Courthouse Steps Mavens   Family Cases   Child Abuse/Neglect Endangerment By Family   Caren Ramirez, 43; Kelly Lau Schumacher, 30; Michael Schumacher, 34; Anthony Waiters, 29

Copper Penny      Courthouse Steps Maven since Nov 2007                                                  December 4th, 2008 07:06 AM         http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?...=6376327&page=1 Police: Couple Chained and Tortured Boy Emaciated 17-Year-Old Foster Child Wandered Into Fitness Center, Bloodied and Shackled By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES ABC News December 2, 2008 Michael & Kelly Lau Schumacher A California couple has been arrested and charged with kidnapping and torturing a 17-year old boy who fled from their home Monday, bloodied with bruises, clad only in flesh-colored boxer shorts and shackled at the ankle. "The staff noticed blood and bruising on his body, and he looked emaciated and had a chain locked to his ankle," said Matt Robinson, spokesman for the Tracy Police Department. "The boy was confused and didn't know where he was or how long he had been held against his will," he told ABCNews.com. The boy, covered in soot, urine and feces, arrived at the In-Shape City Sports Club around 4 p.m. Monday begging an employee to hide him, according to Robinson. "I thought it was a prank costume," assistant manager Lea Leonardo told the Tri-Valley Herald. "He was so dirty and had the chain around his foot. His feet were swollen, he was terrified and cold. He kept saying, 'They're going to come find me.' He kept saying that over and over." Arrested were Kelly Lau Schumacher, 30, and her husband, Michael Schumacher, 34, who lived only blocks from the fitness center. Police are also looking for a third suspect, Karen Ramirez, 43, who has a felony record and may be the boy's aunt, according to police. The couple faces five felony charges: conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor, torture, kidnapping, false imprisonment by violence and child beating. Some witnesses said the boy had jumped over a fence to get to the fitness center, according to local reports. Employees called 911 as the boy curled into a fetal position on the floor underneath the counter. They wrapped the boy in towels and led him to the manager's office where they gave him food and water. "He was totally terrified," Chuck Ellis, an employee at In-Shape City Sports Club, told The Associated Press. Foster Teen Abuse Ellis said the teenager, who looked no older than 10 or 12, told him he was picked up after running away from the foster home to look for his family and that he was held for almost a year. Police said the boy's left ankle was padlocked with a chain and his leg appeared to be cut. He didn't know where he was but knew his name and birthday. They took the boy to Sutter Tracy Community Hospital, where he was treated for cuts and "other injuries," some of which may have been from sexual abuse, according to police. "We want to make sure he gets the proper medical attention necessary," said Robinson. Hospital spokesman Karen Mudd would not provide any other details to ABCNews.com and said the boy was being held in "protective services." After interviewing the boy, police determined he had been kept at a house "down the street" and knocked on the door of the Schumachers, interviewing the couple and arresting them. By midnight, police had obtained a search warrant for the house and pressed charges. Police continue to interview Kelly Lau-Schumacher, while her husband is in custody at the San Joaquin County jail. The couple will appear in court Dec. 4. Meanwhile, four children -- ages, 1, 3, 11 and 9 -- were also taken from the house, according to police. Police said the boy had previously been reported missing from a group foster home in Sacramento since 2007, but they had no idea how long he had been there or where his family was. An unidentified neighbor told the Tri-Valley Herald that he had seen the boy playing with other children and thought he was a family member. The neighbor said he had limited contact with the couple, who had lived in the house for about a year. "They appeared to be a normal family," the neighbor said. "We don't even know their last name. [The boy] wouldn't be allowed to talk to us when we'd see him outside or ask him questions." Just this week Tracy, a city of about 80,000 one hour north of San Francisco, was named by CQ Press as the second-safest city in Northern California and the 46th-safest city in the nation. Robinson said he had never seen a case like this in Tracy. "It's really abnormal here," he said.

Copper Penny      Courthouse Steps Maven since Nov 2007                                                  December 4th, 2008 07:10 AM         Caren Ramirez Police arrest aunt in California shackled teen case THE ASSOCIATED PRESS December 3rd 2008 BERKELEY, Calif. - Police have arrested the aunt of a 17-year-old boy who showed up at a gym shackled and terrified, claiming he had just fled his captors. Caren Ramirez is the third suspect arrested in the alleged assault against the teen. Ramirez, 43, was arrested Tuesday night after police received a tip she was in the San Francisco suburb of Berkeley, said Tracy police spokesman Matt Robinson. Tracy is about 60 miles east of San Francisco. Police had been looking for Ramirez after they arrested Kelly Layne Lau, 30, and Michael Schumacher, 34, earlier Tuesday. Lau and Schumacher were in jail in lieu of bail set at nearly $1.2 million each. They were booked for suspicion of torture, kidnapping and child abuse. Prosecutors did not know if the couple had attorneys. Lau and Schumacher's four young children, two of whom were home when police arrived, were taken into protective custody, authorities said. The boy, who authorities said ran away from a Sacramento foster home last year, came into the In-Shape Sports Club in Tracy on Monday wearing only boxer briefs and covered in what appeared to be soot, gym manager Chuck Ellis said. Gym manager Chuck Ellis said the teen was scared someone was going to come after him and asked to be hidden. The boy said he had been held captive for nearly a year, said Ellis, adding that he looked as if he was only 10 to 12 years old. Authorities said they believe the boy had been chained to a car seat but picked up a dropped key, unlocked himself and fled when the car stopped. Investigators were trying to figure out the connection between the couple and Ramirez, who authorities believe occasionally visited their home. Ramirez had become the teen's guardian after child-welfare officials took him from his abusive father three or four years ago, police have said. After Ramirez was arrested for allegedly abusing the boy, he was placed in another foster home, which he fled in late 2007, police said. Since then, the boy's whereabouts hadn't been known until around 4 p.m. Monday, when he entered the fitness center.

Copper Penny      Courthouse Steps Maven since Nov 2007                                                  December 4th, 2008 07:14 AM         http://www.montereyherald.com/state/ci_11135962 Suspect has history of abusing shackled boy By STEVEN HARMON and MIKE MARTINEZ MediaNews 12/04/2008 SACRAMENTO — The guardian of the 17-year-old boy police say was tortured and abused for the past year in Tracy had previously been arrested on suspicion of beating him with martial arts sticks, a spatula, a broomstick and a clothes hanger in Sacramento County, court documents show. A previously sealed probation report from Sacramento County Superior Court details alleged abuses committed by Caren Ramirez, 43, who was arrested Tuesday night in Berkeley in connection with the case. Ramirez had been previously identified as the boy's aunt, but police said late Wednesday that Ramirez is not a blood relation. She had been granted custody of the boy by his mother before her death. Sheriff's deputies responded to two separate calls to Ramirez's Citrus Heights home in an eight-month period from late 2005 to May 2006, in which her 16-year-old stepson, identified in court records as Austin, and the boy known as her nephew, Kyle, reported being beaten by her. Kyle, the boy discovered in Tracy, had been abused by his father and placed in the care of Ramirez by Child Protective Services in Sacramento County, said Matt Robinson, a spokesman for the city of Tracy. The boy was then abused by Ramirez — who was subsequently charged and sentenced in a plea deal — before being moved into a second foster home. The probation report indicated Kyle had run away from the foster home and had been missing since May 9, 2007. "His whereabouts have been unknown," the report said. The boy, emaciated, bloody and covered with cuts, feces and urine, surfaced Monday, stumbling barefoot and barely dressed into a Tracy fitness center, a chain padlocked around his ankle. Shocked employees called 911 as he huddled in a fetal position on the floor. He was hospitalized in Tracy in critical condition and was transferred Wednesday to a medical facility in Sacramento County, where he is in protective custody. The residents of the Tennis Lane home where the boy told police he had been held — Kelly Layne Lau, 30, and her husband, Michael Luther Schumacher, 34 — and Ramirez, are expected to be arraigned today on charges of torture, kidnapping, false imprisonment, child endangerment and corporal injury to a child. According to Alameda and San Joaquin County court records, Lau and Schumacher do not have criminal records. Their four children, ages 1 to 9, have been placed in protective custody. In a report dated Jan. 8, 2008, Ramirez's probation officer, Shelli Fischer, wrote that Child Protective Services employee Linda Hush "believed the victim in this case, Kyle, had run away from foster care and was to be living with Caren Ramirez." Based on reports from Tracy neighbors, Ramirez and the boy had been staying with Schumacher and Lau for about a year. Ramirez pleaded no contest to one felony count of child abuse last year, but she had three other abuse charges dismissed. She was placed on a work furlough in lieu of a 180-day jail sentence and given five years probation. Her probation was revoked in April after she failed to participate in a counseling program and missed meetings with her probation officer. Ramirez is being held in San Joaquin County jail on a no-bail warrant out of Sacramento County. Schumacher and Lau were being held in the jail's administrative segregation unit to keep them away from the general population. Ramirez was expected to be similarly placed. According to court records, the signs of abuse on Kyle were clear when sheriff's deputies responded to a call on May 30, 2006, to Ramirez' home in Citrus Heights. Kyle had severe bruising on his buttocks, legs, arms and a split/swollen lip, according to the report. Kyle told officers Ramirez hit him with martial arts sticks the day before, but had used a spatula, broomstick and a clothes hanger in the past. Ramirez's then-21-year-old daughter, Christina Sanchez, made the call to the Sheriff's Office reporting the abuses. Kyle "indicated the defendant gets angry at times and takes her anger out on him," the probation report said. Eight months earlier, in September 2005, Ramirez's stepson, identified in court documents as 16-year-old Austin, told sheriff's deputies that Ramirez had repeatedly hit him with a martial arts stick in the head and chest. Austin said that Ramirez told him, "I'm going to (expletive) you up." He said she told him to get on his knees and said, "I heard you're talking (expletive), saying I'm not your mom," then struck him with a martial arts stick and struck him on the head five times as the boy cried and tried to block the blows with his hands. According to the report, earlier that day, Ramirez had demanded the boy "panhandle" for her, and when he returned with $9, she became upset and started hitting him because he didn't get enough money. Ramirez denied the allegations, saying her stepson had been practicing with martial arts sticks with a friend. According to the report, she said "she never hits her children and that she loves her kids." No charges were filed in that incident. Ramirez was arrested late Tuesday at an apartment at 2601 College Ave., a few blocks south of the UC Berkeley campus, police said. Berkeley police had been alerted by Tracy authorities and went to the apartment about 8:45 p.m. When they knocked on the door, a woman answered and said she was alone in the apartment. But they asked if they could take a look around and she agreed. A quick search found Ramirez in the bathroom, police said, and she was arrested. When the teenager wandered into the In-Shape Sports Club in Tracy about 3:30 p.m. Monday, he was barefoot, wearing only flesh-color boxers. He had cuts and burns on his back, police said. Shortly after midnight Tuesday, police served a search warrant on the Tennis Lane home and removed evidence, according to a Tracy city official.

Ocelia      Courthouse Steps Maven since Jul 2007                                                  December 7th, 2008 04:25 PM         http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,462125,00.html California Trio Charged With Torturing, Abusing Shackled Teen Associated Press December 05, 2008 STOCKTON, Calif. — A couple accused of beating and torturing a teenager, who authorities say was sometimes kept shackled inside their home, appeared in shackles themselves to face more than a dozen kidnapping and child abuse charges. It was Michael Schumacher and Kelly Layne Lau's first court appearance since their arrest following the boy's escape in nothing more than boxer shorts and a chain around his ankle. The teen was in search of help after allegedly spending more than a year in captivity. The boy's one-time guardian, Caren Ramirez, also was charged with similar allegations Thursday. She remained under psychiatric evaluation awaiting her court appearance, expected as early as Monday. Schumacher and Lau were charged with 13 felony counts, and Ramirez, whom the boy called an aunt, was charged with 10 counts. Among the charges are corporal injury to a child, child abuse and aggravated mayhem, which the San Joaquin County District Attorney's office said could yield life sentences. Superior Court Judge Franklin Stephenson ordered Schumacher and Lau to be held in lieu of $2.2 million bail. They did not enter pleas. The abuse at the couple's home in Tracy, about 60 miles east of San Francisco, started in July 2007, prosecutors said. The boy escaped from the home on Monday and fled to a nearby fitness center. He appeared emaciated and was covered in soot. On Thursday, Stephenson ordered all parties not to discuss details of the case. But Lau told KGO-TV of San Francisco in a jailhouse interview a day earlier that the boy and Ramirez, 43, came to live with her family more than a year ago because they had nowhere else to go. Ramirez instructed Lau and her husband to discipline the boy as she did, Lau said. She said she struck the boy in the knee with a baseball bat at least five times, KGO reported. Lau said she participated in the abuse because she was afraid Ramirez would hurt her own children. Ramirez also burned the boy with an aluminum bat heated in a fireplace, she said. Ramirez would not let anyone else feed the boy, Lau said, adding that the teen would sit in the living room and watch while the Schumacher family, including their four children, ate meals in the kitchen. Those children, between ages 1 and 9, were placed with Child Protective Services after their parents' arrest. Authorities have said they showed no signs of abuse. Lau, 30, and Schumacher, 34, through jail officials, declined a request from The Associated Press for interviews Wednesday. On Thursday, jail officials said Ramirez could not see visitors. Police declined to comment on the accusations made by Lau. Her court-appointed lawyer, Keith Arthur, said the judge's gag order prevented him from discussing the case. Lawyers for Schumacher and Ramirez didn't immediately return phone messages. Ramirez had been the boy's legal guardian after child welfare officials took him from his abusive father three or four years ago. According to court documents, she pleaded no contest to one felony count of beating the boy. Authorities had earlier identified Ramirez as the boy's aunt but said Thursday they learned she was a family friend he called his aunt. Police also previously said the boy was 17 years old. The criminal complaint filed by prosecutors on Thursday said he is 16. Police now say their preliminary information led them to believe he was a year older than he is.

Tarelanne      Courthouse Steps Maven since Dec 2008                                                  December 11th, 2008 01:18 AM         http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,464724,00.html 4th Person Arrested in Shackled Teen Case Associated Press December 10, 2008 Anthony Waiters TRACY, Calif. — The mother of a fourth suspect accused of abusing a 16-year-old boy who was allegedly shackled and tortured in a couple's Northern California home said her son occasionally visited the home but never saw the boy. Alice Waiters, whose 29-year-old son Anthony Waiters was arrested Tuesday, told The Associated Press that her son sometimes watched football games at the Tracy home of Michael Schumacher and Kelly Layne Lau. She said their families barbecued July 4 at her home, but that neither she nor her son ever saw the boy. "This is shocking. I know my son, the child that I raised, and he couldn't have done something like that. This is a bunch of trumped-up charges," said Waiters. Police say that for more than a year, Schumacher, 34, and Lau, 30, held the boy against his will and, along with the teen's one-time guardian, Caren Ramirez, 43, beat him, denied him food and sometimes kept him chained to the fireplace or a heavy table. Schumacher, Lau and Ramirez each have been charged with multiple abuse and related charges. The boy ran away from the house last week by jumping over a backyard fence and finding help at a local fitness center. The boy was covered in soot, looked years younger than his age and was bleeding from where he was still shackled around his ankle. Anthony Waiters was booked on suspicion of torture, conspiracy, child endangerment, corporal injury to a child and false imprisonment charges. No further information was released about his arrest, with police citing a judge's gag order in the case. "I'm not saying that boy wasn't abused," Alice Waiters said. "But he wasn't abused by my son." She said she and her son were interviewed by police last week and told authorities they never saw evidence of abuse at their neighbors' home. "I would say Michael seemed to be quiet and respectful. Kelly on the other hand, her attitude is questionable," Alice Waiters said. "She gives off the impression of living a rough-type life." She said Ramirez joined the couple about 18 months ago and she would often wave at her, "being neighborly." Alice Waiters said she never wondered what Ramirez was doing there. "I don't get into anybody's business," she said. Anthony Waiters was being held in the San Joaquin County Jail on $685,000 bail. He was scheduled to make his first court appearance on Thursday. Schumacher, Lau and Ramirez each are being held in lieu of more than $2.2 million bail at the San Joaquin County Jail. They have yet to enter pleas and are due back in court Jan. 5. Calls to their attorneys were not immediately returned.

double edge      Courthouse Steps Maven since Jan 2009                                                  January 2nd, 2009 12:53 PM         http://cbs5.com/crime/tracy.teen.to...e.2.883843.html 4th Suspect Arrested In Tracy Teen's Torture December 10, 2008 PLEASANTON (CBS 5 / AP) ―A fourth person was in police custody in connection with the case of a teenager who recently stumbled into a Tracy health club nearly naked, emaciated and shackled while begging for help, authorities said Tuesday night. Detectives from the Tracy Police Department arrested 29-year-old Anthony Waiters at his place of work in Pleasanton on Tuesday for allegedly participating in the torture of the 16-year-old boy. Waiters was booked at the San Joaquin County jail on charges of torture, conspiracy, child endangerment, corporal injury to a child and false imprisonment. Police did not release any additional information about the arrest, citing a judge's gag order. Tracy police spokesman Matt Robinson said prosecutors would not allow him to disclose further details. Police mugshot of Anthony Waiters, a suspect in the Tracy teen torture case. Three other people already face torture, kidnapping and multiple child abuse charges in connection with the case. Michael Schumacher, 34, his wife, Kelly Layne Lau, 30, and the teen's one-time guardian, Caren Ramirez, 43, were each being held in lieu of more than $2.2 million bail at San Joaquin County Jail. They had yet to enter pleas to the charges and were due back in court Jan. 5. Authorities have said Schumacher, Lau and Ramirez had held the boy captive since mid-2007, beating him frequently, denying him food for days at a time and keeping him chained to the fireplace or a heavy table. The teen told investigators he was seriously burned on his left arm when someone purposely lit a fire in the fireplace while he was chained there and sleeping. Authorities who later searched the home where the boy allegedly was held reported finding a blanket inside the fireplace. The boy also recounted being choked with a belt until he lost consciousness. It's not the load that breaks you down - it's the way you carry it.~~~~~~Lou Holtz

double edge      Courthouse Steps Maven since Jan 2009                                                  January 2nd, 2009 12:55 PM         http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...4LC1O.DTL&tsp=1 Neighbor arrested in torture of Tracy teen Henry K. Lee Chronicle Staff Writer December 10, 2008 Tracy -- A man who lives next door to the Tracy home where a husband and wife and their houseguest allegedly tortured and beat a 16-year-old boy was arrested Tuesday night in connection with the case, authorities said. Anthony Vincent Waiters, 29, was booked at 8:50 p.m. on suspicion of torture, conspiracy, child endangerment, false imprisonment and child abuse, police said. He was being held at San Joaquin County Jail in French Camp after being arrested in Pleasanton, where he works for the Bay East Association of Realtors, authorities said. Police did not release further details, citing a gag order issued Monday by a judge. Waiters is the fourth suspect in custody in connection with what authorities have described as the abuse of a teen held captive at a home on Tennis Lane in central Tracy from July 2007 until he escaped on Dec. 1. The boy vaulted over an 8-foot wall from the backyard of the home rented by Michael Schumacher, 34, and his wife, Kelly Layne Lau, 30, and limped into the In-Shape Sport fitness club, covered in soot, cuts and sores, gym employees said. Waiters' mother, Alice Waiters, and a neighbor, Rachel Portillo, said Waiters at one point worked at the same gym. Waiters, who also coaches the Tracy Cougars youth football team, was frequently seen at the Schumacher residence, neighbors said. Both homes were searched Tuesday, Portillo said. Schumacher, Lau and their houseguest, Caren Ramirez, 43, have been charged with numerous felonies, including torture, kidnapping and false imprisonment. The boy told police he was chained to the fireplace in the home, denied food for days at a time, was repeatedly beaten and was forced to ingest pills, alcohol or marijuana to keep him in a lethargic state, court records show. It's not the load that breaks you down - it's the way you carry it.~~~~~~Lou Holtz

Ferzy      Courthouse Steps Maven since Apr 2006                                                  February 4th, 2009 08:42 PM         Documents: Neighbor was 'active' in teen's torture By GARANCE BURKE February 4, 2009 FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - A next-door neighbor of a Northern California couple accused of chaining up and torturing a teenage boy for more than a year was deeply involved in the abuse, authorities say in court documents unsealed Wednesday. The neighbor, 29-year-old Anthony Waiters, was the last of four people charged in a case that has horrified the Central Valley town of Tracy since December, when the boy escaped from his captors and showed up bruised, emaciated and wearing only boxer shorts at a local gym. Waiters' connection to the alleged abuse had been unclear until the documents were unsealed Wednesday in San Joaquin County Superior Court. According to one search warrant affidavit, the teenager implicated Waiters and told detectives that he was "an active participant in his torture." The 16-year-old wandered into a fitness center on Dec. 1, wearing a chain padlocked to his bloodied ankle and covered in soot. He told police he had been shackled to a fireplace grate, beaten in the head with a baseball bat, choked with a belt and denied food for days at a time. Three people were arrested by the following day: Michael Schumacher, 34, his wife, 30-year-old Kelly Lau, a Girl Scout leader, and Caren Ramirez, 43, the boy's former guardian. All three have been charged with torture, kidnapping and multiple child abuse charges. Ramirez had been on probation for a previous case of felony child abuse related to the teenager. Waiters, who was arrested a week after the others, is charged with child abuse, aggravated mayhem, false imprisonment and child endangerment. All four defendants have yet to enter pleas and are awaiting a Feb. 17 arraignment. The court documents also show that authorities are probing MySpace accounts that detectives say Waiters and Schumacher used to communicate with each other. Schumacher, who owned the two-story, Tudor-style house where police say the teen was held, posted a photo of himself and Waiters on his MySpace profile, according to the documents. Detectives have seized cell phones, cameras, computer equipment and DVDs found at the house to determine whether the teen's captors documented any of the abuse, search warrants unsealed Wednesday show. The filings do not say what was found on the devices or the DVDs. Child abuse researchers said the case was unusual because the abuse alleged in the court documents involved a neighbor. "Thankfully, this kind of case is relatively rare, in which you have strangers to the child recruiting complete outsiders to participate in this level of torture," said Murray Straus, co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. "It's very hard to understand a motive." A previously released affidavit said the boy told a detective he had been forced to drink alcohol, smoke marijuana and take pills to keep him lethargic. The court documents say detectives found marijuana, smoking pipes, and cold and allergy medicine inside the house. They also found an aluminum baseball bat near the fireplace, according to the documents released Wednesday. Authorities have not described Ramirez's relationship to Schumacher and Lau. Neighbors reported seeing the woman at the couple's home, but it was unclear how they first came into contact. The documents released Wednesday shed no light on their connection but revealed that Ramirez fled to a friend's house in Berkeley the night the teen escaped. Police previously said Ramirez became the teen's guardian after he was taken from an abusive father three or four years ago. The boy later reported that she had beaten him with martial arts sticks, a broomstick and clothes hanger, prompting police to arrest her. Court documents show Ramirez pleaded no contest to one felony count of beating the boy. The teen was then placed in a group foster home in Sacramento but ran away in May 2007. He told police he then was "kidnapped" while walking along a highway by two men who might have had "Spanish-speaking accents," according to an affidavit included in the court documents released Wednesday. The documents did not indicate what happened next or how the teenager came to live with Schumacher and Lau. They also do not suggest a possible motive for the physical abuse and captivity. Officials with the Tracy Police Department and San Joaquin County District Attorney's Office declined to answer questions about the case Wednesday. Attorneys for Schumacher, Lau and Ramirez did not immediately return calls seeking comment. A clerk in the office of Waiters' attorney said the lawyer was prohibited from speaking about the case. http://apnews.myway.com/article/200.../D96541800.html We need mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole for rapists and child molesters.

Otise      Courthouse Steps Maven since Sep 2008                                                  March 1st, 2009 10:28 AM         [size=3]Messages to Kyle on Websleuths. Some wonderful members there have written some warm & kind words to Kyle. Please take a look & post to Kyle.

Nelson      Courthouse Steps Maven since Aug 2008                                                  April 2nd, 2009 05:24 PM         Indictment: Group shackled, tortured teen April 1, 2009 SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) -- Four Californians are accused of kidnapping a 16-year-old boy and torturing him for nearly a year before he escaped captivity wearing only boxer shorts and a shackle on his ankle, according to an indictment released Wednesday. Anthony Vincent Waiters, 34; Caren Ramirez, 43; Kelly Layne Lau, 30; and her husband, Michael Luther Schumacher, 34, were charged with a slew of offenses, including torture, aggravated mayhem, child abuse and false imprisonment by violence that allegedly occurred from January 2008 to December 2008. Authorities said the teen was shackled in the home of Lau and Schumacher in Tracy, about 65 miles east of San Francisco. During his captivity, the teen was tortured with a bat, knife and belt, according to court documents. The teen escaped December 1 and walked into a fitness center about 500 feet away from the home. He was bruised and battered, wearing only boxer shorts and with his bloody ankle shackled, police said. The four also face a new charge -- assault with caustic chemicals. The indictment accused the defendants of attacking the teen with "vitriol, corrosive acid, flammable substance and caustic chemical with the intent to injure the flesh and disfigure the body of the said victim." The 17-count indictment was handed down by a San Joaquin County grand jury on March 23. Lau and Schumacher being held on a $2.26 million bail, while Ramirez and Waiters are being held without bail, a jail official said Wednesday. The judge has issued a gag order in the case prohibiting attorneys on either side from speaking publicly. Lau, Ramirez and Waiters all pleaded not guilty to the charges, but Schumacher, Lau's husband, postponed entering a plea until his attorney, John Casanave, has an opportunity to review transcripts from the grand jury investigation, the San Joaquin Herald reported Wednesday. The boy initially had been removed from his parents' custody in Sacramento, California, by social workers because of abuse and was placed with Ramirez, a family friend, police said. The teen was sent to a group home after Ramirez was charged with felony abuse against him, but he escaped the group home about 18 months ago, police said. Authorities believe the boy at some point returned to Ramirez. It's unclear how the teen got from Ramirez's home to the home in Tracy where he was allegedly abused. Soon after the news of the teen's escape broke, Lea Leonardo, assistant manager of the gym, told CNN the boy came into the building and begged her to hide him. "He was very dirty. He looked very young, very skinny and was wearing nothing but men's oversized boxers," Leonardo told CNN's Nancy Grace. "He was terrified." http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/04/01/shackled.teen/

questioneverything      Courthouse Steps Maven since Jun 2007                                                  May 12th, 2009 07:13 AM         Indictment: Group shackled, tortured teen April 1, 2009 SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) -- Four Californians are accused of kidnapping a 16-year-old boy and torturing him for nearly a year before he escaped captivity wearing only boxer shorts and a shackle on his ankle, according to an indictment released Wednesday. Anthony Vincent Waiters, 34; Caren Ramirez, 43; Kelly Layne Lau, 30; and her husband, Michael Luther Schumacher, 34, were charged with a slew of offenses, including torture, aggravated mayhem, child abuse and false imprisonment by violence that allegedly occurred from January 2008 to December 2008. Authorities said the teen was shackled in the home of Lau and Schumacher in Tracy, about 65 miles east of San Francisco. During his captivity, the teen was tortured with a bat, knife and belt, according to court documents. The teen escaped December 1 and walked into a fitness center about 500 feet away from the home. He was bruised and battered, wearing only boxer shorts and with his bloody ankle shackled, police said. The four also face a new charge -- assault with caustic chemicals. The indictment accused the defendants of attacking the teen with "vitriol, corrosive acid, flammable substance and caustic chemical with the intent to injure the flesh and disfigure the body of the said victim." The 17-count indictment was handed down by a San Joaquin County grand jury on March 23. Lau and Schumacher being held on a $2.26 million bail, while Ramirez and Waiters are being held without bail, a jail official said Wednesday. The judge has issued a gag order in the case prohibiting attorneys on either side from speaking publicly. Lau, Ramirez and Waiters all pleaded not guilty to the charges, but Schumacher, Lau's husband, postponed entering a plea until his attorney, John Casanave, has an opportunity to review transcripts from the grand jury investigation, the San Joaquin Herald reported Wednesday. The boy initially had been removed from his parents' custody in Sacramento, California, by social workers because of abuse and was placed with Ramirez, a family friend, police said. The teen was sent to a group home after Ramirez was charged with felony abuse against him, but he escaped the group home about 18 months ago, police said. Authorities believe the boy at some point returned to Ramirez. It's unclear how the teen got from Ramirez's home to the home in Tracy where he was allegedly abused. Soon after the news of the teen's escape broke, Lea Leonardo, assistant manager of the gym, told CNN the boy came into the building and begged her to hide him. "He was very dirty. He looked very young, very skinny and was wearing nothing but men's oversized boxers," Leonardo told CNN's Nancy Grace. "He was terrified." http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/04/01...html?eref=ib_us

I lost my mind      Courthouse Steps Maven since Jun 2009                                                  June 12th, 2009 10:37 PM         Shackled Teen Describes Beatings By Captors in California Home AP June 12, 2009 STOCKTON, Calif. — A teenager who ran from a Northern California home wearing a shackle on his ankle says he endured frequent beatings that worsened over the year he spent there. The boy says his one-time guardian and another man beat him for infractions such as forgetting to water the lawn or not cleaning the bathroom properly. He says they initially hit him with their hands, then escalated to belts, mallets and hammers. The boy's testimony was made public Friday as part of 970 pages of transcripts from a grand jury hearing in March. The emaciated boy was 16 when he escaped the house in Tracy in December and stumbled into a nearby fitness center, nearly naked. Four people have pleaded not guilty to torture and other charges. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,526064,00.html

I lost my mind      Courthouse Steps Maven since Jun 2009                                                  June 12th, 2009 10:39 PM         Tracy shackled teen recounts harrowing captivity By The Record June 12, 2009 A 16-year-old boy chained and allegedly tortured for more than a year in a Tracy home told the grand jury his four captors openly plotted his murder, saying they would dismember him with a meat cleaver and discard his remains in the Delta. Fearing his end was near, the boy known only as Kyle, decided on Dec. 1 to make his escape. He unlocked himself with a key he’d discovered, jumped a backyard fence from a trampoline and ran for help at a nearby sports club. “I then knew ... that it was basically that I had to hurry up and leave or it was just going to be the end from there,” he said in court papers obtained by The Record on Friday.. His dramatic escape and horrific allegations of his increasingly violent torture — pouring bleach and salt on open cuts — became public today in a 928-page transcript of a grand jury hearing that ended with indictments against his alleged captors. Michael Schumacher; his wife, Kelly Lau; their neighbor, Anthony Waiters; and Kyle’s guardian, Caren Ramirez, each face a potential life prison sentence if found guilty on charges that include torture, kidnapping, false imprisonment by violence and assault with caustic chemicals. http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs....A_NEWS/90612015

I lost my mind      Courthouse Steps Maven since Jun 2009                                                  June 12th, 2009 10:41 PM         Transcripts: Shackled Teen Burned With Bat Tracy Boy Had Skin Grafts, According To Grand Jury Transcripts June 12, 2009 STOCKTON, Calif. -- Grand jury transcripts released Friday reveal that a Tracy boy who was allegedly held captive was burned with an aluminum bat and had skin grafts after he escaped. Defendants Caren Ramirez, Michael Schumacher, Kelly Layne Lau and Anthony Waiters are charged with a number of offenses, including kidnapping, torture and child abuse. San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Angela Hayes told jurors at the beginning of the eight-day grand jury hearing that there were no allegations of sexual abuse. According to the transcripts, the teen suffered burns from an aluminum baseball bat and a caustic solution by his captors. "It is substantial physical abuse, I need to prepare you for it medical examiner had to perform skin grafts several days after the victim, Kyle, was found," according to the transcripts. Zoe Duerksen, a 13-year-old neighbor, testified as a witness about Kelly Layne Lau. She said, "I would see her smack him across the head once in awhile." Duerksen went on to say, "If he did something she didn't approve of, she made him go in front of the front yard, pull down his pants, and let the dog go after him." Chelsea Waiters, 16, niece of Anthony Waiters, testified that the teen had to drink Hot Fire Damn, which made him throw up. Investigators said the teen suffered third-degree burns, and also had scars consistent with being hit with an object like a brick or baseball bat. The teen also had a red mark along his throat from a belt being tied around his neck, the transcripts said. "He was subsisting on Halloween candy, candy bars, things of that nature, and limited amounts of water, and some bread periodically," according to the transcripts. The transcripts are more than 1,000 pages long. The teen ran into a Tracy fitness center in December with an inch-thick chain shackled to his ankle. He was emaciated at the time. He told police he had been kept shackled in the Schumacher-Lau home, beaten, choked and denied food for days at a time. During the investigation, officials took chains and a baseball bat out of the home. http://www.kcra.com/news/19738298/detail.html

Nancy Drew      Courthouse Steps Maven since May 2009                                                  June 15th, 2009 01:17 AM         Tracy boy recounts tale of torture, captivity http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic.../BAMI186D6T.DTL Henry K. Lee Chronicle Staff Writer June 13, 2009 Stockton -- Four suspects beat, tortured and chained to a fireplace a 16-year-old boy and spoke openly about how to kill him before he escaped by vaulting over the wall of a Tracy home and seeking help, the teenager told a grand jury in testimony made public Friday. The boy said he spent more than a year in captivity during which he often went without food and was branded and repeatedly beaten with a baseball bat, according to transcripts released in San Joaquin County Superior Court. "I can't tell you why," the boy replied when prosecutor Angela Hayes asked him the explanation for the alleged abuse. "Most of the reasons I think were just bogus reasons." Charged with abusing the boy are Michael Schumacher, 34; his wife, Kelly Layne Lau, 31; Caren Ramirez, 44, the boy's former guardian and a houseguest who stayed in the couple's home; and next-door neighbor Anthony Waiters, 30. The boy told the grand jury that the defendants were angry at him for "bossing" the couple's children, speaking ill of Waiters' brother, forgetting to water the lawn, not cleaning the bathroom the way Lau liked it and not changing the diapers of the couple's youngest son properly. The suspects even spoke of ways to kill him, the boy said. "I remember they said they would try to, like, cut me up and everything and throw me in the delta," he said. Once, Schumacher asked his wife for a syringe "so he could, like, pump air into my veins and stuff like that," the teen testified. The four defendants were indicted on charges of torture, aggravated mayhem, corporal injury to a child, child abuse, false imprisonment and criminal threats and could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted. Three have pleaded not guilty, and the fourth, Schumacher, is to enter a plea next week. The couple's two daughters, police officers, social workers and neighbors were among 35 witnesses who testified before the grand jury over eight days in March. The 930-page transcript details a horrific imprisonment in which a bath for the boy meant having hot water thrown on him in the yard, meals were nonexistent and the abuse included being cut with a knife, punched with boxing gloves, forced to drink hot cinnamon Schnapps liqueur, choked with a belt and hit or branded with a bat that had been heated in the fireplace. Bleach was put into his injuries to add to the pain, he said. The couple's 5-year-old daughter testified that she had seen her parents and Ramirez hit the boy with the bat "lots of times." "Like, with a baseball bat, hard," the girl said. The boy testified that the girl "was always nice to me" and would secretly give him a cup of water or climb on top of the kitchen counter to sneak him Halloween candy. "I had to eventually start, like I guess, stealing food because I was like, really hungry," he said. Ramirez told Schumacher and Lau that the boy was the source of all her problems, the boy testified. "Caren would rub it in and everything, just so she would seem like she is the perfect parent, and I would seem like I'm the person that caused her to lose her house," he said. "That was the story that she told the Schumachers, that she lost her house because of me, because I was a thief and everything and she had to pay all these bills off." Lau's father, Terry Brown, told the grand jury that he had asked Schumacher why the boy was in the home. "He says, 'Well, he has an attitude problem, a behavior problem, so we have to sort of watch him.' I said, 'Oh, OK.' " The boy had been imprisoned for nearly a year and a half when he escaped his captors Dec. 1, police said. Investigators say he found a key to his shackles while being driven by the defendants. When they got home, the boy unlocked his shackles, used a trampoline to jump over an 8-foot wall in the backyard of the home and limped into the In-Shape Sport fitness club. The boy had a padlock and 3-foot chain on his right ankle, was covered with old and new scars, and was caked in soot, witnesses said.

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Courthouse Steps Mavens   Family Cases   Child Abuse/Neglect Endangerment By Family   Caren Ramirez, 43; Kelly Lau Schumacher, 30; Michael Schumacher, 34; Anthony Waiters, 29

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