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"I have no kind words. I’m disgusted, I’m disappointed. How could you be such a monster?" she said on the "Chaz and AJ in the Morning" show. "How could you do that to a child?”
Heather Tessman told WPLR's radio hosts that she had spent her adult life looking for her half-brother but couldn't find him. She was horrified when she saw reports last week of the hell he had endured while hidden away inside a home on Blake Street in Waterbury.
Tessman said she had only met her half-brother once when he was a baby, but she emphasized that they’re family all the same.
"He needs to know he has family — even if estranged — who love him, and we’ve never stopped," she said.
Sadly, the man has other family members who allegedly knew about the abuse. That includes two sisters who were allowed to have lives outside the home. They went to school and made friends, but they were forbidden from bringing anyone back to the house, according to what the man told police. His parents were worried people would discover the family's "secret."
The man was pulled out of school in the fourth grade after teachers kept calling the state Department of Children and Families because he was eating out of trash cans and stealing lunches from other children.
Starvation was a large part of his life. When he was rescued, the man weighed just 68 pounds despite standing five feet, eight inches tall.
Kim Sullivan was arrested last week and charged with first-degree assault, second-degree kidnapping, first-degree unlawful restraint, cruelty to persons, and first-degree reckless endangerment, authorities said.
The man freed himself in February by setting fire to the home using a lighter, printer paper, and hand sanitizer. He knew he would have the opportunity to speak with first responders when they arrived to extinguish the flames, he told police.
A GoFundMe for the 32-year-old man has raised over $105,000 as of Thursday. Click here for more information on the fundraiser organized by the domestic abuse shelter Safe Haven of Greater Waterbury.
The money will help give the man a second chance, pay for his medical and dental bills, counseling, and buy essentials he'll need as he creates a new life.
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