Pod Insights Crime Weekly S3 Ep291: Crime Weekly News: Man Held Captive for 20 Years by Father and Stepmother About this episode A 32-year-old man was recently found to be held captive for two decades when firefighters were called to house fire. The man admitted that he had started the fire himself in a desperate attempt to be rescued. While his father passed away last year, his stepmother has now been arrested, and the details of the case have now been made a little more clear... Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-captive-20-years-connecticut-details-stepmother-kimberly-sullivan/We're coming to CrimeCon Denver! Use our code CRIMEWEEKLY for 10% off your tickets!https://www.crimecon.com/CC25Try our coffee!! - www. CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > ｿ https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> ｿ https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPodADS:1. https://www. OneSkin.co - Use code CWN for 15% off your next order!
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:13 Speaker 00 Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek L. Vassar.
0:16 Stephanie Harlowe? And I'm Stephanie Harlow.
0:18 Speaker 00 So, we're gonna jump into this week's episode and I was trying to find some type of connection to these cases and this one, it wasn't hard for me. Stephanie was telling me about it before we started recording. She actually covered it on her channel and she mentioned Waterbury, Connecticut. A lot of you guys don't know this, but I went to college in Connecticut, New London, Connecticut and had a lot of friends who were from Waterbury, hung out in Waterbury multiple occasions, definitely had some, you know, off-campus parties there, you know, great, great town, absolutely loved it. But, the reason we're talking about Waterbury, Connecticut today are not for good reasons. In this quiet city of Waterbury, Connecticut, a home went up in flames,
1:00 Speaker 00 but what first responders uncovered inside was far more horrifying than the fire itself. Behind a locked door in a room no bigger than a walk-in closet, they found a 32-year-old man who weighed just 68 pounds, a man who said he had been held captive in the house for over two decades. What he revealed next was a tale of unimaginable suffering: starvation, isolation, and psychological torment. This is not something you would expect to find at a house fire. Um, I think I've told you this story before. We went into a abandoned building one time and I go in there, after the patrolmen were done kind of scouring the area,
1:39 Speaker 00 we found two dead bodies and it was like unexpected, obviously. Some people got in trouble for that one, but that's a different story for a different day. When it comes to this case, firefighters are in there, they're trying to put out the fire. You find this incident and then you hear this story, absolutely horrific and obviously you know a lot more of the details.
1:59 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, so I do, I do know and I'm bringing this to you and bringing it to Crime Weekly News, because when I posted it on my channel, a lot of people were like, "Oh, holy shit, this is crazy. This is unimaginable," like you said, and we would like Derek's perspective on it and I personally would not mind to hear your perspective on it as well. So, we can kind of go over the details really quickly. So, yeah, this, uh, this fire starts in this Waterbury, Connecticut home.
2:27 Stephanie Harlowe? Emergency workers responded to the fire. That's when they found this 32-year-old man. He weighed only 68 pounds. It's insane. If you think about a 32-year-old man weighing 68 pounds, a lot of people in the comments were like, "I have an 11-year-old child who weighs 68 pounds." Like, that's bananas. He stands at 5'9", so he's not even, you know, a shorter man. He's average. He was extremely emaciated. His hair was matted and unkempt. He was dirty. His teeth all appeared to be rotten, according to law enforcement. And he told the police and the first responders that he had been severely abused since the age of 11. Now, he was brought to a nearby hospital.
3:10 Stephanie Harlowe? He was intubated. He was diagnosed with wasting syndrome. This is a form of severe physical deterioration typically found in patients with conditions like advanced cancer. Advanced life-threatening diseases is when you would often find this. And he had a life-threatening BMI of 11. 11 was his BMI. So, police did find that this man had been held captive in an 8-by-9-foot room. The man said that during the winter, the room's not heated. During the summer, there's no air conditioning. And according to law enforcement, this man endured prolonged abuse, starvation, severe neglect, and inhumane treatment. He had also not received
3:50 Stephanie Harlowe? medical or dental care due to his decades of captivity. And he had been provided with only bare minimum amounts of food and water, which led to his extremely malnourished condition. Now, the man would tell the investigators a really sad story. He basically said that he lived with his stepmother, Kimberly Sullivan, and his father, Craig Sullivan. And since he was 11, this had been happening. But at first, he was allowed, actually, it was going on even before he was 11. The captivity started when he was 11. But he remembers since probably about the age of 5, that food was withheld from him, water was withheld from him, and
4:32 Stephanie Harlowe? it was only when he was a young child and he would like sneak out of his room. Room to go and like eat food at night or even drink toilet bowl water that his I guess his stepmother and father found out and started locking him in his room for the majority of the day. He'd be let out in the morning to do like chores for his stepmother and then he'd be placed back in the room. Sometimes he wasn't let out of the room at all. He'd stay in there for a full 24 hour period. So when he's 11, he starts going to school and he's like begging other students for food. He's stealing their food. And it was when he started taking food out of the garbage and eating scraps from the garbage that the school got involved. They called the
5:15 Stephanie Harlowe? police. CPS went to the house a few times, but this man said that when CPS came, his stepmother told him to act like everything was all right. And basically, that's what he did. That was when he was in the fourth grade. Now, he didn't return to school after the second visit from CPS. And basically, they're now attributing this to Connecticut's very lax homeschool laws. Basically, if a parent says, I'm taking my kid out and homeschooling them, there's really no follow up for that. They just kind of, the kid gets taken out of school and and no one's really in place to make sure that everything's happening that should be. So this this guy fell through the cracks. When he's 11, he gets yanked out of school, and this is when he starts being locked
5:57 Stephanie Harlowe? in his room for a majority of the time. It's a very sad story. His dad ended up dying. His dad, Craig Sullivan, who it appears was kind of confined to a wheelchair for the last few years of his life. He died in January of 2024. After his father's death, this man said that his treatment became much worse. So the lawyer for Kimberly Sullivan, the stepmother unequivocally denies these claims. And he's like, absolutely not. He wasn't locked in the room. Kimberly didn't restrain him in any way. She provided him shoot food. She provided shelter. She's blown away by these allegations, according to Kimberly Sullivan's lawyer.
6:38 Stephanie Harlowe? And the lawyer also said that, hey, it was Craig Sullivan who decided the way his son would be raised. And Kimberly Sullivan was quote unquote, "just following orders." And so there's no reason she should be in trouble right now. And the lawyer's like, hey, let's just withhold our judgment.
6:53 Speaker 00 And when did Craig Craig Sullivan pass away?
6:55 Stephanie Harlowe? 2024, January of 2024, exactly, right? So if the treatment continued after, then she's clearly not just following orders. And the lawyer also said something which pissed me off, where he said, there's no physical evidence of of this guy's story. And it's like, yeah, his body, his body is the physical evidence of his story. Even the neighbors were like, yeah, we didn't even know anybody, and we didn't even know he lived there. Like, years and years ago, they'd sometimes see like a little boy looking through the windows, but they really didn't know what was going on. And not only did his stepmother know, but apparently he has two half sisters, his stepmother's kids, daughters, who also knew and didn't do anything. So this is absolutely insane.
7:40 Stephanie Harlowe? What's your take?
7:41 Speaker 00 Well, I have a few things. First off, yes, this happened 20 years ago, almost where he was taken out of the system initially. It has gotten a lot better since then, as far as reporting child abuse, not only from the school's end, but also social workers, you know, guidance counselors, and law enforcement. It's improved exponentially. It's still got a long way to go, but it's a lot better. 20 years ago doesn't seem like that long, but it it there was a time where if the parents told you everything was fine, there wasn't too much you could do. Where now, law enforcement goes in there, they investigate, they speak with the children. If the school sees something, they'll speak with them independently without the parents.
8:25 Speaker 00 There are, there are measures and there are policies and procedures in place now to try and prevent something like this, where the child feels threatened, and they're under duress, and therefore they don't speak freely. But there's always something to learn from here. And obviously, I'm glad that this person has been found. But what can we learn from them as far as how they were treated? How the parents prevented anyone else from knowing about this? These are all things that need to be analyzed and dissected so that we can potentially identify other situations that may be similar to this because unfortunately, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, this isn't the only child out there that this is happening to. There's other children out there right now who are experiencing something similar.
9:09 Speaker 00 And it's important to find them as quickly as possible as well. I do have some other opinions specifically about the lawyer and then also about people who were involved in this and didn't do anything, but let's, let's take our break and then we'll come back and we'll, we'll break it all down.
9:26 Stephanie Harlowe? All right.
9:31 Speaker 00 All right, we're back from break and first off, let's kind of break this down. I don't understand why the children wouldn't eventually say something to someone. They were older. Again, I'm not putting the blame at the, at the feet of anyone in particular, other than Kimberly and her husband Craig.
9:46 Stephanie Harlowe? I was gonna say it's Kimberly and Craig, man.
9:49 Speaker 00 There's a lot of different variables at play here. The, the children were obviously manipulated over many years and they were groomed to kind of act this way. And unfortunately, you are-
9:59 Stephanie Harlowe? Probably threatened, right?
10:00 Speaker 00 A product of your environment. Yeah, they're threatened. And so there's, there's a lot of reasons why they may not have come forward. But with the school in particular, where this was, this was brought to their attention, law enforcement was made aware of it. There was an opportunity to intervene.
10:15 Stephanie Harlowe? They tried. And in fact, the principal from his old middle school, I mean, his old elementary school did an interview and he was like, we called, we called. This principal, even after they took him out of school, went to the house and knocked on the door and they wouldn't talk to him. Like he did everything he could, but when you are calling law enforcement, and we see this all the time, by the way, with CPS and law enforcement and like kids falling through the cracks. There's only so much you can do based on the parental rights. So the school will call law enforcement. Law enforcement will call CPS. CPS will go there. CPS will be like, hey, we couldn't find anything wrong. There's food in the house. They, they, they appear, everything's okay. The kid says they're okay. And that's it. And it doesn't matter how many times the same routine happens. It's, it's what can they do if, if there's nothing to be done?
11:00 Speaker 00 Well, in hindsight, a case should have been opened. There should have been multiple follow-ups. Maybe a three-month follow-up, a six-month follow-up, and then a year follow-up to ensure that things are still going well. And if they had done that, I believe they probably would have seen something to maybe raise a, raise an eyebrow. Where it could have been something as simple as, hey, let me see your room. Where do you sleep at night? Hey, you're looking pretty thin. We're going to bring you in to get weighed to see what your weight is now compared to the last time I saw you three months ago. Like, there could be some physical examinations to ensure that what is coming out of the child's mouth aligns with their physical appearance.
11:41 Speaker 00 Because you have to know it's common sense, even 20 years ago, that if the kid has to live with these monsters, they're going to be more inclined to lie, not because they're protecting them, but because you're going to leave and they're going to be left with them. And they know the repercussions if they try to make their parents look bad. So that should be common sense. Even though policies and procedures may have been different 20 years ago, you would think, so we're talking 2000. You would think they would still say, hey, is it possible that this child is telling us exactly what we want to hear at this moment? Because they're getting abused at home? I mean, that doesn't seem like rocket science to me.
12:21 Stephanie Harlowe? I think that the physical effects of his, you know, deprivation of food and water and things were probably slowly over the years. Probably, you know, he's 11 when he gets pulled out of school. And he said that the, the treatment got progressively worse as the years went on. And honestly, probably as Craig and Kimberly saw, they were going to get away with it and nobody was coming to save him. But even if the police or CPS had come in those first few years, they probably wouldn't have seen a significant change in his, you know, appearance. But why would they keep going if there was nobody there to keep calling? The school's gonna do what they can, but after he's unenrolled, what is the school gonna say when they're calling the police and CPS?
13:02 Stephanie Harlowe? Like, oh, he's not actually here and we can't tell you any indication visually that he's like in trouble, but we're just worried because we haven't heard from him because his parents are homeschooling him? I don't think that's really gonna trigger an investigation that you want, which is why he was pulled out of school so that there was nobody there who could keep calling. And I mean, I agree with you, but there's gonna be people out there who say, you know, CPS already kind of pushes the limits when it comes to privacy and parental rights and things like that, that like anybody could call CPS and make a complaint and do so anonymously. And then CPS has to kind of check into that and do their thing. And if you have somebody out there who's trying to harass you or trying to like cause problems for your life and they keep calling CPS,
13:45 Stephanie Harlowe? at some point, parents are gonna be like, okay, enough is enough. You're really infringing on our rights here. So it's kind of a weird, it's a gray area. There's not a lot that the system can do once a kid's been pulled out of school and nobody's got eyes on him. Now, that being said, he did have family members. He had an uncle who said that, you know, he would go there for a while and he would sometimes say to the parents like, hey, why is this kid so thin? Why doesn't he want to talk? And then after a while, they cut him out too, like went no contact with this uncle. And he said he went to a P.I. But it doesn't look like he called the police or CPS and filed a report. So there were people around who kind of knew something was off.
14:28 Stephanie Harlowe? And the 32-year-old man who has not been named in any of these documents, he said that there was a grandmother who knew. She has since passed away, but she also knew. So there was people that knew and kind of had agreed to this code of silence. And this kept him locked in a room as a prisoner while he like wasted away for over 20 years. And that's crazy to me. Like, when you talk about falling through the cracks, he fell harder than any case I've ever seen before through those cracks. It's very tragic.
15:01 Speaker 00 Yeah, and I mean, my final words for this episode, and it's always a hot take and I know people tend to push back on it, but this attorney representing Kimberly Sullivan, I understand everyone has a right to a defense. But this guy, I was looking him up here, Iowanus? Kalidus, how do you say his name? Kalidus?
15:20 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, Iowanus Kalidus.
15:22 Speaker 00 It's a tough one. It's a tough one. Whatever, dude.
15:25 Stephanie Harlowe? He's trying to make a name for himself at this point.
15:27 Speaker 00 Yeah, I just got no, no respect for these people. I really don't. And I know that's a hot take because people are like, well, everyone has a right to be defended in court. Yeah, sure. But you also have a right to take that case or not. And for me personally, even as a defense attorney, I'm not taking this case. Nope, I'm all set. Let her get a public defender. I'm good.
15:48 Stephanie Harlowe? Well, yeah, a lot of people would say that about Jose Baez and Casey Anthony too. But this guy clearly in his suit with his new haircut, you know, trying to look all snazzy. He's trying to make a name for himself, but I'm completely with you. Of course, everybody deserves.
16:01 Speaker 00 He's got a cool arm sleeve though. I see this photo on, I'm looking at, he's got a cool tattoo sleeve.
16:05 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, whatever. He sucks. I, I know everybody deserves a defense and you can defend your, you can defend your client without getting up in front of the cameras and putting on a dog and pony show.
16:16 Speaker 00 Yeah, she ain't no victim.
16:17 Stephanie Harlowe? And being like, huh, she is shocked by these charges. Of course she did nothing wrong. And then they were like, well, why is he all like dirty and he hasn't had a, a bath or a shower or a haircut in over like two years? And he's like, well, what's she gonna do? Make a grown man bathe? And it's like, yeah, if you're living in my house and your teeth are falling out of your head and you clearly haven't showered in two years, I'm definitely gonna make you bathe or I'm gonna tell you to get your ass out and get a job. But that's not what was going on here. For her to act and sit there and have her lawyer say with his whole ass chest, there's no physical evidence of this when this 32-year-old man is 68 pounds. And that did not happen, that did not happen by accident.
16:59 Stephanie Harlowe? And even if he had been starving himself, like playing some long game, like, oh, I'm gonna get my evil stepmother. I'm gonna wait 20 years and starve myself so one day I can accuse her of neglect. Even if you don't think she would have noticed that he was just dropping weight like, whoa? Enough is enough with these defense attorneys. He can defend her in court, shut his mouth in front of the cameras because he's gonna look stupid at the end of the day.
17:22 Speaker 00 Yeah, he, he says here, quote, Her world has been turned upside down. She's become public enemy number one. Her face has been plastered all over. Not just the state, but the country and beyond. I'm sure you hate that, buddy. I'm sure you hate that this is getting national attention.
17:37 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, that's why you keep showing up on all these talk shows and keep putting your face in front of the cameras like. You're trying, you're trying to Jose bias this.
17:43 Speaker 00 Better be careful. You might, might become famous for something you're not looking to be famous for.
17:48 Stephanie Harlowe? Think you chose the wrong horse, Ione.
17:50 Speaker 00 So, yeah, I mean, whatever. It is what it is. That's just my personal opinion as a father. As a former police officer, I just don't get it. I mean, we all have a job to do, but there is discretion. He does not have to take this case.
18:03 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, and you, if you take it, then do it privately. If you're, you're like, oh, my client's face is all over. Well, you're, so is yours, dude.
18:10 Speaker 00 Yeah, so is yours. He's, he's the one putting himself out there. And I, you know, I think you have to remember, this is a 32-year-old man now. But when this started.
18:20 Stephanie Harlowe? He was five.
18:21 Speaker 00 At five.
18:22 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah.
18:22 Speaker 00 Yeah, somewhere between five and 11, right? This was a child that had their whole life taken away from them.
18:29 Stephanie Harlowe? He still is basically a child because he doesn't even know, he doesn't even know how to use technology.
18:34 Speaker 00 Yeah.
18:34 Stephanie Harlowe? Okay, he doesn't know how to use technology. The only way he taught himself was he was allowed to have a few books in his room and a dictionary. And he'd reread those books and look up words he didn't know, but he doesn't have an education. And not only that, physically, he is forever changed. They say this wasting syndrome is impossible to reverse, basically, because of the, it's a metabolic thing. Like the, what the damage it takes on your body, like.
18:56 Speaker 00 Physically, mentally.
18:57 Stephanie Harlowe? It's even dangerous to start eating regularly again right after. Like, it's a process. This part, not only physically, emotionally and mentally, he's going out into the real world. As if it, it never existed to him. Like, this is somebody who's going to really struggle with basic things.
19:15 Speaker 00 Yeah.
19:16 Stephanie Harlowe? And he will always have this, this post-traumatic stress feeling of like, am I really free? Am I free? Like, he's a prisoner in his own mind forever. She destroyed his life.
19:26 Speaker 00 Have you ever read the book A Child Called It?
19:28 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, I saw the author, actually. I did because I had to take it, I had to become a court-reported mandated child abuse, child abuse mandated reporter when I did psych courses and child development courses in college. And we had to read A Child Called It and the following books.
19:42 Speaker 00 Strongly recommend checking out that book. It's written by the author.
19:46 Stephanie Harlowe? I don't know if I recommend it.
19:47 Speaker 00 I'll tell you, I read it for the first time when I was 16.
19:49 Stephanie Harlowe? It's hard to read.
19:51 Speaker 00 During a, I was a summer counselor. And they, they recommended we read it because we were dealing with these children all day and they wanted us to keep that in perspective as we were communicating and interacting with these kids to see if we noticed anything because on the surface it may be fine, but if you have some conversations, you may unveil some information that you otherwise wouldn't. So, I read the book, read it multiple times, and yes, there is a follow-up to that book as well.
20:16 Stephanie Harlowe? It's a very hard read. I will say that. It's...
20:18 Speaker 00 It is a hard read, especially as a, as a parent, but I read it beforehand and it was still hard. Um, final words, Kimberly Sullivan, you're a scumbag. Uh, unfortunate we didn't get Craig before, or Greg, whatever the hell his name is, before.
20:31 Stephanie Harlowe? Craig, yeah, it's Craig, K-R-E-G-G, because you know, Craig.
20:35 Speaker 00 Asshole, that works too. Uh, so before he passed away, and, and to the attorney, yeah, I get it, everyone has a right to be defended, um, but you also have the right to choose who you defend. And we only get one shot at this thing called life. Think about, think about your reputation, your legacy. Is that what you want to leave behind? Defending people like this who abused, uh, children for decades? That's what you want to defend?
20:59 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, I don't know if he has, I don't know if he has kids, but is that how you want your kids to, to see you? It's like...
21:04 Speaker 00 I have no doubt he probably does, but his justification is, she's a victim as well. That's how they do it. And listen, I get it.
21:10 Stephanie Harlowe? What, Derek, honestly? The little you know about this, is there any universe that exists?
21:15 Speaker 00 No world.
21:16 Stephanie Harlowe? Where she's, exactly. Where she's a victim or innocent of this or completely has no knowledge of what happened?
21:21 Speaker 00 No, think about the Menendez brothers.
21:22 Stephanie Harlowe? Making it up? Yeah, exactly.
21:24 Speaker 00 The same thing. People say it about her. Their mother and that wasn't even as overt and as egregious as this was, but even then people are like, well, she knew and she didn't do anything. So yeah, I mean, this woman was living in the house with them, saw everything, contributed to it and then carried it on after Craig's death. She can go.
21:41 Stephanie Harlowe? Which in my opinion means she was the driving factor in it the entire time, right? Like he Craig probably went along with it. It was probably a 50 50 thing. But the fact that she continued it on after it wasn't like she was, oh, I'm just being dragged along and I brought up in my video, like the whole, um, oh, she was just following orders. That's what the Nazis said when they were on trial in Nuremberg. Okay. That's what the Nazis said. I own us really probably not the best script to read from when you're trying to make us think that your client is this innocent woman who who has done no wrong. She was just following orders. Yeah. Okay.
22:18 Speaker 00 Do your thing. You gotta put your head on your pillow at night and I'm sure he'll have a justification for it. Doesn't mean we have to buy what he's selling. Any final words from you, Stephanie Harlow?
22:26 Stephanie Harlowe? No, no, no.
22:27 Speaker 00 Guys, I apologize to everyone. If it's not abundantly clear at this point, I have a cold, but gotta keep going. I'm fine. I feel fine. I sound like shit. So I do apologize. If this is a little ear wrenching for people who are on audio only, but you know, such is life. So that's going to do it for us, guys. Until then, everyone stays safe out there. We'll be back later this week with a new episode on a case you may have heard of before. Tiffany Booth. Stay safe out there. We'll see you soon.
22:54 Stephanie Harlowe? Bye.
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