Death of S.C. Girl Who Died After Classroom Fight, Was Due to Natural Causes, Solicitor Rules

A 10-year-old South Carolina girl fatally injured in a classroom fight died of natural causes and no trauma contributed to her death, Fourteenth Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone announced at a press conference Friday.

Stone said no criminal charges will be filed in the death of Raniya Wright, who died two days after getting into a fight with another student at Forest Hills Elementary in Walterboro on March 25. The little girl’s autopsy was completed earlier this month, but the results were only publicized Friday after weeks waiting for answers regarding her death.

Paramedics said they found Raniya Wright, 10, unconscious in the nurse’s station after receiving a 911 call about a student who had passed out. (Image courtesy of the Wright family)

On Friday, officials said Wright’s death was caused by a medical condition she was born with. A study by forensic pathologists at the Medical University of South Carolina revealed the young girl had a condition known as arteriovenous malformation, a tangle of abnormal blood vessels in the brain. Wright died after one of them ruptured.

“There was no evidence of trauma on or inside the body,” Stone told reporters. “There were no bruises, no cuts, no scrapes, no busted lips, no black eyes.”

The solicitor added that the only internal trauma was from the ruptured blood vessel.

A report released by the Colleton County Sheriff’s Office earlier this month said Wright suffered serious injuries in the fight and was taken to the nurse’s station, where paramedics arrived to find her unconscious. The fifth-grader was transported to the Colleton County Medical Center and later airlifted to Medical University of South Carolina Hospital in Charleston, S.C.

She passed away two days later on March 27.

“I’m here today looking for justice for my daughter,” Wright’s dad, Jermaine Van Dyke told reporters outside the school earlier this month. “I wanted just to find out what happened, how it happened and who was involved.”

Authorities said no weapons were used in the fight, and that officials had broken up the scuffle. That’s when Wright was taken to the nurse’s station after complaining of dizziness and a headache.

Ashley Wright, Raniya’s mother, said during an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” that she was told by students that a bully had baited her daughter into a fight, causing her to hit her head on a bookshelf.

The other student involved remains unnamed and has been suspended from school.

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