Police arrest bogus aunt in teen beating

TRACY, Calif., Dec. 4 (UPI) -- A woman accused of abuse of a Sacramento teenager who allegedly was kidnapped and tortured is not the boy's aunt as previously believed, police said Thursday.

Investigators said Caren Ramirez, 43, of Tracy, Calif., is not the blood relative of the 17-year-old boy who fled Monday afternoon, shackled and battered, pleading with people to hide him.

A relative of the boy told police Ramirez actually was a friend of the family "who was considered an aunt," the Sacramento Bee reported.

Ramirez is being held in San Joaquin County Jail on 10 felony charges, including torture, kidnapping, child abuse and paying or receiving money for adoption of a child.

Also held were a Tracy couple, Michael Luther Schumacher and Kelly Layne Lau, named in eight felony charges, including kidnapping, torture and false imprisonment

All three lived in the house where the boy allegedly was held, the Los Angeles Times said.

It was the second time Ramirez had been charged with mistreating the boy. She pleaded no contest last year to a charge of beating him, the newspaper said.

Naked except for a pair of gray boxer shorts, a large chain shackled to one foot, the boy allegedly escaped when he flopped over an 8-foot-high backyard fence and landed in a health club parking lot. He stumbled into the In-Shape Sports Club, urging someone to "Please, hide me." A club official called 911.

Small and emaciated, with bare, swollen feet, cuts on his back, a gash on his head and dried blood on his arm, the boy looked to be no more than 12 or 13 to club members who saw him.