For years the 16-year-old boy, known as John K. Doe, was tortured at the hands of three people whose ties to him are unclear, The Sacramento Bee said, quoting court records and other sources.

A criminal complaint filed in San Joaquin District Court in Tracy, Calif., says the boy was sadistically abused with a knife, a baseball bat and a belt while living with Michael Luther Schumacher and his wife, Kelly Layne Lau, and from whose Tracy home he escaped Monday.

Records show that before he ended up in their care he was ritualistically abused in Citrus Heights by another woman, Caren Ramirez, who was believed to be his aunt until police in Tracy reported she was not a blood relative, the Bee said.

While at Ramirez's home, he was beaten with martial arts sticks, a broomstick and a clothes hanger, police reports indicate.

A criminal complaint issued in federal court in Tracy Thursday accuses Schumacher, Lau and Ramirez of torture, false imprisonment and a variety of other crimes that could send them to prison for life, the newspaper said.

The teen, missing since leaving a Sacramento group home more than a year ago, was reported in the care of the Sacramento County Child Protective Services.