A woman has been arrested and charged with holding her stepson captive for 20 years in a situation so dire he set fire to his room in a last-ditch effort to escape.
Connecticut woman Kimberly Sullivan, 56, was arraigned on Wednesday on a host of disturbing charges, including assault and kidnapping.
Her 32-year-old stepson, who has not been named, set fire to a tiny upstairs bedroom of his Waterbury home on February 17.
When first responders arrived to put out the blaze, they found the emaciated man, weighing just 68 pounds. Prosecutors said he was ‘like a survivor of Auschwitz’s death camp’ at the time he was rescued.
As he was being treated for smoke inhalation, he confided in rescue crews that he set the blaze intentionally as a means to escape.
‘I wanted my freedom,’ the man allegedly told police.
He said he had been held captive since he was about 11 years old in an 8-foot-by-9-foot room with no heat or air conditioning.
A thorough investigation has now led authorities to believe the man ‘had been held in captivity for over 20 years, enduring prolonged abuse, starvation, severe neglect, and inhumane treatment.’
