The household of Katie Meyer – a Stanford soccer star who dedicated suicide in 2022 – have detailed their renewed ‘damage’ over the college’s response to her tragic demise, which seems to level the finger within the route of her mother and father.
Meyer, a captain and goalkeeper for the Cardinal, took her personal life in March 2022 – hours after discovering that she might be expelled for spilling scorching espresso on a Stanford soccer participant.
‘I miss her each second of each day,’ her father Steven says in a new ESPN documentary, ‘Save: The Katie Meyer Story’, which sheds mild on her life and her heartbreaking demise.
It options poignant interviews with Meyer’s household and explores the fallout from her suicide.
Meyer’s mother and father are suing Stanford in a wrongful demise lawsuit, accusing the California college of ‘systematic failures’ and coping with her disciplinary case ‘negligently and recklessly’.
In direction of the tip of her fifth and last 12 months, the goalkeeper was charged by the college over the espresso spill. Meyer mentioned it was an accident. The soccer participant – who had been accused of creating ‘an undesirable sexual advance’ on one in every of Meyer’s teammates – mentioned in any other case.
Katie Meyer, a captain and goalkeeper for the Stanford Cardinal, took her personal life in 2022
Meyer’s mother and father Steven (L) and Gina (R) are suing Stanford in a wrongful demise lawsuit
A brand new ESPN documentary ‘Save: The Katie Meyer Story’, sheds mild on her life and demise
However, because the documentary explains, the soccer star didn’t make a proper criticism and insisted he ‘didn’t need any punishment that impacts (Meyer’s) life’.
However the college nonetheless investigated Meyer over six months and on the night of February 28, 2022, the 22-year-old was instructed her diploma was being placed on maintain and he or she might be kicked out of faculty.
That night time, Meyer started ‘frantically looking out’ on-line about how you can defend herself at trial. The next morning she was discovered lifeless in her dorm.
In keeping with the household criticism, Meyer had been assembly with sports activities psychologists and was ‘experiencing elevated melancholy signs related to perceived failure and endorsed suicidal ideations’.
She additionally instructed the college that she had been ‘stressed for months’ revealing: ‘(I’m) terrified that an accident will destroy my future.’
However courtroom filings present that, in one in every of their defenses within the lawsuit, Stanford identified that – shortly earlier than her demise – ‘Katie selected to make her last oral presentation about her years earlier than Stanford and rising up with controlling mother and father and stress to succeed.’
That twisted the knife for a household already in mourning. ‘It hurts my coronary heart… that they are marching down this street after we’ve misplaced our daughter,’ Meyer’s father says.
‘I do not fairly know what they’re getting at right here, to be sincere.’
The household accuses Stanford of ‘systematic failures’ and coping with her case ‘negligently and recklessly’
Stanford additionally argued that ‘any affordable particular person would think about Katie’s suicide a extremely uncommon, extraordinary response to the state of affairs’, including: ‘The Stanford defendants didn’t know and had no motive to anticipate that Katie would act on this method.’
However the Meyer’s lawyer insists: ‘There isn’t a denying they knew that their course of might trigger misery (and) hurt.’
She claimed that Stanford had lengthy been ‘on discover’ after earlier, ‘critical concern’ concerning the college’s disciplinary and judicial processes.
The household had no thought about their daughter’s combat with college officers and her mom Gina instructed ESPN: ‘It simply breaks my coronary heart that we did not know. It breaks my coronary heart. It can all the time be damaged…’
Meyer had spoken to her household round 5pm on February 28, which was the ultimate day she might be charged by the college. She was enthusiastic about spring break and, in keeping with her mom, ‘it was very regular, regular, fantastic dialog.’
‘She appeared nice,’ he dad says. The subsequent day, nonetheless, Steven Meyer obtained a name. ‘She’s gone,’ he was instructed. He speculated that she will need to have had in an accident. ‘It did not appear doable along with her that it might be suicide,’ he tells ESPN.
He then rang his spouse, ‘wailing’. ‘It was the worst telephone name in your life you can ever think about. It is each mother and father’ nightmare,’ Gina says.
However when seemed inside Katie’s dorm room, there was no proof of ‘darkness’. ‘Nothing,’ her dad says. ‘Similar to it all the time was. Similar to it was on the FaceTime the night time earlier than. Nothing in any respect.’
Gina says: ‘By no means in one million years would this child take her personal life. We had been like “How? Why? What occurred?”
Katie left a word through which she confessed to being ‘so, so scared’ however her mother and father’ confusion lingered till they checked out her laptop computer and located the five-page charging letter.
‘I felt prefer it was a means of choosing up the breadcrumbs alongside the best way to search out out what occurred, and the way this occurred, and the way did we not know,’ Gina tells ESPN.
Meyer was the goalkeeper on the nationwide champion Stanford Cardinal in 2019
The household later arrange a basis, Katie’s Save, to ‘combat for systemic adjustments at faculties and universities to advertise psychological well being, defend college students and forestall suicide.’
They then labored with politicians to create a brand new legislation which means any scholar going by disciplinary processes is allowed an advisor to assist them.
California governor Gavin Newsom signed Katie Meyer’s Regulation in September 2024 however, as a non-public college, Stanford just isn’t required to undertake it. The lawsuit is ready to go to trial in 2026.
‘Katie’s demise was a tragedy’ a Stanford official mentioned in an announcement to USA At this time. ‘It was heartbreaking for her household, for everybody who knew her, and for our complete group. Although we proceed to answer the litigation introduced by the household, that truth doesn’t diminish our deep sympathy for her loss and our persevering with assist for everybody impacted in our group.’
The Day by day Mail has contacted Stanford for remark.
‘Save – The Katie Meyer Story’ will air at 11 a.m. ET on ESPN Saturday and stream afterward on ESPN+
In case you are struggling, attain out to the 988 Suicide & Disaster Lifeline
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