A woman in Sweden was arrested on suspicion of locking her son inside an apartment for 28 years, police and media reports said Tuesday.
“The mother is suspected of illegal deprivation of liberty and causing bodily harm,” Stockholm police spokesman Ola Osterling was quoted as saying by news agency AFP.
The reports said the woman had pulled her son out of school when he was 12 and kept him locked inside the apartment since then. An unnamed relative found the now 41-year-old man on Sunday after the mother, in her 70s, had been taken to hospital, Expressen reported.
The man had infected sores on his legs, could barely walk, had almost no teeth and limited speech ability, the reports said.
The woman has denied the crimes, the Swedish Prosecution Authority said.
The apartment is located in a non-descript grey and yellow low-rise building in the working class suburb of Handen in Haninge municipality.
The unidentified relative who found the man said the apartment looked like it had not been cleaned in years.
“There was urine, dirt and dust. It smelled rotten,” she told Expressen, adding that she had to wade through piles of junk to get through the hallways. “No one could have cleaned that home for many years.”
“I’m in shock, brokenhearted, but at the same time relieved. I’ve been waiting for this day for 20 years because I figured out that she was totally controlling his life, but I never imagined the extent of it,” she said.
With agency inputs