TRACY, Calif. (sfgate.com) -- The aunt of a 17-year-old boy who escaped from a Tracy home where he had allegedly been held captive has been arrested in connection with the case, police said today.
Caren Ramirez, 43, pleaded no contest in a child abuse case last year, but authorities say the teenager wound up living with her in a Tracy home owned by Michael Luther Schumacher, 34, and his wife, Kelly Layne Lau, 30. The couple were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of kidnapping, torture and other felonies.
Ramirez was found at a home on the 2600 block of College Avenue south of UC Berkeley about 8:45 p.m. Tuesday, said Berkeley police Lt. Diane Delaney. Tracy police took her back to San Joaquin County, where she was being interviewed.
Ramirez's nephew made a dramatic escape from a home on Tennis Lane in central Tracy on Monday afternoon by vaulting over an 8-foot wall separating the couple's backyard and the parking lot of the In-Shape Sports Club in Tracy.
The boy, whose name hasn't been released, limped into the gym with a padlock and 3-foot-chain around his right ankle. Covered in soot and wearing only boxer shorts, the boy pleaded, "Hide me, hide me, they're coming to get me," employees said.
Police said the boy had cuts and appeared to be emaciated.
Schumacher and Lau were booked Tuesday at San Joaquin County Jail on suspicion of conspiracy, kidnapping, torture, false imprisonment and child abuse. Both were being held in lieu of $1.1 million bail and are expected to appear in Superior Court in Manteca on Thursday pending the filing of charges by prosecutors. The couple's four children, ages 1 to 9, are in the custody of social service workers.
Ramirez is facing the same charges as Schumacher and Lau, and is also wanted on a felony warrant for allegedly abusing her nephew, police said.
Ramirez was charged with four counts of child abuse and pleaded no contest to one of the charges in November 2007, according to Sacramento County Superior Court records. She was sentenced to five years' probation, but it was revoked after she failed to appear at a court hearing in April, records show. Details of the case were not immediately available.
Many people thought Ramirez was the 17-year-old boy's mother, according to Lau's mother, Stephana Brown.
Lau told her mother that she had met Ramirez through a mutual friend and had invited her to live in the Tennis Lane home. Ramirez told Lau that she was left blind in one eye and deaf in one ear as a result of an abusive relationship, Brown said, adding she didn't know if that was indeed the case.
Ramirez was on disability and appeared to have no income, but gave Lau some money from time to time and helped around the house, Brown said.
Lau is a gullible person, her mother said. "She'll hear everything and listen to everything and if you're a friend to her, you're a friend and she'll try to protect you and whatever."
Tracy police spokesman Matt Robinson said the teenage boy had previously been staying with at least one of his parents, but that the parent had abused him. The boy was taken away by social service workers and placed with Ramirez, but she, too, abused him, authorities said. The boy was then taken to a foster home in Sacramento, but he ran away, Robinson said.
Brown said she saw the boy at the Tracy home around Christmas 2006 and that at the time, he had recently been accused of shoplifting.
Jennifer Foster, a resident of Tennis Lane, said Lau told her in November 2007 that a nephew was staying with her because he was having problems at home. That "nephew" turned out to be the boy who escaped Monday, Foster said.
Foster said she would see Lau and the boy walking her children to school. Lau would return with only the boy, who apparently did not go to school, Foster said.
"I saw him a couple of times mowing the lawn in the front yard but I had not seen him in several months, so I simply assumed he had gone back home," she said. "I assumed he was with her temporarily."
Neighbors said Schumacher was a contractor for a cable company. On her MySpace page, Lau described herself as a stay-at-home mother and Oakland Raiders fan. In pink text, she wrote, "We have a dog named Bubba, and no white picket fence, but our neighbor has one. LOL!!!!!!"
Brown said she was at a loss to explain what had happened with the teenage boy. She said she frequently speaks to her four grandchildren, including the oldest, a 9-year-old girl born to Lau and her previous husband from whom she divorced. Brown said that relationship had been abusive.
"I can't imagine that my granddaughter, when I talk to her, if she saw something out of the ordinary, that she wouldn't say something," Brown said.
Brown said she planned to travel from her Southern California home to San Joaquin County today to support her daughter.
"I'm numb," Brown said. "I don't want her to go through this by herself."
Brown cried as she described looking at her daughter's police booking photo. "She's scared to death. She's crying, and I can tell she's upset. She doesn't even know where her children are."
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