Melissa Meggison, Dead of Alcoholism January 25, 2014

Melissa Meggison was born on September 19, 1961, birth mother Jacqueline Steele, and adopted by Jack and Winnifred Meggison, who raised her in a working-class lifestyle in Waterloo, Iowa. She attended Waterloo West High School and graduated in 1980, then attended the University of Iowa and graduated in 1984 with a business degree, emphasis on marketing.

According to Melissa, she started drinking alcohol at age 11. By the time she was 16, had a boyfriend who was 18, which was legal drinking age, to her verbal statement mostly because he could procure alcohol, and was drinking regularly by that time. While at band camp one summer she attempted suicide using over-the-counter drugs and was sent home.

Despite such occurrence, her parents provided no medical or therapeutic support or stricter oversight or guidance. At the end of her senior year in high school, she was nonresponsive during a drinking party at her house and was starting to exhibit classic signs of problem drinking, along with having sex with numerous partners. Once again, no parental guidance or stricter oversight was implemented to help address such behaviors.

Melissa joined Gamma Phi Beta sorority at the University of Iowa and commenced to lean into the sorority lifestyle, drinking a lot, meeting fraternity boys, having sex with them, going to bars and meeting boys, and similarly going home and having sex with them, often never to see them again.

Melissa’s birth control method was to have the boys pull out before ejaculation or otherwise hope she didn’t get pregnant.

Melissa drudged up a boyfriend from Waterloo named Ed Malek, who she met at a bar, who attended Iowa State University. She often would take the bus to Ames and sneak into his fraternity room and spend the weekend with him. Unbeknownst to him, she was continuing to meet and have casual sex with other boys in Iowa City and sometimes on her trips home to Waterloo.

At some point, Ed and Melissa broke up, and Melissa was not forthcoming about the reasons why. This breakup sent her into a panic. She returned to Waterloo that winter break and while out drinking with high school friends at a bar specializing in serving University of Northern Iowa students, met a fraternity boy, and arranged a date.

On the date, they went to a movie and then returned to his apartment where they had sex. Later she made the statements that it hurt, that she thought he penetrated her anally, and that she allowed him to proceed because she thought if she didn’t he wouldn’t want to see her again.

Melissa returned to Iowa City after the break, pregnant. She met a troubled young man named Michael Donnelly in a bar and proceeded to enter a more formal relationship with him, absent sex.  Michael Donnelly helped her through the abortion, and they commenced dating and were later married, and had one child, John, on July 21, 1985.

Melissa left her family in September 2008 after refusing treatment for alcoholism numerous times.  She never saw her son again,  despite having every opportunity to.  She never sent him a gift on Christmas or his birthday, called only a handful of times, and broke his heart through her rejection.  Her son died by suicide on December 23, 2018.

Melissa Donnelly died of an esophageal bleed secondary to cirrhosis of the liver on January 25, 2014, at the age of 52.  Her certified death certificate is presented.