Mother of the Year candidate
Connecticut ‘house of horrors’ revealed for first time as pictures show squalid hellhole where stepmom allegedly abused stepson for decades
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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