TRACY, Calif. -- A terrified teenage boy who showed up at a Tracy gym begging for help had earlier been chained in a home and lived in filthy conditions as a captive, authorities said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, three people accused of playing a role in the alleged torture and kidnapping of the 17-year-old remained in custody and were expected to be arraigned in Stockton on Thursday.

"He was dirty. He was bloody," Tracy police spokesman Matt Robinson said Wednesday as he described the boy's ordeal, which by one account may have lasted nearly a year.

Robinson said Caren Ramirez was taken into custody by Tracy and Berkeley officers around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday at an apartment in the 2600 block of College Avenue in Berkeley.

KCRA 3 has learned that Ramirez, 43, is not the biological aunt of the teen, and that authorities aren't quite sure of the connection at this point.

The case started to unfold when the teen showed up at a fitness club called In-Shape City at 4 p.m. Monday with a chain locked to his ankle. He told gym personnel he had just fled his captors.

The boy told police he was chained inside a sport utility vehicle that pulled up to the Tracy home where he said he was being held.

After going inside, the teen said he climbed through a rear window and jumped a backyard fence in search of help.

The boy turned up emaciated and bruised at the gym Monday. Police say he has been released from a Tracy hospital and is in the custody of Child Protective Services.

Robinson was reluctant on Wednesday to offer more details about the boy's condition, adding that the investigation is still going on.

Gym manager Chuck Ellis said the teen was scared someone was going to come after him and asked to be hidden.

"He said, 'Don't let them get me. Don't let them get me,'" Ellis said. "He was totally terrified."

The boy said he had been held captive for nearly a year, said Ellis, adding that he looked as if he was only 10 to 12 years old.

Police had been looking for Ramirez after they arrested 30-year-old Kelly Layne Lau and 34-year-old Michael Schumacher.

Lau, a Girl Scout troop leader, and Schumacher are being held on bail of nearly $1.2 million each after being booked on suspicion of torture, kidnapping, false imprisonment, child endangerment and corporal injury to a child.

Investigators were trying to figure out the connection between the couple and Ramirez, who authorities believe occasionally visited their home.

Ramirez is expected to face the same charges as Lau and Schumacher.

Meanwhile, Lau and Schumacher's four young children, two of whom were home when police arrived, were taken into protective custody, authorities said.

Ramirez had become the teen's guardian after child-welfare officials took him from his abusive father three or four years ago, police said. After Ramirez was arrested on suspicion of abusing the boy, the youth was placed in another foster home, which he fled in late 2007, police said.

Since then, the boy's whereabouts hadn't been known until he entered the fitness center.

Court records obtained by KCRA 3 show Ramirez allegedly abused two victims in the past -- a 16-year-old boy in 2005 and a different child, a 13-year-old boy, in 2006.

Ramirez was charged in May of 2007 with four felony counts involving both children, including inflicting cruel and inhuman corporal punishment and injury upon a child. She pleaded no contest to one felony charge and the court sentenced her to five years probation.

However, Ramirez violated probation in January of this year, failing to prove she was in a court-ordered counseling program and failing to notify her probation officer of her whereabouts after November 2007. A bench warrant was issued for her arrest.