© Copyright 2017, Des Moines Register and Tribune Co.

A Perry home where a 16-year-old girl was found dead Friday was being monitored by Iowa's Department of Human Services after complaints of inadequate nutrition and corporal punishment.

Sabrina Ray, who was adopted out of foster care and home-schooled, was found unresponsive at the home at 1708 First Ave. at about 6:30 p.m. Perry Police Chief Eric Vaughn has not released a cause of death from an autopsy Monday.

The Iowa State Medical Examiner's office said Tuesday it could be weeks before a formal cause of death is released because of ongoing tests.

State licensing records show that Sabrina's parents, Misty and Marc Ray, ran a state-licensed daycare in their home for as many as 16 children.

Rays of Sunshine Daycare was visited by state inspectors and social workers in 2013, 2014, 2015 and last year after at least two complaints were lodged against the home. Workers who visited reported they found no evidence of abuse at the time.

The Ray case bears similarities to the October starvation death of Natalie Finn, a West Des Moines 16-year-old who was adopted out of foster care, home-schooled and died from starvation, and Malayia Knapp, a Des Moines teen who was adopted, home-schooled, and ran away and called police after she was severely abused.

Abuse investigations questioned

Details of Natalie's death and Malayia's abuse, first exposed by Reader's Watchdog, prompted oversight meetings at the Legislature and ongoing probes by Iowa’s state ombudsman, child-welfare officials and others.

All three cases are raising questions about the decision of Human Services leaders to investigate fewer cases of alleged abuse.

Lawyers who work on behalf of children in juvenile court have raised concerns about the agency failing to investigate child abuse allegations, particularly those involving older teens.

Human Services has lost more than 800 workers since Gov. Terry Branstad was re-elected in 2014.

The cases also call into question a decision by state lawmakers in 2013 to allow some home-schooled children in Iowa to not be monitored in any way by school districts.

“We did a bad thing in 2013 when we did that,” said state Sen. Matt McCoy, ranking Democrat on the legislature's government oversight committee. “Now we don’t even have the basic details about this girl. Had she been in school, we’d know a lot more than we know today.”

McCoy, a West Des Moines senator who has been spearheading an inquiry into such cases, said Tuesday he was told by a child-protective worker within Human Services that, like Natalie Finn, Sabrina Ray was adopted out of foster care and home-schooled.

Lynn Ubben, the superintendent for Perry Community Schools, also said her understanding was that Sabrina was home-schooled.

Sabrina had four siblings, according to her grandmother's 2013 obituary.

Amy McCoy, a spokeswoman for human services, said Tuesday the agency was hiring an outside expert to examine Human Services' performance and make recommendations to strengthen practices "and best support our staff as we work to keep children safe from abuse."

"We want to convey our deep sadness at the loss of this young woman. We are taking a comprehensive review of our child welfare system and want to assure the public of our commitment to protecting vulnerable children," she said in a statement.

Food used as punishment?

McCoy said the agency was awaiting direction from Perry law enforcement to make further statements.

Sen. McCoy said the insider he spoke to within the Department of Human Services told him Ray was found dead in her family’s basement.

The worker also said food reportedly was used in the house as an inducement or punishment.

“The worker said the case was just like Natalie Finn. Said she would be fired if anyone knew she was talking to me,” he said.

Child care licensing reports and complaints are considered public under state law.

However, child-abuse investigations are typically confidential except in death and near-death cases. A county attorney has to give permission for child abuse information to be released when a criminal investigation is ongoing.

Watchdog has requested all child-abuse assessments associated with the girl and her siblings.

State child-care licensing records show that in October 2013, a complainant said there was improper discipline in the Ray daycare, improper supervision and inadequate food.

Earl Crow, a Story County worker for Human Services who does spot-compliance checks, said two workers at the agency visited the daycare that month and found no evidence to support the claim.

A second similar complaint was made in April 2014. But Crow wrote in a Human Services report that he found no evidence of inadequate food or abuse in a spot check of the day care.

It's unclear whether workers visited the entire home or just the part of the home that was a day care.

The case of Natalie Finn

In Natalie Finn's case, neighbors and school officials at Walnut Creek Campus, an alternative school, complained to child-protective workers that the teen was arriving at school dirty, hungry and with no shoes.

The school nurse reported last spring that Natalie weighed only about 112 pounds and looked malnourished.

A Department of Human Services worker and police tried to visit the home repeatedly through that spring and summer, but Natalie's mother, Nicole Finn, successfully postponed a home visit until August.

When police and the worker finally did get a court order to enter the home, they found the house stocked with food and no signs of clear abuse.

An abuse investigation subsequently came back unfounded, but the child protective worker and supervisor assigned to the case never sought a physical examination of Natalie by an independent physician to verify if she was malnourished.

Nicole Finn removed Natalie and two other siblings from West Des Moines schools in the fall. Natalie Finn died Oct. 24 of cardiac arrest brought on by her emaciation.

She was found wearing an adult diaper and lying on the linoleum floor of her bare basement bedroom when police and medics discovered her.

The Department of Human Services social worker and supervisor assigned to the case were subsequently fired.

Nicole Finn, 42, is facing a charge of first-degree murder for Natalie's death and several other felonies for her treatment of two of Natalie's siblings, a 15-year-old boy and a 14-year-old sister. All three children were adopted.

Finn's ex-husband, Joseph Finn, 46, is facing several charges of kidnapping, neglect or abandonment and child endangerment.

McCoy also convened legislative meetings about 18-year-old Malayia Knapp after her case was detailed in Watchdog.

The 18-year-old Des Moines Area Community College student said she was beaten for years and locked up behind a steel door in a small basement room — once for as long as a week without food.

She ran away and reported the abuse Dec. 1, 2015. But seven children, including four of Malayia's half-siblings, were returned by a judge to the home. Six remain there still.

Human Services officials confirmed multiple counts of abuse against Mindy and Andy Knapp, the couple who adopted Malayia and five half-siblings from foster care. Mindy Knapp also was convicted last year of misdemeanor assault.

Some home-school children vulnerable to abuse

The Coalition for Responsible Home Education, based outside Chicago, has identified at least 331 cases of home-schooled children ages 6 to 17 who have been severely neglected and abused since 2000.

Children have died in 118 of the cases. They were adopted in 89 cases.

In 156 cases, the children were subject to food deprivation, according to Rachel Coleman, executive director of the coalition.

Included in the database are children such as Natalie Finn and 10-year-old Timothy Boss, who was beaten to death by his parents in Remsen, Ia., in 2000.

The special-needs child, who was among four adopted and seven biological children of Lisa and Donald Boss Jr., spent the night before his death bound to a chair in the family’s basement.

He and his siblings were locked in that basement at night and forced to wear diapers for urinating on the floor.

The Bosses said Timothy was being home-schooled during the 1999-2000 school year.

Coleman said there often is no education taking place in so-called home-school situations when there is physical abuse discovered.

“We believe there are some very basic fixes that can prevent at least some of what is going on,” she said.