This is the kind of story that just makes me crazy. A little girl, struggling with challenges faced by far too many kids these days, became the victim of a cruel hoax. What makes this so tragic is that one of the perpetrators of the fraud that led this 13 year old girl to take her own life is an adult!
Megan Meier thought she had made a new friend in cyberspace when a cute teenage boy named Josh contacted her on MySpace and began exchanging messages with her.
Megan, a 13-year-old who suffered from depression and attention deficit disorder, corresponded with Josh for more than a month before he abruptly ended their friendship, telling her he had heard she was cruel.
The next day Megan committed suicide. Her family learned later that Josh never actually existed; he was created by members of a neighborhood family that included a former friend of Megan’s. [...]
Another parent, who learned of the MySpace account from her own daughter who had access to the Josh profile, told Megan’s parents about the hoax in a counselor’s office about six weeks after Megan died. That’s when they learned Josh was imaginary, they said.
The woman who created the fake profile has not been charged with a crime. She allegedly told the St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department she created Josh’s profile because she wanted to gain Megan’s confidence to know what Megan was saying about her own child online.
The mother from down the street told police that she, her daughter and another person all typed and monitored the communication between the fictitious boy and Megan.
There doesn’t seem to be laws that directly deal with what happened to Megan, but it seems there should be some consequence for an adult who takes part in this action.
