Missouri rape allegation brings outcry, but no charges

MARYVILLE, Mo. -- Hackers and activists across the country are threatening to upend a small northwestern Missouri town where two high school football players avoided rape and sexual exploitation charges involving two younger teenagers in 2012.


Charges were filed last year and quickly dropped. After that, a local social media storm helped drive one accuser’s family out of Maryville, population 12,000.

But a larger social media storm is brewing, with Maryville likened to Steubenville, Ohio, a small Midwestern town synonymous with a high school rape case and local permissiveness.

Maryville

On Sunday, the Kansas City Star published a months-long investigation about the alleged rape of two girls, ages 13 and 14, by older Maryville High School athletes on Jan. 8, 2012. The 13-year-old had been spending the night at the other girl’s home, and the older boys are alleged to have taken them to a post-midnight party and supplied them with liquor.

The case had been no secret in Maryville. The older girl had previously spoken out about waking up outside, clad in just a T-shirt and sweatpants, her hair frozen in subfreezing temperatures. She didn't remember what had happened.

"We found out later, from the text messaging and from the phone calls, picked the girls up just a few minutes before 1 , and they dropped them off by 2 , so they were pretty efficient," the 14-year-old's mother, Melinda Coleman, told radio station KCUR. "They knew what they were doing."

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