Posted on 11/29/2007 6:59:16 AM PST by shrinkermd
Megan Meier died believing that somewhere in this world lived a boy named Josh Evans who hated her. He was 16, owned a pet snake, and she thought he was the cutest boyfriend she ever had.
Josh contacted Megan through her page on MySpace.com, the social networking Web site, said Megan’s mother, Tina Meier. They flirted for weeks, but only online — Josh said his family had no phone. On Oct. 15, 2006, Josh suddenly turned mean. He called Megan names, and later they traded insults for an hour.
The next day, in his final message, said Megan’s father, Ron Meier, Josh wrote, “The world would be a better place without you.”
Sobbing, Megan ran into her bedroom closet. Her mother found her there, hanging from a belt. She was 13.
Six weeks after Megan’s death, her parents learned that Josh Evans never existed. He was an online character created by Lori Drew, then 47, who lived four houses down the street in this rapidly growing community 35 miles northwest of St. Louis.
That an adult would plot such a cruel hoax against a 13-year-old girl has drawn outraged phone calls, e-mail messages and blog posts from around the world. Many people expressed anger because St. Charles County officials did not charge Ms. Drew with a crime.
But a St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department spokesman, Lt. Craig McGuire, said that what Ms. Drew did “might’ve been rude, it might’ve been immature, but it wasn’t illegal.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Lori Drew needs some wall to wall counseling.
Regards
Parents Say Online Bullies Caused Daughter’s Suicide
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1928827/posts
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
And that poor kid needed counseling too, what a waste of a young life. As for Lori Drew she is what many psychologists would call an emotional sadist, deliberately setting vulnerable people up and then dwelling on their emotional pain when they get burned. Very sick!
Civil suit for wrongful death. Take everything she owns, or ever hopes to own and make her a social pariah.
Stand by for a test of this theory.
The world will be a much better place If all FReeepers would send me some money.
Yes, but in Minnesota we could probably charge her under the vulnerable adult statutes. Taking advantage or harming a vulnerable adult is a crime in this state. But, I admit, that is an interpretation of the law and only a judge and jury would have the final answer.
A civil action, as you suggested, would seem a second alternative but it would all depend on whether there is any money to be obtained.
There is a difference between posting a request for money to total strangers on the Internet, and an emotionally fragile teenage girl with a history of suicidal behavior being told by a boy she has fallen in love with that the world would be a better place without her in it.
Yes, you are correct. Sometimes my jokes can be in poor taste in light of a serious tragedy.
No, it was still pretty funny. I just thought that you were making a serious joke, not a joke for the joke’s sake, if you follow my logic.
This is heartbreaking.
This is a sad case.. HOWEVER...
I don’t think this woman should be charged with a crime. Seems to me she’s a cruel person who picked a particularly disturbed target. Mean and stupid meets fragile.
Tragic, but not criminal.
I wasn’t sure which way you meant it either. If you were trying to make a point, I would point to Soupy Sales:
http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/soupy1.asp
He told his young viewers to go into their fathers wallets while they were sleeping and send him “some of those funny green pieces of paper with all those nice pictures of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Alexander Hamilton, and send them along to your old pal, Soupy, care of WNEW, New York”
Needless to say, it didn’t go over too well with the parents out there when their wallets were a little lighter.
I’m sure it seemed funny and harmless at the time, but kids (and yes, I think a 13 year old is still mostly a kid), take things differently than adults.
Reminds me of Hercule Poirot’s final case.
Even if they cannot be criminally prosecuted it would seem that they can be found liable for the intentional infliction of emotional distress and other torts. Perhaps one of the many FReeper attorneys would care to comment?
The woman's daughter had been the victim's best friend. If what the woman did, which arguably caused negligent homicide, is not a crime, then whatever abuse the woman may get from outraged citizens shouldn't be a crime either. I hope the woman never has a place to live again where she won't be known and spit at. She is no different from any other child abuser.
There is a nice man in Lagos Nigeria that would be happy to accomodate you. All you have to do is send him your bank account information so that he can directly transfer some funds to your account. Isn't that nice of him?
Thank you. I have a 15-year old son who I just rescued from his abusive Mother. I live in fear of what might happen to him should he become the victim of such an act.
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