Family of soccer star Katie Meyer files wrongful death lawsuit against Stanford University after she died by suicide
(Photo: Katie Meyer’s sister, Nicole Meyer, talks about what led to her sister’s death. Photo courtesy of Nicole Meyer)
In 1997, at the age of 24, Katie Meyer jumped from a 14th-floor window of a Stanford University dormitory. At her funeral, Meyer’s friends and family said a suicide note had been found, but they never found it.
The woman who had been a Stanford student, a junior majoring in chemistry, was a fixture in the Ivy League’s world of the rich and famous. She was the youngest sister of Stanford football greats, the daughter of University of Pennsylvania professor David Meyer, and the sister of Stanford football legend Doug Flutie.
For much of her life, however, Katie Meyer was just Katie Meyer, a quiet, quiet girl who loved her family and country and wanted to make a difference.
“For her to take her own life felt wrong,” Nicole Meyer, her sister’s sister, told Yahoo Sports on Wednesday, one year since the day Katie Meyer died. “She kept to herself, especially with her family. She didn’t talk a lot with her sisters, that was sort of one of her traits.”
She’d been taking an anti-depressant since 2013 and had struggled with eating disorders and anxiety.
In her final four years at the university, Meyer “had a very difficult time,” Nicole Meyer said. “She was struggling with mental health all the time, as far as being depressed as well as being anxious.”
On that fateful Saturday, Meyer took an overdose, her father told ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit.
It was another case of suicide made tragic.
As recently as three months ago, Meyer’s mother told Yahoo Sports that she had to force Katie to take her final exam in chemistry after she failed so many times. Meyer had been studying the subject for the past
