In Tarrant County, Texas, a judge signed an order taking a healthy two-year-old girl from her parents. The sworn affidavit behind that order leaned on a preliminary autopsy report from the county medical examiner, a document referenced at least 52 times across the state’s records and filings. There is just one problem. According to a federal lawsuit filed this month, that report never existed.
Chelsea and Timothy Ragland lost their two-month-old son, TJ, in 2023. He died suddenly while being fed. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office listed his cause of death as undetermined. Less than 72 hours later, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services and its contractor filed a petition to remove the couple’s surviving daughter from the home. The lawsuit describes the girl as a healthy two-year-old with no injuries, no medical concerns, and no history of abuse. She was placed with her maternal grandmother.
Think about that timeline for a moment. A family is in the first days of grieving a dead infant. The medical examiner has not finished the work. The parents almost certainly do not have a lawyer yet. That is the exact moment when agency claims are least likely to be checked, and according to the Raglands’ complaint, nobody caught that the autopsy report the state kept citing was never produced. A removal affidavit sworn to a court was built on evidence no one could have read, because it was never written.
The Raglands filed their federal civil-rights lawsuit on October 2 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. It names the Texas DFPS, its contractor ACH Child and Family Services (which operates as Our Community Our Kids), and seven current and former employees. The core allegation is fabrication of evidence and violation of due process. Their attorney, Imani Maatuka, put it this way: “Texas CPS turned their grief into a case against them, and the foundation of that case was a report that never existed.” A DFPS spokesperson told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram the department does not comment on pending litigation.
Here is the part that should stop every parent reading this. The state’s case did not survive. In April 2024, a Tarrant County judge dismissed it in its entirety. Maatuka said the couple had to fight all the way to trial before it was thrown out. But dismissal did not mean cleared. According to the lawsuit, Chelsea Ragland was found culpable of “neglectful supervision and physical abuse” for the act of leaving her infant son in the care of his father. Read that again. A mother was blamed for leaving a baby with the child’s own dad. Both parents remain listed on the Texas child-abuse central registry, and they are now asking a federal court for damages and to be removed from it.
This is not the first time a Texas family has gone to federal court over a removal. The Texas Tribune reported in 2025 on a separate lawsuit filed after CPS took a newborn from her parents for three weeks. Different facts, same question: what evidence does the agency actually have when it walks into court and asks a judge to separate a family?
For families watching this case, the lessons are practical. Sworn affidavits must be tied to real documents. Any removal affidavit that cites a medical report, a police report, or an expert finding should attach it or identify it precisely enough that a judge and a defense lawyer can check it. If CPS cites a report against you, ask your attorney to demand the actual document in discovery and request your full case file. And if a case against you is dismissed, ask in writing whether you have been placed on your state’s central registry and how to appeal that finding. A dismissal in court does not automatically clear your name in the agency’s records, and the Raglands are living proof.
There is a larger point here about how the system treats grieving families. A sudden infant death with an undetermined cause should prompt support, not an automatic removal petition filed within three days. Grief is not neglect. But in Tarrant County, grief became the opening of a case file, a phantom report became its foundation, and a registry listing became its permanent residue long after a judge threw the case out.
Families in Alabama should be asking the same questions the Raglands are now asking in federal court. When DHR files paperwork against you, what documents is it actually citing? Can anyone produce them? And if the case collapses, who makes sure your name comes off the list? The paper trail is supposed to protect families. In Tarrant County, it became the weapon.
This article is based on the allegations in a pending federal lawsuit and news reporting. The claims have not been proven in court, and the defendants have not yet responded to the lawsuit’s allegations in a public filing.
