On a freezing, January morning in 2012, Melinda Coleman opened the front door of her Maryville home in Missouri to find her daughter unconscious on the porch. The teenager’s hair was soaking wet and she was wearing just a t-shirt and sweatpants.
Content warning: This article contains discussion of sexual assault and suicide.
Later, 14-year-old Daisy would tell her mother she had been raped.
Neither Melinda or her daughter could ever have predicted how an innocent night out at a party a few hours earlier could have ended in such trauma – one that also saw Daisy’s friend suffer a similar fate. Or how the events would ultimately lead to unimaginable heartbreak.
The Colemans had already grieved for the loss of dad, Mark, after he died in a car crash when Daisy was young, but in the years that followed they would go on to mourn the untimely death of her brother Tristan, who died in a car accident, too.
But more heartbreak was to come, when the closeknit family was hit by two more unspeakable tragedies within a very short space of time – In August 2020 Daisy, then 23, would take her own life, with her heartbroken mum Melinda dying by suicide just four months later.
For a household already rocked to the core by grief and trauma, the sudden loss of a mum and daughter that had been through so much together, left those who knew their story numb with shock and sadness.
‘Daisy and Melinda were extremely close,’ remembers Shael Norris, who ran a sexual assault support group with Daisy. ‘Their relationship could be volatile at times, but it was ultimately very loving and supportive. They were both incredibly smart, outspoken, and passionate women who were a bit out of place in rural Missouri.’
Although Daisy had kept quiet about the night of her rape for almost a year, in 2013 the student wrote a personal essay for the online magazine xoJane about what she’d been through.
Describing her experience of being offered and drinking from a large shot glass called the bitch glass, she wrote: ‘I fell into a dark abyss. No light anywhere. Just dark, dense silence — and cold. That’s all I could ever remember from that night.’
Daisy went on to allege that she had been sexually assaulted that fateful night by Matthew Barnett, one of the seniors on her high school football team, and grandson of Rex Barnett, a Missouri Republican icon.
Such accusations sent ripples through a tight community, one that quickly closed ranks against the schoolgirl. Not only was she accused of lying, Daisy also endured vicious bullying online and at school.
In a later interview with US teen magazine Seventeen, she recalled how people would call her ‘a bitch, a whore and a slut every single day… What I went through wasn’t okay, and it’s not okay if it happens to other girls.’
Although Matthew was charged and arrested with sexual assault, the charges were dropped, with claims that the Coleman family wasn’t cooperating with the police investigation.
However, in October 2013, almost two years after the alleged attack, the case was re-opened and although Matthew argued that his sexual intercourse with 14-year-old Daisy had been consensual, he pled guilty to a second-degree misdemeanour charge of endangering the welfare of a child – in reference to the fact he dumped a paralytic Daisy on her mother’s porch in freezing temperatures. He received two years’ probation.
While for many victims, some sort of guilty plea might be a pivotal moment in recovery, for Daisy, it only exacerbated her ordeal.
Hashtags celebrating Matthew’s ‘freedom’, as he’d escaped a more serious sentence, flooded social media, while The Kansas City Star reported that although the incident had sparked outrage in the community, ‘the worst of it was directed not at the accused perpetrators but at a victim and her family.’
The abuse got so bad in fact, that Melinda – who by then had lost her job at the local vets – decided to move Daisy and her three brothers out of Maryville to the town of Albany, 30 miles away.
Eight months after they fled, the Coleman family learned that their home back in Maryville had been burned to the ground – the cause deemed ‘undetermined’.
In the years that followed her ordeal, Melinda could only watch as her daughter Daisy transformed from a bubbly high school freshman cheerleader to a disturbed girl who attempted suicide several times to escape both the memories of the incident and the cruel, never-ending bullying she encountered as a result of her accusations.
Their life took another sharp turn once again in 2016, when the family were asked to talk part in a documentary that would look at the phenomenon of victim blaming and the power of social media.
Called Audrie & Daisy, the film shared not only Daisy’s ordeal and how it impacted her and the family, but also that of Audrie Potts: A 15-year-old from Saratoga, California who had been horrendously assaulted while intoxicated at a party.
In Audrie’s case, three 16-year-old boys had drawn lewd messages on her half-naked body, assaulted her and then took photographs, which were shared among classmates. Like Daisy, she faced cruel taunts and comments from bullies online and in person.
Within a week of the ordeal, Audrie tragically took her life.
As part of the Netflix documentary, two other girls – Ella Fairon and Jada Smith – also shared similar experiences.
Although emotionally wrought by all they’d been through, it was clear that each survivor, including Daisy, was determined to speak out in the hope that it would prevent what happened to them from happening to anyone else.
And it did make a difference. The documentary gained international traction as ‘essential viewing’, was awarded the Peabodyaward, and exposed the devastating effects of sexual assault on individuals and communities.
Shael Norris had already dedicated her career to ending sexual violence and empowering youth activism when she watched the documentary. So moved by the girls’ efforts to help others, she approached them about the possibility of starting up a support organisation.
It was an idea that had already been ‘incubating’ with Ella, Jada, Daisy and her brother Charlie, during filming of the documentary and with Shael newly on board as Founding Executive Director, they created SafeBAE (Safe Before Anyone Else), with the aim of creating tools for teenagers to access and continue the conversation about sexual assault.
Explaining why she wanted to be involved, Shael says: ‘You can watch a film and be extremely moved by it, but then what do you do after that? If you don’t create accessible tools, you are just moved by a film and go back to real life.’
As the organisation got off the ground, it was decided that while awareness and prevention was absolutely vital for young people, there was also an equal need for ‘after-care’.
‘We needed to do this work in a really full, encompassing ways,’ explains Shael, who helped SafeBAE set up an online Facebook group for parents of sexual assault survivors. ‘Those are their best allies and advocates, and quite frankly, usually their biggest punching bags. Kids need their parents steering them in the right direction for therapy.’
With the documentary making waves alongside Daisy and her peers as visible advocates, conversations surrounding victim blaming and how schools deal with sexual assault claims started to slowly open up.
For some, these young women were key in changing the culture around disclosing sexual assault among young people and helping ignite #MeToo a year later in October 2017.
‘She helped catalyze a movement that came too late for her,’ wrote journalist Callie Beusman in The Cut.
As survivors looked on at Daisy, grappling for freedom and healing, some were inspired to do the same.
Melissa Schuman, a recording artist who performed for years in a girl group called Dream, was one of the women empowered by her courage.
‘In 2017, I came out for the first time publicly about my own experience as a sexual assault survivor,’ the 37-year-old recalls.
Melissa, who lives in Las Vegas, remembers the onslaught of cyber abuse she received after accusing Backstreet Boys singer Nick Carter of allegedly sexually assaulting her when she was 18 – something he has denied and never been charged with.
‘I was in a volatile place,’ she explains. ‘Suicidal ideation – it was all uncharted territory. It all completely turned my life upside down because it wasn’t even what he did – it was now how the world responded.’
Melissa remembers people putting out misinformation about her and when she felt overwhelmed by all the lies, Daisy jumped online to fight in her corner. Even though they had never met in person, she had read the abuse Melissa received online and stood up for her when no one else would. ‘She would just rip them to shreds,’ she recalls. ‘She didn’t have to do that.
‘It was the fact that there was nothing they could say or do that Daisy hadn’t already heard. She had this fire about her – fearlessness.’
Gabby Berry became online friends with Daisy in 2016 and says that she sparkled with love for those around her. ‘Daisy changed my life in so many ways and saved me so many times just by existing,’ she admits.
‘I’ll never forget our fun FaceTime calls where we would talk about true crime cases and she would be making ramen noodles. We could talk about anything and everything and I will never be more grateful for any human than her.’
However, one of Daisy’s biggest supporters was mum Melinda. Although they had a tempestuous relationship over the years, she vocally supported her daughter in the years that followed her ordeal and even worked as a sexual assault victim advocate for others who had experienced similar trauma.
‘Daisy is my heart,’ she told The Independent in 2014. ‘I’m afraid that sometimes my daughter feels like she needs to be strong for me, but as I’ve told her again and again: she is perfect just the way she is. She doesn’t need to be any different. She just needs to be Daisy.’
Melinda went on to talk about how she saw the ‘dark side of human nature’ through ‘widespread media scrutiny’ following their case in court, but believed the worst was behind them.
And, for a while, it felt like Daisy was finding her way in life.
She had her own flat and was working as a tattoo artist in Colorado. She was also undergoing EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy – a psychotherapy treatment to alleviate distress associated with traumatic memories – and had even posted on Instagram that it was helping her ‘to love myself again…remembering some of my worst life traumas…finding myself again.’
Recalling a phone call she had with Daisy following her first EMDR session, Shael says: ‘She really felt like she had a breakthrough. Daisy described it as being in a stairwell. She felt like bit by bit she was working her way up from the bottom of that stairwell and looking down on that trauma, instead of being in the middle of it at the bottom of the stairwell.’
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However, it was a recovery that would never be complete, as eight years after her the incident, on August 4, 2020, 23-year-old Daisy Coleman died by suicide.
‘She was my best friend and amazing daughter,’ Melinda wrote on Facebook soon after. ‘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! She never recovered from what those boys did to her and it’s just not fair. My baby girl is gone.’
Following her daughter’s death, Melinda would frequently remember the legacy left by her through posts on social media. On the Saturday marking four months after Daisy’s passing, she wrote: ‘I’d like to challenge everyone to be kind and lift up others in pain, especially sexual assault survivors and those hopeless in this holiday season. Send out light and love and protect each other and I will protect and pray for anyone who needs it. Let’s make this a Daisy Day filled with light, hope and love.’
Tragically, just days later, on December 6, 2020, Melinda also died by suicide.
‘We are in shock and disbelief to share with our SafeBAE family, that we lost Melinda Coleman to suicide this evening,’ a statement from the organisation Daisy had founded read.
‘The bottomless grief of losing her husband, Tristan, and Daisy was more than she could face most days,’ the statement continued. ‘Melinda was a gifted veterinarian, devoted mother and wife and talented bodybuilder. More than anything, she loved and believed in her children. It is no accident that she created some of the most gifted, passionate, and resilient children.’
One year on from her death, Shael describes how Melinda was a ‘cheerleader behind the scenes’ for SafeBAE. ‘She spoke at a couple of our events, too,’ she adds.
Daisy was just one loss too many for someone who had already lost so much in her life
As a mark of love and respect for Melinda’s unwavering support, Shael also recalls how she wanted to do whatever she could to help the remaining members of the Coleman family, including organising fundraisers to help ease any financial burdens they might havefaced.
‘There are so many more expenses than just a burial or service when a loved one passes,’ she explains. ‘My hope after Melinda passed was to be able to support her remaining children in her final expenses, as well as allowing them time to address her affairs. There are still an enormous number of details to be managed in probate and it was just my hope to alleviate some of that for the boys.’
For Shael, it is the overriding sense of love that Melinda bestowed upon her children that she still remembers her most for. ‘They were instilled with such strong values and personalities,’ she explains. ‘Melinda was truly the keeper of their histories. She took thousands of photos of all of the children, held keepsakes from each of their achievements over the years, locks of baby hair, Daisy’s baby bonnets, trophies, and so many other things that we found in cleaning her home after her passing.
‘She took the most pride in her children and I believe that ultimately the loss of Daisy was just one loss too many for someone who had already lost so much in her life.’
Meanwhile, despite all the endless struggles Melinda’s daughter had faced, Shael says it’s paramount that Daisy is remembered for all the positivity she brought in her short life.
‘There are so many things that stand out about her,’ she remembers ‘She was obviously a gifted tattoo artist. I just so enjoyed seeing the way her mind worked in how she processed things. She had a really unique connection with other worlds and was interested in different kinds of religions and spirituality. She was wickedly funny too.’
It was Daisy’s sense of humour, Shael believes, that kept her enjoying life, even among all the tragedy she encountered.
Talking about the impact the documentary had on Daisy, she explains that it was her attempt to ‘control the narrative’ about what had happened to her.
‘Daisy didn’t control the fact her story became as public as it did,’ she adds. ‘I think if she had the opportunity to do that from the beginning and keep her story private and out of the press, she probably would have, but that wasn’t her path.’
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