Connecticut ‘house of horrors’ revealed for first time as pictures show squalid hellhole
By Chris Nesi
Police have released “dozens” of photos that reveal the squalid conditions in which a Connecticut man allegedly lived for more than two decades — locked away in a tiny room by his evil stepmother and forced to set the house on fire in a desperate bid for freedom.
The disturbing photos — released Monday by the Waterbury Police Department — show several rooms in disarray, with walls charred black from the blaze.
Piles of clothing and debris can be seen strewn about the ramshackle home, including a stack of blackened garments sitting atop a pair of plastic storage containers, which appear to have warped and melted under the intense heat. A burned-out dresser containing yet more clothes is shown coated in soot and ash.
Connecticut house of horrors
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Police released images inside the Connecticut house where a stepmother allegedly held her stepson captive for decades.
Waterbury PD
CT house of horrors
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The alleged victim claimed he started a fire to escape his torture.
Waterbury PD
The photos show several doors of the home, including one with a lock that appears to have been hastily reinforced with painted plywood. However, it was not immediately clear whether it was the door to the 9-by-8-foot storage space in which the man was allegedly locked up for decades.
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CT Insider first obtained the images through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The 32-year-old victim weighed just 68 pounds when fire crews pulled him safely from the inferno, and he told police his stepmother, Kimberly Sullivan, 57, had been his cruel jailer since he was just 11 years old.
A door in the house of horrors.
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One door with a lock appears to have been hastily reinforced with painted plywood.
Waterbury PD
CT house of horrors
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Piles of clothing and debris can be seen strewn about the ramshackle home.
Waterbury PD
A room with a burnt wall inside a house where a man was reported held captive for two decades
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CT Insider first obtained the images through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Waterbury PD
Sullivan, who was arrested earlier this month but released after posting $300,000 bail, has maintained her innocence.
She was slapped with charges including first-degree assault, second-degree kidnapping, first-degree unlawful restraint, cruelty to persons, and first-degree reckless endangerment.
Kimberly Sullivan
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Suspect and stepmother Kimberly Sullivan is facing a litany of charges.
Waterbury Police
Kimberly Sullivan accused of imprisoning stepson, standing at a podium in Waterbury Superior Court
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Sullivan makes an appearance in Waterbury Superior Court on March 28.
Hearst Connecticut Media
Her stepson, who has not been publicly identified, told investigators he was routinely deprived of food and water for most of his life, sometimes drinking out of the toilet just to stay alive.
He was so ravenous at times as a child he would steal lunches from classmates or eat out of garbage cans.
School officials noticed this concerning behavior and notified the state’s Department of Children and Families (DCF), who visited the house twice in the early 2000s.
However, those visits prompted Sullivan to allegedly yank her stepson out of school, where he never returned.
Exterior view of 2 Blake Street house in Waterbury, Connecticut, where a man was reportedly held for 20 years
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An exterior view of the house where the stepson was reportedly held for 20 years.
Douglas Healey for NY Post
Local officials escort Kimberly Sullivan from a house in Waterbury, Conn., suspected site of a kidnapping and intentional room fire.
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The state’s Department of Children and Families visited the house twice in the early 2000s.
Douglas Healey for NY Post
DCF has no record of any reports being filed, saying in a statement that per state law, investigations are purged from their systems after five years without receiving any new information.
After his biological father died in 2024, the victim told police his confinement became even more harsh, saying he was locked in the tiny makeshift cell nearly 24 hours a day leading up to the fire.
He said threats of even longer lockdowns or withholding food prevented him from telling anyone how he was forced to live.
The house of horrors
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The said threats of even longer lockdowns or withholding food prevented him from telling anyone how he was forced to live.
Waterbury PD
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He cut his own hair, hadn’t bathed in years and said he had never been to the dentist. He said sometimes his rotten teeth would shatter when he bit into the meager portions of food he was allotted, which typically consisted of a sandwich or two per day.
When he was pulled from the flames on March 11, prosecutors said he was so frail and gaunt they compared his appearance to that of Holocaust victims, describing the alarmingly emaciated man as, “without exaggeration, akin to a survivor of Auschwitz’s death camp.”
Waterbury Police Chief Fernando Spagnolo called the details of the case “shuddering” at a press conference after Sullivan’s arrest, and said that in his 33 years in law enforcement, the house of horrors was “the worst treatment of humanity that I’ve ever witnessed.”
The victim’s biological mother, Tracy Vallerand, was in the courthouse when Sullivan pleaded not guilty last week, calling being nearly face to face with her son’s alleged abuser “nauseating.”
She told The Post that her son is being kept in an “undisclosed location” and that cops told her he wouldn’t have access to anyone while the investigation into his more than 20-year alleged abuse continued.
This is a breaking story. Please check back for updates.
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