STOCKTON — A judge this afternoon ordered four adults suspected of torturing a teenaged boy to return to court next month for further arraignment, which would make for an eighth hearing since their arrests three months ago.
San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Cinda Fox said investigators are waiting for subpoenaed cell phone records, DNA test results from the Department of Justice and lengthy transcripts from video interviews of the defendants. She said she’ll wait until the next hearing scheduled for April 1 to set a preliminary trial date, so attorneys have enough time to review the new evidence.
Husband and wife Michael Schumacher, 34, Kelly Lau, 30, and housemate Carén Ramirez, 44 appeared in court today with their next-door neighbor and former Tracy youth football coach Anthony Waiters, 29 — all of whom are accused of abusing a 16-year-old boy for more than a year. None have entered pleas.
Police allege that the group held the boy captive inside the Schumacher-Lau’s central Tracy home between May 2007 and last December, when he finally scaled the backyard wall and hobbled over to a nearby healthy club, shackled, bloodied and scarred.
Delays in the investigation and Ramirez’s undisclosed medical problems have forced Fox to postpone the foursome’s arraignment for a fewmonths now.
Schumacher and Lau face 13 felony charges, including for torture, abuse, child endangerment and aggravated mayhem. Ramirez was charged with nine counts of abuse and Waiters with eight.
Waiter’s mother, Alice Waiters, appeared in court today to catch a fleeting glimpse of her son, who like the other suspects is being kept in solitary confinement at San Joaquin County Jail in French Camp. Alice Waiters has attended every hearing since her son’s arrest, sometimes accompanied by family members, including Anthony Waiters’ brother, Rodney Waiters.
The teen victim — identified in court records as Kyle R. — is in protective custody of Sacramento County’s Child Protective Services. Search warrants say the boy was chained to a fireplace inside the Schumacher’s rented Tennis Lane home. Warrants say the family, Ramirez and Waiters, to an unknown extent, force-fed the boy drugs and booze to keep him lethargic and denied him food for long periods of time.
When the boy appeared at In-Shape Health Club on Tracy Boulevard on Dec. 2, employees and police described him as bleeding profusely and covered head to toe with scars, soot and ashes.
The Schumacher’s four biological children, aged 2 to 9, were also taken into state custody after their parents’ arrest.
n Contact Tracy Press reporter Jennifer Wadsworth at 830-4225 or jwadsworth@tracypress.com.
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