The Case Died with Her: Inside Emilie Morris' struggle with depression and shocking death

Oxygen's true crime docu-series The Case Died with Her revisits the shocking death of a 35-year-old woman named Emilie Morris in 2014. According to Fox News, the mother of two from Missouri passed away from asphyxiation. Emilie's friends and family said that she had found a sense of peace and happiness prior to her passing because she coped with her fear of complaining about her trainer.

Her sudden death came shortly after the arrest of the man she had accused of taking advantage of her when she was just 15. Emilie's friend, Christine Lieber, had mentioned in a statement,

"She was very relieved to see that justice was finally going to be served in this case and she was in a great place with their children working out all the time you know emailing and daily texting.....I mean it was in a great spot."

Emilie was found dead in her bedroom just weeks after her mother told relatives that the case was close to being resolved. Her sister, Andrea Morris, revealed that their father found her lying on the floor, wrapped in a blanket.

Continue reading more about the The Case Died with Her.

The Case Died with Her: Emilie's fight to heal and expose her abuser

The Case Died with Her revealed that Emilie Morris was a star athlete in her high school at the age of 16. During that time, she was s*xually abused by her trusted track coach and teacher, Jim Wilder. This trauma sent her into depression and a lifelong struggle to heal.

For more than ten years, she battled mental health problems. During her adulthood, she occasionally maintained contact with Wilder as a trauma response while trying to process what he had done to her.

When she was in her mid-30s, Morris reportedly felt it was the right time to speak out, worried that Wilder might still be acting inappropriately with other young women. Therefore, she worked with the authorities and managed to get Wilder to admit on tape that they had an inappropriate relationship. As a result, Wilder was officially charged.

In 2013, Wilder faced formal charges connected to Morris' case, as the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported. He was accused of six counts of second-degree statutory sodomy.

How did Emilie Morris die?

The docu-series The Case Died with Her revealed that Emilie Morris died from asphyxiation. Her body was found by her sister, Andrea Morris, in her apartment with her head inside a trash can. When the police arrived, the family told investigators about Emilie's pending case against her former track coach, Jim Wilder.

But, they also mentioned Emily's ex-husband, who reportedly paid a large amount of alimony and child care. Furthermore, the family told police about one of Emilie's ex-boyfriends.

Although the initial police report did list Emilie's death as suspicious, there were clues pointing in other directions, such as her parents' report that she had a cold the week before that had turned into an upper respiratory infection.

The family also admitted that Emilie had a history of alcoholism which aligned with the empty vodka bottle police found next to her bed. Andrea shared,

"I think that they assumed right away that this was she overdosed on alcohol and that was what we were told basically for the first couple months."

However, her sister also revealed that when they received the autopsy report, the toxicology screen ended up being largely clear.

The Case Died with Her: Why did the case actually die with Emilie?

In 2012, Morris and her husband had a divorce, and her former spouse was given full custody of their children. By the following year, Morris had already been battling alcoholism for at least three years, yet, she managed to gather the strength she needed to finally speak out.

At the time of her death, Emilie's blood alcohol level was just 0.048. However, medical examiners found the cause of death to be asphyxiation triggered by the plastic trash bag in which her body was found. No one could say for sure how Emilie got into that trash can.

Officer Scott Stephens revealed that during the investigation, the team worked closely with the St. Louis County Medical Examiner's Office. Sadly, the case was closed after a thorough investigation and review of the medical examiner's report, with signs pointing to the death being accidental in nature.

Following her death, prosecutors dismissed all criminal charges against Wilder due to a legal rule called the Confrontation Clause, found in the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This rule states that a defendant must be given the chance to face their accuser directly in court and cross-examine them during trial.

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