Daisy Coleman filed harassment report ‘on day she died', friends say she was being stalked by someone she knew
Daisy Coleman, who appeared in Netflix’s ‘Audrie & Daisy’, may not have killed herself because of rape trauma but for some other reasons. Her friends have said that the 23-year-old, who died on Tuesday night, August 4, was allegedly being stalked and harassed by someone she knew.
A public information officer for the Lakewood police in Colorado also confirmed the same. The officer, John Romero, told The Sun that the young woman filed a harassment report "on the day she died". He claimed that Coleman reported the issue while police "were there doing the welfare check" on August 4. "We had no previous contact with her before then," Romero said but refused to provide further information because of an "active and open investigation".
Coleman was part of the 2016 Netflix documentary ‘Audrie & Daisy’, which was about sexual assaults she and another survivor Paige Parkhurst suffered when they were 14 and 13 years old, respectively. The suspects in January 2012 allegedly intoxicated Coleman with alcohol, but no one was ever convicted in the case. "She was my best friend and amazing daughter. I think she had to make it seem like I could live without her. I can’t. I wish I could have taken the pain from her!" Coleman’s mother Melinda told TMZ. The grieving mother added: “She never recovered from what those boys did to her and it’s just not fair. My baby girl is gone.”
One friend of Coleman, whose identity was not revealed, told PEOPLE, “Every media [outlet] is blaming her suicide on her rape, and ignoring that she was going through so much before her suicide, and not putting any blame on this man for harassing her. She would rather kill herself than let this man kill her.” While another friend said she was worried about her life before the tragedy.
The report by PEOPLE also stated that Coleman in a Facebook post, which is only visible to her followers, wrote that her alleged stalker had come to her house repeatedly and pounded on her door. She also said that she fears that the man had stolen apartment keys and had tried to come inside. The social media post also mentioned that the youngster was temporarily searching for a new place to live. “She was so scared, she wanted to move," her friend added.
According to reports, Coleman shared a series of messages between her and the alleged suspect, whose name has not been made public. She stated that their chat started after she thought he was a lonely person who simply needed a friend. “All of this is being overlooked and it’s just heartbreaking, because she was begging for help,” Coleman's friend told PEOPLE.
After the 2012 incident, Coleman co-founded the organization, SafeBAE. According to the organization’s site, its mission “is to end sexual assault among middle and high school students.” She was also vocal about racial injustice on social media. One of her Facebook posts shared on June 5 read: “I’ve been pretty quiet the last few days. And before I write the rest of this post, I want to apologize for that. I whole heartedly believe that white silence is violence. But I have reasoning behind my actions. This past winter, I visited Jackson, Wyoming and I became incredibly inspired by some of the things I saw and heard from the people I spoke to; especially when I visited the middle school class and a majority of the class room was children of color who had already experienced harasssment and racism at extremely young ages. These courageous kids caught this all on their cell phones and taught me something about the power of social media in the times of injustices.”