Woman Indicted in MySpace Suicide Case

edgarblythe · Posts: 37935 Location: Houston

By LINDA DEUTSCH
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — A federal grand jury today indicted a Missouri woman for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network MySpace against a 13-year-old neighbor who committed suicide.

Lori Drew of suburban St. Louis allegedly helped create a false-identity MySpace account to contact Megan Meier, who thought she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans. Josh didn't exist.

Megan hanged herself at home in October 2006 after receiving cruel messages, including one stating the world would be better off without her.

Salvador Hernandez, assistant agent in charge of the Los Angeles FBI office, called the case heart-rending.

"The Internet is a world unto itself. People must know how far they can go before they must stop. They exploited a young girl's weaknesses," Hernandez said. "Whether the defendant could have foreseen the results, she's responsible for her actions."

Drew was charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress on the girl.

Drew has denied creating the account or sending messages to Megan.

U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien said this was the first time the federal statute on accessing protected computers has been used in a social-networking case. It has been used in the past to address hacking.

"This was a tragedy that did not have to happen," O'Brien said.

Both the girl and MySpace are named as victims in the case, he said.

MySpace is a subsidiary of Beverly Hills-based Fox Interactive Media Inc., which is owned by News Corp. The indictment noted that MySpace computer servers are located in Los Angeles County.

Due to juvenile privacy rules, the U.S. attorney's office said, the indictment refers to the girl as M.T.M.

FBI agents in St. Louis and Los Angeles investigated the case, Hernandez said.

Each of the four counts carries a maximum possible penalty of five years in prison.

Drew will be arraigned in St. Louis and then moved to Los Angeles for trial.

The indictment says MySpace members agree to abide by terms of service that include, among other things, not promoting information they know to be false or misleading; soliciting personal information from anyone under age 18 and not using information gathered from the Web site to "harass, abuse or harm other people."

Drew and others who were not named conspired to violate the service terms from about September 2006 to mid-October that year, according to the indictment. It alleges they registered as a MySpace member under a phony name and used the account to obtain information on the girl.

Drew and her coconspirators "used the information obtained over the MySpace computer system to torment, harass, humiliate, and embarrass the juvenile MySpace member," the indictment charged.

After the girl killed herself, Drew and the others deleted the information for the account, the indictment said.

Last month, an employee of Drew, 19-year-old Ashley Grills, told ABC's "Good Morning America" she created the false MySpace profile but Drew wrote some of the messages to Megan.

Grills said Drew suggested talking to Megan via the Internet to find out what Megan was saying about Drew's daughter, who was a former friend.

Grills also said she wrote the message to Megan about the world being a better place without her. The message was supposed to end the online relationship with "Josh" because Grills felt the joke had gone too far.

"I was trying to get her angry so she would leave him alone and I could get rid of the whole MySpace," Grills told the morning show.

Megan's death was investigated by Missouri authorities, but no state charges were filed because no laws appeared to apply to the case.

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Amigo · Posts: 6854 Location: Southern Cal

I hope that bitches life is destroyed.

aidan · Posts: 6309

The scariest part about it (to me) is that this woman had a child herself...a daughter, in fact, of around the same age apparently.

Beyond just human being to human being (in terms of gauging how to treat another person and how your treatment of that person might be received) she should have known (because she had a living, breathing one in her own house with her) how this might affect a young teenaged girl.

Even if nothing like the girl's suicide had resulted - it's also scary to me to think that there are people like this who are parents at all. These are the kind of people providing an example and role model for our children (and those kids do affect all of us who have to spend time with them every day ).
And we wonder where children 'LEARN' cruelty.

How sad - my heart goes out to this family. Is there really any way for them to prove she did this? (I'm not computer savvy enough to know).

nimh · Posts: 27475 Location: Hungary

edgarblythe wrote:

LOS ANGELES — A federal grand jury today indicted a Missouri woman for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network MySpace against a 13-year-old neighbor who committed suicide.

Yes!

I remember this case, I read up about it I was so shocked... how sick can you get. Despicable. Truly beyond words.

aidan wrote:

The scariest part about it (to me) is that this woman had a child herself...a daughter, in fact, of around the same age apparently.

Yeah, and when the whole case broke that daughter then started her own blog -- not to apologise, but to complain how her family was treated unfairly and how Megan, the girl who'd hanged herself, hadnt been the angel people made her out to be anyway, how annoying she had been etc.

TTH · Posts: 16317

I saw the case on the news. Apparently the authorities do have the computer/s? involved and can prove what words were exchanged. At the time I saw the story they hadn't closed the case nor pressed charges. To me that meant the authorities were looking for a law to be able to press charges against the ones involved and hold them accountable. I think the blame is 50/50. That is just my opinion. Another have to wait and see how it turns out case.

aidan · Posts: 6309

TTH- Blame for what is 50/50?

Nihm- I was talking about this with my students. And though they stated their belief that the girl who killed herself may have been annoying - she may even have been a bully herself, but for the adult woman to involve herself and start playing the same game that these kids play is pretty sad.... They said, 'She must not have much of a life if she has time to do stuff like this.'

But I find it scary- in that these are the people (parents) who are supposed to teach their kids how to act. And they don't seem to have much more sense than the children.'

I also find it really sad that the young people I talked to about it were not surprised, they were not appalled- in fact they were telling ME - that's just the way the world is Miss. And then they said, 'It will never change.'

I felt so sad to hear them say that. I still believe we can change the world for the better...but I think that's because I came up in a different time when I saw good changes happening, and there was less hatred so blatantly evident- and many fewer avenues through which it could be expressed - either openly or secretly and insidiously.

nimh · Posts: 27475 Location: Hungary

aidan wrote:

Nihm- I was talking about this with my students. And though they stated their belief that the girl who killed herself may have been annoying - she may even have been a bully herself, but for the adult woman to involve herself and start playing the same game that these kids play is pretty sad.... They said, 'She must not have much of a life if she has time to do stuff like this.'

Oh yeah, no sure.. I didnt mean at all as extenuating. The whole thing disgusted me. The mother of course is the most heinous. For an adult to do that. To deliberately and over such a long time play a cruel game with a psychologically disturbed teenage girl.. the mind boggles.

Every class has an 'ugly duckling' or two who are targeted for mocking and bullying by their classmates; parents and teachers should protect them. This parent on the other hand upped the ante and set up this cruel hoax that ended up driving the bullied girl over the edge and suiciding. What kind of person does that?

But the fact that all this girl, her daughter, who had played her role, took from the whole thing was that the girl who committed suicide was really just herself to blame anyhow and now they were being unfairly portrayed, whine... not a hint of any kind of sense of responsibility or guilt, just entitlement and self-pity and - yeah, no wonder with such a mother but the whole family obviously just... yeah, no words, really. Just unbelievable.

TTH · Posts: 16317

aidan wrote:

TTH- Blame for what is 50/50?

I see the whole situation as partly the bullies fault and partly the girl's fault who hanged herself.

"U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien said this was the first time the federal statute on accessing protected computers has been used in a social-networking case. It has been used in the past to address hacking." This to me is of great importance because it is a first which can affect other cases if they arise.

I am more curious to see if there is going to be a civil lawsuit and if so, will mysp... (the site I don't like) is going to be dragged into it.

aidan · Posts: 6309

Well yeah - any person who commits suicide is responsible for their own death by definition.

I don't think blame is the right word for how one should think of her responsibility in this situation though.

None of us know what else was going on in her life. But one thing is for sure - this specific adult didn't treat her with the caring and compassion that any child deserves from every mature and thinking adult in their world.

Not that that's a big surprise - in fact- as my students told me - they don't find this sort of behavior to be the exception from adults - they find it to be the rule.

Kids have so little faith in adults these days...no wonder some of them can't face the world. Look at what they're given to look forward to.

TTH · Posts: 16317

Okay aidan, I agree that "blame" might not have been the right word for me to use. Then change it to responsibility. I think the adult is 50% responsible and the girl who killed herself is 50% responsible.

btw why should only children be treated with caring and compassion. What about adults treating other adults with caring and compassion.