A skeletal man with enormously long hair and nails was found in the basement of his father’s house by police – and they believe he may have been tied to a bed in a windowless room for 20 years.

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Police in Brazil came across Armando de Andrade by accident after they searched homes looking for members of a drugs gang.

Neighbours thought the boy had simply moved out when he was 16.


He was found with ‘enormous’ toenails and fingernails and a long beard which had grown to his knees, according to witnesses.

Police chief Celso Marchiori said, ‘He got up, very impaired and didn’t speak a word. We took him outside and he still didn’t say anything. We didn’t know if he was scared or drugged.



‘He wasn’t able to identify us as police officers. We called for help and he was taken straight to hospital.

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‘It’s difficult to believe he was in that place for 20 years. It’s a very insanitary place, he wouldn’t have survived. There’s no light at all.’

Neighbours in the Guarulhos district of Sao Paulo, southeast Brazil, recalled how Armando was a normal 16-year-old, who liked skateboarding and playing the guitar, when he suddenly disappeared.

Armando’s family always claimed he had moved to another part of Brazil and was ‘doing well’.

One neighbour, Aparecido Rocha Brasil, said he believed the teenager’s father and step-mother decided to lock him in the room after he started experimenting with alcohol.

Ederson Silva, a childhood friend of Armando, said: ‘Whenever we asked about him they always said they same thing, no, he’s living in the northeast, he’s well, he’s working, he’s building his family there. That’s all they said to us.”=’

Armando’s father Amancio de Andrade denied the allegations, claiming that his son left home aged 18 and returned last week, and asked him to lock him in the room to help him ‘get clean’ from drug addiction.

He said, ‘He’s a grown man. He never got in touch. Then last week I opened my door and he was there. He gave him food and let him stay in the basement room. He asked me to lock the door so he couldn’t get out.”