'My Space' hoax ends with suicide of Dardenne Prairie teen

St. Louis Post Disgrace ^ | 11/14/2007 | Steve Pokin

[Clintons Are White Trash]

His name was Josh Evans. He was 16 years old. And he was hot.

"Mom! Mom! Mom! Look at him!" Tina Meier recalls her daughter saying.

Josh had contacted Megan Meier through her MySpace page and wanted to be added as a friend.Yes, he's cute, Tina Meier told her daughter. "Do you know who he is?"

[GraniteStateConservative]

And the surprise ending is straight out of the movies.

[Eaker]

Rather than drunk I now see that you are thirteen. Getting a thesaurus may help.

Good luck with that.

[RobRoy]

Something my mother taught me before grade school: It begins with “sticks and stones...”

I feel for the parents, but I hold the girl responsible for what she did. She wasn’t ten.

[Right Angler]

Bump for the wife to read later

[RobRoy]

No matter what the age, the ONLY person responsible for a suicide is the deceased.

[sbMKE]

I don’t think the reporter is putting forward the whole story here. The parents have domestic violence orders filed one against the other and there is now the matter of the pending divorce. Not an entirely flattering picture of the home.

Regarding the account of the events in questions; Temporary internet files should have shown the final messages that only the father reportedly saw, unless configurations were made to dump whole caches — not typical.

The “N for neglect” thing really bugs me as well.

Something tells me that at least in part, the case against the neighbors has been overstated and embellished.

The fact that two adults under active legal counsel are not naming the “responsible” neighbors is telling. As is the fact that they appear to have previously filed at least one small claims suit each, one against a landscaper and another possibly against an employer. The former tells me that culpability may not be so clearcut as the writer would suggest and the latter tells me that they are not avoiding suit simply out of some principle.

Not to discount the tragedy in any way, but I think the reporter saw heartstrings and neglected to look at the whole story.

[RobRoy]

>>Sick. Someone needs to pay.<<

That someone did...with their life. I remember being 14. I actually remember quite a bit of my world view at that time - my vulnerabilities, etc. My heart goes out to the parents. The girl CHOSE to end her own life. That is the single most important and relevant “fact” in this story.

[Homer1]

I agree. If the Phelps group can lose millions (thankfully), then these “adults” can too.

[diamond6]

So so sad.

[Sender]

On the one hand, I think it's a shame to deprive a teenager of the vast communication network that is the internet. They need it; they own it. They are in their element. On the other hand, teenagers need to be educated about what is out there. There are frauds and there are predators and there are scam artists. There are innocent-looking ringtone ads that can add hundreds of dollars to their cell phone bill. There are people who take pleasure in crushing the life out of others. There are wolves out there.

I think a good balance is to let them have at least SOME internet access, but the parents need to control it and monitor it, and they need to have "the talk". It used to be about sex; now it's about online dangers.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Instead of smashing the foosball table I’d have methodically disassembled it down to every last screw. Then delivered the parts with a note saying “You can put this foosball table back together. We can’t do that with our daughter. Congratulations.”

[pilipo]

Agreed. But my agreement with you does reveal something about me. It is my own fault, but my expectations for the posting quality on FreeRepublic are woefully unreasonable.

I hate to admit it, but I - and evidently you, also - need to lower my sights here. It’ll keep us grounded.

[HiTech RedNeck]

The liability issue was too much so we put it on the shelf.

The way software companies get around that is to put in the EULA that they do not promise that the software will do anything, let alone do anything right, and the maximum compensation under any legal theory is the lesser of $5 or what was paid for the software.

[Ditter]

That’s it! I had a senior moment and couldn’t remember it all, I knew a kind freeper would come along and tell me.

[unsycophant]

It has now been publicly disclosed on several sites that the name of the lady who perpetrated the hoax is Lori Drew.

Mrs. Drew is guilty of bad judgement and being mean and spiteful and malicious.

Mrs. Meier is guilty of signing her child online at myspace and allowing her to believe it’s normal to have a romantic “relationship” with a faceless nameless entity.

Kids don’t belong at myspace under any circumstances. In fact, they really have no business on most of the Internet.

I believe there is much more to this story than what’s been reported.

[Professional]

So, my daughter got into this facebook and myspace thing, against my best wishes.

Well, it turns out my daughter, my oldest, who I thought was a straight a, church going “good kid” was leading a double life.

She’s 15, and the things my wife and I found out were nothing less than hair raising shocking. Alcohol, marijuana, boys, foul language, attitude towards God, etc.. Just blew me away.

I have 3 girls and one boy. I know now what people tried to warn me about.

I was that naive father...

[JustaDumbBlonde]

Seems to me, after reading the entire story, that the alleged adults in this matter were no more mature than the teens they were supposedly raising -- and I mean all of them. THAT fact has much to do with the outcome in this case.

[varyouga]

She was mentally ill and they knew it. Someone in that state can be forced to kill themselves.

I’d say the adults that knew this was going on are responsible.

[Ptarmigan]

Those people who did it should be infected with the Ebola Zaire virus.

[iowamark]

Update