Pingback from  Sideleft.Com » Teen Kills Herself Over Fake MySpace Boyfriend Created By Adults

Hi Kelly,

This incident is absolutely heartbreaking and raises a lot of issues about how MySpace and other social networking sites are and should be used.  There are laws against impersonating a doctor, lawyer, policeman, etc in real life.  There definitely should be laws against an adult impersonating anyone for the purpose of misleading or harming a child whether it be in real life or cyberlife.

I write a blog that addresses new communication technologies and parenting issues.  However, this is definitely a case where it was parents (the neighbors posing as Josh) who stepped way out of line in intervening in their own child's life.  Obviously I pity Megan's parents and don't see how anyone could get over such a loss.  However, I also pity the child of the people who did this.  

Thanks for the article.

Sima

ditto. We all know about mean girls. And we've all been young, and confused, and hormone driven, and done stupid sh*t.  But the tormentors here weren't girls. They were PARENTS.  And that's what I've been reeling from.

If these people didn't commit a crime, then we need to change the laws.  I don't mean that they should be prosecuted for murder - I don't think you can reasonably anticipate that harrassment will lead to suicide.  However, they should be prosecuted for just that - harrassment.  Criminal harrassment. A holes like that should serve time.

btw I read on CNN that Megan's parents are getting a divorce.  It's just sh*t all around.

This is horrible.  I mean, how old were the parents?!  I would think that the parents of the girl could press civil charges against them a la OJ.  It doesn't bring their daughter back but hopefully would dissuade others from doing something similar?

I am horrified that ADULTS acted in this manner.  They thought this was funny?  They should certainly go to jail.

For those of you who feel powerless against this injustice, please read.  You are not powerless..  Public pressure CAN result in the proper handling of this case as it has many times before.

Example:

About a month ago, a child nearly drowned in the family swimming pool.  The child was pulled inside the house to try to recessitate the child.

A cop who showed up after paramedics arrived, ran into the house and slipped on the wet floor.  A floor wet, because the child was soaking wet.

After the cop received full pay for her workman's comp claim...and after all of the cops medical bills were paid....this cop proceeded to sue the family of the boy who is now a vegitable.

Public outrage and anger lead to the cop's suspension from the force...and the cop was finally forced to repeal her case.

Had this story been covered up and hidden, this cop would have gone forward and sued this grieving family while their child was still in intensive care.

See... you do have a voice...  public pressure can give a victim a small amount of justice.

Megan Meier deserves at least a little justice in all this - not just some new law named after her.

If you feel the adult child predator in this case should bear some kind of responsibility to her part in this, then make sure your voice is heard.

Ms Drew could set this up on your child next...

Even if you watch your child like a hawk....remember the following.

Your child's friends have computers.

Your child's school has computers...

Libraries have computers...

If your child desperately desires to get to a computer,  they will find one eventually...

And Ms. Drew, and others like her are waiting.

Justice deserves to prevail here...and so far it has NOT!

I hope that Megan's parents find some way of suing the supposed adults that did this.  Hopefully HUGE monetary damages will serve as a cautionary tale to other adults stupid enough to think that type of behavior is funny.

this is just so sad...now k9ids have no right to do this at all but the fact parents/adults would do this is so confusing and twisted. our kids are suffering today because of how parents raise them and our future is in trouble because of kis like this...Megan was a good girl who deserved to live...

Rest in peace

If it weren't for Lori Drew, Megan would still be alive today. Justice isn't being served. She needs to be charged with child endangerment, child abuse, harassment, manslaughter, and cyber stalking, and that's for starters. I'm shocked the authorities aren't willing to hold her responsible for her actions. She is an evil, sick woman. I can't believe she isn't being forced into a mental health evaluation, as she needs one. She's unstable, and probably shouldn't be left alone with her own child. Child Protective Services needs to take that child before further damage is done to her, if it's not too late. My heart goes out to the Meiers. God bless them.

I'm can't believe she fell for that crap.  Don't her parents teach not to believe everything on the internet?

Honestly, people do not commit suicide over one incident.  She had to have been mentally ill for some time. Maybe bipolar.  A bad day can push a mentally ill person to see it as the straw that broke the camels back.  If could have been anything that sent her into a suicidal state.  Too bad she was not able to get the mental health care she so needed.

Autumn, she was emotionally unstable, and the Drews knew it. She's been in counseling since she was in the third grade. That's what make this horrendous situation even worse, the Drews deliberately tormented an emotionally unstable thirteen year old until she commited suicide.

We are currently organizing a protest on Lori Drew’s street. It will be an entirely peaceful protest. We encourage everyone to bring banners, candles, etc. We will also be collecting donations for the Meier family to cover fines and other expenses they have paid over the last year for acts of “vandalism.”

The protest will be this Saturday, November the 24th (One year after the discovery that “Josh” was actually a fake myspace account) near the Drew household (269 Waterford Crystal Dr. Dardenne Prairie, Mo 63368) We are planning on noon, but I will keep you posted.

This is the best we can do at the moment, and the closest thing to justice we can get. I encourage all of you, if you think this is wrong, if you want to do SOMETHING, please come.

I really feel for Megan's parents and feel so sad at how Megan's life ended. I think what those parents did was disgusting and cruel. I wish there was a law or something to punish these parents.

But, I don't see how other adults harassing them (if you google their names you'll see what I mean) is right either.

Internet justice. Scary.

Laren please contact me about the protest;

is it still on and what can i do? please e-mail directly vicki@globalabatement.com

On Wednesday, October 21st, city officials enacted an ordinance designed to address the public outcry for justice in the Megan Meier tragedy. The six member Board of Aldermen made Internet harassment a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $500 fine and 90 days in jail.

Does this new law provide any justice for Megan? Does this law provide equitable relief for a future victim or actually weaken the current law?

I reject the premise of this new law and believe it completely misses the mark. The reasoning behind this opinion is that city officials have consistently treated this case as an Internet harassment case instead of a child welfare/exploitation case.

Classifying this case a harassment issue completely fails to address the most serious aspects of the methods Lori Drew employed to lead this youth to her demise. The Vice disagrees that harassment was even a factor in this case until just a couple of days before Megan's death.

Considering this case a harassment issue is incorrect because during the 5 weeks Lori Drew baited and groomed her victim, the attention was NOT unwanted attention. It was not harassment at all. It was invited attention. Megan participated in the conversations willingly because she was lured, manipulated and exploited without her knowledge.

This law willfully sets a precedent that future child exploiters and predators can use to reclassify their cases to harassment issues. In effect, the law enacted to give Megan justice, may make her even more vulnerable. So long as the child victim doesn't tell the predator to stop, even a harassment charge may not stick with the right circumstances and a good defender.

Every aspect of this case follows the same procedural requirement used to convict a Child Predator. A child was manipulated by an adult. A child was engaged in sexually explicit conversation (as acknowledged by Lori Drew herself). An adult imposed her will on a child by misleading her, using a profile designed to sexually or intimately attract the 13 year old Megan.

Lori then utilized the power she had gained over this child to cause significant distress and endangerment to that child. She even stipulated to many of these activities in the police report she filed shortly after Megan's death.

We can go on and on here, but the parallels between this case and many other child predator cases that are successfully prosecuted bear striking similarities.

Child Predator laws do not require much more than simply proving that an adult has engaged a minor in sexually explicit conversation. Lori Drew has already stipulated that her conversations with Megan were sometimes sexual for a child Megan's age.

City officials who continue to ignore this viable, documented admission and continue to address this issue as harassment are intentionally burying their heads in the sand, when the solution is staring them right in the face. Why?

On June 5th, 2006, Governor Matt Blunt signed into law stiff penalties for convicted sex offenders. The Vice believes that officials continually reject a child predator classification of this case in order to keep the penalty of this offense out of this harsher realm.

Opponents of this law are active in defeating this law not by changing it, but by disqualifying cases like Megan's from ever being heard.

There are several other child exploitation laws on the books. To date, none of them have even been considered by City, State and Federal officials in this case. I'm outraged that a motion was never even filed, so that the case could at least be argued before a judge or jury.

Those satisfied with this response out of Missouri officials need to think through the effect this law will truly have.   It quite honestly has the potential to directly undermine Jessica's law.   It quiet easily gives prosecutors a way out of prosecuting child endangerment and child predator cases in the future.

Beware the wolf in sheep's clothing here.

Danny Vice

http://weeklyvice.blogspot.com

Lori Drew is a psychopath. That part is clear.

But more disturbing than that are the actions of authorities: If it had been an adult MALE that "carried on" in a sexually explicit way with a 13 year old girl, even if it WERE for the purposes of revenge for his teen daughter, he'd be locked up as a pedophile.

Second, there are al-READY laws on the books that cover this type of harassment. For chrissake: just implement them!

What is particularly chilling to me, is that Lori Drew knew that the victim was known to be suicidal in the past. That means that her statement to her that the "world would be better off without you" or whatever it was... is even MORE chilling: it means she was TRYING to steer this girl to suicide. It means she had a desire to push it in that direction, and did so.

Reminds me of Charles Manson. He never "technically" put his own hands upon his victims either, but he "made it happen" by manipulating people, I mean that's the premise upon which he was convicted: that he had INCITED it.

Same thing here. Lori Drew incited this suicide and should be just as responsible as Manson was when he incited those murders---and she should also be treated just like any other adult who engages in online relationships of a sexual nature with under-aged children.

The naming of Lori Drew has sparked quite a debate indeed. Some major news outlets have chosen to name the perpetrator(s) behind this story such as the New York Times. Some have chosen not to. The mainstream media however has concluded that the blogging community should shoulder the responsibility of first naming the perpetrator behind this story.

The first question I have in this debate is simple. What is new here? Since before the French Revolution, the media has been used to 'out' individuals who's actions seem to bear public relevancy in some way.

Although Lori Drew has not yet been charged in the case of Megan Meier, the media has never required formal charges to be made before running a story. In the case of some journalist like Dan Rather, some media outlets run with stories before even confirming that they're true.

In this particular case, media outlets that have chosen to withhold Lori Drew's identity have done so in consideration of other Drew family members.

I'm wondering if by doing this, the media plans to always withhold the names of interesting persons who outrage the community, if those persons have children. This would certainly be quite a ground-breaking event

Right at this moment, there is a story of a cop who is under investigation in the strange death of one wife and the disappearance of another.  The cop in the story has a family, yet the media huddles outside his home relentlessly.

I could go back and list thousands of stories where the media wasted no time in delivering the names and occupations of individuals that were later cleared of any wrong-doing. I've never heard of another instance where the media apologized for naming names.

Don Henley's 'Dirty Laundry' certainly applies well to conduct of most major news outlets.

Lori Drew is a primary subject of the story, she is not a rape victim, and is not a minor. Identifying her breaks no new ground, nor does it deviate from what news outlets do on a daily basis.

I also remind readers that her name and her role in the Megan Meier tragedy were documented as public record. A public record that Lori filed on her own accord. This is a critically important fact in this debate.

News outlets, bloggers and the general public were handed Lori's name and Lori's own self admissions when she herself filed that police report and sought to elevate the entire situation into the public domain.

Had Lori Drew simply acknowledged what she did was wrong, and apologized - the police report that identified her may have never been filed, and the entire situation may have well been kept at the lowest profile.

Will we see the media write about this? Not likely.

Danny Vice

http://weeklyvice.blogspot.com

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those parents should have been alot more mature and yea its sad that adults can act that way towards a teen girl they dont even know personaly except for the things they've heard from there own daughter.

that is so sad what a psycho person to send e-mails to a little girl i have myspace and i hope that crazy lady doesn't come and find me!

While the Megan Meier case seems outrageous and unique, it isn’t unique.  Hundreds of cases of egregious and heinous acts go on every day with the same excuses out of our lawmakers.

One such other case....The case of Nikki Catsouras, is a classic example of disgusting, hateful activity against innocent victims, while our lawmakers excuse themselves from enacting laws to prevent this.

The excuse lawmakers use to let themselves off the hook stem from the growth of the Internet and how fast it's changing. This is a sham.

Chat rooms, message boards, instant messengers and email have been in existence for far over a decade now. While the software used to transmit messages changes slightly, the basic essence of using the Internet to send a message is largely the same. Is a decade or two long enough to establish some basic decency laws in regards to Internet usage?

I’ve posted the Nikki Catsouras story along with many details about the Megan Meier case so the inactivity out of our lawmakers towards these types of cases can be clearly seen.

Those who are interested in learning about cases like Megan’s and Nikki’s case are encouraged to drop by and comment on them if you like.  I have a couple of polls set up as well.  Danny Vice would like to hear your point of view.

Public awareness of the problem and discussions about possible solutions are the best way to pressure elected officials into action instead of excuse making.

I invite you to come by and share your opinion.

Danny Vice

http://weeklyvice.blogspot.com

hi this is Alli i had a myspace but when I heard about this I delted it i never knew a world could be such a harsh place to just talk to people i am sorry for the familey

ThAt iS MeSsEd Up hOw dO U Do thaT To sOmEoNe!!!!! THaT iS fUcKeD Up that is some dum shit!!!!!!!!!

We have a county prosecutor and a defense attorney who have gone on the record with statements that flat out rewrite history and previous statements.

If we were to believe that the statements Lori Drew is now making are truthful, and the police report she filed in Nov. 2006, was incorrect, then Lori Drew should be prosecuted for filing a false police, making a false statement or obstruction of justice.  

Lori Drew, through her attorney Jim Briscoe has made the following statement:

"Everything, as far as Mrs. Drew knew, was that all the communication was nice and polite and there was no harassing going on. She did not create the MySpace account. She did not instruct anybody to create the MySpace account. She never made any communications through the MySpace account."

Well alright Lori, now that you've completely absolved yourself from the case in any way, shape or form, please explain how this squares with your previous statements.

When it all comes down to it, we simply don't believe you. We'll take the officer's account of what you said above what your attorney says. He was not being paid to defend you.

Jack Banas, we are calling for charges in this case one way or another.

Either the woman did stalk this child, or she made knowingly false statements to the police prior to the surfacing of this report.

You cannot absolve this woman of complete wrong doing on both sides of the fence. Pick a side or step down and let someone take over who can. Too many admissions have been publicly made for you to continue to hide under your desk.

Danny Vice

http://weeklyvice.blogspot.com