Sanabria now lives on a cul-de-sac in Fayetteville, in a two-bedroom duplex he shares with his brother, Robert; Robert's wife, Toni Vega; and Vega's 6-year-old daughter, Izzy. There he enjoys pleasures that, for a third of his life, were cruelly out of reach.
Sanabria sleeps on a couch in a carpeted living room. He chooses an outfit each morning from a closetful of clean clothes. He eats when he's hungry, watches movies, draws with colored pencils, plays Mario Kart, and pulls the family's white cat, Twiggy, onto his lap. Any time he wants, he can walk outside to feel the sun on his face and the grass under his feet.
Sanabria has a small vocabulary and a tendency toward understatement. Asked how he likes his new home, he said things were "better."
As Weston's prisoner, Sanabria has said, he was starved, beaten, forced to steal, and worse. He is trying to move on from 10 years of unrelenting abuse, and says he is making progress.
"I used to worry a lot, but I don't worry no more," he said recently. "I'm starting to forget about a lot of stuff."
Learning to be patient
Robert Sanabria and Vega, both 29, met in spring 2010, when he saw her standing outside a military social event and left his friends to talk to her. About a year later, during a trip to Puerto Rico, he proposed.
They married in a courthouse on Oct. 11, 2011. They planned to have a wedding in 2013, then possibly a child. Four days later, Edwin Sanabria was found in Philadelphia.
Since then, their lives have been consumed by the challenges of providing him with the help he needs.
