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STOCKTON -- Criminal proceedings in the Tracy child torture case were postponed today until mid June.
The defendants were in San Joaquin Superior Court this morning when the hearing was continued until June 17.
Michael Luther Schumacher, one of four defendants in the case, has yet to enter a plea in the case. The other three have previously pleaded not guilty.
Schumacher, his wife Kelly Layne Lau, neighbor Anthony Vincent Waiters and former Carmichael resident Caren Ramirez are facing charges ranging from aggravated mayhem to torture in the case.
The four are accused of holding a teenager hostage and torturing him for more than a year at a house in Tracy. The are believed to have doused the youth with a chemical in an effort to burn and disfigure him, according to a 17-count indictment handed down by a San Joaquin County grand jury early this month.
Schumacher is expected to enter a plea at the mid-June hearing in which a trial date could be set.
The case has attracted national attention since the youth, 16, stumbled into a Tracy health club in December with a chain padlocked to his ankle. Detectives have said he was held captive more than a year, shackled for long periods to heavy objects. They also said he had been deprived of food, beaten, slashed and drugged, and rarely was allowed out of the house. Many of the allegations are in the indictment.
The relationship between the youth and the four defendants remains unclear. Schumacher and Lau lived in the Tracy home from which the teenager fled, and Waiters was their neighbor. The youth, now in protective custody, previously lived in the Sacramento area with Ramirez.
San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Angela Hayes took her case to a grand jury rather than present it at a preliminary hearing in open court. The approach, unusual in state criminal cases in California, gives prosecutors more leeway in laying out evidence and protects victims from having to testify in public.
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The defendants were in San Joaquin Superior Court this morning when the hearing was continued until June 17.
Michael Luther Schumacher, one of four defendants in the case, has yet to enter a plea in the case. The other three have previously pleaded not guilty.
Schumacher, his wife Kelly Layne Lau, neighbor Anthony Vincent Waiters and former Carmichael resident Caren Ramirez are facing charges ranging from aggravated mayhem to torture in the case.
The four are accused of holding a teenager hostage and torturing him for more than a year at a house in Tracy. The are believed to have doused the youth with a chemical in an effort to burn and disfigure him, according to a 17-count indictment handed down by a San Joaquin County grand jury early this month.
Schumacher is expected to enter a plea at the mid-June hearing in which a trial date could be set.
The case has attracted national attention since the youth, 16, stumbled into a Tracy health club in December with a chain padlocked to his ankle. Detectives have said he was held captive more than a year, shackled for long periods to heavy objects. They also said he had been deprived of food, beaten, slashed and drugged, and rarely was allowed out of the house. Many of the allegations are in the indictment.
The relationship between the youth and the four defendants remains unclear. Schumacher and Lau lived in the Tracy home from which the teenager fled, and Waiters was their neighbor. The youth, now in protective custody, previously lived in the Sacramento area with Ramirez.
San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Angela Hayes took her case to a grand jury rather than present it at a preliminary hearing in open court. The approach, unusual in state criminal cases in California, gives prosecutors more leeway in laying out evidence and protects victims from having to testify in public.
More...