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| Maryville High School/ Flickr CC |
Matt Barnett, the 19-year-old Missouri man charged with the sexual assault of 14-year-old Daisy Coleman when he was 17, pleaded not guilty to
a misdemeanor child endangerment charge as part of a deal with prosecutors.
Barnett and Coleman were schoolmates at Maryville High
School in 2012. In January 2012, Barnett and some acquaintances picked up Coleman
and a friend and brought them to one of the boys’ home. It was there that Coleman
said she was given a clear alcohol that she drank, and then was brought into a
bedroom where Barnett raped her while another boy recorded the sexual assault
on a cellphone. Barnett denies committing the sexual assault and claims that
the sex was consensual.
The original case was dropped until Jean Peters Baker was
brought in as a special prosecutor to the case in October. Her view of the
evidence did nothing to advance a sexual assault case, she said. “Legally, we
could not get that charge over the bar. I could not file that charge,” she
said.
Coleman’s mother Melinda said she found her daughter freezing
at their front door at 5 a.m. the morning after the believed rape. While giving
her a hot bath to warm her up, she noticed signs of an assault. Coleman said
her daughter was harassed at school as well as on social media, forcing their
family to move to Albany, 40 miles west of Maryville.
Melinda Coleman stated that she believed that authorities
hadn’t done enough to continue the investigation, and that the original
decision to drop the case was due to Barnett’s grandfather being a four-term
Missouri state representative.
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| Flickr CC via monnibo |
The case has caused a commotion in the small college town of
Maryville, MI. The story first gained national attention after the Kansas City
Star published a thorough analysis of Coleman’s claims in October. People
across social media condemned the town on social media for promoting a rape
culture. A protest was held on
Maryville’s courthouse square, where a hundred people showed support for Daisy.
Daisy, now age 16, attempted suicide for the third time earlier this week according to her mother’s
Facebook page.
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