‘I want my freedom’, a 32-year-old man told firefighters when they found him, choking on smoke, in the tiny room where in which claimed to have been locked since he was 11.
Weighing 30kg – a third of the average weight for men – he told them he started the fire in a bid to escape after 20 years of abuse at his stepmother’s house in Waterbury, Connecticut, in the eastern USA.
Kimberly Sullivan, 56, has today been charged with assault, kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, reckless endangerment and cruelty to persons.
‘The suffering this victim endured for over 20 years is both heartbreaking and unimaginable’, Police Chief Fernando Spagnolo said.
It’s like ‘something out of a horror movie’, Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney Don Therkildsen told the court.
Found on February 17 ‘in a severely emaciated condition’, the man – who has not been publicly named – had received no medical or dental care during his captivity, police said.
That is despite tooth decay allegedly so severe ‘pieces of his tooth would break off’ when he ate, warrant documents said.
Ms Sullivan allegedly gave her stepson a diet of two cups of water and two sandwiches a day, the prosecutor told the court.
Such ‘minimal amounts of food and water… led to his extremely malnourished condition’, according to a statement released by Waterbury Police. His body mass index of 11% was considered life-threatening.
The man claims his food and drink had been restricted since he was three years old.
He was so hungry, he stole food from classmates and ate out of rubbish bins at school, he said.
It caught the attention of child protective services after his school called them at least 20 times, according to principal Tom Pannone.
Then, by fifth grade, the child stopped coming to school. It is not clear what contact children’s services had with him after that.
Pannone told NBC News: ‘We knew it. We reported it. Not a damn thing was done.
‘Everyone really was concerned with this child since he was five years old. You knew something was wrong. It was grossly wrong.’
He added: ‘You don’t disappear off the face of the earth at 10 years old.’
Locked with a slide bolt from outside, according to the warrant documents, the 32-year-old was unable to escape the 8ft-by-9ft room in the house, which has a ‘Welcome’ sign hung on the front door.
For 22 hours a day, he wasn’t allowed out. He had to urinate and defecate in that room – on newspapers and in bottles – he told police.
His only release came when he was assigned chores around the house, allowing him to put his waste in the kitchen bin, he claimed.
The broken windows house are now boarded up after a fire the man started using hand sanitiser and paper.
‘He lit that fire knowing he could very well die’, the prosecutor said. But he was already ‘in the stages of dying’.
Ultimately it was Ms Sullivan who dialled 911, a move that led to her arrest.
Ms Sullivan denies the charges. ‘She’s not the villain she is being made out to be’, her lawyer Ioannis Kaloidis told NBC Connecticut. Instead, they have blamed the boy’s late father.
Kaloidis said: ‘He was not locked in a room. She did not restrain him in any way. She provided food, she provided shelter. She is blown away by these allegations.’
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