Boy, 16, tortured by gang and held captive for a YEAR after being kidnapped by aunt



A teenage boy was held captive and tortured for more than a year after being kidnapped by his aunt.

Kyle Ramirez, then 16, was starved, shackled, beaten, cut, had clothing lit on fire and had bleach poured on wounds by a gang of abusers in Tracy, California.

He made an amazing escape by trampolining over a high wall after persuading a two-year-old boy to find the keys to his chains.

Unspeakable cruelty: Kyle Ramirez (left) was held captive, shackled and beaten by a gang that included Anthony Waiters (right)



Caren Ramirez, his aunt and legal guardian, had persuaded Kyle to move from a children’s home to a house where she was staying at in December 2008.

Once there, however, the house’s owners, Michael Schumacher, his wife Kelly Layne Lau and their neighbour Anthony Waiters helped her abuse the boy.

Straightaway he was forced to do chores and sleep near a fireplace while chained to a coffee table.

Ramirez, Schumacher and Lau confessed to a host of charges including use of a deadly weapon and causing great bodily injury to a child after their arrest last December.

They face more than 30 years in jail when they are sentenced on December 6.

Waiters, however, refused to admit his guilt and was yesterday convicted of nine counts of the charges including aggravated mayhem, torture, kidnapping and false imprisonment

A jury at San Joaquin County Court heard that Waiters went frequently to the home where Ramirez was being held captive.

Waiters, a former youth football coach, never took the stand during his nearly month-long trial.

Now he could spend the rest of his life in prison. He's scheduled to be sentenced January 18.

Ramirez, now 18, testified last month that Waiters cut him, lit his pants on fire and beat him unconscious.

"They were all just laughing at me because I was trying to put the fire out," said Ramirez, then about 5ft 8in tall and weighing just over 7stone.

The teen, now 6ft 2in and 18stone, last month recounted other acts of cruelty, alleging Waiters once got a knife from the kitchen and cut his arm while others held him down.

"They cut my arm and poured bleach on it. It burned," he testified, showing jurors his scars.

Ramirez unchained himself after persuading Schumacher's two-year-old son to get him a set of keys that Schumacher left around the house.



He fled in December 2008 after recalling Schumacher and Waiters once saying they were going to "chop me up and throw me in the Delta."

The bleeding, badly bruised and emaciated teen escaped by running to the back garden, jumping on a trampoline, hopping a retaining wall and running to a nearby health club, wearing only boxer shorts and a shackle across his ankle.



