Three people have been charged in the death of an 8-year-old West Virginia girl who was allegedly beaten, starved, forced to sleep on a floor and banned from drinking water.

The girl’s father, Marty Browning, his partner Julie Dawn Titchenell and her sister Sherie Titchenell were jailed this week on charges of death of a child by a parent or guardian, and child neglect causing death. Their bonds were set at $100,000 (Dh367,300) each.

Her grounding was that she wasn’t allowed to drink anything. I caught her drinking from the toilet a few times, and I feel that she got that infection from that water. I told her that the water was dirty, but I guess she was just so thirsty.

– Raylee’s sibling

Raylee JoLynn Browning had been repeatedly hospitalised over the years with various injuries, and teachers repeatedly alerted Nicholas County social workers about her apparent abuse. News outlets reported that it wasn’t clear, nearly a year after Raylee’s death, how exactly social workers handled these abuse reports.

Police were called on Dec. 26, 2018 to a hospital where the girl was suffering from cardiac arrest. A report by Oak Hill police Sgt. James Pack said she was covered in bruises, burns, lacerations, and other injuries. A woman had carried the child into the center and, without emotion, told doctors that the girl wasn’t breathing, he wrote.

That woman, Sherie Titchenell, first told police that Raylee got sick that Christmas day and had suffered a nose bleed related to prescribed medications” then, she said fell while getting out of the shower and was shaking nonstop while her lips turned white. The accounts of all three adults contradicted each other, further raising suspicions, Pack wrote.

The arrests result from a nearly year-long investigation, culminating in a criminal complaint filed Monday in Fayette County. Julie Titchenell’s three children, now in foster care, also lived in the home, and one girl among them shared horrific descriptions of the abuse Raylee suffered.

The girl said the Sherie Titchenell was their main caretaker and often withheld food from Raylee, even ordering her to not eat at school, where Raylee had asked cafeteria workers for extra food, the complaint says.

The girl told authorities that the adults beat Raylee with metal objects, belts and spoons and forced her to undergo torturous punishments, such as being barred from drinking water for three days, the criminal complaint says.