Shackled and bruised: Surveillance video captures moment kidnapped teenager escaped after a year of torture

Dramatic surveillance video emerged today showing the moment a teenage boy wearing shackles escaped from his year-long kidnapping ordeal.

Kyle Ramirez, then 16, was held captive and tortured for more than a year in Tracy, California after being kidnapped by his aunt.

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.

And the harrowing surveillance footage released today shows the moment he staggered into a nearby health club and begged staff to help him.



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Health club surveillance video shows Kyle Ramirez run in, covered in bruises and dirt, after escaping his aunt's house. He was captive for a year, during which he was starved and beaten

The shackle's chain is visible in the video. Ramirez had a two-year old fetch him the key so he could unlock himself and escape

The newly-released December 2008 footage shows Ramirez running into the gym, covered in dirt with bruises on his back. He is hunched over and there is a chain from his shackles around his ankle.

'He quickly came up and said 'Please help me, they're coming for me, help me. Can I hide behind here?'' described a gym worker.

'At that time we just thought that he was lost and dirty,' said another witness.

'You see he almost falls here. He had to pick up the chain on his foot. Then we realized this was more than just a lost child.'

The teen boy was starved, shackled, beaten, cut, had clothing lit on fire and had bleach poured on wounds by a gang of abusers.

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.

Ramirez has grown over four inches since the ordeal, during which he was starved

Anthony Waiters was found guilty of torturing and beating the teen. Three other people also confessed to the crime

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

A former youth football coach, Walters 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 the nearby health club.



