How a man used printer paper and hand sanitizer to escape an alleged 20 years of captivity by his stepmother

(CNN) — Both sides of his door had been secured with plywood and a lock, the man would later say, to stop him from getting out.

For years, he’d only been given two sandwiches – egg or tuna salad, or peanut butter – and a small amount of water each day, he’d recall, in the storage space where he was held.

But now, he had a plan.

Printer paper for kindling. Hand sanitizer for fuel. And a lighter.

Emergency personnel responded February 17 to reports of a burning home in Waterbury, Connecticut, city police said.

There, they found a woman – and her 32-year-old stepson.

The stepmother, identified by police as Kimberly Sullivan, had managed to get out safely, police said.

The man – affected by smoke inhalation and exposure to the flames – had needed help.

He soon would admit to police he had started the fire.

On purpose.

After nearly two decades, he wanted his freedom, he told them, as he recounted a hellish tale laid out in an arrest warrant obtained by CNN affiliate WFSB that describes a life of “captivity, abuse and starvation.”

“Thirty-three years of law enforcement, this is the worst treatment of humanity that I’ve ever witnessed,” Waterbury Police Chief Fred Spagnolo told reporters Thursday as he outlined all investigators had learned since responding to the fire.

“It’s really hard to talk about, still,” the chief said. He shuddered to think someone would be treated this way by a family member, a parental figure or a guardian.

Sullivan, 56, was arrested Wednesday and faces charges, including for assault, kidnapping and cruelty, police said. The allegations against her, her lawyer said, are “absolutely not true.”

“He was not locked in a room. She did not restrain him in any way,” attorney Ioannis Kaloidis said. “She provided food. She provided shelter. She is blown away by these allegations.”

It all began, the records indicate, some two decades ago.

Nothing ‘other than a normal childhood’ seen

The man, now known as “Male Victim 1,” remembered in his early years being hungry and sneaking out of his room at night for something to eat and drink, according to an affidavit included with the warrant.

By fourth grade, he explained, he was asking other people for food. Stealing it. Picking it out of the garbage.

After his food wrappings were found at home, he started getting locked in his room. Eventually, the stepmother permanently pulled the boy out of school and only let him leave his room for chores, according to police interviews.

This was the routine “nearly every day,” the affidavit states.

He was never allowed friends, he told police, and was allowed to have fun only on Halloween. The last time he went trick-or-treating he was 12. He dressed up as a firefighter.

His two half-sisters had friends, he said, but they weren’t allowed to come to the house.

“I have been kept a secret my entire life,” he told police.

The boy’s school notified the state Department of Children and Families, according to the document, and while he was in fourth grade, state social workers twice visited the home for wellness checks, he told police.

Sullivan had told him to claim he was OK, he said.

The boy was unenrolled from Waterbury Public Schools in 2004, according to Waterbury Schools Superintendent Darren Schwartz.

Police twice visited the home, the chief said: first in 2004 at the department’s request because children who knew the boy had not seen him. Spagnolo misspoke at the news conference when he said the two police visits took place in 2005, but a Waterbury police spokesperson later confirmed to CNN officers contacted the family on April 1 and April 18 in 2004.

“The house was clean, it was lived in,” said Spagnolo, who took the helm of the department in 2018.

Officers at the time talked with the boy and found nothing that made them suspect “anything other than a normal childhood” was unfolding inside the home, Spagnolo said.

When they visited again, the family asked to file a harassment complaint against members of the local school district who had continued to report them.

The family had provided no proof of harassment, Spagnolo said Thursday, adding, “We have no further information about where that went.”

“We sent an officer out to visit the home. He talked to the child and came back and reported that everything was okay,” Waterbury Mayor Paul K. Pernerewski told CNN’s Laura Coates on Thursday. “Then after that, it just sort of fell through the cracks or fell out of anyone’s notice at that point and continued on.”

The Connecticut State Department of Children and Families is “shocked and saddened for the victim and at the unspeakable conditions he endured,” it told CNN in a statement Thursday, praising his “incredible strength and resilience.”

The department has “looked extensively” at its databases and has “been unable to locate any records” related to the family, it told CNN.

“In accordance with state regulation, it should also be noted that reports of neglect and abuse that have been investigated and not substantiated are expunged 5 years after completion of the investigation provided there are no other substantiated reports.”

‘Locked in … 22 to 24 hours a day’

When the boy was around 14 or 15, he went with his father to dispose of yard waste, the affidavit reads. It was the last time he left the property, though he would be let out of his small room each day for between 15 minutes and a couple hours, the chief said.

Back inside it, he used an “elaborate mechanism” he’d conceived of himself to go to the bathroom, the chief went on. Forced to relieve himself in a bottle, he then fed urine via straws out through a hole in the storm window frame.

He didn’t dare open the window itself, Spagnolo said, because he worried about retaliation.

He feared being locked in his room longer, the man told police, and further restriction of his food. Sullivan had told him that “under pain of death no one was to see me,” he told police, the warrant says.

Other family members, too, feared backlash, Spangolo said, describing “a level of fear on retaliation, on what would occur if information was released or help was provided to the victim by family members,” whom he did not identify.

An uncle told police he remembered the boy as “skinny, meek and mild mannered,” the affidavit says. And when he tried to speak with the child, he said, Kimberly Sullivan intervened.

The uncle visited for several years on Christmas Eve, before the family pushed him and his wife away, he said, telling police he had not seen the alleged victim since 2004 or 2005.

About a decade ago, concerned for the boy, he spoke with a private investigator, who suggested looking for a death certificate.

The boy’s only access to the outside world was a radio outside his bedroom, which he told police helped him keep track of the years. He tried to keep up with current events, along with NASCAR and University of Connecticut basketball.

He got three or four books every year and used a dictionary to learn unfamiliar words, the affidavit says, noting: “It was determined that (the man) had ultimately educated himself.”

As he grew, more locks got added to the exterior of the boy’s door.

“It appeared that the locks increased in security levels as time progressed, and obviously he became older and maybe a little bit stronger,” Spagnolo told reporters.

Then in January 2024, his father – long bound to a wheelchair – died, and the alleged captivity got even more restrictive, he told police.

“[The man] stated that 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. Stating it was only about 1 minute a day. Essentially, [he] was locked in his room between 22 to 24 hours a day,” according to the affidavit.

Then about a year ago, he told police, he found the lighter – in a jacket that belonged to his late father.

His stepmother’s take on what happened, meanwhile, is different.

‘Ms. Sullivan is presumed innocent’

All that’s been alleged, her lawyer told reporters Wednesday outside court, is “absolutely not true.”

“Ms. Sullivan is presumed innocent,” Kaloidis, her attorney, told CNN in a statement. “The warrant details allegations that must be proven at trial.”

When contacted by detectives, she said she’d spoken with an attorney and would not speak to police. She was released from custody on $300,000 bond, according to the Waterbury Judicial District clerk’s office, and is next due in court on March 26. She has yet to enter a plea. Another of Sullivan’s attorneys, Jason Spilka, said the legal team plans to enter a not guilty plea on her behalf.

Sullivan “maintains her innocence,” Kaloidis added, “and looks forward to clearing her name.”

After the fire, an officer who saw the man described him as “extremely emaciated.” He stood 5-foot-9 and weighed 70 pounds. He was dirty. His hair was matted. All his teeth looked rotten.

Police executing search warrants found plywood and a lock on the door to the man’s room, the affidavit says.

Now, Male Victim 1 – who’s in stable condition at a medical facility – is faced with having to build a life, the police chief told reporters. He’ll have to overcome mental and physical ailments he developed inside the small room in conditions worse than those of a jail cell.

“There’s a lot of physical therapy that he’ll have to go through,” Spagnolo said. “There’s a lot of healing that he’ll have to go through mentally.”

Waterbury detectives, 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.

“I do think that we’ve made some strides in the last 20 years for reporting requirements,” said Mayor Pernerewski, adding that anyone who suspects something of concern “ought to feel comfortable reporting” it. “It’s better to report something and have it turn out not to be true than to allow something like this to go on for 20 years.”

As for the newly freed man, the mayor said, “We’re committed to supporting him in every way possible as he begins to heal from this unimaginable trauma.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Nic F. Anderson, Elizabeth Wolfe and Karina Tsui contributed to this report.

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