By now, most of you have heard the tragic story of then 14-year-old Daisy Coleman, who was plied with alcohol by local football star Matthew Barnett before being sexually assaulted. She was then left outside in 22-degree weather. And yet, despite all of this, the local prosecutor refused to press charges--claiming that information that came out about what happened "before, during and after" the incident made it impossible to press charges. Meanwhile, Daisy and her mother, Melinda, were subjected to a campaign of vilification and harassment that was so horrific they had to move out of town. Shortly afterward, their former house in Maryville was burned to the ground--and the Colemans believe it was arson. Read more about this at the Kansas City Star or at tmservo433's diary from Monday.
Now, Paige's best friend is breaking her silence. Paige Parkhurst, 13 at the time, was also plied with alcohol before being sexually assaulted by Barnett's 15-year-old friend. That boy, thankfully, did end up facing charges in juvenile court. Now, Paige is speaking out what happened to both her and Daisy. She first told her story to Al Jazeera America on Tuesday night.
(W)e got there, and they just started handing her drink after drink after drink. And they had separated us as soon as we got there. And another boy that was there with me, had taken me into another room, and had sexually assaulted me, after me telling him no, pushing him away. And after he was done, he made me go back out into the living room with him, and we sat and waited until Matt was done with Daisy. And I had walked into Matt’s room, and she was incoherent. She couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk, and just was talking like a baby pretty much.
... I was intoxicated before we left the house. She [Daisy] was also, but they gave her even more when she got there. They drug [sic] her out of his bedroom window, drug [sic] her to the car, and then they were going to drop us off, but they were freaking out, trying to think of how they were going to drop us off without any of her brothers waking up. And they took her and carried her to the back corner of her house and left her there. And they told me to go inside, that all she needed to do was to sober up, and that she would be okay, and they were gonna be there and watch her.
It was very scary. I was really confused and didn’t understand what was fully going on. I was in shock and really worried about my friend. It was freezing out. I don’t know. There was just a lot of things going through my mind.
As we now know, they didn't watch Daisy. Instead, they left her to freeze in bonechilling weather.
Watch the interview with Paige and her mom, Robin Bourland, in three parts. Part 1 is here, part 2 is here and part 3 is here.
Paige also joined Daisy on Inside Edition last night.
In response to an avalanche of outrage, the local prosecutor and sheriff now say that they had no choice to drop the charges because the Colemans wouldn't cooperate. However, if they weren't willing to cooperate, then why were they the targets of such horrific threats? Now no less an authority than Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder is calling for a grand jury to investigate the case.
There are also calls for state attorney general Chris Koster to reopen the case, but through a spokeswoman Koster says he legally can't do so. That seems hard to believe. After all, certain cases are so outrageous that they simply have to be prosecuted if it is legally possible to do so. And this case is one of them.