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Boys Will Be Boys: The Death of Daisy Coleman
Small town veterinarian Melinda Coleman was jolted from sleep just before 5:00 a.m. on January 8, 2012, by a disturbance in her front yard. When she opened the door and peered outside, she was horrified to see her fourteen-year-old daughter Daisy — shoeless and wearing only a t-shirt and yoga pants — lying unconscious in the snow.
With the help of her sons, Melinda carried her ice-cold daughter into the house. It was impossible to tell how long Daisy had lain out in the freezing temperatures, but it had been long enough for her hair to adhere to the ground.
When wrapping her in blankets failed to bring her body temperature up, Daisy’s mother had placed her in a tub of warm water. It was then that she noticed bruises on the teenager’s inner thighs. Suspecting that a sexual assault had occurred, she rushed her to the hospital. The local sheriff’s office was also called. The Coleman family didn’t know it at the time, but they were about to embark on a legal battle that would see the alleged assailant portrayed as the victim and Daisy painted as child-vixen who got what she deserved.
A rape kit was performed later that morning, as were a series of laboratory tests, one of which would determine that Daisy’s blood alcohol level was 134.9, which was nearly twice the legal limit. Since it was obvious at that point that she…
