Daisy Coleman’s mom says tragic daughter killed herself after finding out ‘teen rape left her unable to have children’
DAISY Coleman's heartbroken mother says she took her own life after finding out she couldn't have children, likely caused by her teen rape ordeal, The Sun can reveal.
In an exclusive interview, grieving Melinda Coleman said had visited a doctor in the weeks prior to her death, where she was told she would never be able to conceive.
, who featured in the 2016 Netflix show, Audrie & Daisy, about a number of high school rapes, tragically shot herself on August 4 while on FaceTime to an on/off boyfriend, her mother revealed.
"It was two weeks ago, it feels like it's been a really long time, and like it's been no time at all, if that makes sense," Melinda told The Sun.
"She was my best friend, and she would say the same, we talked every day. We were really close.
"I really thought we were past this [her feeling suicidal], in my heart, but then she got hit with a lot of stuff recently.
"She just found out weeks before that she couldn't have children. She was very upset about that."
Melinda said doctors told her it was likely due to her experience aged 14, adding: "That just shows how brutal it was, and they were trying to say it was consensual, that's what really gets me."
While no one was convicted, pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child after he supplied Daisy with alcohol and left her in "sub-freezing" temperatures outside her house in Missouri.
An additional charge against another boy who allegedly filmed a sexual encounter between Daisy and Barnett was also later dropped.
Melinda says a number of other factors may have contributed to Daisy taking her own life, including a stalker, not being able to see her regular psychiatrist, and grieving for her dad and brother.
"It'd been three years since she had been bad where I had to watch her all the time," Melinda, a veterinarian, explained.
"Before, I literally made her sleep with me. I didn't let her close the bathroom door for a long time."
Her mom says before her death she was still focused on releasing music, filming for her follow-up documentary, , and tattooing at a local parlour.
"But the last week, all the stuff going on with the rallies, she was late getting to the psychiatrist and they wouldn't see her,” Melinda revealed.
"She called me from there crying saying, 'I really needed to see her today and she won't see me'.
"It just seems like it turned into a perfect storm.
"She also had a stalker. I can't say too much as there is an open case at the moment.
"She met him somewhere, I'm not even sure. And that's some of the stuff that the detective is looking into, how this all started."
Melinda was only told about the man in recent weeks, with claiming he had been harassing her via text since December, and turned up at her apartment the day before she died on Monday, August 3.
"She told me that he kept saying he was going to take her to Miami and put her into sexual slavery," Melinda revealed. "And she said she'd rather die than that.
"I kept saying, 'Then Daisy, let me come get you', but I don't know, I look back at it, it was so confusing."
Melinda said she spoke to her on the Monday when she revealed her stalker hell, but she refused to report him to police, leaving her mother no choice but to call them herself for a welfare check the following day.
"She called me, she was hysterical, whoever this was was locking and unlocking the door from the outside," she said.
"They were running their nails down the door. I told her to put the sofa against the door and keep the dog out and that would protect her.
"She was afraid to call the police because she said it was bad in Denver with the rioting and stuff and she didn't want to call over something like that."
Police eventually turned up at Daisy's apartment on Tuesday, August 4, and she , but her mom feels she "wasn't in her right mind" after they deemed her safe.
"I was mostly just begging her to let me come get her. I just kept saying, I love you. Can I come get you? When can I come get you?
"She wasn't in her right mind. I was basically begging her to stay with me."
Later in the day, Melinda was forced to contact police again after Daisy tragically shot herself on FaceTime around 8.40pm to her on/off partner, who The US Sun has chosen not to name.
“She did it right in front of him,” she said. "He's been here [at the family home] a lot and he's devastated, we all are.
"She left a message to me that she wanted Charlie [her older brother] and I to continue working on her mission [with rape survivors], which we will.
"One of the last things she said to me was, 'I just want you to be proud of me' I was always proud of her."
Melinda says she knew she had a gun, but Daisy told her it didn’t work, adding: “I think she just didn’t want me to stop her.”
She described her daughter as an “old soul,” explaining: “Even when she was a baby, she seemed to know things far beyond her years.
"When she got into pageants at about 11, she was watching all these videos on pageant stuff and how to walk and how to present yourself.
"When she set her mind to something, she really studied it and worked really hard. But she never did pageants again after her rape."
Daisy’s family endured many tragedies aside from her high school ordeal, including the in two separate car accidents, with her mom and two brothers, Logan and Charlie, left supporting her.
“They can’t believe it, I went and got the pets and cleaned everything up, nobody could handle it,” Melinda said through tears.
“Later on, I wanted to see her, I wanted to hold her, so we went and her boyfriend, I had to hold him up, he just fell apart, that was my baby.
"I did have her cremated there and they are sending the ashes and then because of some issues with home, we're going to have to wait for the first or second week of September.
"We're going to have it at the football stadium where the kids went to high school in Albany, so we can have lots of people.
“There is a song written for her called White Roses, and we're going to have white roses and daisies [at the service]. And then some of the songs that she liked and her songs, obviously."
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Asked how she feels about Daisy not getting the justice the family so badly needed, Melinda said: "There are people that are just evil for the sake of evil and our justice system, it may be one of the best in the world, but it's still far from fair.
"Daisy was always trying so hard to do the right thing in the right way and wanted the world to be the way it should be, not the way it is."