South Carolina officials announced Friday that criminal charges won’t be filed in last month’s death of a 10-year-old girl who reportedly died after a fight at her middle school, revealing the fifth-grader died as a result of an undiagnosed medical condition unrelated to the altercation.
According to BuzzFeed, county prosecutor Duffie Stone said Raniya Wright’s March 27 death was caused by an arteriovenous malformation (AVM), a congenital condition which resulted in a ruptured blood vessel inside her brain. Stone stated that Wright had complained of headaches in the weeks preceding her death.
The Mayo Clinic describes AVM as an “abnormal tangle of blood vessels connecting arteries and veins.” Typically detected in adults, individuals with the condition can experience headaches, nausea and vomiting, and fainting.
“The fight did not contribute to her death,” Stone said, according to the outlet. “There was no evidence of trauma either inside or outside the body to indicate that a fight of any magnitude contributed to this. There were no bruises, no cuts, no scrapes, no busted lips, no black eyes. Internally, the tissue that was tested also did not show any other trauma. The only trauma was limited in scope to the rupture that took place in the brain.”
Weeks earlier, the deceased girl’s mother, Ashley Wright told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that Raniya’s friends claimed a bully had goaded her daughter to fight all day before slamming her head into a bookshelf. The Forest Hills Elementary School student died two days after the March 25 altercation.
Citing investigators, Greenville News reported that Raniya was rushed to the hospital after she lost consciousness in the principal’s office following the fight. The grieving mother said her daughter had no prior health issues. According to CNN, school officials had said no weapons were used in the fight.
The Associated Press reported the authorities contradicted the mother’s allegations, with Sheriff R.A. Strickland saying the girl had been in a “five-second slap fight” that was swiftly broken up.
Following officials’ announcement Friday, the mother reiterated that she wasn’t aware of any medical conditions that would’ve led to Raniya’s death. Two weeks before her death, Raniya was reportedly taken to a doctor after complaining of Citing medical records, the outlet reported that she had been to the doctor seven times in the past two years due to headaches.
According to The New York Times, Raniya’s family held a separate press conference Friday where her grandfather accused officials of conducting a “cover-up” in the 10-year-old’s death. Raniya’s mother claimed her daughter wasn’t experiencing headaches before she left for school on March 25.
She said, “I’m going to find out what happened to my baby.”
[Featured image: Raniya Wright/Handout, Facebook]
