After languishing for more than a year in a Perry funeral home, the remains of Sabrina Ray will be released in September to her biological family, the child’s step-mother told ThePerryNews.com Wednesday.
Sixteen-year-old Sabrina died May 12, 2017, in Perry. Her adoptive parents, Marc and Misty Ray, await trial on first-degree murder charges.
“Finally, we will be getting her ashes in September,” said Karena Busch of Perry. “Now this is some good news to share with the Perry Community that also cared about her and were upset that her ashes were sitting in a funeral home.”
Busch said the Iowa Department of Human Services recently contacted the father of her husband, Joseph Busch.
“My husband picked me up from work and told me DHS contacted his dad and told him they are releasing her body to them,” Karena Busch said.
Sabrina was placed in foster care with the Rays in 2011, and they formally adopted Sabrina in 2013. She died of severe malnutrition, according to an autopsy report by the Iowa Medical Examiner’s office, weighing 56 pounds at the time of her death.
When the Rays were charged with first-degree murder in October, 2017, they lost their legal right to custody of Sabrina’s remains, according to an expert in mortuary law.
T. Scott Gilligan of Cincinnati, Ohio, author of “Mortuary Law,” a textbook widely used in mortuary colleges, told ThePerryNews.com that under Iowa law, if the parents or legal guardians of a child are charged with first- or second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter in the death of their child, they lose all rights regarding the disposition of the child’s remains.
“In order to lose your right, you have to be charged with murder in the first or second degree or voluntary manslaughter,” Gilligan said. Custody rights “then would default down through the list of priority of who holds that right,” he said.
Busch said the family is deciding where best to lay Sabrina to rest once they take possession of her remains next week. The Perry Firefighters Association donated money in 2017 for a grave in Violet Hill Cemetery in Perry.
“We’re not real sure where we are going from there,” Busch said. “We do know she will not be buried in Perry. We were thinking as a family for her to be buried next to family, like her great-grandmother.”
Busch said she tries to remember the times before Sabrina was put in the custody of the Rays.
“Those are things we will never have back,” she said “but we have the pictures. We have the memories, and I just want to remember her how she was before she was wrongfully taken and put with people that killed her.”
