This has got to be one of the most slimey, despicable things I have read in a long time. Imagine a middle-aged person creating a false persona online and driving a 13 year old to suicide.
MySpace hoax victim’s kin seek justice
‘No apologies’ over teen who hanged herself over failed romance, kin say
By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 3:03 p.m. ET, Mon., Nov. 19, 2007
The parents of a 13-year-old Missouri girl who hanged herself after a failed MySpace romance — later uncovered as a hoax — say they have yet to receive an apology from the family they blame for their daughter’s death.
“They’ve absolutely offered no apologies,” Ron Meier told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer on Monday. “They sent us a letter in the mail, basically saying that they might feel a little bit of responsibility, but they don’t feel no guilt or remorse or anything for what they did.”
Rather, said Tina Meier, the people are upset with her for going public with their story. Last week, while shopping, she ran into the woman who invented the hoax, Tina Meier said.
“She asked me to stop doing all of this,” she told Lauer. “I told her that we would not stop, that we were going to continue for justice for Megan because we knew what they did.”
The Meiers’ daughter, Megan, hanged herself Oct. 16, 2006.
The Meiers have not named the people because they do not want to identify their teenage daughter, who had once been a friend of Megan’s.
After the two girls had a falling out, the mother invented a 16-year-old boy, “Josh Evans,” created a MySpace account for him, and made Megan believe he was new in town and thought she was cool.
‘Oh, Mom, you don’t understand’
Megan, a girl who had battled attention deficit disorder, depression and a weight problem for much of her young life, believed him, despite her mother’s warnings to be cautious.
“That was always the talk,” Tina Meier told Lauer, repeating the conversations she had with her daughter: “‘Megan, c’mon, we don’t even know this person. Let’s not get too excited.’ She’d say, ‘Oh, Mom, you don’t understand.’ So I did talk to her daily about that. But children at this age, they don’t think that.”
And then the boy turned on Megan, leading a campaign of vilification and online name-calling that ended when Megan took her own life.
For a year, the Meiers kept quiet at the request of both the FBI and local law enforcement officials while they investigated the incident.
Ultimately, investigators told the Meiers that while the hoax was cruel, it was not criminal.
‘Continue to monitor your children’
The case remains open, though, and the Meiers continue to hope that criminal charges can be filed under a federal law passed in January 2006 that prohibits online harassment.
“We are still continuing on with the fight on the criminal and the civil side,” said Ron Meier.
The family’s story is, Tina Meier told Lauer, a cautionary tale about the trouble that lies in wait for kids on the Internet, a tale made more painful because they had monitored their daughter’s Internet use closely and had talked to her about “Josh” and the events that ended so tragically.
“It was monitored highly,” Tina Meier said of her daughter’s MySpace account. “We had the password. She couldn’t sign on without us. We had to be in the room” when she was online.
They have not filed a civil suit against the people who invented Josh, but are not ruling that out.
And they also want to warn other parents and children to beware of people online who claim to be their friends.
“Continue to monitor your children,” Tina Meier told Lauer. “Take an extra step. Ask the question. Look at their computers, know what they’re doing. To kids, don’t trust anybody online that you do not know is your true friend.”
Tina Meier has said that she doesn’t think anyone involved intended for her daughter to kill herself.
‘Absolutely vile’
”But when adults are involved and continue to screw with a 13-year-old, with or without mental problems, it is absolutely vile,” she told the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis, which first reported on the case.
Tina Meier said law enforcement officials told her the case did not fit into any law. But sheriff’s officials have not closed the case and pledged to consider new evidence if it emerges.
Megan Meier was described as a “bubbly, goofy” girl who loved spending time with her friends, watching movies and fishing with her dad.
Megan had been on medication, but had been upbeat before her death, her mother said, after striking up a relationship on MySpace with Josh Evans about six weeks before her death.
Josh told her he was born in Florida and had recently moved to the nearby community of O’Fallon. He said he was home-schooled, and didn’t yet have a phone number in the area to give her.
Megan’s parents said she received a message from him on Oct. 15 of last year, essentially saying he didn’t want to be her friend anymore, that he had heard she wasn’t nice to her friends.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21882976/
MySpace hoax victim’s kin seek justice
‘No apologies’ over teen who hanged herself over failed romance, kin say
By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 3:03 p.m. ET, Mon., Nov. 19, 2007
The parents of a 13-year-old Missouri girl who hanged herself after a failed MySpace romance — later uncovered as a hoax — say they have yet to receive an apology from the family they blame for their daughter’s death.
“They’ve absolutely offered no apologies,” Ron Meier told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer on Monday. “They sent us a letter in the mail, basically saying that they might feel a little bit of responsibility, but they don’t feel no guilt or remorse or anything for what they did.”
Rather, said Tina Meier, the people are upset with her for going public with their story. Last week, while shopping, she ran into the woman who invented the hoax, Tina Meier said.
“She asked me to stop doing all of this,” she told Lauer. “I told her that we would not stop, that we were going to continue for justice for Megan because we knew what they did.”
The Meiers’ daughter, Megan, hanged herself Oct. 16, 2006.
The Meiers have not named the people because they do not want to identify their teenage daughter, who had once been a friend of Megan’s.
After the two girls had a falling out, the mother invented a 16-year-old boy, “Josh Evans,” created a MySpace account for him, and made Megan believe he was new in town and thought she was cool.
‘Oh, Mom, you don’t understand’
Megan, a girl who had battled attention deficit disorder, depression and a weight problem for much of her young life, believed him, despite her mother’s warnings to be cautious.
“That was always the talk,” Tina Meier told Lauer, repeating the conversations she had with her daughter: “‘Megan, c’mon, we don’t even know this person. Let’s not get too excited.’ She’d say, ‘Oh, Mom, you don’t understand.’ So I did talk to her daily about that. But children at this age, they don’t think that.”
And then the boy turned on Megan, leading a campaign of vilification and online name-calling that ended when Megan took her own life.
For a year, the Meiers kept quiet at the request of both the FBI and local law enforcement officials while they investigated the incident.
Ultimately, investigators told the Meiers that while the hoax was cruel, it was not criminal.
‘Continue to monitor your children’
The case remains open, though, and the Meiers continue to hope that criminal charges can be filed under a federal law passed in January 2006 that prohibits online harassment.
“We are still continuing on with the fight on the criminal and the civil side,” said Ron Meier.
The family’s story is, Tina Meier told Lauer, a cautionary tale about the trouble that lies in wait for kids on the Internet, a tale made more painful because they had monitored their daughter’s Internet use closely and had talked to her about “Josh” and the events that ended so tragically.
“It was monitored highly,” Tina Meier said of her daughter’s MySpace account. “We had the password. She couldn’t sign on without us. We had to be in the room” when she was online.
They have not filed a civil suit against the people who invented Josh, but are not ruling that out.
And they also want to warn other parents and children to beware of people online who claim to be their friends.
“Continue to monitor your children,” Tina Meier told Lauer. “Take an extra step. Ask the question. Look at their computers, know what they’re doing. To kids, don’t trust anybody online that you do not know is your true friend.”
Tina Meier has said that she doesn’t think anyone involved intended for her daughter to kill herself.
‘Absolutely vile’
”But when adults are involved and continue to screw with a 13-year-old, with or without mental problems, it is absolutely vile,” she told the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis, which first reported on the case.
Tina Meier said law enforcement officials told her the case did not fit into any law. But sheriff’s officials have not closed the case and pledged to consider new evidence if it emerges.
Megan Meier was described as a “bubbly, goofy” girl who loved spending time with her friends, watching movies and fishing with her dad.
Megan had been on medication, but had been upbeat before her death, her mother said, after striking up a relationship on MySpace with Josh Evans about six weeks before her death.
Josh told her he was born in Florida and had recently moved to the nearby community of O’Fallon. He said he was home-schooled, and didn’t yet have a phone number in the area to give her.
Megan’s parents said she received a message from him on Oct. 15 of last year, essentially saying he didn’t want to be her friend anymore, that he had heard she wasn’t nice to her friends.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21882976/
