Chained Teenage Boy Escapes from Couple's Home

A couple has been arrested and another woman is being sought after a 17-year-old boy turned up at a neighborhood gym asking for help. The emaciated boy was wearing only men's boxer shorts and a three-foot chain padlocked to his ankle.

Arrested were Michael Luther Schumacher, 34, and Kelly Layne Lau, 30 (L-R) and charged with kidnapping, torture, false imprisonment and child abuse.

Also being sought in the case is Caren Ramirez, 43, who is suspected of abusing the boy as well. Police said she was no longer living in San Joaquin County and may be at her brother's home in East Palo Alto.

The story of torture and abuse unfolded after the boy, unnamed by authorities, escaped from a home on Tennis Lane in Tracy, California and ran around the corner to the In-Shape Sports Club. He asked employees at the gym to hide him.

Gym employees were stunned at the emaciated appearance of the teen, who they thought was much younger than his 17 years.

'Hide Me, Hide Me'

"He came in through the front door, and he looked like he was covered in soot - not necessarily dirt, but a fine, dark soot," Chuck Ellis, district manager for the gym, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "He had cuts on his arm and his back and his head."

The frightened boy begged to be hidden by assistant gym manger Lea Leonardo, who was still visibly shaken by the experience when she spoke with television reporters hours later. "Hide me, hide me, please," the boy begged Leonardo.

"They're coming to get me," the boy told the gym employees, who wrapped him in towels, gave him bottled water and called 9-1-1.

Police are trying to piece together the details of how the teen came to be inside the couple's home and how long he was there.

Chained in the Garage

"The victim said he was held against his will," police spokesman Matt Robinson said at a news conference. "When you have a 17-year-old boy showing up with a bloody ankle from having a chain wrapped around it, it was one of those things where officers put one and one together."

"The boy had apparently been staying in the garage of the couple's home," police Capt. John Espinoza said. "We don't absolutely know yet," Espinoza said when asked how long the boy had been in the house. A neighbor told reporters that the boy had been there at least a year and a half.

Schumacher and Lau are married and have four children. The children have been removed from the house and placed into the custody of social services workers.

See Also:
Tracy Couple Held for Allegedly Imprisoning Teenage Boy

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