Man ‘A Hostage In His Own House’ Crack Users Let Man Nearly Starve To Death Amid Filth

Crack users took over an 88-year-old man’s home, stole his cars and pension checks and kept him prisoner in his own bedroom, where he was found nearly starved to death amid rats and rotting food, police said.

“He was a hostage in his own house,” said officer Terrance White. “I’ll never forget the look on his face.”

George Sherrill was found in a barricaded bedroom Friday when a city employee who had befriended him went to his home with police. She had become alarmed because he had stopped visiting her and she couldn’t reach him.

Sherrill was hospitalized with dehydration, malnutrition and pneumonia.

The elderly man said he had taken in an acquaintance’s daughter to help him care for his wife of 50 years before she died of Alzheimer’s disease last year.

“It was lonely to be there all by myself,” Sherrill said. “I felt like I knew someone whom I might be able to trust.”

But the woman apparently opened his house to cracksmoking friends.

Police said he was robbed of two cars and his pension checks, his home had no gas, no electricity and no phone service and he had wasted from 150 pounds to 93.

“They’ve been using the house for a crack house,” White said. “He had a steady income. They would take him to the bank every month and make him withdraw money.”

According to doctors, Sherrill’s friendship with Kathy Hayden of the city’s Bureau of Administration saved his life.

Hayden said she helped Sherrill sort out several hundred dollars’ worth of tickets issued against his cars two years ago. Since then, Sherrill had made a point of regularly stopping by just to say hello, she said.

In January, the visits became infrequent and then stopped. She tried to visit his house several times but met resistance from a woman who answered the door.

“I knew he would want to see me, and this didn’t make any sense,” she said. “Now I’m getting scared this man is dead.”

So, Hayden asked police for help.

As they emerged from the row house with Sherrill, neighbors cheered, leading the woman at Sherrill’s house to turn on the crowd, White said. She was charged with creating a disturbance.

Hayden said she doubts the house can be made habitable again, but Sherrill said he wants to return home.

“I know they’ve taken everything I have,” he said. “I don’t have nothing.”