Oh my god. What's the address? Please hurry. There's a fire. Okay. Oh my god. Fire. Ma'am, what's the TV? I don't know. My My son, he was stepson is in his room and I don't know. He did something with the TV. I was sleeping. I need an ambulance. Ma'am. All right. You said something's on fire and now you need an ambulance. What's going on there? Yes, his room. the TV in his room. Did he get injured? Is he on fire? Yes, he's injured. Please send the ambulance. Ma'am, I'm going to send the ambulance. I need to know what's going on and why they're going out there. Where is he injured? He I don't know. He's He's kind of He's He's I don't know. I don't know. He's kind of passed out. He's out of it. Please. When Kimberly Sullivan called 911 on the night of February 17th, 2025, it sounded like a routine fire emergency. Nothing out of the ordinary. Firefighters and officers from the Waterbury Police Department rushed to the scene. [Applause] [Music] There's a fire up here. Yeah, get out. You got to get out. It's not safe. You have to get out. You all right? Everybody's out or no? No, I have no idea. We just got here when they got here. All right, get out of the way. Guys, get out of the way for them. We got to get a unit to that side. Why don't you bring your car over on that side? Just go all the way around and be able to get through there. Come over here. Go down the road. Come down. You have to get stuff out. Come on. Come down. Come down. Come on down. Who else is in the house? Who else is in here? My stepson is in here. How many How many other people? I have two cats. Everybody's out? Yes. But your stepson's still inside? Yeah, he's right here. Okay, come out. Come down the road. Come on. Come on. To stay here. Come on. All right. My dog is here. I know. Come down here. Who are you? That's your wife. No. No. My wife's in the car. That's uh the mother-in-law. Oh, [ __ ] That's your mom? Yeah. Okay. All right. We listen. We got to get you guys off the road. Go to the other side over there. Yeah. Because we're going to have trucks coming down. So, you got to move. Okay. So, when you get there, you need to stay as far as you can and we'll bring her over when we're done. Trust. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Thank you. That's true. 873 for a victim. Fire victim. Okay. Everyone thought it was just a house fire. My dog. I got my dog. I know. Come on. I'm coming. You're seen that one victim right here. Then they found him. Although the video has been redacted by the department, the report states that fire crews pulled a young man emaciated and frail from an upstairs bedroom. He looked like he hadn't seen the outside world in years. Paramedics rushed him into an ambulance. That's when the story took a turn no one saw coming. Okay. The dog is going crazy. I don't know what to do. Can I get my purse with my keys? Do I put my dog? Um, it's Oh my god. Inside. It's in this room. You can't go back inside. You cannot go back inside. Here. Come. You cannot go back inside right now. The house is on fire. You're not going back in. All right. We We're going to move. Did you come down here? Can I go? Who's Oh, your daughter's the one in that car. Yes. She's gonna be over there for you. Okay. I told her to go to the park because we have to get everybody in. How am I going to get You're gonna walk. We'll walk with you. Okay. Don't worry. I just told her to go to the park and wait for you. Okay. Go ahead. Her son's in the back. Semi-responsive. Make sure we get her in the car. Nobody else is in the house, right? Her parent or her family's over there. Okay. Okay. All right. There was this one victim that they just put in the back here. The woman said there's two cats inside. Nobody else. So, it's just two people. He's loaded in the back now. Whoever your truck one guy was, we need to grab. We have ID on him. I do. I do. According to the report, the man was 32 years old and said he'd been locked in that room since he was 11. His stepmother, Kimberly Sullivan, the woman who called 911, had kept him confined for over 20 years. He hadn't bathed in over a year, hadn't seen a doctor or dentist since childhood, and was only let out for chores. He survived on one or two sandwiches a day. Says he hasn't had a shower in over a year. Dirt all over. Am I going here? What's the deal? Yeah, I guess so. I guess Martin and I following you down. All right, tell the baby. Okay, I I'll tell everybody to go. I'll text you. The fire wasn't an accident. He said it himself using hand sanitizer, paper, and a lighter. not to harm anyone, but because it was the only way he saw to escape, the only way to be free. I've got mom here at the intersection of Highland and uh and Sunnyside. So, you're all set over there. And it sounds like daughter went to Waterberry Hospital. She's trying to get over St. Mary's, too. All right. I got I got to go. Okay. No, no, at the hospital. Yeah, she's here. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to swim over here. All right. I got I got Bonoy calling me. I'll call you back. Sounds good. Hey, so it sounds like daughter went to Waterberry Hospital and mom did, too. Um because they didn't know he went to St. Mary's. Daughter's still over there. Mom's right here with me. She just pulled off. Okay. Do you want me to her to stay here? Yeah. She's at the intersection of Highland and Sunnyside. Okay. All right. So, Oh, hi buddy. Hello. How are you? Do you mind hanging here for a minute cuz we have um our fire inspector coming out and he just wants to talk to everybody while we still have them just cuz everybody's been running around a little bit. Uh that I Who? Oh, well that would be more up to the fire department. I would say probably not just because of I don't know why this number Hello. Hi buddy. Hi. You're so friendly. Hello. Hello. Are you Kimberly? Hi. I'm Detective Pesh. Um I investigate all the fires that happen in this city. So I just wanted to get an idea of what you know or what happened. When did he say that? He said he woke up and the TV was in display. Okay. Where was he when he said that to you? Um, coming out of his room. He was coming out of his room. Yeah. I guess he fell asleep and I guess he I don't know. Smell the smoke. So tell take me right to the beginning of when you know there's a fire or there's smoke. I smelled it. Okay. Where were you? Bed. In bed. Where's your bed? Downstairs. Upstairs. Upstairs. Okay. You smelled it. So then what happened then? That he was I guess he was sleeping. He passed out. Okay. But what did you do though specifically? I was I was screaming for him. I was screaming, you know, for him and and I I I was trying to go into the room, but it was just there were just flames. So he came out of the room. You imagine he woke up. He came out of the room. So when you saw him at first, he was sleeping. No, no, he was he was he was talking. Okay. But he said that he couldn't come out of the room because there were flames. Okay. And I was standing like back because I could see them and I said, "Just come out." And he couldn't get out because of the flames, right? I said, "Just come out. Just come out. Just come out." You know, did he run through them? I guess he did. Yeah. Okay. I guess he did. Was the door locked on his room or No. No. Okay. Is it normally locked? No. Okay. It's normally open. And he has free reign to go out of there whenever he wants? Yeah. Okay. Does he Now, does he have any like any mental challenges or anything? What is he? He started the fire. Well, we don't know yet, but that's why I'm asking. That's why I'm asking if there's a history of No. Okay. So, no. Nothing like that in the past. No. Okay. So, other than you were you sleeping, you said in your bed? Yeah. Okay. You smell smoke, right? You get up, you go to his room, right? And you're screaming. Must have passed that. He must have been sleeping and just I don't know. Didn't realize until it was actually happening. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And you're telling them to get out of the room. Get out of the room cuz there's flames there. They were scared because of the Yeah. And I get that. And um I said just just cut, you know, both whatever. Just come out of the room. Yeah. And where do you go at that point? We both we both went downstairs. So he was able to get out with you at that time? Yeah. Downstairs. And I was trying I was trying to hit 911 and I was just so shaking. I just It took me a second. Yeah. No, absolutely. I I I get that. All right. You're going to be here for a little while? Well, I was going to go to the hospital. Okay. Is somebody with you? Yeah. Okay. Who's with you? My daughter. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Do they live at the house, too? It's just you and your son. Okay. And you're going to go to the hospital? Okay. That's where my other girl is. Oh, that's where she is? All right. I'm fine with that. He's at St. Mary's, right? Yeah. Okay. And that's where you're going to go now? Yeah. Okay. Okay. If I need to talk to you later, you you don't have a problem talking with me, right? Okay. Thank you. At the hospital, doctors found that Kimberly's stepson weighed just 80 lbs. His ribs showed his teeth were rotting and he could barely stand or straighten up. Kimberly claimed he was just slow and denied locking him up. But inside her house of horrors, officers uncovered the grim reality. The bedroom door had a slide lock on the outside. Burn marks and broken plywood showed it had been reinforced in the past. After he tried to escape, an orange lighter was found inside the burned room. Detectives started pulling records. According to a report from April 2005, a welfare check was conducted after some of the victim's former school friends contacted DCF, saying they feared something had happened to him. Some even believed he may have died since he had been out of school for so long. At the time, Kimberly Sullivan claimed she was homeschooling him. The responding officer spoke with Kimberly, who said this was the second time she had been bothered by DCF or police, regarding the condition of her children. The report states the officer also spoke with the child, who appeared to be healthy and happy. The home was described as normal and lived in, but in reality, after withdrawing him from school, his world slowly disappeared. His father, Craig, died in early 2024, leaving Kimberly in full control of the house, and her control turned into something darker. Since the age of 11, he was locked inside a small room just 8 by 9 ft, barely enough space to move. Photos from the scene show windows covered with plywood, sealed off from the outside world. She forced him to live in filth. No sunlight, no doctors, no way out. For 20 years, he was hidden from the world like he didn't exist. Following this incident, Kimberly Sullivan was arrested on March 12th, 2025, including first-degree assault and seconddegree kidnapping for allegedly imprisoning her stepson for over two decades. It's It's just shocking to know that there was even a boy I I never even knew of and that was living in that room. Kimberly, why would you do this? in court. During her initial court appearance, Kimberly pleaded not guilty to these charges. Vigorously object to the state's motion. I believe it is improper and I believe if it was to be granted, it would be unjust and a violation of my client's state and federal constitutional rights. The judge set her bond at $300,000, which she posted, leading to her release under specific conditions, including electronic GPS monitoring. The victim's biological mother says she hasn't been allowed to see her son since the day he was rescued. Kimberly's next court appearance is scheduled for April 22nd, 2025, where she is expected to enter a formal plea. As the legal proceedings continue, the victim remains under medical care, and authorities are conducting further investigations into the circumstances surrounding the alleged prolonged captivity. Hey everyone, it's Trent, prior deputy sheriff, patrol sergeant, and canine handler. So, the vast majority of the calls that we're going to go to as cops are going to be quality of life issues. There's a lot of domestic violence calls, burglaries, thefts, people under the influence of all kinds of things, traffic collisions, fights, and a lot of those things are terrible in their own way. But every once in a while, we go to a call where we see what true evil actually looks like and what another human being is capable of and doing to someone else. We see that a lot on crazy homicide scenes. I've seen it with a lot of kids stuff where they're victims of things that are incredibly disturbing. And this case in particular definitely falls under that umbrella of being insanely disturbing and this woman is clearly psychotic. So, while I was watching this footage, I'm thinking to myself, has he tried to escape before? Who in his family was aware about this? We see his sister show up on scene at the fire. We hear that his dad had only just died within the last year, who I'm assuming resided there. We see that his mom was interviewed as well, stating she hasn't been allowed to see her son since he has come out of that home during that fire, his biological mother, because Kimberly is his stepmother. So, I we're I'm thinking about all these things and a lot of them are clarified in the report that I was able to review. However, there are a lot of things that were not provided that we're just going to have to see what happens in court for the full explanation. So, this guy that was rescued from the home, he did admit to the fact later on once he was interviewed that he has been held there since the age of 11. Essentially, this started happening when he got pulled out of school and started to get homeschooled by his stepmother, Kimberly. And he did try to escape a couple different times throughout the years. However, his bedroom window had been reinforced, preventing him from leaving along with his door to his room. Locks had been changed a couple different times, preventing him from doing so. Also, according to him, his stepmother played insane mental mind games, basically brainwashing him into thinking that she was going to him if he tried to escape. And also in his fragile state, he's approximately 5'8 to 510 in height and weighs approximately 70 to 80 pounds, which is notated in this report. He can barely walk. He's incredibly malnourished and he hadn't been to a doctor or a dentist in over 20 years. So have the strength to leave or do much of anything. What was also disturbing is that he did admit that his steps sisters, more than one, were fully aware of everything that had gone on for the most part. they had lived with him for a number of years during that time frame where he was held in captivity. They obviously don't live there anymore because they are grown adults and out of the house. He also stated that his stepsisters were treated differently. They were not held in captivity like he was throughout all of those years. Also, he admitted to the fact that his dad was fully aware of this and Kimberly pretty much just ran that house. She controlled everything. But there was multiple family members that were aware of this, were still aware of it, and chose to do nothing about it. His uncle was also interviewed, and that's in the report. And his uncle said, "The last time I saw my nephew, the 32-year-old, was in approximately 2004, 2005 during Christmas, I believe. And we had a huge family falling out. Kimberly is incredibly controlling. There was a lot of family drama. And the uncle stated that she basically just kept us away. We weren't able to know what I wasn't able to know what was going on with my nephew." and he stated years had gone by and he thought about hiring a private investigator to look into it, but he chose not to do so. I don't know what the deal is with this guy's mom, what their relationship is like, or if the dad had full custody during his childhood years, and she just wasn't allowed to be around. But we do see that Kimberly is charged with multiple crimes here. She was able to bail out and the bail was set at $300,000, which means that the bond amount was going to be 10% of that, $30,000. So, the fact that it wasn't hire is insane. The fact that she was able to bail out is insane. This woman is clearly a psychopath and should not be free to roam the streets or interact with anybody in the public. She chose to plead innocent, which is also insane because the evidence is incredibly abundant here in this case. But the bail schedule goes off of crimes charged and the judge has the ultimate say on whether it's going to be higher, lower, or if bail is going to be granted at all. and they chose to just let her out with a tracker on her ankle. I'm sure that's going to solve everything. But depending on the statements that I I haven't reviewed the statements for his stepsisters or any additional family members that had knowledge of this, so I don't know fully their involvement, but the fact that one of his steps sisters showed up later, she's obviously aware. She chose not to say anything. And if that is going to be the case for any of his relatives or friends of his mom, then of course they all need to be charged in conjunction with her and they all need to face their day in court. This happened fairly recently. There's not a lot of information that is available to the public at this time. So, we're just going to have to go ahead and see how the rest of this unfolds. And that is going to be it for this one. See you guys in the next one. [Music]