Mom: Web hoax led girl to kill herself

Mom: Web hoax led girl to kill herself

news.yahoo.com

DARDENNE PRAIRIE, Mo. - 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.

(visit the link for the full news article)

What a heartbreaking story. Cyber bullying has started to be the new form of ridicule among children these days. Not enough schools are addressing it, and some choose to ignore the threat of it.

I can't imagine how much pain this girl felt after finding out someone she trusted turned on her for no other reason than someone playing a cruel trick on her.

I hope the people who created Josh, so that they can harass this girl are charged with some crime.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 17-11-2007 by DJMessiah]

This really is just heartbreaking, how cruel!
Saddens me to know people can act like this towards others, especially vulnerable kids.

I dislike the internet more and more every day

According to Myspace Tos...

"; (b) you will maintain the accuracy of such information; (c) you are 14 years of age or older; and (d) your use of the MySpace Services does not violate any applicable law or regulation. Your profile may be deleted and your Membership may be terminated without warning, if we believe that you are under 14 years of age. "

She was 13 years old, too young for the site. Apparently her mom allowed her to lie about her age or Myspace did not catch this in time. I suspect there are reasons for that, as such what happened. Her mom knew this, admitted to supervising her daughter. However did not take into account that a depressed teen may be to a susceptible relationship problems. Not to point the blame, even though what the male did to her was terrible and uncalled for. Also, this could have been prevented, possibly with waiting until she surely felt her daughter was mature/ mentally stable enough age and feelings wise to have an online relationship.

reply to post by ImJaded


Thing is, kids are usually more heartless to each other than adults are. But then they usually don't know any better.

Cyber-bullying isn't something new. It's just an extension of regular bullying on to the internet.

fubar thing about it too is other parents were involved in this....
THAT is sick....i was watching cnn and they were talking to the mom of the dead girl and she said something like the mom of the other kid straight up told her that if her daughter wanted to kill herself(the one that did), they would have loaded the gun for her.

interesting to note also the mother went to the cops and tried to get the cyber crimes unit on it and nothing was done....

kids(people) are finding new ways to be cruel to each other....it is terrible.

the parents of the dead girl are not seperated and their lives are ruined.

So far it seems the bullying allegations have not been proven...

Her father said he found a message the next day from Josh, which he said law enforcement authorities have not been able to retrieve. It told the girl she was a bad person and the world would be better without her, he has said.

Regardless, I hope the little girl didn't have any siblings. Natural selection works for a reason.

Parents stupid enough to let their 13 year old daughter with mental problems onto MySpace of all places really should not be breeding.

Megan's parents are now separated and plan to divorce.

Hallelujah.

It's sad - I noticed the girl was on meds for depression, at 13 that makes me a bit angry with society, I'm not sure about adults using that sort of med let alone developing minds.

What also made me upset with this is that the mother of Megans former friend created the profile to see what Megan was saying about her daughter online. So in otherwords, the girls were having a quarrel as kids often do, and the mother got into the drama like a gossiping teenager herself.

Kids will be kids, and kids get into arguments with their friends and then make up again. My best friend and I were just talking the other day about how when we were young we'd get into quarrels, call eachother names, swear up and down that we hated eachother and then we'd be best friends again the next week.

When a parent gets involved in the way that this mother did, I feel that it encourages the quarreling and the immaturity and the vulgar behaviour. She could have left well enough alone and the situation between the two girls would have probably ironed itself out one way or another on its own.

*sigh* I'm gonna get reamed for this, but what the hell.


I went through a TON of cruel jokes and "poking" fun going through school. Whether it was for being fat or wearing glasses or not being rich or whatever. I, along with 85% of the rest of my classmates went through DAILY cruelty that was MUCH MUCH worse than this. We are all still kickin.

I may be being a insensitive *snip* here, but I just don't understand what kind of personal weakness it takes to kill yourself over something so minor.

Sure, it may not have been a minor thing to her, BUT, if she killed herself over this, it was just a matter of time until she killed herself anyway. While this event may have been the particular catalyst, I see no reason that legal action should be taken against someone who picked on her online. Sure, the parents of the offenders should be spanking some ass, but legal action? No way!

Sad fact is, some of us just aren't meant to make it to adulthood.

Life is VERY hard. If something this minor made her kill herself, she never stood a chance.

I feel for the girl and even more so for her family, but, I can't see any sort of legal punishment for this. No way, no how, NEVER.


What's that theory Darwin had? Survival of the fittest?


Jasn

I agree with you whole heartedly. I seriously feel that we are making wimps out of our kids. Yes it is insensitive, but you know what, the strong survive. We need to teach our children how to handle these kinds of situations rather than point the fingers at someone else when something goes wrong.

Same can be said with the mother of the other girl involved as I stated in my last post, she should have let the girls deal with their petty argument themselves and not get involved in the way that she did.

I agree that parents need to pay attention to what their kids are doing and step in when it begins to get out of hand, along with the school administration. However, we can not fight all of our childrens battles for them.

[edit on 20-11-2007 by snowflake_obsidian]

i'm not buying it completely... especially since the first description of the girl said "suffered from depression and attention deficit disorder." How generic can you get? That's like saying she suffered from introversion and restless leg syndrome.

Then I just started scanning for a certain phrase... and found it:

Megan had been on medication, but had been upbeat before her death

notice the disqualification (but, ...). Whenever you use the words "but, however, yet, etc." you are negating whatever preceded it. In this case, insinuating that the medication was completely unrelated, and that it was helping. I'm not buying it, not even close.

I mean, after reading the article I believe the prank certainly pushed this poor girl over the edge, but the real culprit is not some spammer - it's this girls ignorance to the internet, and whoever put her on medication (under the very large assumption it was a mix of ritalin/adderall and anti-depressants).

Originally posted by snowflake_obsidian
However, we can not fight all of our childrens battles for them.

[edit on 20-11-2007 by snowflake_obsidian]

Indeed!

There are far too many battles that ALL of us have to face alone. If we teach our children to be dependent on us to solve their issues, what will they do when we are gone?


Jasn

Depend on the Government.

Not that there's an agenda there. Nah, couldn't be.