One Family's Nightmare Following Teen Daughter's Alleged Rape

Over the past few years, Melinda Coleman and her children have lived through a number of hellish tragedies. They have endured the death of her husband and the children's father, the loss of her job and a fire that destroyed the family's home.

But from the ashes of the family’s difficulties also comes the fallout after one daughter said she was raped. The Coleman family, according to The Kansas City Star, faced an onslaught of hate and disdain in their small city of Maryville, Mo., after a high school senior allegedly had sex with the family's then-14-year-old daughter, Daisy.

Daisy Coleman continues to suffer as a result of the alleged rape (Image source: Coleman family via the Daily Mail)

It all started when Daisy slipped out of the house with her 13-year-old friend in the middle of the night on Jan. 7, 2012. The two went to the home of a popular football player, Matthew Barnett, whom Daisy had been communicating with through text messages.

While partying at the house, Daisy apparently drank too much alcohol. It was during this time that Barnett allegedly had sex with her. Simultaneously, another boy allegedly raped her 13-year-old friend (the sexual encounter between Barnett and Daisy was also reportedly captured on video, but the footage was never recovered by authorities).

While the alleged attacks are horrific, what followed is nearly unimaginable.

The next morning, Coleman discovered her daughter barely conscious on the front porch. Despite the temperature being just 22 degrees, Daisy was wearing only a T-shirt and sweatpants, with her purse, shoes and cell phone scattered and her hair frozen. It's estimated she was outdoors for about three hours.

The mother initially assumed Daisy had been sleep-walking, because her 13-year-old friend was asleep upstairs in the bedroom, and Coleman had seen the girls the night before playing in Daisy's room, the reality was much different.

Coleman brought her daughter inside and into the bathroom to give her a warm bath. But she noticed that there was redness around Daisy's genital area. When her daughter started crying, Melinda Coleman said she immediately knew what had happened.

After calling 911 to report the incident, the family's problems intensified. Police got involved, made arrests and handled the situation accordingly -- at first. The Star reported:

One by one that Sunday morning, the boys were rounded up and brought to the Nodaway County Sheriff’s Office for questioning.

Barnett, who was arrested and charged with sexual assault, a felony, and endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor, admitted to having sex with Daisy and to being aware that she had been drinking. He insisted the sex was consensual.

Barnett was not charged with statutory rape, as that Missouri law generally applies in cases when a victim is under 14 years old or the perpetrator is over 21. But felony statutes also define sex as non-consensual when the victim is incapacitated by alcohol.

But the story doesn't end there.

While the community was up in arms, the Star reported that it was the Coleman family -- and not the alleged perpetrators -- that took the brunt of the angst that followed. Many locals supported the girls, but there was apparently a large portion that were unsympathetic, waging attacks and threats against the Colemans on social media and making it clear that they stood in solidarity with Barnett and the other boys.

And that wasn't the end of it: just two weeks after the incident, Coleman lost her job at Maryville’s SouthPaws Veterinary Clinic, with her boss purportedly citing the case and its distractions as the reason.

Despite the job loss and the ongoing attacks, the family had high hopes that justice would be served, but prosecutors later determined -- to the surprise of authorities and medical personnel -- that there was not a solid case against Barnett. As a result, charges were dismissed.

The Kansas City Star highlighted many of the political and social ties that community leaders had to the boys who were at Barnett's house the night of the alleged rape. Many -- including the Colemans -- believe that political favors, personal allegiance and Daisy's status as a community outsider with no solid roots in Maryville all contributed to the the closure of the case (locals have denied these accusations).

All of this naturally left the family in a difficult position. The problems became so intense, in fact, that the Colemans left the area in August 2012 and moved back to Albany, a nearby city where they lived previously.

Melinda Coleman moved her family away from Maryville to escape torment (Photo Credit: Facebook)

"Basically I was terrified, I wanted to protect my children, I wanted to get them out of there," Colemand told the Daily Mail of her decision to move the family.

But despite leaving, the horror wasn't yet over.

Six months ago, Coleman received a troubling phone call: The home the family lived in while in Maryville, which was vacant and up for sale, had mysteriously burned to the ground.

To date, investigators do not know the fire's cause.

"On one hand, it would almost be a comfort to think it was an electrical problem that caused the fire, but on the other other hand, there’s a part of me that really thinks that the fire could be part of all this," Coleman told the Daily Mail.

While the legal portion of the case is over, emotions are still running high.

Sheriff Darren White, who said he was confident that a crime was committed and that the boys would be prosecuted, also has mixed views of Coleman. Saying she "clearly has issues," he said his office did its job and that it is time for the family to move on.

"It’s unfortunate that they are unhappy," he told the Star. "I guess they’re just going to have to get over it."

Daisy, however, continues to struggle. Now 16, she's in therapy, has been hospitalized four times, and spent 90 days at a facility designed for teens who are suffering and has tried to take her life twice. The nightmare continues for the teen -- and her loved ones.

It's important to note that this story comes mainly from the Star's interviews with the victims and their families. The boys at the center of the debate have reportedly moved on with their lives, but their perspectives are not included, nor are they fully explained.

There are always two sides to every story, but if the details in this particular case are to be believed, there's a great deal for the Coleman family to lament.

(H/T: Gawker)

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