Cyberbullying Drove The Maryville Rape Victim To Attempt Suicide This Weekend [View all]

Daisy Coleman, the teenage girl at the center of the controversial Maryville rape case that came to light in October, has been hospitalized after attempting to take her own life on Sunday night. Her mother, Melinda, told a local Fox News affiliate that Daisy experienced an onslaught of cyberbullying after attending a party this past weekend.

Two years ago, 14-year-old Daisy was sexually assaulted by a member of Maryville’s high school football team and left semi-unconscious in her front yard in the middle of the night. The charges against Daisy’s alleged rapist were dropped, and the Coleman family became the subject of intense harassment and abuse. This past fall, after the Kansas City Star initially broke the details of the story, the Colemans gave several media interviews in an attempt to draw more attention to the inadequate criminal justice response to cases of sexual assault.

According to her mother, Daisy briefly attended a party with friends on Friday night. When she returned home, she discovered she was being attacked on Facebook. Several high schoolers accused her of being a “hypocrite” and a “fake” for going to the party. Some told her she was a “slut and “wanted it.” That reportedly drove Daisy to attempt to overdose on pills on Sunday night. The teen is now in stable condition at a psychiatric hospital in Kansas City.

Over the past year, other high-profile rape cases have ended in tragedy after cyberbullying and victim-blaming took its toll on high school girls. Rehtaeh Parsons and Audrie Pott both committed suicide after evidence of their sexual assault spread throughout social media and they were bullied by their peers. Nonetheless, the majority of states don’t currently include cyberbullying in their criminal statutes. Several states are currently working to update their anti-bullying measures to make it easier to crack down on this type of abuse.




http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/01/07/3127711/maryville-rape-victim-suicide/


"Several high schoolers accused her of being a “hypocrite” and a “fake” for going to the party. Some told her she was a “slut and “wanted it..." I've heard *that very thing* implied about various rapes on DU.