Mother defends 4th shackling suspect

The mother of a fourth suspect accused of abusing a 16-year-old boy who was allegedly shackled and tortured in a couple’s Tracy home said her son occasionally visited the home but never saw the boy.

Alice Waiters, whose son Anthony Waiters, 29, was arrested Tuesday, told reporters that her son sometimes watched football games at the home of Michael Schumacher and Kelly Layne Lau. She said their families barbecued July 4 at her home but that neither she nor her son ever saw the boy.

“This is shocking. I know my son, the child that I raised, and he couldn’t have done something like that. This is a bunch of trumped-up charges,” said Waiters.

Police say that for more than a year, Schumacher, 34, and Lau, 30, held the boy against his will and, along with the teen’s one-time guardian, Caren Ramirez, 43, beat him, denied him food and sometimes kept him chained to the fireplace or a heavy table. They each face multiple abuse and related charges.

The boy ran away from the house last week by jumping a backyard fence and finding help at a fitness center. He was covered in soot, looked years younger than his age and was bleeding from where he was still shackled around his ankle.

Anthony Waiters was booked on suspicion of torture, conspiracy, child endangerment, corporal injury to a child and false imprisonment.