A 16-year-old girl, whose accusations of rape against a former schoolmate were shelved by prosecutors, has credited the hacktivist group Anonymous with giving her new hope that "what really happened" would come out.

Daisy Coleman was taken to hospital in January 2012 after her mother found her drunk, barefoot and freezing outside their home in Maryville, Missouri. Doctors examining Coleman, who was 14 at the time, found indications of sexual intercourse. The girl said a 17-year-old football player had assaulted her after she and a friend sneaked out to meet him and his friends.

The case caught national attention this week after the Kansas City Star published an investigation on 12 October by reporter Dugan Arnett. Anonymous began tweeting about the case the next night. Coleman and her mother, Melinda Coleman, appeared on CNN on Tuesday.

"Since Anonymous has gotten involved, everything has changed," Daisy Coleman wrote an op-ed on the website xoJane on Friday. The detailed personal account read:"#justice4Daisy has trended on the internet, and pressure has come down hard on the authorities who thought they could hide what really happened."

A felony sexual assault charge against the alleged perpetrator was dropped two months after the incident. County prosecutor Robert Rice said that there was not enough evidence to prosecute, and that the Colemans were un-cooperative – a claim Melinda Coleman denies.

On Thursday, Rice seemed to reverse his view of the case's viability, filing a motion to appoint a special prosecutor. The state attorney general's office had said earlier in the week that it had no power to reopen the case.

In her account on xoJane, Coleman said she became the target of cyberbullying after she accused the football player, a popular high school senior who currently faces no charges in the case. The Colemans left Maryville after the case because of what they described as town hostility. In April of this year the family’s former home in Maryville burned down. The cause of the fire remains unknown.

"On Twitter and Facebook, I was called a skank and a liar and people encouraged me to kill myself," Coleman writes on xoJane. "Twice, I did try to take my own life."

"I'm different now, and I can't ever go back to the person I once was. That one night took it all away from me. I'm nothing more than just human, but I also refuse to be a victim of cruelty any longer.

"This is why I am saying my name. This is why I am not shutting up."