Posted on 11/21/2007 6:15:49 AM PST by 3AngelaD
Did an Internet prank lead a St. Charles County teen to take her own life? Her parents say their daughter was driven to her death by online attacks led not by other teens, but by adults. No law was broken, there was no real crime, but it is all a real tragedy.
"She was our baby. We absolutely miss every single second of her," says Tina Meier as tears fall down her face.
Tina admits her daughter had battled depression and ADD, and was on medication ...But a new school, new friends, and a new account on MySpace, strictly monitored by mom and dad, were making life better.
"I thought we were as vigilant as we could be as parents...and even with that, no matter what I did, I still couldn't protect her."...
"She got this email from this boy named Josh Evans," Tina explains. Josh was cute and asking to be added to Megan's list of "friends" on the page. Tina reluctantly let him have access to her daughter's account. They were friends first, then they called each other boyfriend and girlfriend. But they never met. Then Josh got mean... Tina comforted Megan, telling her not to worry about it. The next day more messages appeared from Josh and other people....Megan hung herself in her closet.
Weeks later, a friend told the Meiers that Josh Evans never even existed....The Meiers say a neighborhood family created Josh to see if Megan would say bad things to him about their own daughter. There is a police report, where the neighbors admit it....The police report was filed by that neighbor and it accuses the Meiers of property damage. The Meiers say when they found out about the internet hoax, they did lose their tempers, damaging the family's property...
(Excerpt) Read more at myfoxstl.com ...
tag line caused me to say geezeeee what next.....and not even read it.....
You thought wrong. Leaving your child on mySpace (or the Internet for that matter) unsupervised while you went to the orthodontist with your other child was an awful thing to do. That said, there is much blame to go around in this case. The other parents were low-lifes as well.
What tag line?
Sorry for their loss, but the parents were as much to blame as anyone for even allowing the girl to have a MySpace. That site is nothing but trouble. It’s not like everyone doesn’t know about MySpace and other such sites, yet parents claim their child would never post personal info and their friends would never post bad things. If all those parents were right, MySpace wouldn’t be in the news every day over some disaster or another. Besides, it sounds like the girl had other more severe problems or mama wouldn’t have been so concerned. I’m sure the other family could be brought up on some false identity charges or harrassment but that’s about it.
“The Meiers say a neighborhood family created Josh to see if Megan would say bad things to him about their own daughter.”
Not certain if any law was broken but one thing is clear. You’ve got at least one set of parents here with the emotional development of a 12 year old. Adults developing a fictitious character to see if another child will say something bad about their daughter??? Some real adults need to step in here.
Laurie Roberts writes a better story in today’s Arizona Republic.
She makes it clear that Megan’s time on the computer was monitored, so get off the parents case.
She also reports the so called adults that created “Josh” have been threatened. Serves them right.
Her mother never let Tina add friends from MySpace unless she approved of them.
The girl was friends with the "Josh" family's daughter and were very aware of Tina's emotional problems and her rocky emotional past; so, to do such a heinous thing nearly pushes the liability of her death closer to them, but the law does not see it that way. Proximate cause was not the impersonating family, although the impersonating family definitely had a hand in it.
Grammar check..
Tina’s mom never allowed Tina to add friends on MySpace unless she approved of them...
>>depression and ADD, and was on medication<<
Seeing more and more of this too - brain medication leading to suicidal tendencies. A sad thing all around.
I agree. They knew she was unstable, but allowed her to access that site. It is a tragedy, and parents make a big mistake when they treat Internet access and participation in MySpace as some kind of right that they can’t deny their children.
That is the only meaningful sentence in the whole story. This girl had problems, and I suspect was on anti-depressants. Ever listened to the warnings for those drugs? One of the first warnings is for kids under 18. Now, of course, I am making a supposition about the meds...but I'd bet I'm correct. And, if the parents knew she was fragile, why in the heck did they let her on MySpace???? As someone else said, plenty of blame to go around, but in the end, the parents will have to deal with their mistakes. Sad.
This girl had problems, most likely she would have committed suicide no matter what. I am not blaming her parents, but is sure as hell wasn't the "internets" fault she hung herself but the article certainly implies this. She hung herself because she was mentally unstable and I imagine the medications she was on didn't help. I know two families where their children were drugged at a young age like this, one child committed suicide the other child ended up in prison for murder. Mentally ill people are just that, mentally ill and buying into the argument that the internet, or the parents of a friend, caused this girl's death is just a little on the silly side.
There is something wrong with parents who go after a kid like that. They deserve to be sued, and if that is not possible, publicly humiliated and shunned by society. Adults need to act like adults.
Why hasn't Lori Drew who created Josh stepped up to tell her side? I don't understand these parents who just have to get involved with their children's squabbles. Like the mom who hit the soccer coach with the chair.
Lori Drew has mental problems & its not normal to make a myspace up to torment anyone. There ought to be some charge put on her. She knew fully what she was doing . What a sick twisted evil woman Lori Drew is. I can't help but think of the sex stalkers on the Internet who will lie & get a child's confidence then pounce on them. What difference is there in what Lori Drew did to this child that the sex molesters don't also do? She even knew this child had emotional problems & IMO that makes it worse. She knew just what buttons to push.
Parents need to get rid of myspace & all the other sites there are & not allow their minor children on them.
Mentally ill people are just that, mentally ill and buying into the argument that the internet, or the parents of a friend, caused this girl's death is just a little on the silly side.
There are plenty of bipolar people & people on meds who live regular lives. Maybe this girl would have been fine in time but we won't know that. Not all mentally ill people kill themselves. So she was depressed and was on meds. Big deal, doesn't mean she would be on them forever. So let me understand this , you say that mentally ill people are just that, mentally ill & this woman had no part in pushing this child over the edge. In your words that sounds just a little on the silly side.
The mother admitted that she left her daughter on MySpace unsupervised, just when all the BS was hitting the fan, as she went to the orthodontist with her other daughter. She told her daughter to sign off but her daughter didn't. The mother also signed her daughter up for a MySpace account under the age of 14 even after she knew that her daughter and the friend, from down the street, had already been busted for creating a phony account, to talk to boys, themselves.
Sounds like the mother was permissive to me.
Again, she left her on the computer unsupervised. Didn't the mother also create this MySpace account for her daughter, even though she was under 14 when it was created, and after her daughter and her friend from down the street were busted for creating a phony account themselves?
It doesn't sound vigilant to me.
I believe the parents are getting divorced as well. I bet this is not a new development. The girl was probably screwed up from the parents initially.
Or see:
Mother: Hoax on MySpace triggered daughter’s suicide
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1927480/posts
Law lags as taunts ruin lives
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1928220/posts
Parents of MySpace hoax victim seek justice [teen killed herself over hoax]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1928108/posts
Mother: Hoax on MySpace triggered daughter’s suicide
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1927480/posts
My Space’ hoax ends with suicide of Dardenne Prairie teen
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1925716/posts
POKIN AROUND: A real person, a real death
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1924847/posts
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