Five family members are facing charges after a 16-year-old girl reportedly died in their Iowa home, weighing 56 pounds.
Officials said Sabrina Ray’s adoptive brother, Justin Dale Ray, 21, kicked the teen down the basement staircase before her other family members held her captive and tortured her to death. Police found Sabrina’s lifeless body in the Perry residence on May 12, according to The Des Moines Register.
Court documents obtained by KCCI revealed that Justin’s “drop kick” rendered Sabrina unable to talk, walk, or eat. The assault is believed to have occurred sometime between May 1 and May 12.
On Wednesday, officials named Justin and Carla Bousman, 62, the victim’s adoptive grandmother, as accomplices. Justin is charged with child endangerment and willful injury while the grandmother is facing first-degree kidnapping, child endangerment causing death, and obstructing prosecution or defense for purportedly tampering with the crime scene, and providing false evidence.
Sabrina’s adoptive parents, Marc and Misty Ray, were at Disney World when officers found their daughter’s body. Despite this, the pair was arrested on May 18 and charged with multiple felony charges, The Register also reported.
A complaint revealed that a niece, Josie Raye Bousman, 20, is also accused of abusing and withholding food and water from Sabrina.
Marc and Sabrina ran Ray of Sunshine Daycare out their Iowa home. Court documents obtained by The Register stated that three girls adopted out of foster care were starved and that abuse was widely perpetuated in the Perry home.
Placed in the Ray’s foster home four years ago, Marco Mendez, 19, said he witnessed them torturing Sabrina for months.
“Sabrina would take the trash out,” Mendez told KCCI. “She would be so hungry that she would eat out of the garbage. Like old food. Trash (that) has probably been there like a week.”
The Iowa Department reportedly visited the Ray of Sunshine Daycare in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 following at least two complaints of inadequate nutrition and corporal punishment. The Register wrote that social workers found no evidence of abuse at the time.
Perry Police Chief Eric Vaughn told KCCI: “There was a lot of follow-up interviews that needed to be done with people who resided with [the Rays], had contact with them, [and] had day care with them.”
[Featured Image: KCCI/Police Handout]
