2-year-old killed over spilled milk 1
Teacher stabs student 7 times for farting 2
Inmates hides dope in his rolls of fat 3
By Steve Huff in assault, bizarre, missing persons
Wednesday, Dec. 3 2008 @ 10:13AM
lauschumacher.jpgThanks to the estimable Henry K. Lee, who covers crime for the San Francisco Chronicle, we have this news: Caren Ramirez has been arrested. The 43-year-old Ramirez is said to be the aunt of the teenager who dramatically reported his alleged abuse and captivity by Michael Schumacher and Kelly Lau.

The teen, wearing only boxers and dragging a chain, entered a Tracy, CA gym earlier this week. He was emaciated. He'd been cut. He was bruised. He was utterly terrified. The Schumachers were arrested later the same day. They are suspected of having tortured and abused the boy for some time now -- possibly as long as a year. Before that, Ramirez was charged with 4 counts of abuse against the same child. She received 5 years of probation for the charges, but the probation was over once Ramirez failed to show up for a hearing in April this year.

Also thanks to Mr. Lee, I found Lau's MySpace page. No, the intrepid reporter didn't violate any of his paper's editorial policies -- he simply quoted a line from Lau's profile, which made the page pretty easy to find if you know your way around the Web.

Here was how Kelly Lau described herself in the "About Me" section of her page -- some edits have been made to remove her childrens' names:

30 yr. old mom of 4 beautiful kids [...] Happily married to a man who I love to death. He is my best friend and a wonderful father to our 4 kids and I wouldn't trade him for anything in this world. We live in Northern California where I am a stay at home mom and my husband is a Contractor. We have a typical life I guess-our oldest daughter is involved with Girl Scouts and [...] is our Ballerina in training. My boys just kick back and wait there turn to do something fun. We have a dog named BUBBA and no white picket fence but our neighbor has one. LOL!!!!!!
Elsewhere in her profile, Kelly Lau wrote that she was a "hopeless romantic," who loved the movies Gone With the Wind and Casablanca. Kelly also wrote about loving "the outdoors, camping, and spending time" with her kids.

Girl scouts, ballerina training and all for the Schumacher kids, and they were living in Tracy, which is one of the top 50 safest cities in the country. One of those places where every day is a "Chamber of Commerce" kind of day.

Awesome. Just one happy little suburban family who allegedly had a teenage whipping boy and slave stowed away in the laundry room or cellar somewhere. No wonder I've always found the suburbs so creepy. [Henry Lee's article at SFGate.com]