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A severely emaciated man weighing just 68 pounds made a snap decision to set his Connecticut home on fire last month — risking death just so he could try and escape the hellish padlocked room he’d been held captive in for more than two decades, cops said.
The 32-year-old gave investigators a terrifying play-by-play of how he finally managed to alert authorities to the years-long pattern of alleged torture and abuse when they saved him from his burning Waterbury home back on Feb. 17.
Like any other day, the victim alleged he spent the vast majority of his hours deadbolted in his 8 x 9 foot room — eating just two sandwiches and a snack, court documents made public on Wednesday detailed.
He was allegedly let out briefly at about 7 p.m. to try and fix a light bulb in the kitchen but was quickly locked back up again by his stepmom, Kimberly Sullivan, when he failed.
The victim told cops it was “same old, same old” when he heard Sullivan close her bedroom door at about 8 p.m.
It was only then that he made the choice to start the blaze in his cramped space, the complaint charges.
He set the fire close to the door using hand sanitizer, paper, a stack of games and a lighter, cops said.
The victim told investigators he’d found the lighter stashed in a jacket pocket a year earlier when his father died and he was allowed to keep a few of his clothes.
Aware of the risks, the victim said he knew he’d have to let the flames get to a point where they couldn’t be put out by his stepmom — and she’d be forced to call the fire department, cops said.
“Once the fire got going good he started to stomp and yell for help. [He] stated that Sullivan yelled to him asking what he wanted and he told her ‘fire’,” according to court docs.
When she finally unbolted the door, the vic told his stepmom that a radio he was allowed to keep had malfunctioned.
“At this point he was out of it and had collapsed at the top of the stairs… Sullivan made him get up and go to the downstairs bathroom and wash his face,” he said, noting his stepmom allegedly didn’t want first responders to know his true appearance.
He recalled his sister and her boyfriend arriving at the home around the same time as fire crews — and that his stepmom allegedly shouted for them to “get a screwdriver to get the locks off of the door.”
“[The victim] fell to the ground again with Sullivan yelling at him to get up,” the complaint said. “He stayed on the ground and he purposefully didn’t get up so the fire department would be forced to get him.”
The victim later told cops he feared this was his only way out of the nightmare.
When he was being treated by EMS, the victim then confessed he’d deliberately started the inferno because he wanted his “freedom.”
His harrowing account kicked off an investigation that eventually determined he had been held in captivity for more than 20 years, where he was starved and neglected, authorities said.
“He was, without exaggeration, akin to a survivor of Auschwitz’s death camp,” officials said of the victim’s condition.
His stepmom, who insisted she is innocent, was arrested Wednesday and charged with assault, kidnapping, unlawful restraint, cruelty and reckless endangerment.
