The biological mother of a 32-year-old Connecticut man who was rescued after allegedly being held captive by his stepmom for over 20 years has spoken out.

Kim Sullivan. Credit: Waterbury Police Department

The unnamed man was rescued from a fire he admitted to starting in the home where he'd been kept for over two decades, telling first responders he'd set light to the home out of desperation to be freed.

Kimberly Sullivan, 56, was arrested last week after the shocking claims came to light when the 32-year-old man started a fire in their home on February 17.

Sullivan had fled the family's Waterbury home when the blaze erupted, and the 32-year-old man, who weighed just 68 lbs according to court documents, was assisted by first responders.

He received treatment for smoke inhalation and exposure to the flames and told first responders that he'd intentionally set light to the cramped storage space where he was forced to sleep in order to end the hellish ordeal he'd been subjected to since the age of 11.

His biological mom has now spoken out with a blunt message for Sullivan after the brutal alleged ordeal came to light.

The 52-year-old, who gave up custody of her son when he was a child, told NBC Connecticut: "She can rot in hell.

"She needs to spend the rest of her life in solitary confinement and fed two cups of water a day,” she added, referring to the allegation that the victim had only received two cups of water a day and had to drink from a toilet in order to survive.

The victim's mother and one of his half-sisters told the outlet that they'd "looked for him for so long," and had been trying to find him on social media since he turned 18 to no avail.

His 35-year-old half-sister explained: "I’ve been looking for him for over a decade … there was nothing. No social media, no court records, no ancestry information, nothing."

The mom added: "We love him, I love him. He is so strong and I’m so proud of him for doing what he needed to do. I wish he did it sooner."

The alleged ordeal began when the man was just 11 years old, when he was pulled out of elementary school, after he had been forced to steal food from others or eat out of the garbage due to his hunger.

The man heartbreakingly claimed that when he was a little boy living with Sullivan, his father - who died in January 2024 - and his siblings, he even had to resort to drinking out of a toilet bowl at times to quench his thirst as he was only allowed two cups of water per day, according to a warrant affidavit obtained by WFSB.

Per the affidavit, he claimed he'd been forced to use bottles and newspapers when needing the toilet in his teenage and adult years.

He alleged that the abuse worsened when his biological father died in January 2024, after which he was locked in his room between 22-24 hours a day.

In order to start the fire, the man had used hand sanitizer, printer paper, and a lighter that he'd found in the pocket of a jacket belonging to his late father, the warrant stated.

As he and Sullivan fled the blaze, the man fell to the ground and stayed there so that firefighters would be forced to pick him up, as he believed "this was his only way out of his situation".

After being rescued, he told police: "I wanted my freedom."

According to Sullivan's arrest warrant, her stepson told investigators the reason he never tried to escape was because she'd warned him not to attract attention "under pain of death."

The police and Waterbury State’s Attorney’s Office launched an investigation which found that the man faced "inhumane treatment", including being starved, abused, and neglected, and had not had any medical or dental checkups or treatment in many years.

Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney Don Therkildsen said, via CT Insider: "The facts of this case, quite frankly, the facts are something out of a horror movie. That’s without exaggeration."

The man deliberately set the home on fire so he would finally be rescued. Credit: Douglas Sacha/Getty Images

He added that the victim set fire to the home in a desperate attempt for freedom, "knowing he very well could have died."

An attorney for Sullivan, Ioannis Kaloidis, denied the claims against her, stating: "The allegations are horrific, but they are simply that: allegations. They’re allegations made by one person that are largely uncorroborated by any independent evidence."

Sullivan is charged with first-degree assault, second-degree kidnapping, first-degree unlawful restraint, cruelty to persons, and first-degree reckless endangerment.

Waterbury Police Chief Fernando Spagnolo said in a statement: "The suffering this victim endured for over 20 years is both heartbreaking and unimaginable."

Sullivan's lawyer said that she was "blown away" and "stunned" when he read the list of accusations to her, adding: "She is innocent and she has every intention of defending this case and we are confident she will be vindicated."

He claimed there was food in the home and that the stepson was not locked in a room, adding: "Does he have health issues? I’m sure he does. But she’s the stepmom, there was a biological father that was responsible for his care, who dictated his care," noting the father died last year.

Neighbors said the family kept to themselves and that they never saw the stepson outside of the house, but had seen him over the years doing yardwork without realizing it was Sullivan's stepson.

Sullivan's bond was set at $300,000. Her next court appearance is March 26.

Featured image credit: Waterbury Police Department

Four teenagers in Oklahoma have made the news after saving the life of a 90-year-old neighbor, after she was trapped in a burning house last month.

Dylan Wick, Wyatt Hall, Seth and Nick Byrd, all aged between 14 and 17 years old, were at Hall's home in Sapulpa, just outside Tulsa, when they noticed the smell of burning rubber.

The teens - all high school football players - saw flames engulfing the home of Wyatt's elderly neighbor Catherine Ritchie and immediately leaped into action.

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Ritchie was reportedly getting to bed when the fire began when, according to a blog post written by her daughter, she tried to flee the flames. The smoke was so thick, however, that she couldn't find her way out of the blaze.

Fortunately, two of the teenagers called 911 and alerted the other neighbors, while Dylan and Nick entered the house. According to CNN, Nick found Catherine on the floor in the hallway, and both lifted her to safety.

Ritchie is an active volunteer with local charities, including The Boys and Girls Club and The Salvation Army. Her granddaughter, Jennifer, told CNN that Catherine - who also delivers Meals on Wheels - was shaken up by the fire, but otherwise remained in good spirits.

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On her blog, Missy Ritchie Nicholas thanked the boys on behalf of her family, writing:

"Thank you for being the kind of young men who thought about another person above yourselves. Thank you for staying safe yourselves as well. Thank you to your parents who obviously raised you in such a way that lead to you making life saving and heroic decisions on behalf of someone else."

Wyatt's mother, Cindy, told CNN that she wasn't surprised by her son's selfless behavior. Lyann Wick also revealed that her son Dylan had aspirations to become a firefighter - and after what took place, he's even more certain of the decision.

What would you be prepared to do to save your own life in the event of a brush with death? Some people able to suddenly perform feats of bravery that they never would have thought themselves capable of in a crisis. One such person is Nadine Crabtree, who narrowly escaped death after her abusive husband torched the house that she and her children were sleeping in, forcing her to leap out of a top floor window and fall to safety to escape the flames.

Nadine, now aged 51, had been married to Tony Wall for only a short time - leaving him because of his controlling and gaslighting behaviour. The couple had originally met on a bus where they struck up a friendship, but when Wall's then-wife died and left him a widower, things turned romantic.

In January 2015 Wall asked her out, and their date blossomed into a committed relationship. They married in July, but Nadine soon learned that Wall was a terrible spouse with a hair-trigger temper, who would explode into rages at the slightest provocation, and was even physically violent. Four months after getting married to him, Nadine had thrown him out of the house, and she thought it was all over. She was wrong.

Two years later Wall returned to Nadine's house and threatened to kill her. In the early hours of April 1, 2017 Nadine's son Jake arrived home around 4am, and smelled a burning smell. Jake woke up his mother and sisters, and Nadine's daughters managed to escape from a downstairs window. Nadine however, was stuck in her room while the house burned, which forced her to jump leap out of a window to safety.

Describing the incident, she stated: "All I could see was thick, black smoke. It felt like everything had slowed down, I was in too much of a daze to panic. It was more amazement. Like, I couldn’t believe this was really happening ... I grabbed some towels and forced my first-floor bedroom window open. Jake and the girls had already got out and ran around the back of the house. I knew I had to jump, but I daren’t."

"I was terrified. Then, Jake screamed at me, ‘Jump Mum, or you’re going to die.’ I leapt out of the window and he somehow managed to catch me. He was so incredibly brave that night. It was only once I was out that the panic set in. I felt like I could barely breathe."

She added, "He seemed so lovely. He was the type of guy to talk to anyone and everyone. I wish I’d realised earlier what he was truly like, and what a nasty, cruel man he is. I’m still traumatised by the fire. I’ve got no idea what he’s thinking, or if he’s still angry. I’m terrified he’s going to come back and try to kill me again."

"He threatened to kill me. I was absolutely terrified. I phoned the police, but there wasn’t a great deal they could do. I started hearing he’d said the same thing to my friends, too. My family and I were scared stiff of him. I’d had no idea. I thought it had just been an awful accident. I’m still in shock that he would do that. I knew he was angry at me, but to target my children as well, while we were all asleep, is horrendous. He could have killed us.”

As a result of the injuries she sustained, Nadine was rushed to the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, where she was placed in a week-long induced coma, due to the smoke damage to her lungs. Wall pleaded guilty to arson (it turned out that he had set fire to Jake's motorcycle) and was charged with attempted murder and jailed for eight years. But Nadine will never forget the terror she experienced that night.

When it's time for us to fly the coup, most good parents make sure you don't go to live on your own without a single survival tactic on how to take care of yourself properly. They want to know that you'll be able to change a lightbulb, cook yourself a semi-nutritious meal and that you won't wash your woollen sweaters on a high heat. But alas, there's no way they can teach us every bit of sage domestic wisdom, just as this US woman learnt after accidentally burning her entire house to the ground after all she was trying to do was kill a couple of bugs. Yikes. The Ohio woman was trying to rid her home of bed bugs on Friday night, using a home-style method of dabbing alcohol over her infested furniture, not thinking the open flame nearby (suspected to be a candle or incense stick she lit to make the task a little less mundane) could lead to a massive inferno. Big mistake. Late on Friday night, Cincinnati fire officials were called to the multi-family home in Avondale which was ablaze. District 3 Fire Chief Randy Freel said that fire was "shooting" from the first floor when fire crews arrived around midnight. They helped an elderly lady who had trouble seeing through the smoke safely out of the building. Three other people inside the building were sent to a hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation, though they are expected to recover without injury. Thanks to the open flame inadvertently coming in contact with the highly flammable liquid, the five-unit building was heavily damaged after the fire spread quickly to ravage the house, doing some $250,000 in damages. Officials said 10 people were left homeless. The three teenagers and seven adults affected are being found temporary lodging by The Red Cross. One of the residents who lived on the top floor of the building, Kamaron Lyshe, arrived home to see flames tearing through the building and shooting from the roof. He posted a video on Facebook of the house on fire: [[facebookwidget||https://www.facebook.com/100002803477306/videos/1207531572683614/]] "When I got here the whole house was on fire," Lyshe explained. The next morning, he stood in shock looking at what was left of the building. "I'm kind of dealing with it now. I'll start from scratch," he said. "It's like a dream....everything is burnt. I'll start fresh. It's all we can do now." [[facebookwidget||https://www.facebook.com/100002803477306/videos/1208851509218287]] Oddly enough, this isn't the first time something like this has happened. Only a couple of weeks ago on November 28, the same Cincinnati fire department was called to a burning apartment building after a 13-year-old boy started a fire when trying to get rid of bed bugs with alcohol too, leaving eight people homeless. The woman who started Friday's fire doesn't wish to be identified, and for good reason, because it is kind of embarro. Fire officials are pleading with people not to try these home-remedies for eradicating kill bed bugs, with Freel offering just one simple request: "Get a professional," he said. Well, the bed bugs are probably dead, so you can't say the method didn't work.

A seven-year-old boy is being praised for saving his younger sister's life after jumping into her room through a window in their burning home to rescue her from the fire.

As reported by CNN, it had been a typical night for the Davidson family of New Tazewell, Tennessee on December 8.

Chris and Nicole's three children were in bed by 8:30 pm. Hours later, however, Nicole woke up smelling smoke and just minutes later it emerged that their home was on fire.

"[Chris] grabbed the fire extinguisher trying to buy me time to get the kids, and I grabbed the boys because they were closest to the fire," said Nicole told WVLT.

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Terrifyingly, 22-month-old Erin was trapped in her room.

Chris and Nicole were able to bring two-year-old Elijah and seven-year-old Eli, their foster son, to safety - but Erin's bedroom was surrounded by flames.

"The smoke and fire was so thick there was no way I could get to her," Chris told CNN.

"We went outside to get to her from the window, but there was nothing for me to stand on to reach up there. So I picked up Eli, who went through the window and was able to grab her from her crib."

"We couldn't be more proud of Eli," he said. "He did something a grown man wouldn't do."

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When the team of firefighters arrived, the family's home was completely engulfed in the flames.

The following day, "nothing was left," New Tazewell Fire Chief Josh Miracle told CNN.

"I thought I couldn't do it, but then I said, 'I got her, dad,'" Eli told CNN. "I was scared, but I didn't want my sister to die."

Both Nicole and Chris are former firefighters themselves.

The pair have fostered 34 children, including Eli, and adopted two others - Erin and Elijah.

"We lost everything that we have ever had," Chris added. "Our entire lives were in that home. Our three cars were also damaged in the fire."

"It's devastating. We have nothing," he said. "You have never been as humble as you are when you don't even have your own underwear to wear."