The Case Died with Her: Documentary about Emilie Morris of St. Louis and Her Claim of Abuse Against Her High-School Coach

For those concerned about sexual abuse and exploitation of minors by adult authority figures, and about the difficulties that how those blowing the whistle on their abuse usually face when they go public, I'd like to note an upcoming televised documentary. On December 6 at 7 P.M. EST, 6 P.M. CST, the Oxygen network will be airing a program called The Case Died with Her.

Based on reporting by BuzzFeed News, The Case Died with Her recounts the story of Emilie Morris, a star athlete at Lindbergh high school in St. Louis, who alleged that her cross-country coach James Wilder III began sexually abusing her as a 16-year-old girl. As the BuzzFeed report I have just linked states, Morris got Wilder on tape admitting his abuse of her, but this story took an even darker turn when Morris died suddenly at age 35, and her case against Wilder came to an abrupt dead end.

As Emilie Morris's mother Joan Morris tells People magazine in anticipation of the forthcoming The Case Died with Her, she hopes the documentary will make plain what her daughter went through as a result of the abuse she suffered as a teenaged girl, the longstanding toll that the abuse and its after-effects took on her, how this "gnawed away at her" until she chose to reveal what she had experienced.

The two-hour documentary The Case Died with Her will air Sunday, December 6, at 7 P.M. EST on Oxygen.