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CA: Pair arrested after emaciated teen with ankle chain shows up at Tracy gym (missing since 2007)
Mercury News ^ | 12/2/08 | Mike Martinez - Tri-Valley Herald

Posted on 12/02/2008 11:59:45 AM PST by NormsRevenge

TRACY — Police have arrested a Tracy couple in connection with a case involving an emaciated teen boy who stumbled into a local gym Monday wearing a heavy chain padlocked to his ankle.

Kelly Layne-Lau, 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. Kelly Layne-Lau also goes by the alias of Kelly Lau-Schumacher, police said. They are each being held on $1.185 million bail.

Police served a search warrant on their house Monday night and pulled out evidence.

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. She is described as 5 feet tall, weighing 100 pounds and police say she may be headed to Palo Alto.

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.

--snip--

A neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said he thought the boy was a member of the family and would see him playing with the other children who live in the house. He said they had limited contact with the couple — which he said kept to themselves and would only say "hello" and "goodbye."

He said they had lived in the rented house for about a year.

"They appeared to be a normal family," the neighbor said. "We don't even know their last name. (The boy) wouldn't be allowed to talk to us when we'd see him outside or ask him questions."

(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; US: California
KEYWORDS: arrested; california; emaciated; laynelau; ramirez; schumacher; teen
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1 posted on 12/02/2008 11:59:45 AM PST by NormsRevenge
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To: NormsRevenge
Big tall tree, two short stiff ropes.

IT'S TIME FOR A RETURN TO THE OLD SCHOOL

2 posted on 12/02/2008 12:02:04 PM PST by Jeff Head (Freedom is not free...never has been, never will be. (www.dragonsfuryseries.com))
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To: NormsRevenge

hmmm well the solution here seems obvious. In a heinlein esque world the abudctors would be hung or pushed out an airlock and the boy would be returned to his parents.

case closed.


3 posted on 12/02/2008 12:02:20 PM PST by utherdoul
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To: NormsRevenge
PERPS - GOT METH??


4 posted on 12/02/2008 12:03:25 PM PST by BossLady (Ok Everybody......Get Ready For ......'THE MOOD RING PRESIDENCY'......)
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To: NormsRevenge
Michael Schumacher

I wonder what drove him to it?

5 posted on 12/02/2008 12:05:18 PM PST by Tijeras_Slim
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To: NormsRevenge

“He said they had lived in the rented house for about a year. “They appeared to be a normal family,” the neighbor said. “We don’t even know their last name.”

This, sadly, is an example of neighbors in a commuting exurb. People are gone all day, running around all weekend, and seldom even know the names of their neighbors, let alone their personal circumstances. Tracy is a city which has sprung from 35,000 people in the early 90s to 85,000 now. Everyone is a newcomer and everyone just tends to mind their own business and ignore the others around them.


6 posted on 12/02/2008 12:05:47 PM PST by caseinpoint (Don't get thickly involved in thin things)
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To: Tijeras_Slim

I’d Black Flag ya but .. good catch. ;-)


7 posted on 12/02/2008 12:06:07 PM PST by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ... Godspeed)
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To: NormsRevenge

OK, I’m sick. People go to jail for treating dogs this way. This couple needs to lethal injection, and quick. Hell just posted two new openings. How despicable. How can people possibly become so depraved? I’m baffled. And nauseated. And very happy he escaped with is life, although I don’t think he has any chance for happiness in this life, after his ordeal. May God show him every conceivable mercy in this life and the next.


8 posted on 12/02/2008 12:06:54 PM PST by Freedom_Is_Not_Free
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To: BossLady

Hang em.


9 posted on 12/02/2008 12:07:02 PM PST by Dallas59 (Not My President)
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To: Freedom_Is_Not_Free

Another foster child or ward of the state , chained not by the state and its policies, but rather captured by those who prey on the vulnerable. He’s lucky .. he got away from his captors.

But, now the state will likely return him to his old set of chains.. he will remain a victim and his captors will also become wards of the state with chains. Fitting, in a way.

I await Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, who was at the forefront of foster child care reform in this state, commenting on this case.


10 posted on 12/02/2008 12:12:08 PM PST by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ... Godspeed)
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To: NormsRevenge

This is the result of your social services “industry” in the US. It is ALL one big ‘social’ experiment don’t you know?


11 posted on 12/02/2008 12:22:45 PM PST by SMARTY ("Stay together, pay the soldiers and forget everything else" Lucius Septimus Severus)
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To: BossLady

Git a rope.

Splurge, git two ropes.


12 posted on 12/02/2008 12:23:56 PM PST by savedbygrace (SECURE THE BORDERS FIRST (I'M YELLING ON PURPOSE))
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To: caseinpoint
Tracy was a location of affordable housing for people working in San Francisco and San Ramon. I had a shirt tail in-law and fellow employee at Pacific Bell who moved to Tracy for that precise reason in the late 80's. It was a long commute to/from San Ramon, but the alternative was mortgage payments out of reach.
13 posted on 12/02/2008 12:24:20 PM PST by Myrddin
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To: NormsRevenge
Kelly Layne-Lau, 30, and Michael Schumacher, 34, face charges of torture, kidnapping, false imprisonment, child endangerment and corporal injury to a child

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,

How do you sit in your living room with a half starved child in your basement?

How do you sleep at night after burning a child with cigarettes?

How does one achieve such depravity?

It is impossible for me to relate to these people.

14 posted on 12/02/2008 12:24:27 PM PST by Pontiac (Your message here.)
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To: Myrddin

It was and still is basically affordable, at least compared to prices in the Bay Area. But it is of necessity a commuter town where people spend three hours a day on the road and just want to sit at home with their big-screen tvs and luxury deck fireplaces or pools and ignore the world around them at nights and on the weekends. It is not surprising the neighbors were strangers.


15 posted on 12/02/2008 12:27:27 PM PST by caseinpoint (Don't get thickly involved in thin things)
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To: Pontiac

“It is impossible for me to relate to these people.”

Societies everywhere are full of these types. The next time you hear a liberal want to “negotiate” with some dictator, or “understand” their point of view, just remember this couple. The bad dictators are these people, maybe a little smarter and even more evil so they were able to take over a whole nation.


16 posted on 12/02/2008 12:31:07 PM PST by Williams (It's The Policies, Stupid.)
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To: caseinpoint

I live in a commuter type ex-urb of the Twin Cities. Everyone on our block knows everyone else and we socialize on weekends quite often when the weather is nice. In the winter, it’s a bit different, but neighbors are very quick to help dig each other out in snowstorms. I’m getting together with the the neighbor gals to bake Christmas cookies and we all keep an eye on each others’ children. It must be a midwestern thing.

I’d like to think a situation like the one in the article couldn’t happen here but with the way the world is going, who knows?


17 posted on 12/02/2008 12:37:38 PM PST by mplsconservative
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To: Pontiac

“Kelly Layne-Lau, 30, and Michael Schumacher, 34, face charges of torture, kidnapping, false imprisonment, child endangerment and corporal injury to a child.”

But...but...what could we have done to make these two tormented people act in such desperate ways? Their’s was but a cry for help, and we ignored them. Why weren’t we less selfish, more willing to reach out, quicker to decriminalize their only means of entertainment, etc. etc. etc ????

Oops. Sorry. Was just practicing my ACLU defense lawyer dialogue for when the movie rights are settled.


18 posted on 12/02/2008 12:38:44 PM PST by Clioman
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To: BossLady

Dead, soulless eyes....

19 posted on 12/02/2008 12:40:50 PM PST by r9etb
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To: BossLady
PERPS - GOT METH??

too fat. Got Perv-???

20 posted on 12/02/2008 12:50:54 PM PST by erman
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