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

By Michelle Krupa, Dakin Andone, Travis Caldwell and Asher Moskowitz, CNN

(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 two small bottles of water a 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 attorney said, are “absolutely not true.”

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 siblings 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.

Police twice visited the home, the chief said: first in 2005 at the department’s request because children who knew the boy had not seen him.

“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.”

CNN has reached out to the Connecticut State Department of Children and Families.

‘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.

The man’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.

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.”

“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.”

She is being held on $300,000 bond, state Correction Department records show.

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

“We’re committed,” Waterbury Mayor Paul K. Pernerewski said, “to supporting him in every way possible as he begins to heal from this unimaginable trauma that he suffered.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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