Former classmate of man allegedly held captive for 20 years reflects on school years

As NBC Connecticut continues to dig into the case of a man who claims he was held captive by his stepmother inside a Waterbury home for 20 years, we’re hearing from former classmates of the victim who are sharing their memories of him.

Louis Collette remembers asking about the man, then a young student at the now-closed Barnard Elementary School.

"I do remember I asked like if he moved or something," Collette said.

The pair would sometimes sit together at lunch, he said, until the victim disappeared in the fourth grade.

Court documents state that he was pulled out of school that year after complaints were made to the Department of Children and Families (DCF) after the victim was seen stealing lunches and eating out of the garbage.

“I think the first time I met him I was in kindergarten,” Collette said. “He was always relatively kind of skinny.”

It wasn’t until the allegations of abuse and neglect came to light last week when things clicked for Collette.

“I actually went through our school yearbook, and I’m like, holy crap,” he recalled. “There’s no way.”

He grew up in the same neighborhood as the victim and would frequent the park across the street.

“I wish he could have went to regular school like us instead of getting pulled out, because for all I know we could have been friends. He could have joined us at the park, could have played ball with us,” Collette said.

The victim missing out on his childhood is what his biological mother is heartbroken about. In an anonymous interview with NBC Connecticut, she said she gave up custody of him as a child.

She said once he turned 18, she and her daughter searched for him.

“We had looked for him for so long,” she said. “At that point, it was trying to find him through media, Facebook. He does have everybody here, on both sides, on both sides of his family that love him, and have looked for him…I’m heartbroken.”

Her daughter, the victim’s half-sister, said it was like he never existed.

“I’ve been looking for him for over a decade,” she said. “I wanted to wait until he was 18. I’m almost 35 now. There was nothing…no social media, no court records…no ancestry information, nothing.”

A fundraiser for the victim, put up by Safe Haven of Greater Waterbury, has raised nearly $100,000 as of Tuesday.

Police ask that anyone with information that can help in their investigation give their detective division a call.

Kimberly Sullivan is due back in court next week, and maintains her innocence.