The West Virginia court record reads – 

Raylee Browning should be buying school supplies and getting ready for the

upcoming school year;

Any type of intervention would have saved the child’s life;

Raylee Jolynn Browning died December 26th, 2018 at eight years old from sepsis, caused by a severe bacterial pneumonia infection. Her caregivers ignored her deteriorating condition and neglected her to the point of death – and those patterns of neglect marred most of Raylee’s short life.  

Carrie Ciliberti, a beloved teacher of Raylee’s at Mount Lookout Elementary in Nicholas County, raised concerns with the school and Child Protective Services about Raylee’s safety in the home she shared with her biological father, his partner, and partner’s sister. As credible suspicions of abuse and neglect circled the family, Carrie watched helplessly as Marty Browning Jr, Raylee’s father, removed her from Mount Lookout Elementary to be homeschooled and away from mandated reporters. 

After Raylee was withdrawn from school, the teachers who had repeatedly observed and reported signs of abuse no longer saw her. CPS reports ceased. Inside the home, the neglect escalated. Raylee was in the second percentile for age and height at the time of her death. 

Raylee was dead less than a year later, the victim of prolonged neglect that required incredible isolation. All three adults were convicted of child neglect resulting in death in 2022; an appeal in 2025 affirmed the court’s decision. 

This case is tragic, and Raylee’s legacy is undeservingly complicated. 

In the years past Raylee’s death, West Virginia Delegate Shawn Fluharty has repeatedly introduced iterations of “Raylee’s Law”, which would prevent children from being withdrawn from a public school setting during an active child welfare investigation. Legislation like this can close a dangerous legal loophole that allows potential abusers to isolate vulnerable children at home and out of sight of teachers, counselors, and social workers – people who would have kept eyes on children like Raylee. Each and every time, despite bipartisan support, the proposed legislation is stonewalled by parental rights and homeschool freedom advocates, dismissing Raylee’s death as a fluke or even inevitable.  

Raylee’s case was not solely a failure of homeschool policy. The child welfare system had multiple opportunities to intervene while she was still enrolled in school, and repeatedly failed to substantiate reports from adults who were seeing signs of abuse firsthand. Raylee’s Law would not fix those failures. It addresses a narrower problem: once concerns about a child’s safety have reached the level of an active investigation, should caregivers be able to remove that child from the institution providing regular contact with mandated reporters?

Nebraska passed legislation inspired by Raylee’s Law in 2026, requiring a 14-day waiting period to remove children from public or private schools when an active child welfare investigation is occurring. One of the key findings of our Homeschooling’s Invisible Children database is that withdrawal during or after child welfare investigation is a red flag for the most severe abuse and neglect. Yet in Raylee’s home state, it remains not only legal, but easy, to withdraw a child to be homeschooled during an active CPS investigation. 

Raylee Browning is one of the most recognized names in the debates about child maltreatment and homeschooling policy. Understanding this case and the pushback against change is critical in how we approach children’s open futures. 

HISTORY 

You can read our original analysis of the Raylee Browning case here; this was written prior to conviction and appeal. 

Raylee Browning was born July 11, 2010 in Beckley, West Virginia to Marty Browning Jr. and Janice Wrinston. The relationship between her biological parents was contentious; and Raylee lived primarily with her father. Around February of 2013, she was placed in her father’s home, where they lived with Julie Titchenell, his partner, and Sherie Titchenell, Julie’s sister. There were three other children in the home, at least one of those children attended Mount Lookout Elementary in Nicholas County, West Virginia along with Raylee. 

It was at Mount Lookout Elementary that professionals began to raise concerns about Raylee’s home life. Carrie Ciliberti, who taught Raylee gym, art and health in kindergarten, testified under oath about what she observed. She described Raylee coming to school with a broken femur, in bulky clothing to hide bruises shaped like handprints, and that Raylee repeatedly showed her “boo boos” on her legs. Ciliberti said she personally called CPS three times to report injuries; another time when one of the older daughter’s classmates reported that the family kept Raylee locked in a laundry room it was also reported. 

Professionals agreed that Raylee seemed to be singled out for abuse, and reports were made to CPS. Repeatedly, these reports went unsubstantiated, but the concern from Ciliberti and teachers at Mount Lookout Elementary remained – especially when Raylee returned to first grade dramatically thinner, and notes from her caregivers started coming to school, instructing staff to withhold food from Raylee. 

Alarm bells were sounding. Sherie, who had taken over the majority of childcare duties in the household, was instructing the children to lie to CPS workers in the mornings before school. Wriston, Raylee’s mother, was asking the court for full custody of her daughter, citing safety concerns. Then, in 2018, halfway through Raylee’s first grade year, the family moved to Oak Hill, in Fayette County and began homeschooling. 

Sherie took on the mantle of homeschooling in the household, including Raylee. Sherie was an involved and active homeschooler; local homeschoolers said they joined Sherie for lessons, and one of Raylee’s step siblings testified that Sherie would host regular meetups and organize with area homeschoolers. However, Raylee spent most of her daytime hours in the hallway, with Sherie forcing her to “walk” the hallway from the time the little girl got up until she went to bed. Raylee had no space from her abuser; she shared a bedroom with Sherie, sleeping on a mattress on the floor and denied access to toileting and food. Her weight continued to decrease, and during the trial, evidence presented confirmed the presence of the locks and alarms to keep Raylee confined. Raylee’s step sibling testified she observed Raylee drinking water from the toilet after the adults refused to give her water. CPS reports ceased during the duration of Raylee’s homeschooling, but the abuse only escalated. If adults in the homeschool environment noticed, it wasn’t reported – there is no requirement for them to be mandated reporters. 

In December of 2018, Raylee became ill shortly before Christmas. Her breathing worsened, yet no adult in the household brought food, medicine, or water to Raylee’s mattress on Sherie’s floor. Julie asked Raylee if she would be “…OK spending Christmas in a hospital…”; Raylee asked to go, and her plea was ignored by all three adults in the household.  In the next few days, Raylee was shaking “nonstop”, her pupils grew small, and she making a “snoring” noise (also described as the way a pug breathes) that a 911 dispatcher would later hear. 

On the morning after Christmas, Julie called 911 saying Raylee has suffered a seizure. The court documents say: 

”One of the responding EMTs described Raylee as “lifeless or dead,” “wasn’t breathing,” and “cyanotic.” After being transported to Plateau Medical Center, Raylee was treated by a team of medical providers, including a nurse who described Raylee as “lifeless, no pulse, no rhythm on [the] cardiac monitor, . . . pale, cool, no signs of life.” It appeared that Raylee had been dead for some time. Raylee’s body temperature was so low that Plateau’s instruments (which could measure temperature as low as eighty-four degrees Fahrenheit) could not detect it.”

Raylee died on December 26th, 2018. 

Following a nearly year-long investigation, Sherie Titchenell was arrested on December 10th, 2019. Marty Browning Jr. and Julie Tichenell Browning (who had married earlier in 2019) also turned themselves in on December 10th, 2019.

All three adults were charged with Child Neglect Resulting in Death and Child Abuse Resulting in Death, and the trial in Fayette County began on June 6th, 2022 (the co-defendants entered uniform not guilty pleas). Marty Browning, Jr. did not testify in his own defense; Julie Tichenell Browning and Sherie Tichenell opted to testify.

On June 13th, 2022, the verdict returned. All three adults were found not guilty of Child Abuse Resulting in Death, but were found guilty of Child Neglect Resulting in Death. 

On August 21st, 2022, all three adults were sentenced to 3-15 years in prison for their crime. 

All of these adults appealed this decision in early 2025. In May 2025, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the decision, affirming the conviction is appropriate. 

Raylee’s abusers remain in prison. The law in West Virginia has not changed. 

RAYLEE’S LAW AND HOMESCHOOL POLICY

A child’s death can – and should – shock a community into action. In West Virginia, Delegate Fluharty responded to Raylee’s death by introducing “Raylee’s Law”, a bill that would temporarily prohibit someone from homeschooling their child if there is a pending child abuse or neglect investigation against a parent or guardian. People like Carrie Ciliberti can be a vulnerable child’s lifeline, but vulnerable homeschooled children are removed from school’s defacto safety net. In circumstances like Raylee’s, that can be fatal. When examining this case, we are forced to reckon with how different the outcome may have been if Raylee was still enrolled in school, and how much her isolation contributed to her death. 

In 2019, “Raylee’s Law” was introduced for the first time – and was promptly shut down by parental rights advocates and groups like the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), whose vision of homeschooling is one devoid of legislative guardrails for vulnerable children. 

Every year since, Delegate Fluharty has introduced Raylee’s Law. Every year, it has failed, with the same groups advocating for parental rights over Raylee’s legacy. They have staunchly opposed these proposals, arguing that restrictions triggered by pending investigations infringe parental rights before allegations have been substantiated. 

In 2026, Nebraska passed their own version of Raylee’s Law. This legislation, introduced by Senator Megan Hunt, prohibits children in public school from transferring to an exempt school (which includes homeschools in the state of Nebraska) during child abuse or neglect investigations, and prohibit persons convicted of certain crimes from monitoring or providing instruction at such schools. It was met with the same outcry and pushback, but legislators voted in favor of closing this loophole. 

Raylee’s Law, and the bills it has inspired, have been forced into a complex relationship with homeschooling. Homeschoolers have taken deep offense to a piece of legislation that impacts children enrolled in public school, activating networks and resources to fight these bills in every state. Their arguments swirl around “innocent before proven guilty”, and concern about false reports. However, there is no evidence that homeschoolers are reported to CPS at higher rates than peers in traditional education institutions, despite claims in the homeschool community that unfairly accuse CPS professionals of targeting them. There is an argument, in fact, that these bills are not even about homeschooling but about vulnerable children in educational institutions, and in a significant way, these bills protect homeschooling from being weaponized by abusers and lay a strong foundation for the preservation of safe, responsible homeschooling. 

In 2026, Representative Karlee Provenza of Wyoming introduced a bill inspired by Raylee’s Law. It didn’t make it to the floor. Opponents made statements online about opposing child abuse, saying “Abuse and neglect are tragic realities that must be addressed decisively”. Opposing child abuse and supporting policies designed to reduce its risk are separate propositions. No one must favor car crashes to oppose car-seat mandates. But “I oppose children being injured in crashes” does not answer the policy question of whether the government should require a preventive safeguard. Raylee’s Law raises the same distinction: everyone can condemn abuse, but the harder question is what safeguards we are willing to require when warning signs are already present.

The supporters of Raylee’s Law aren’t one population, ideology, or profession. It isn’t only proponents of public schools and CPS: Janice Wrintson, Raylee’s mother, is a homeschooling parent who supports this bill. 

Raylee’s death does not prove that homeschooling is inherently dangerous, nor does it mean every child-welfare investigation should permanently determine how a family educates its children. It demonstrates something narrower: when credible concerns about a child’s safety already exist, removing that child from the adults who regularly see her can carry consequences of its own. Good policy has to reckon with both sides of that decision. Raylee’s story demands that we at least reckon with hers.