bullying needs to stop(people's stories)

Megan Meier's story

Megan Taylor Meier (November 6, 1992 – October 17, 2006) was an American teenager from Dardenne Prairie, Missouri, who committed suicide by hanging three weeks before her fourteenth birthday. A year later, Meier's parents prompted an investigation into the matter and her suicide was attributed to cyber-bullying through the social networking website MySpace. The mother of a friend of Meier, Lori Drew, was later indicted on the matter in 2008, but in 2009, Drew was acquitted.[1]

  [edit] Background

Megan Meier was born in O'Fallon, Missouri, to Christina "Tina" Meier and Ronald Meier. She had lived in nearby Dardenne Prairie during her childhood, with her parents and sister Allison.

From the third grade, Megan had been under the care of a psychiatrist. She had been prescribed citalopram, methylphenidate and ziprasidone.[2] She had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and depression, and had self-esteem issues regarding her weight.[3] She was described by her parents as a "bubbly, goofy" girl who enjoyed spending time with her friends and family.[4]

Meier attended Fort Zumwalt public schools, including Pheasant Point Elementary School and Fort Zumwalt West Middle School[5] in nearby O'Fallon, Missouri. For eighth grade, her parents enrolled her at Immaculate Conception Catholic School[5] in Dardenne Prairie, with a uniform and policy against makeup and jewelry that the Meiers thought would help Megan fit in.[6] At the time of the incident, the Drew and Meier households were neighbors, living four doors apart.[7]

The account through which the bullying of Meier took place purportedly belonged to a 16-year-old male named "Josh Evans." However, Lori Drew, the mother of a former friend of Meier, later admitted creating the MySpace account with her daughter and Ashley Grills, Lori Drew's 18-year-old employee. Several people contributed to running the faked account, including Drew. Witnesses testified that the women intended to use Meier’s e-mails with "Josh" to get information about her and later humiliate her, in retribution for her allegedly spreading gossip about Drew's daughter.[8][9][10][11][12][13][14]

[edit] Death

Soon after opening an account on MySpace, Meier received a message supposedly from a 16-year-old boy, Josh Evans, but actually sent by Lori Drew using a fabricated account. Meier and "Josh" became online friends, but never met in person or spoke. Meier thought "Josh" was attractive. Meier began to exchange messages with this person, and was described by family as having had her "spirits lifted". This person claimed to have just moved to the nearby city of O'Fallon, was home schooled, and did not yet have a phone number.

On October 15, 2006, the tone of the messages changed, with Drew saying (via the account) "I don't know if I want to be friends with you anymore because I've heard that you are not very nice to your friends". Similar messages were sent; some of Megan's messages were shared with others; and bulletins were posted about her. According to Meier's father, Ronald Meier, and a neighbor who had discussed the hoax with Drew, the last message sent by the Evans account read: "Everybody in O'Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you." Meier responded with a message reading "You’re the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over." The last few correspondences were made via AOL Instant Messenger instead of Myspace. She was found 21 minutes later in her bedroom closet; Megan had hanged herself. Despite attempts to revive her, she was pronounced dead the following day.[15][16][17]

[edit] Investigation [edit] Local

Several weeks after her death, Megan Meier's parents were informed that the mother of one of their daughter's friends—with whom Meier had a falling out—had created the "Josh Evans" account. The parent, Lori Drew, who created the fake account, admitted that she and her daughter had the password to the account, and characterized the hoax to a reporter as a "joke." Initially, Drew denied knowing about the offensive messages that were sent to Meier. She told the police that the account was aimed at "gaining Megan's confidence and finding out what Megan felt about her daughter and other people". The neighborhood mother who had informed the Meiers that Drew had been responsible for the hoax account said "Lori laughed about it," and that Drew said she had intended to "mess with Megan." While Drew's name was excluded from most early news stories, CNN disclosed her name through the inclusion of the police report in its broadcast of the story which many blogs then featured.[18][19][19]