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The classic girl-meets-boy story that
turned terribly wrong in October 2006, when 13-year-old Megan Meier hanged herself
in her bedroom closet, will have serious consequences on the person responsible
for it. Lori Drew was indicted by a federal grand jury for creating a MySpace
account to interact with Megan and drive her to despair. The woman was charged
on one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers
without authorization to obtain information that caused the young girl
emotional distress.
The 49-year-old Missouri woman is held
responsible for creating a fake MySpace account using the name “John Evans” and
pretending to be a 16-year-old boy interested in Megan. Just when things
started to go well between Megan and her so-called friend, Josh Evans turned
against her all of a sudden and started sending her negative comments. His last
message to Megan was: “The world would be a better place without you,” and that
is when the young girl decided to end her life.
The reasons for Lori Drew’s
actions are far from reasonable: although the woman denied the accusations, she
reportedly created the fake account to find out what Megan thought about her
daughter. However, according to her lawyer, although aware of the account
(which she denied having created), she did not send any messages to Megan Meier
(which is why the investigation has been stalled for so long).
This time however, the jury
decided that such a behavior is not acceptable, and although the case is
unprecedented, it should be a sign that social networking is not a tool to
bully or harass another person, especially a young girl, and that such actions
will most certainly have serious consequences. Lori Drew will appear for an
arraignment in a Los Angeles District Court in June.
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