Charges against the mother weren’t dropped based on a lack of evidence but the emergence of new evidence resulting from an investigation.
“Ed McGee, spokesman for St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch, said that due to new evidence uncovered by investigators, two felony charges and one misdemeanor charge against Dr. Carrie C. Morrison, 53, of Chesterfield were dropped last month.”
This is how she described her childhood for a Philadelphia Inquirer profile in 2020…
“Mackenzie Fierceton grew up poor, cycling through the rocky child welfare system. She bounced from one foster home to the next. One home, during her junior year of high school, was so “toxic” and crammed with other foster kids that she left for weeks at a time, sleeping each night on a carousel of couches at the homes of various friends, she said.”
So we have investigators, district attorneys, Penn administration, Rhodes Committee and journalists all working in concert to destroy the reputation of a student who embodies the institutional diversity goals of some of these institutions, had previously been publicized as a success story and was bringing prestige to the community given her achievements. Not drawing conclusions but that is the allegation.