A 32-year-old man was recently rescued from a home in Connecticut after he set it on fire to escape the ordeal that his stepmother subjected him to for the last 20 years, police said. Kimberly Sullivan, the 56-year-old stepmother, is now facing a slew of charges including cruelty, kidnapping and unlawful restraint.
Harrowing details have emerged as first responders found that the man lit the fire knowing very well that he could have died in the fire. But it was his separation to get rid of his life confined in an 8-foot by 9-foot room which did not have heat or air conditioning. The man said he had been held captive since he was about 11 years old when he was pulled from school. Since then, he had been held in captivity. He last left home when he was 14 or 15 years old. His father, he said, used to let him out of the room to do chores and watch television. Following his father’s death in 2024, his treatment by his stepmother worsened.

‘Drank out of the toilet bowl’

The victim said he was given just two cups of water per day and used to drink out of the toilet bowl when he had the chance. Every day, he was given two sandwiches to eat. When he was a teen, he said he had to urinate inside bottles and use newspapers to relieve himself. “He would then roll the paper up, tie it with string he unraveled from old T-shirts and eventually bring it to the kitchen garbage when he was let out,” the court filing said.
He was never given any soap and used to bathe in the little water that he used to save from his drinking water. The victim said he used to count cars from the window and learned to read from a dictionary.