Internet Suicide

C

Cancel7

Banned
Here is some follow-up to that story about the young girl who committed suicide after having a trick played on her by a middle-aged woman on the internet.

Water I thought you especially might be interested because I remember you were really disgusted by what happened.

Town Shuns Family Over Hoax, Suicide
By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD,
AP
Posted: 2007-12-07 11:07:56
Filed Under: Nation News
DARDENNE PRAIRIE, Mo. (Dec. 6) - Waterford Crystal Drive is one of those suburban streets that seem so new as to have no history at all. But the suicide of a teenage girl - and allegations she had been tormented by a neighbor over the Internet - have brought a reaction that is old, almost tribal, in its n
Residents of the middle-class subdivision have turned against the neighbor, Lori Drew, and her family, demanding the Drews move out. In interviews, they have warned darkly that someone might be tempted to "take matters into their own hands."

"It's like they used to do in the 1700s and 1800s. If you wronged a community, you were basically shunned. That's basically what happened to her," said Trever Buckles, a 40-year-old who lives next door to the Drews.

Drew became an outcast after she participated in a hoax in which a fictional teenager by the name of "Josh Evans" exchanged online messages with 13-year-old Megan Meier. Megan received cruel messages from Josh that apparently drove her to hang herself in her closet in 2006.

Through her lawyer, Drew, a mother of two in her 40s, has denied saying hurtful things to the girl over the Internet, and prosecutors have said they found no grounds for charges against the woman. Nevertheless, the community reaction has been vengeful and the pressure on the Drews intense.

More than 100 residents gathered in front of their home on a recent evening, holding candles and reciting stories about Megan.

Last December, after neighbors learned of the Internet hoax, someone threw a brick through a window in the Drew home. A few weeks ago, someone made a prank call to police reporting that there had been a shooting inside the Drews' house, prompting squad cars to arrive with sirens flashing.

Someone recently obtained the password to change the Drews' outgoing cell phone recording, and replaced it with a disturbing message. Police would not detail the content.

Clients have fled from Drew's home-based advertising business, so she had to close it. Neighbors have not seen Drew outside her home in weeks.

Death threats and ugly insults have been hurled at Drew over the Internet, where she has been portrayed as a monster who should go to prison, lose custody of her children, or worse. Her name and address have been posted online, and a Web site with satellite images of the home said the Drews should "rot in hell."

Some of the threats "really freak me out," Buckles said while standing on his front porch after dark Tuesday night. As he spoke, a car slowed and stopped in front of Drew's home. It sat there idling for a few long minutes, then sped away. Buckles said it is a common occurrence.

"I just really hope that no one comes out here and does something insane," Buckles said. "If they do, I hope they get the right house."
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/town-s...e/20071207071409990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
 
It'll be OK. Hurting them isn't going to do any good. But what they did was bullying on the worst level. They acted like little children and got someone killed.
 
Watermark said:
It'll be OK. Hurting them isn't going to do any good. But what they did was bullying on the worst level. They acted like little children and got someone killed.
Click to expand...

I agree, and I do not wish to see them hurt in anyway. I am all for a good old-fashioned shunning however.

Throwing rocks through windows, way over the line.
 
That's a fucked up neighborhood to live in these days. The Drew's should just move. Somehow I don't see this ending without an incident if they stay. That miserable piece of shit deserves to be outcasted, but unfortunately it looks like the neighborhood has adopted a mob mentality and is no longer physically safe for them.
 
Beefy said:
That's a fucked up neighborhood to live in these days. The Drew's should just move. Somehow I don't see this ending without an incident if they stay. That miserable piece of shit deserves to be outcasted, but unfortunately it looks like the neighborhood has adopted a mob mentality and is no longer physically safe for them.
Click to expand...

I know, it's just such a shame that people do not see where to draw the line. She does deserve to be made an outcast...that was a proper reaction. Decent people should shun her. But yeah, that is a good way of putting it, the "mob mentality"...it seems to have taken over.
 
Again back to my statements about my not likeing what we have become.

Why do I hate what America is becoming ? Let me count the ways.
 
Americans too often form into a mob-like mentality. But death threats are often thrown, and rarely acted on. She'll be safe but she should move.

She's been denounced and that's about all I think should happen - it is a terrible punishment, and fit for the crime. There'd be no point in imprisoning her. I just wish people wouldn't be so violent and hurtful.
 
I can't believe that they have no laws against following somebody around and harassing them. Those should apply regardless of where she harassed her from. The woman should be spending some time in prison. Especially for an adult to victimize a child this way.

Thankfully that problem has been resolved for later cases.

Shunned? She shouldn't be able to show her face in public again. We all know that zitty freak who shot up a mall and killed himself, but I doubt most would recognize this piece of walking meat full of inhumanity....

She disgusts me. She isn't even worthy to grace the bottom of my boot next to the horse leavings...
 
Umm, the girl bullied the mothers daughter first, and a simple return prank didn't cause this girl to kill herself, her obvious mental instability did, not the rejection of a boy she'd never even meet. Morally it was wrong, but surely they didn't foresee the girls suicide. I do feel there might be an overreaction by some over this mean act.
 
This is wrong. Adding more stupidity to the equation is not going to make anything better. This woman made a VERY bad choice if all that is said is true. She obviously broke no law. There is one other thing people are forgetting here. This woman has at least one child.This child is also being harassed and threatened. How in anyones mind can that be right?
 
I do believe I herd the girl who killed herself had bullied the girl who did the bullying in this instance first. This was retribution for the earlier bullying, where the mother jumped in to help, certainly not high moral standards, but hardly deserving of this kind of attention either. I stand by my assertion it was the girls own mental instability that resulted in her death.
 
WRL said:
Umm, the girl bullied the mothers daughter first, and a simple return prank didn't cause this girl to kill herself, her obvious mental instability did, not the rejection of a boy she'd never even meet. Morally it was wrong, but surely they didn't foresee the girls suicide. I do feel there might be an overreaction by some over this mean act.
Click to expand...
Please. She continued a "relationship" with the girl purposefully trying to create the reaction.

When the girl finally killed herself the lady answered, "She deserved it."

And it wasn't because she had bullied her daughter, she says she was aware that her daughter and her friend were doing the hoax on her but told them to "send only polite messages". Instead the hoax became deadly when the young girl thought she loved the young man she was pretending to be, and was brutally dumped and haunted, followed around, by the "young man" to the point she finally committed suicide. What was done to that young lady should not be legal and no longer is.

"Josh" the boy she thought she had fallen in love with her ended his last statement read before she committed suicide with "The world would be better off without you."
 
Damocles said:
I can't believe that they have no laws against following somebody around and harassing them. Those should apply regardless of where she harassed her from. The woman should be spending some time in prison. Especially for an adult to victimize a child this way.

Thankfully that problem has been resolved for later cases.

Shunned? She shouldn't be able to show her face in public again. We all know that zitty freak who shot up a mall and killed himself, but I doubt most would recognize this piece of walking meat full of inhumanity....

She disgusts me. She isn't even worthy to grace the bottom of my boot next to the horse leavings...
Click to expand...

Why do you always annoy me so much, even whenever I agree with the basic concept, that this was wrong? No, she shouldn't spend time in prison.

You know, it's funny, you keep on saying things like this are "not what you recongnize as human". But from what I know of humans, yes, it does sound exactly like them.

It's the action that is evil, Damo, not her, and that's why I guess I'm annoyed, because you don't even seem to care about the action, but demonize the person. A person is not defined by a single action. Do I think her action was evil? Yes. Do I think she is evil? No. Do I want her hurt? No.

I mean, really, let's think about this. I don't believe in simple vengeance. Can we deter actions like this from suburban housewives with prison? Not really. Will she do it again? No. That leaves the other two kinds of punishment, retribution, which is useless, and denunciation, which is in full force. I think I'll leave it at that, Damo.
 
Last edited:
WRL said:
I do believe I herd the girl who killed herself had bullied the girl who did the bullying in this instance first. This was retribution for the earlier bullying, where the mother jumped in to help, certainly not high moral standards, but hardly deserving of this kind of attention either. I stand by my assertion it was the girls own mental instability that resulted in her death.
Click to expand...

That's one reason why the world would be better without retribution.
 
Desh said:
This is wrong. Adding more stupidity to the equation is not going to make anything better. This woman made a VERY bad choice if all that is said is true. She obviously broke no law. There is one other thing people are forgetting here. This woman has at least one child.This child is also being harassed and threatened. How in anyones mind can that be right?
Click to expand...

Yeah, Desh, that's what I'm takling about. The vast cycles of apathy and violence that come out of things like this. Just leave it be, for Christ's sake. We all know what she did was wrong, and she will know to someday. Retribution is useless at this point...

:(
 
WRL said:
Umm, the girl bullied the mothers daughter first, and a simple return prank didn't cause this girl to kill herself, her obvious mental instability did, not the rejection of a boy she'd never even meet. Morally it was wrong, but surely they didn't foresee the girls suicide. I do feel there might be an overreaction by some over this mean act.
Click to expand...

*Sigh*

Why are you justifying this?

The girl who killed herself... she was probably very cruel. She probably thought that the other girl deserved it. She was depressed and mentally unstable, sure. Instead of just leaving it be, the other girl went to her mother, and whined, and the mother became inflamed, that someone would hurt her daughter so. She then wants vengeance, wants to hurt the girl real bad, pay her back tenfold. So she mocks her on myspace, mocks her love, and the original bully, who bullied because of mental instability, was driven to a more mentally instable state by the bullying in retribution. She killed herself. Now, people want to kill the daughter, they want to kill the mother.

So everyone's dead and everyones evil. That's the way man works.
 
bottom line, it was the girls mental instability, I just can't accept a 'sane' person commits suicide over a 'love' they've never meet. I personally have no sympathy when a bully gets bullied, kind of justice imo.
 
Watermark said:
Why do you always annoy me so much, even whenever I agree with the basic concept, that this was wrong? No, she shouldn't spend time in prison.

You know, it's funny, you keep on saying things like this are "not what you recongnize as human". But from what I know of humans, yes, it does sound exactly like them.

It's the action that is evil, Damo, not her, and that's why I guess I'm annoyed, because you don't even seem to care about the action, but demonize the person. A person is not defined by a single action. Do I think her action was evil? Yes. Do I think she is evil? No. Do I want her hurt? No.

I mean, really, let's think about this. I don't believe in simple vengeance. Can we deter actions like this from suburban housewives with prison? Not really. Will she do it again? No. That leaves the other two kinds of punishment, retribution, which is useless, and denunciation, which is in full force. I think I'll leave it at that, Damo.
Click to expand...
In order to take the action one must decide to act that way. To pretend that one does not associate to the other is simply overcompensation for wanting to believe that they didn't choose to do "evil".

Yes, she should spend time for purposefully driving another to suicide.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top