Finally tonight, the emotional story of a survivor of a devastating child welfare tragedy that happened more than 20 years ago.

Tyrone Hill, who legally changed his name to Andrew Edwards when he was a teen, is speaking out for the first time about the severe abuse and neglect he experienced that led to major reforms within New Jersey's child protection system.

But as senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan tells us, he's emerging not as a victim but as a force for change and hope.

I feel like I'm at a point in my life where I'm ready to be me.

Like, I've been hiding this for 20 years and nobody expected it.

Andrew Edwards wants to tell you in his own words what newspapers first reported more than 20 years ago.

Police found the four year old and his brother Raheem, starving, beaten and covered in cigaret burns, locked away in the dark basement of a house on Parker Avenue in Newark by his cousin who was supposed to be caring for them.

Also hidden there, the mummified body of their seven year old brother Faheem, who died after being hit by a teenaged relative.

They put out their cigarets on us.

They starved us.

They tried to put us in ovens.

They threw hot, boiling water on us.

Anything you could think of?

They didn't.

Shocked neighbors lit candles.

Officials buried Faheem in a cemetery over in Union.

The surviving brothers spent two weeks recovering at University Hospital.

Edwards weighed just 29 pounds.

He still has multiple burn scars, but later covered some with tattoos.

I used to get bullied, so I didn't want to keep being seen with them on, and I just was ashamed of it at the time.

But as I got older, I started to start to grow on me.

But his scars aren't merely physical.

Edwards name back then was Tyrone Hill, and outraged advocates reported New Jersey's broken foster care agency had utterly failed to protect him, his brothers and ultimately thousands of other kids from brutal abuse.

But while his case did prompt a massive court ordered overhaul to fix the system, Edwards himself got shunted from one foster home to another.

They said that I was too much of a problem child at the time.

They said I was too much to deal with and they didn't want to deal with me.

The courts declared his mother an unfit parent for neglecting and abandoning the boys.

When Edwards finally got adopted by a foster parent.

The teen tattooed his new initials, AA, on himself.

The state settled his lawsuit with a seven and a half million dollar trust fund.

He figured he had a new identity, a new life.

But when he turned 18, Edwards adoptive parents moved away.

No explanation, no contact, he says.

He picks up four other people, but he doesn't pick up my number.

That has to hurt.

It's funny.

It does.

But at the same time, I I'm used to this stuff because of what I've been through as a kid.

It's.

I feel like there's not too much you can do to hurt me anymore.

You know, I don't been through almost everything.

I've been through it all.

He's now 26 years old, living alone in a gated community in Monmouth County with a German shepherd and a fiercely protective Doberman named Becky.

He'd like to open a refuge for abused dogs, and he still tight with his surviving brother, Faheem's twin Raheem.

There is no brother connection, like the brother connection we have because we've both been through the same thing and we don't want to lose each other.

We're all we have.

On his bad days, Edwards works out of the gym where he likes to box.

He's launched an online phone repair website called 4mybro.com dedicated to his late brother.

Out of all of us fighting to survive.

Sometimes I wonder what life would be with my brother.

But I feel like if it wasn't for if my brother didn't take the ultimate sacrifice, I wouldn't live the life that I live today.

As for names, Andrew Edwards is ready to reclaim his identity and his original name as NJ Advance Media first reported last week.

You know, there's only one Tyrone and the Tyrone that there is.

He can impact other people.

And due to the fact that what I've been through as a kid, I think my story is very powerful.

He is still wounded and still wary, but he wants to tell his story.

Tyrone Hill's story to offer inspiration to kids he knows lived troubled lives who were looking for a way out of the darkness.

I'm Brenda Flanagan, NJ.

Spotlight News.