The state of Iowa will pay $10 million to the siblings of a 16-year-old adopted girl who weighed just 56 pounds (25 kilograms) when she died of starvation in 2017, according to a council. State that approved the settlement Monday.
Sabrina Ray was suffering from severe malnutrition when authorities found her body at her home in Perry, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northwest of Des Moines. She lived with three other foster siblings as well as foster siblings.
Misty Ray, his adoptive mother, was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping, and Marc Ray, his adoptive father, was sentenced to 80 years in prison for kidnapping and child endangerment. A grandmother and adoptive brother were also sentenced to prison.
Two of Sabrina Ray’s siblings, former foster children who were also adopted by the Rays, claimed that authorities at the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services failed to managed to protect them from severe physical abuse, torture and neglect.
The siblings — identified only by their initials in the filings — had asked for $50 million each, but settled for $5 million each after mediation.
Scott Wadding, the surviving siblings’ attorney, described what they experienced as “the worst torture and abuse a person can imagine.”
Some reports of child abuse accused the Rays of forcing their foster children to drink soapy water, stand over cold air vents, and eat their own vomit.
Me Wadding said that when Sabrina Ray was first brought to the house, the other siblings thought she was “weird” because she wanted to hug them. He said she later died in her sisters’ arms and that he had hoped her death would alert police and free them.
“After all these years of abuse and torture, Sabrina is hugging her sisters like she did the first day she arrived,” Ms.e Wadding. “I keep thinking about that and how, despite how bad things were in that house, they couldn’t take away all that love inside her. It was her until the end. »
An Associated Press request for comment to the Department of Health and Human Services was not immediately returned Monday.
“Indefensible” abuse
In an Oct. 31 letter to the state Board of Appeals, Iowa Assistant Attorney General Stan Thompson called the abuse “indefensible” and said the failures of the foster care system of the State to protect children were important.
“Prolonged exposure to such an environment caused significant physical and emotional harm to these children,” Thompson said.
The State Board of Appeals is responsible for approving claims against state entities and officials.
A state watchdog found in 2020 that Sabrina Ray’s life could have been saved if state social workers and contractors had been more thorough when investigating the youngster’s living conditions girl.
The Iowa State Ombudsman’s report found that the state Department of Health and Human Services received 11 reports of child abuse against adoptive parents between 2010 and 2015. Some of the allegations included comments that Ray looked extremely thin and unhealthy.
Authorities found locks, alarms and coverings on the doors and windows of the bedroom where Sabrina Ray died, according to the report. Police said she slept on a thin mattress on the floor and apparently used the toilet in the toddler room.
Me Wadding said the children were forced to fight for food, had no furniture in their locked rooms and ate only oatmeal for years. He said a sibling repeatedly jumped out of his second-story bedroom window to drink from a neighbor’s garden hose because he was very thirsty.
According to the report, a department inspector failed to check Sabrina Ray’s bedroom just months before her death because she misunderstood a policy requiring a full examination of the home. Other Department of Human Services employees noted in their evaluations that Ray appeared thin, but said they lacked the training to recognize malnutrition.
Part of the settlement approved Monday requires the department to create a task force to ensure the recommendations of the ombudsman’s report are implemented and to make additional suggestions to help improve Iowa’s foster care system.
The task force will include the two siblings’ guardians and the police officer who found Ray’s body after a 911 call.