An attorney for Sullivan, Ioannis Kaloidis, said in an emailed statement to the _Washington Post_ that his client “maintains her innocence and looks forward to the opportunity to clear her name”.
“Kimberly Sullivan is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. While the allegations are serious, they are just that, allegations,” the statement said.
The affidavit from the Waterbury Police Department, which contains several disturbing details, said the stepson was found in an extremely poor condition, with his hair “very dirty” and matted, and all his teeth appearing to be rotten. The police said they were not identifying the stepson because he is an alleged victim of abuse, including child abuse.
The stepson told officers that he began being locked in his room at the age of 3, when his family caught him sneaking out of his room at night for food and water because he was hungry, the affidavit said. He recalled having to drink water from the toilet because he was only getting about two cups of water a day, the affidavit said.
At that point, he was locked in his room only during the evenings but he was pulled out of school during fourth grade, which is equivalent to New Zealand’s Year 5, when the school contacted the [Department of Children and Families (DCF)](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/migrant-children-languish-at-us-shelters-as-more-and-more-arrive/KYTYMLZGRIDCO6AZGRBQD7BT2I/) after noticing he appeared to be always hungry, asking others for food, stealing food and sometimes eating out of the rubbish, he said, according to the affidavit. DCF visited his home twice, the affidavit states, during which Sullivan instructed him to say everything was fine.
After Sullivan pulled him out of school, “his weekday routine and captivity became brutally consistent for the rest of his life”, the affidavit states. He said he was initially locked in a room, and later, in a 2.4m x 2.7m space where the authorities found him, and was only let out for brief moments to carry out chores, the affidavit said. Police officers examining the house found a lock, and signs of previous locks, on the door that were consistent with the stepson’s descriptions. Investigators described the room where he was held as more of a “back storage space” that had no heat in the winter and no air conditioning in the summer.
“It was worse than the conditions of a jail cell,” Spagnolo, the police chief, said Thursday.
The stepson said he was not allowed out of the room to bathe or use the toilet, and developed a system in which he urinated into empty bottles that he’d funnel out the window, and defecate on newspaper that he would dispose of when he was let out for chores, the affidavit said. To keep him from escaping or seeking help, Sullivan would threaten him with less food and longer lockdowns, the affidavit states.
The stepson said his father and two half-sisters were aware of his treatment, although they did not participate in it, the affidavit said, adding that while his father was alive, he would sometimes let his son out of the room to watch television with him when Sullivan took his sisters to events. His father, who died in January 2024, had suffered from several health issues and was a wheelchair user, police said, and his biological mother had not been involved in his life since he was 2.
After his father died, the stepson estimated he spent anywhere from 22 to 24 hours per day locked in the space. He said for meals he was given up to two sandwiches a day and two small bottles of water, the affidavit said.
When investigators asked him if he had been hungry, he responded: “All day, every day, my entire life,” the affidavit said. After he was admitted to a hospital, medical staff documented he had a body mass index of 11 – severely malnourished – and diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and cachexia, a wasting syndrome often seen in cancer patients, according to the affidavit.
When asked to comment on the case and the department’s previous interactions with the family, DCF Commissioner Jodi Hill-Lilly said the department was unable to find any records about this family, noting that in accordance with state regulation, reports of neglect and abuse that have been investigated and not substantiated are expunged five years after completion of the investigation. “We will continue our search and ask anyone with additional information to contact the Waterbury Police Department,” Hill-Lilly said in an emailed statement to the _Post_.
During Thursday’s news conference, Spagnolo said DCF requested that the police conduct a welfare check in April 2005 but the officers didn’t find any cause for concern.
Police were called back to the house later that same month because the family wanted to file harassment complaints against members of the school district for “reportedly reporting them to DCF”, Spagnolo said. The staff at the last school the stepson had attended had also contacted different agencies in 2005, asking them to check on him, the affidavit states.
While the investigation is still ongoing, it appears at this point that Sullivan acted alone, Spagnolo said. Sullivan is being held on US$300,000 ($525,000) bail.