim has shown incredible strength and resilience during this time of healing and our hearts go out to him.”
When the man attended a Waterbury elementary school as a child, staff saw that he was extremely small and thin and made multiple calls to the stepmother and the Department of Children and Families, Tom Pannone, a former principal at the school, told WVIT-TV. Spagnolo said police did not have that information when they responded to the man’s house in 2005.
Waterbury school officials did not immediately return email messages seeking comment Thursday.
