Daisy Coleman's death was a tragedy more common among sexual assault survivors than you might think
Alia E. Dastagir, USA TODAY August 7, 2020, 9:08 PM
It was a goodbye. And a warning. "She never recovered from what those boys did to her," Daisy Coleman's mother wrote on Facebook.
Coleman, an activist against sexual violence who at 14 said she was raped at a party in Maryville, Missouri, and later became the subject of the 2016 Netflix documentary "Audrie & Daisy," died by suicide on Tuesday at age 23.
Coleman's mother, Melinda Coleman, revealed her daughter's death on Facebook, writing "I wish I could have taken the pain from her."
Coleman's death underscores how sexual assault is not a one-time event, but a trauma that ripples, sometimes with impacts that last a lifetime. Trauma increases suicide risk, and people who've experienced sexual assault are 10 times more likely to attempt suicide than those who haven’t, according to a study by the National Victim Center and Medical University of South Carolina.
For women, the odds of attempting suicide is 3 to 4 times greater when the first reported sexual assault occurs prior to age 16.
Activist and documentary film subject Daisy Coleman, 23, has died.
Eight years ago, felony charges were filed against Matthew Barnett, then 17, the grandson of Rex Barnett, a former Republican state representative. Coleman said after raping her, he left her on her porch in a T-shirt and sweats in freezing temperatures. Her mother found her.
Barnett said the sex with Coleman was consensual. Felony charges were eventually dropped and Barnett pleaded guilty in 2014 to a misdemeanor child endangerment charge and was sentenced to two years of probation and a four-month suspended jail term.
Coleman became a fierce advocate for sexual assault survivors and co-founded SafeBAE, an organization that works to raise awareness about sexual assault in middle and high schools.
"It broke my heart," said Farrah Khan, a survivor of sexual violence who does education across North America about sexual assault consent and bystander intervention and is the manager of Consent Comes First at Ryerson University's Office of Sexual Violence Support and Education. "We don't recognize enough what we ask of survivors. …
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/daisy-colemans-death-tragedy-more-203030420.html