LA Times - Missouri Rape: Mother Says Sheriff and Prosecutor Lied
Pressure continued to gather against a northwestern Missouri prosecutor after top state officials called for the state attorney general to intervene and for a grand jury to investigate the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl in the small town of Maryville.
And in separate interviews with the Los Angeles Times, the girl’s mother and the county sheriff disagreed with each other on basic facts about the handling of the case, while the county prosecutor declined to discuss his part in the investigation.
Nodaway County has been at the center of a runaway controversy as a result of county prosecutor Robert Rice’s decision to drop sexual assault and sexual exploitation charges against two former high school football players, both 17 at the time of the incident.
One boy, identified as Matthew Barnett, was accused of raping Daisy Coleman, then 14, who had consumed alcohol at his home late one night in January 2012. The other boy, Jordan Zech, allegedly videotaped part of the act.
Daisy was left on the front lawn of her home in freezing weather, lightly clothed.
Since the Kansas City Star published an explosive report on Daisy’s ordeal over the weekend, the town of 12,000 has been besieged by reporters and the hacking collective Anonymous, which has targeted key officials for harassment as well as some of the suspects’ friends and family.
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