A stepmother who allegedly imprisoned and starved her stepson for 20 years has been released from jail.
Kimberly Sullivan, 56, posted $300,000 bail on Thursday and was released from custody after appearing in Waterbury Superior Court, Connecticut.
Authorities say her stepson, who is now 32, was held captive for over 20 years, enduring ‘prolonged abuse, starvation, severe neglect, and inhumane treatment.’
Sullivan is said to have held her stepson captive since he was in the fourth grade in an 8-foot-by-9-foot room with no heat or air conditioning.
He only managed to escape and alert authorities after setting a fire in an upstairs bedroom on February 17, and then confiding in rescue crews that it was intentional.
According to a newly released arrest warrant the man had to devise ways to dispose of his own waste due to having no access to a bathroom.
This included him using a series of straws that led to a hole in a window. It also said that his teeth would frequently break when he did eat due to his lack of dental care.
According to medical personnel he was near starvation and had wasting syndrome a condition of weight loss and muscle deterioration when he got to a hospital.
Kimberly Sullivan, 56, posted $300,000 bail on Thursday and was released from custody after appearing in Waterbury Superior Court, Connecticut
Authorities say the man, who is now 32, was held captive for over 20 years inside this home
He weighed only 69 pounds, 31 kilograms, while standing at 5 feet, 9 inches, according to authorities. Prosecutors said he was ‘akin to a survivor of Auschwitz’s death camp’ at the time he was rescued.
The warrant also adds that the victim’s living conditions deteriorated when his father died last year.
Sullivan subjected the man to ‘prolonged abuse, starvation, severe neglect, and inhumane treatment’ officials said
He told authorities he was given two cups of water a day, but was sometimes forced to drink out of the toilet.
Waterbury Police Chief Fernando Spagnolo said at a press conference on Thursday that 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.
Sullivan is said to have held him captive since he was in the fourth grade in an 8-foot-by-9-foot room with no heat or air conditioning. She is seen on Wednesday after being arraigned
According to medical personnel the man was near starvation and had wasting syndrome a condition of weight loss and muscle deterioration. The inside of the home is seen here
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.
On Thursday the man’s former principal teacher told DailyMail.com that he caught him drinking from a urinal at school.
Tom Pannone, of the now-closed Barnard Elementary School, said the victim attended the school from when he was in kindergarten to fourth grade, only to vanish when teachers began to raise concern about his wellbeing.
‘I caught him one day in the urinal flushing it to drink water, because I don’t think he could reach the water fountain at the time.
‘It was insane, I’m sick to this day about it… as a human being I feel sick’, an emotional Pannone recalled.
He also said that the boy would share horror stories of his home life since he was as young as five, when he already looked way too small for his age.
‘A teacher reported to me that he said the mother bought pizza one night, but he could not have any. It was only for the sisters and the rest of the family,’ Pannone said.
Prosecutors said he was ‘akin to a survivor of Auschwitz’s death camp’ at the time he was rescued from the home
The alleged victim’s elementary school principal Tom Pannone, seen here, told DailyMail.com he repeatedly contacted officials
Police say Sullivan held her stepson captive since he was in the fourth grade in an 8-foot-by-9-foot room with no heat or air conditioning
‘So this is when he was like five years old, and the red flags were flying at that age and reports were made. I couldn’t tell you how many times reports were made to children and family support agencies.’
Meanwhile, the boy’s neighbor Zeffney Guarnera told of how his daughter once spotted the victim in a window around 14 years ago – and was so stunned by his appearance she mistook him for a ghost.
Guarnera told DailyMail.com: ”She saw a little boy in the window with a baseball cap on, and he waved at her and she waved at him… and then she never saw him again.
‘She even said, did I see a ghost?’
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.’
Sullivan’s lawyer Ioannis Kaloidis said she denies any wrongdoing. Her next court date is March 26.
