Escape By Arson: Man Escapes Decades Of Confinement In 'House Of Horrors'

maximus otter

maximus otter

Recovering policeman
Joined
Aug 9, 2001
Messages
15,642

Connecticut man held captive by stepmom for 20 years weighed only 68 pounds​

A Connecticut woman has been arrested for allegedly holding her "severely emaciated" stepson in captivity at their home for over 20 years, since he was 11 years old, and forcing him to endure "prolonged abuse, starvation, severe neglect, and inhumane treatment," police said.

Sullivan-arrest_1741847969820_hpMain_1x1.JPG


A woman was charged for allegedly holding her “severely emaciated” stepson in captivity for over 20 years, since he was 11 years old, and forcing him to endure “prolonged abuse, starvation, severe neglect, and inhumane treatment,” police said. Facebook / Waterbury Police Department

"It's truly horrifying and beyond comprehension what occurred here. The young man's unimaginable suffering over the course of two decades is just a reminder of the darkness that does exist in our world," Waterbury Mayor Paul Pernerewski said at a press conference Thursday.

The now-32-year-old man is 5-foot-9 and weighed just 68 pounds when he was found, according to officials.

The victim was discovered on Feb. 17, when Waterbury Police Department officers, along with personnel from the Waterbury Fire Department, responded to a report of an active fire at a residence at approximately 8:42 p.m.

The fire was quickly extinguished by authorities and two occupants were found inside the home at the time. The first person was identified as 56-year-old Kimberly Sullivan, the owner of the property who called authorities for help, and the second person was identified as a 32-year-old man who was later determined to be Sullivan's stepson.

"While receiving medical care, the male victim disclosed to first responders that he had intentionally set the fire in his upstairs room, stating, 'I wanted my freedom,'" officials said in their statement regarding the case. "He further alleged that he had been held captive by Sullivan since he was approximately 11 years old."

Waterbury Police Chief Fernando Spagnolo said that the biological father died in January 2024. The father was wheelchair bound from a medical condition.

Sullivan was ... arraigned in court and her bond was set at $300,000. She is now expected to be placed in the custody of the Connecticut Department of Corrections while she awaits trial.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=119742983

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:

Connecticut man held captive by stepmom for 20 years weighed only 68 pounds​

A Connecticut woman has been arrested for allegedly holding her "severely emaciated" stepson in captivity at their home for over 20 years, since he was 11 years old, and forcing him to endure "prolonged abuse, starvation, severe neglect, and inhumane treatment," police said.

Sullivan-arrest_1741847969820_hpMain_1x1.JPG


A woman was charged for allegedly holding her “severely emaciated” stepson in captivity for over 20 years, since he was 11 years old, and forcing him to endure “prolonged abuse, starvation, severe neglect, and inhumane treatment,” police said. Facebook / Waterbury Police Department

"It's truly horrifying and beyond comprehension what occurred here. The young man's unimaginable suffering over the course of two decades is just a reminder of the darkness that does exist in our world," Waterbury Mayor Paul Pernerewski said at a press conference Thursday.

The now-32-year-old man is 5-foot-9 and weighed just 68 pounds when he was found, according to officials.

The victim was discovered on Feb. 17, when Waterbury Police Department officers, along with personnel from the Waterbury Fire Department, responded to a report of an active fire at a residence at approximately 8:42 p.m.

The fire was quickly extinguished by authorities and two occupants were found inside the home at the time. The first person was identified as 56-year-old Kimberly Sullivan, the owner of the property who called authorities for help, and the second person was identified as a 32-year-old man who was later determined to be Sullivan's stepson.

"While receiving medical care, the male victim disclosed to first responders that he had intentionally set the fire in his upstairs room, stating, 'I wanted my freedom,'" officials said in their statement regarding the case. "He further alleged that he had been held captive by Sullivan since he was approximately 11 years old."

Waterbury Police Chief Fernando Spagnolo said that the biological father died in January 2024. The father was wheelchair bound from a medical condition.

Sullivan was ... arraigned in court and her bond was set at $300,000. She is now expected to be placed in the custody of the Connecticut Department of Corrections while she awaits trial.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=119742983

maximus otter
Click to expand...
The biological father died just over a year ago, so either he was complicit in this or he was incapable of intervening. He was wheelchair bound but we don’t know for how long. All sorts of horrific “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” scenarios can be envisioned with both men being victimized by this harpy.

Hopefully the authorities will have the decency not to charge the young man with arson. Good on him for having the cojones to do something about his situation.

I note that Ms. Sullivan is signaling her deep Christian faith via her necklace. So that’s ok then.
 
Ugh, what a bad story.

No doubt the neighbours will come forward to say she seemed a decent sort `but kept herself to herself`...
 

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
Updated 2:45 AM EDT, Fri March 14, 2025

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.

Full Story:
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/13/us/waterbury-connecticut-man-captive-stepmom-hnk

​

=======================================

A young man emerged from a burning house after decades of alleged captivity. His city is now reckoning with the fallout​

By Lauren Mascarenhas, CNN
Published 8:00 AM EDT, Sun March 23, 2025

“It’s just enough already,” a woman says, standing in front of her neatly trimmed home. She shakes her head and gestures toward the line of news vans parked outside 2 Blake Street before abandoning her gardening tools in the front yard and retreating into the house.

2 Blake Street – or Waterbury’s “house of horrors,” as it’s been branded by some – has captured the nation’s interest since a 32-year-old man lit a fire there last month to escape the place where police say he endured more than 20 years of captivity, abuse and starvation at the hands of his stepmother.

On the other end of Blake Street, 39-year-old Marvin McCullough is more obliging to the brigade of journalists parked outside his home. He’s talked to a few about the seemingly normal family that lived in the worn, two-story white house with pale blue details facing his: They mostly kept to themselves, filing in and out over the years – the stepmother, her late husband, her two daughters, their friends.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/13/us/waterbury-connecticut-man-captive-stepmom-hnk
McCullough never saw signs another person was living there, he says – let alone being held captive, as police and court documents assert.

Background Story:
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/23/us/waterbury-connecticut-man-held-captive/index.html
 
Yithian said:
Background Story:
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/23/us/waterbury-connecticut-man-held-captive/index.html
Click to expand...
Since Sullivan’s arrest, there have been calls for a state-level investigation and a closer examination of its safety net for children, including homeschooling practices, around which there is little or no regulation, according to a 2018 Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate report.

“I think it would be helpful for kids who are homeschooled to have more benchmarks that they have to meet, so that there’s more of a connection,” the mayor says.
Click to expand...

Homeschooling is one method which abusive parents resort to so that there is no contact with anyone in the community. The child is withdrawn from a school and the parent says they are homeschooling and nothing else is done.

Parents only have to submit an education plan which satisfies the requirements by the education system to be allowed to homeschool. And, afaik, it is the parent/s who then submit any reports to prove they are following their plan. No one actually visits to do these reviews.
 
Is there evidence about this /apart/ from the escapee's testimony? I do believe in believing people, I also believe in not hanging people before teh trial.
 
Frideswide said:
Is there evidence about this /apart/ from the escapee's testimony? I do believe in believing people, I also believe in not hanging people before teh trial.
Click to expand...
Yes, from Yith's story posted above - police reports from many years earlier (they did not find anything untoward). Testimony from a woman who thinks she remembers him as a child (that can probably be checked). An account from a detective who saw the locks:-
As detectives searched the house in the days after the fire, evidence of the incredulous story (Incredulous??- Min) the young man told in the back of the ambulance began to emerge.
There’s one image Brownell says he can’t shake: the locks on the door to the 8 foot by 9 foot storage space where he was kept.

“He tells a story, an unwavering story,” he says. “You do your follow-up investigation to try to corroborate what somebody may be telling you, and then you walk to an area where he’s saying he’s being held – and there you see it.”
Click to expand...

IamSundog said:
The biological father died just over a year ago, so either he was complicit in this or he was incapable of intervening. He was wheelchair bound but we don’t know for how long.
Click to expand...
Hopefully the authorities will look again at the "medical condition".
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top