Parents tell how MySpace encounter led to daughter's suicide
1:21 p.m. Monday, November 19, 2007
13-year-old Megan Meier was a typical teenager living in a St. Louis suburb. And, like many girls her age, she was excited when a boy befriended her on the popular networking site, MySpace.com.
"She got this email from this boy named Josh Evans," said Megan's mother, Tina Meier.
The friendly internet exchange went on for six weeks, but then turned cruel.
"Megan gets an email, or a message from Josh, on her MySpace saying I don't know if I want to be friends with you any longer because I hear you're not nice to your friends," Tina said.
Devastated and unable to understand how the friendship unraveled, Megan fell into a depression. And then, the unimaginable: her parents discovered her hanging in her bedroom closet.
A month later they say they found out "Josh" was a hoax, created by the mother of a former friend from down the street who was trying to find out what Megan thought about her daughter.
"I believe they were the ones that took her to the edge of the cliff and gave her the nudge to go over," Megan's dad, Ron Meier said.
It's a tragedy in the online world of Cyber bullying.
And, at least a third of teenagers report being bullied at some point, in a domain that's tough to verify true identities.
Post a comment
(Requires free registration.)