The primary school raised countless red flags about a severely debilitating man who spent decades being captured in a Connecticut home, but when he fell off the surface of the earth, “we couldn't do anything damn damn,” the former principal insisted.
The now 32-year-old victim weighed just 68 pounds when he was rescued from a fire in Waterbury home last month.
Tom Panone, the principal of a boy at Bernard Elementary School 20 years ago, was He told NBC Connecticut After the staff first found a thin child stole food and eating out of the trash, he always knew something was “badly wrong.”
“Ever since he was five years old, everyone was really interested in this kid. You knew something was wrong. It was so badly wrong,” Panon said.
“We knew that. We reported it. No damn thing was done. That's the whole tragedy.”
The principal said the school made at least 20 calls to Kimberly Sullivan, the boy's stepmother.
Sullivan, 56, was arrested and charged with an invitation on Wednesday after he revealed that authorities revealed shocking abuse that he described as “something in a horror movie” as a result of the fire last month.
“You're 10 years old and will not disappear from the face of Earth,” Panone said several years ago about the boy's sudden disappearance.
Panone said the school began raising concerns when the boy told staff he was not allowed to eat at home.
The boy recently told officers he eventually withdrawn from school in fourth grade after staff began warning the children and family department, authorities said.
“[The victim] By this time he was always hungry in his life, so when he was at school he stated that he would ask others for food, steal other people's food, and sometimes eat food from the trash. This has led to DCF dealing with the home twice,” Stepmom's criminal complaint states.
At the time, Sullivan is said to have told the boy to tell the authorities, “Everything was fine.”
Authorities say he was soon kicked out of school by his stepmother.
Pannone said he was told the boy was registered at a nearby Wolcott Public School, but he could not find a record of it.
He was also told at one point that the student was homeschooled.
However, the victim told investigators that he was locked up in a room at home and “no one had told him anything,” the complaint said.
“[The boy] He said that when he was pulled out of school, his weekday routine and prisoners became cruel.
Consistently filed charges for the rest of his life.
The explosive details only appeared after officers began investigating cases after pulling the 32-year-old man away from the house fire on February 17th.
While being treated for smoke inhalation, he revealed he had intentionally set up a flame, officers said.
“I wanted my freedom,” the man said, police said.
The investigation revealed that the man “bears long-term abuse, starvation, serious neglect and inhumane treatment and has been held captive for more than 20 years.”
Sullivan was charged with assault, inducement, illegal control, cruelty and reckless danger. She was arrested Wednesday and was taken into custody in lieu of a $300,000 bond.
