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Megan Meier Family Picture  (Source: CNN)
Teen hangs herself after MySpace visitor says she is mean

For many teens and pre-teens, the Internet is an integral part of daily life for social gathering and meeting up with friends. Problems can arise for kids when parents aren’t aware of what’s going on online.

This was evidenced when Facebook was subpoenaed after complaints that minors were being solicited for sex using its site.

More recently, a 13-year-old girl from Missouri named Megan Meier killed herself after she received a critical message on MySpace.

The New York Times claims Megan's 47-year-old neighbor, Lori Drew, gained access to an 18-year-old's Myspace user account that Megan believed to be a boy named Josh.  However, nobody is admitting if Drew or the minor left the final messages that drove Meier to suicide.

Using the Josh account the 18-year-old woman left a message on Megan’s MySpace page accusing her of being mean to her friends. According to CNN messages on Megan’s MySpace page were mundane matters, like which sports the two enjoyed.

Jack Banas, Prosecuting Attorney for St. Charles County Missouri said the messages changed in tone on October 15, 2006. Someone using the Josh account posted a message saying Meier was mean to her friends and added "I don’t know if I want to be your friend anymore."

Later that week the person using the “Josh” account left another message saying, “This place would be better without you.” Megan’s mother reported finding Megan at the computer crying when she returned home and when trying to find out why Megan was upset, the mother criticized Megan for inappropriate language used in her postings on MySpace.

Megan reportedly remarked to her mother, “I can’t believe you’re not on my side” and ran upstairs. Megan was later found upstairs where she had died from hanging herself. According to Banas, there is no proof that the users of the “Josh” account intended to cause Meier emotional harassment that a jury would believe. Prosecutors also point out that the Missouri harassment statute doesn’t cover the Internet and state stalking statutes require repeated conversations therefore neither statute applied in this case.

Banas says just because he can’t prosecute this instance doesn’t mean no one gets punished. He later told CNN, “The loss of a life of a person that they once talked to as a friend, I'm sure, is just twisting them all up inside.”

Banas might be right, but Drew sure isn't showing it.  In another report to the local authorities, Drew stated that she felt the hoax “contributed to Megan’s suicide, but she did not feel ‘as guilty’ because at the funeral she found out Megan had tried to commit suicide before.”

Analysts are split in their feelings on where the blame lies in this case. Others feel that if the simple statements made on Megan’s MySpace page that were reported were enough to drive her to suicide, there were much larger issues going on in Megan’s life her parents should have noticed.

The 47-year-old who posed (or at least endorsed the 18-year-old to pose) as Josh claimed she created the account to see what opinions Megan Meier had about her daughter, another teenager.

The only thing that anyone can agree on is that Megan’s death could have been prevented.

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By Bioniccrackmonk on 12/4/2007 6:03:24 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
An 18-year-old woman gained access to a user account that Megan believed to be a boy named Josh.


According to the news, the woman actually created the account for the sole purpose of harrassing Megan. I will find the link, but all you have to do is search MSNBC for myspace and you can read the whole thing. If I was a parent of Megan and found out a former friend of hers mom created an account to harrass my kid and she hung herself, I would be finding my own justice.




By Zirconium on 12/4/2007 6:10:54 PM , Rating: 5
To follow up, the following is an article on this mess:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/us/28hoax.html

Also, it wasn't an "18-year-old woman" who "gained access to a user account" - what kind of lie or innacuracy is that? It was an account created by a 47-year-old mother living down the street, with the express purpose of spying on and harassing Megan.


By Zirconium on 12/4/2007 6:24:53 PM , Rating: 2
One thing this summary does get right is that it would be difficult to prosecute them based upon the laws on the books. However, everybody in the community knows who the woman behind Josh, her husband who was in on it was fired from his job, and no one will do business with the wife (she is self-employed). The family will have to pack up, leave and change their names, but if I was Megan's father, I'd keep following them putting up billboards wherever they go.


By 16nm on 12/4/2007 6:34:12 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
The family will have to pack up, leave and change their names


They can simply escape their uncomfortable situation. That's nice.

quote:
but if I was Megan's father, I'd keep following them putting up billboards wherever they go.


Amen to that!


By Clauzii on 12/4/2007 7:13:10 PM , Rating: 2
They actually don't escape. They only spread their way of behavior/thinking to others.


By Clauzii on 12/4/2007 8:15:45 PM , Rating: 2
Oh, let me rephrase my bad english here:

They actually don't escape. They'll keep spreading their way of being to others - which in the end will lead to distinction!

Unless they change, of course. Theres ALWAYS a way out :)


By ImSpartacus on 12/4/2007 9:14:16 PM , Rating: 4
I wouldn't mark one bad decision to represent the entire family. They probably will lay low for years, maybe the rest of their lives. I kind of feel bad for the others members of their family that had nothing to do with it.


By mikeyD95125 on 12/4/2007 9:39:04 PM , Rating: 3
It sounds like this girl was having issues. The big problem with our teenage brains is making irrational decisions. It probably didn't cross her mind that she would never be able to exist again. Not even be able to to think about how she doesn't exist. Maybe she thought she had an afterlife waiting for her.

I'm just surprised that many teenagers make it to adulthood.


By jtemplin on 12/4/2007 10:51:04 PM , Rating: 2
The thought process you describe is very naive and highly unlikely that late in her cognitive development. The concept of death being irreversible is well known to a teenager of her age, I can assure you.

I don't think you have studied this subject enough to be making statements like
quote:
It probably didn't cross her mind that she would never be able to exist again.


I will direct you to start by reading about piaget's theory of cognitive development as a jumping point.


By derwin on 12/5/2007 12:34:02 AM , Rating: 3
Shoot, Im 22 and I still dont act as if I understand the irreversiability of death. Of course they CAN conceive it at 13, but its a good point to bring up that only much later DO you really understand it.


By feraltoad on 12/5/2007 3:57:35 AM , Rating: 5
I agree with derwin, I think many teenagers think theirs is a semi-invulnerable life, and thoughts of an opiated afterlife is reassuring to many. Think of all the You-Tube videos of teenagers doing insane stuff like jumping off roofs. I don't think someone who nudges a pipe bomb while wearing a flip-flop is heavily involved in action/consequence style thinking.

Also, while I agree that that 47yr old lady is a serious POS. I don't see how you can charge her with anything but some kind of misdemeanor harassment. It's not exactly hard to make many teenage girls cry, and like it or not that girl had a screw loose. Also, I have depression and I've had plenty of boohoo/shotgun sessions, but I don't think it would be fair to charge someone if they were a d*ck to me that day and perhaps set my mood in motion, anymore than it would be fair for me go and kill them, their family, and burn their house down. Uh-oh, time for medicine.


By Blight AC on 12/5/2007 3:04:10 PM , Rating: 3
Agreed! How many of us here on even DailyTech have insulted someone. We don't expect anyone to kill themselves. Would you want to be hunted down by someones family just because you rated someones post here down and they killed themselves over it?

Really, the girl had a history, trying suicide once before. If the mother had any wits about her, she wouldn't of left her suicidal daughter alone in such a distressed state.

Although, I think the only real reason this got any media was due to it's tie with MySpace, the only thing that trumps that is Paris Hilton.


By soydeedo on 12/6/2007 11:08:07 AM , Rating: 2
I just wanted to say your post rocks, but since it's at 5 already I can't add a vote. =P

But one comment I'd like to add is that the reason people are so upset about this woman doing this is not that she triggered the suicide so much, but that she went to such great lengths to torment the girl. It wasn't a casual insult or anything of that sort; rather, she got herself close to the girl with a fake persona with the sole purpose of tearing her down. That's downright malicious and pretty damn deplorable behavior for a 47 year old. Or maybe I'm just too nice.


By ManuelX on 12/5/2007 3:01:57 AM , Rating: 1
If someone is terminally ill and you shoot them, that is still murder!


By theapparition on 12/5/2007 9:58:14 AM , Rating: 4
If they pulled the chair out from her feet, after she had already put the noose on, they I'd agree with you. But all they did was insult the girl.

If you break up with your girlfriend on the street and she runs across the street crying and gets hit by a bus, does that make you at fault??

I think not. This girl obviously had issues, and the mother-daughter confrontation may have pushed it over the edge. Maybe if mom took the girl's side, she'd still be alive. We could question this indefinately, what is important is to learn from this, take an active role in your childs life and friends (virtual ones too), and recognize when they need professional help.