As they're sent to prison, Sabrina Ray's adoptive parents are told, 'Now it's your turn to be locked up'

LUKE NOZICKA   | The Des Moines Register

ADEL, Ia. — The girls had high expectations when they moved in with the Rays.

Adopted into the central Iowa home, one child hoped Marc Ray would be a good father. The other thought her life was about to get better, saying state human services officials trusted the parents.

Instead, the three girls, ages 10, 12 and 16, were beaten, body slammed and only fed oatmeal, bread and stuffing. They slept on bare, cold floors and were confined against their will in a room with covered windows, making it impossible for them to get out, authorities said.

And on May 12, 2017, as Marc Ray and his wife, Misty Jo Bousman Ray, took their sons to Disney World in Florida, their oldest adoptive daughter, Sabrina Ray, lay dying in a dark room. Her little sisters — described by a prosecutor as the only two people who loved her — were by her side as she starved.

“Sabrina’s sisters were forced to watch her slowly and agonizingly die,” Judge Terry Rickers said Friday at the Dallas County Courthouse, moments before he sent the couple to prison.

Misty Ray, 41, received a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole after she pleaded guilty to first-degree kidnapping, a class A felony, and two counts of third-degree kidnapping for the confinement of her two other daughters.

Marc Ray, 43, was sentenced to a maximum of 80 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to child endangerment resulting in death and three counts of third-degree kidnapping — one for each of the children he cared for and illegally confined.

The parents were initially charged with first-degree murder in the death of Sabrina, who officials said had a disability. She weighed 56 pounds and was severely malnourished at the time of her death, authorities said.

Reading a statement, Misty Ray apologized to the children and her husband, saying she accepted responsibility for her actions. She pleaded guilty to give her surviving children privacy, so they would not have to share their stories in open court at trial, she said.

“I would give anything to go back in time and right all those wrongs,” she said. “All of this is my fault.”

Marc Ray did not speak when asked if he would like to make a statement. During his December plea hearing, Ray became emotional as he admitted to not obtaining medical treatment for Sabrina. 

The couple kept their heads down as victim impact statements from their other children were read in the courtroom filled with dozens of spectators. Some family members cried in the gallery as the statements told horrors of abuse and neglect; one of the children wrote about wanting to kill herself.

“You caused so much trauma that I have flashbacks and nightmares,” one of the girls wrote in a statement. “I have cut myself; I have run away; I have tried to tie shoestrings around my neck.”

But now, when she has nightmares, she knows her abusers are in prison. Saying she and her siblings were never let out into the world, one girl wrote to the Rays: “Now it’s your turn to be locked up.”

Prosecutors said the two girls and a third child who lived with the Rays, a boy, are now thriving. With one in a new home and the other still searching for one, the girls smile and laugh. Ages 12 and 14, the two love the colors purple and pink. One is a Girl Scout and the other participates in 4-H.While they will live with long-lasting injuries, the girls are grateful for Sabrina’s sacrifice “so they could live,” Assistant County Attorney Stacy Ritchie said.

Each parent will be ordered to pay restitution, including $150,000 both to the heirs of Sabrina. 

Outside the courthouse, a biological family member of one of the girls tied a bundle of yellow balloons that displayed smiling faces to a parking sign before the sentencing.

A handful of reporters and cameramen walked in front of deputies as the Rays, handcuffed at their hands and feet, crossed the street from the sheriff's office to the courthouse. They faced the judge in striped jail jumpsuits.

Several family members were accused of assisting in the abuse of Sabrina Ray.

Sabrina's brother, Justin Ray, 22, pleaded guilty in February to two counts of willful injury and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Prosecutors said he drop-kicked Sabrina down a basement staircase, leaving her unable to walk, talk, eat or drink normally.

Sabrina's adoptive grandmother, Carla Bousman, 63, was sentenced in April to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to neglect of a dependent person and two counts of child endangerment, among other charges. Prosecutors initially accused her of assisting in Sabrina's kidnapping and torturing before helping cover up her death.

Josie Raye Bousman, Sabrina's 21-year-old cousin, was charged with three counts of kidnapping, child endangerment causing death and obstructing prosecution. She helped keep Sabrina confined and denied her food and water, authorities said. Her trial was scheduled for March but the court has since ordered it to be set for a new date.

Marc and Misty Ray, who ran a daycare center they called Rays of Sunshine Daycare at 1708 First Ave. in Perry, took in Sabrina as a foster child in 2011 and adopted her in 2013. The shy and small girl with dimples and dark brown hair was separated from her older half-sister and four brothers before the age of 10.

The daycare was visited by state inspectors and social workers each year from 2013 to 2016 after at least two complaints were lodged against the home, alleging inadequate nutrition for children and corporal punishment. Workers who visited reported they found no evidence of abuse at the time.

When police arrived at the home, officers found Sabrina’s adopted sisters in the room with her lifeless body. In a report briefly unsealed in December, an officer who arrived at the residence called the home "the most horrific scene in my entire career and life."

"It is hard to put into words the feelings that come over me — the smells, the pain, the anguish, the fear and the evil," Officer Josh Sienkiewicz wrote.

In a statement, the new adoptive mother of one of the girls called Misty Ray a failed mother. Promising she would love the girl unconditionally, the woman said she hoped Misty thought daily about Sabrina and the milestones she would never see.

“You have earned the term monster,” the woman said. “The remaining children, including my daughter, that were tortured in your care, have earned the term survivor.”

Follow the Register on Facebook and Twitter for more news. Luke Nozicka can be reached at lnozicka@dmreg.com or on Twitter @LukeNozicka.