Tuesday, December 2, 2008

TRACY, CA: TORTURED, CHAINED TEEN ESCAPES, BEGS FOR HELP

Lea Leonardo, assistant general manager at In-Shape Sport in Tracy, Calif., describes on Tuesday, December 2, 2008 how a young man wearing only boxer shorts and covered with dried blood, cuts, burns and bruises and wearing a chain around one ankle came into the facility on Monday, Dec. 1 and asked for help. Tracy police report that he apparently was being held against his will at a home adjacent to the fitness club. (Jim Stevens/Staff)

Chuck Ellis, district manager for In-Shape Sport in Tracy, Calif., describes on Tuesday, December 2, 2008, how a young man wearing only boxer shorts and covered with dried blood, cuts, burns and bruises and wearing a chain around one ankle came into the facility on Monday, December 1, 2008, and asked for help. He offered the boy refuge in his office until police arrived. Tracy police report that the youth apparently was being held aganist his will at a home adjacent to the fitness club. (Jim Stevens/Staff)


In-Shape Sports Club, Tracy, California (From Christine H.)


Tracy teen found with chain padlocked to foot says he escaped torture
Some reports say boy in critical condition
By Mike MartinezSan Joaquin Herald
Posted: 12/01/2008 09:28:16 PM PST

TRACY — Police have arrested a Tracy couple in connection with a case involving a teen boy who — wearing only a pair of baggy boxers and carrying a heavy chain padlocked to his ankle — stumbled into a local gym Monday, asking employees to hide him.

Kelly Lau-Schumacher, 30, and Michael Schumacher, 34, face charges of torture, kidnapping, false imprisonment, child endangerment and corporal injury to a child, according to police spokesman Matt Robinson. They are each being held on $1.185 million bail. Another woman, Caren Ramirez, is apparently the boy's aunt and is being sought by police for possibly having a role in the boy's kidnapping.

The teen, whose name hasn't been released, was reported missing from a Sacramento foster home in 2007. He was apparently picked up by the Tracy couple, witnesses said.

When he wandered into the In-Shape City Sports Club, 101 S. Tracy Blvd., around 3:30 p.m. Monday, he was wearing only flesh-colored boxers. He had visible cuts and burns on his back and was described as being emaciated and covered in soot, dried blood, feces and urine, police said. He was taken to Sutter Tracy Community Hospital and was expected to be transferred to Children's Hospital Oakland, authorities said. According to some news reports, he was in critical condition.

He immediately began begging Assistant Manager Lea Leonardo to hide him and said people were going to catch him. She sensed the urgency and immediately dialed 911 as the boy curled into a fetal position on the floor underneath the counter.

THANK GOD PEOPLE BELIEVED THIS YOUNG MAN, AND HELPED HIM...READ MORE

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