He was nobody's child, a teenage boy who somehow ended up in the homes of people who allegedly beat, chained, burned and imprisoned him until he fled to safety this week.
Horrific details about the recent life of a 16-year-old known in court records only as John K. Doe emerged in court Thursday and in records obtained by The Sacramento Bee.
For years, according to these sources, the youth, who originally was reported to be 17, was tortured at the hands of three people whose ties to him remain unclear.
A criminal complaint filed Thursday in San Joaquin District Court says the teen 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.
Before he ended up in their care, according to records, he was ritualistically abused by another woman, Caren Ramirez, in Citrus Heights.
While at Ramirez's home, he was beaten with martial arts sticks, a broomstick and a clothes hanger, according to police reports.
Authorities still are sorting out the teen's relationship with Ramirez and how he ended up with Lau and Schumacher, but said that the three adults knew one another.
Sacramento County probation and court documents dating from May 2006 refer to Ramirez as the shackled teen's mother and his stepmother. Tracy authorities initially identified her as his aunt. But on Thursday, Tracy police spokesman Matt Robinson said Ramirez is no blood relation.
Read the full story at sacbee.com.