Daisy Coleman, a sexual assault survivor herself and an advocate for sexual abuse victims committed sucide according to her mother and colleague.
Her mother Melinda Coleman wrote about her daughter’s death in Facebook on Tuesday. “She was my best friend and amazing daughter,” Melinda Coleman wrote. “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! She never recovered from what those boys did to her and it’s just not fair. My baby girl is gone,” she wrote.
Shael Norris, executive director of SafeBAE, a group Coleman co-founded to help young victims of sexual assault, said that she was found dead in Denver after by the police after her mother called them. It has been reported that Norris got to know from Coleman’s brother.
Coleman, who was sexually assaulted when she was 14, was a part of the 2016 Netflix documentary Audrie & Daisy, which followed her and her family as they went thought the hostile reaction of the Maryville community to her allegations. She wrote in online comments that she had tried to commit sucide at least twice earlier.
Coleman was the key behind the founding of SafeBAE after the documentary, said Norris to TIME, to whom her death is “an irreplaceable loss.”
“She was really, really good at what she did. It’s a huge loss for the culture in general because I think it was her resilience that has inspired so many other survivors to get help and speak out,” Norris added.
