Daisy Coleman, one of the teenage girls who featured on "Audrie & Daisy," the Netflix documentary about three rape cases that took place in 2011 and 2012, has died by suicide, according to her mother. She was 23.
Daisy's mother, Melinda Coleman, confirmed that her daughter took her own life on Tuesday night. Her body was found by police after Melinda asked them to perform a welfare check.
"She was my best friend and amazing daughter. I think she had to make it seem like I could live without her. I can't. I wish I could have taken the pain from her," Melinda said.
Maryville Rape Case
In 2016, Daisy featured on the Netflix documentary to share her story after being raped by a high school football player in Maryville, Missouri in 2012. Daisy was 14 years old when she was allegedly raped at a house party after being plied with alcohol and then left in the freezing cold near her home.
A felony assault charge against Daisy Coleman's alleged attacker, who was the grandson of a former state representative, was dropped but authorities reopened the case when a 2013 report in The Star caused the small-town scandal to go viral.
Ultimately, a special prosecutor, Jackson County's Jean Peters Baker, reviewed the matter and 19-year-old Matthew Barnett, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor child endangerment for leaving Daisy in the cold. Barnett wasn't charged with sexual assault due to insufficient evidence and received two years of probation and was ordered to apologize to Daisy.
The Netflix documentary covered the outcome of the case, the cyberbullying and the hostile reaction Daisy and her family faced from the community, forcing them to eventually move out of Maryville.
'She Never Recovered From What Those Boys Did to Her'
According to Melinda, Daisy never fully recovered from the trauma of her sexual assault."She never recovered from what those boys did to her and it's just not fair. My baby girl is gone," she said.
The family dealt with another tragedy two years ago when Daisy's younger brother, Tristan Coleman, died in a car crash in June 2018.
"My baby brother is gone. What do I even do. How do I breathe. How do I survive this. Why did god take my best friend," she wrote on Twitter at the time.
In addition to Daisy, "Audrie & Daisy" also focused on the sexual assault of Audrie Pott in September 2012 in California. Audrie died by suicide eight days later.
