Woman Indicted In MySpace Suicide Case

longacre writes "The Associated Press is reporting an indictment has been handed down in the sad case of Megan Meier, the girl who committed suicide after receiving upsetting MySpace messages from someone she perceived to be her boyfriend. It was later determined the boy, Josh Evans, was a fictitious identity created by a neighbor of Meier's family. Lori Drew, of a St. Louis suburb, has been charged with 'one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress on the girl.' Interestingly, despite the alleged crime having occurred strictly in Missouri, the case was investigated by the FBI's St. Louis and Los Angeles field offices, and the trial will be held in Los Angeles, home of MySpace's servers. Wired is running a related story about the potentially 'scary' precedent this case could set."

Comments

Re:What's the big deal?

[hyades1]

I'm not sure I'm saying it properly, but it seems to me that this is going beyond calling somebody nasty names into an entirely new game. The case apparently centers on the manipulation of a minor through cold-blooded deceit and willful misrepresentation. It's the difference between beating somebody up during a fight and torturing a helpless prisoner.

I'm not sure a law covering something like this wouldn't wind up being a cure worse than the disease. However, if this woman actually did what she's alleged to have done, she's a sadist at least and probably a sociopath. People like her wind up getting caught with dead people chained in their basement.

Re:It's as simple as this

[egomaniac]

This hits close to home, as my sister-in-law is mentally ill and unable to properly care for herself, so she is currently living with my wife and me. And her parents absolutely do not understand that this is a real illness -- they have repeatedly told her that she just needs to "snap out of it" and pull herself together, and that she just needs to exercise some willpower and stop feeling the way she does.

And of course every time they have a conversation like this she is left in tears and feeling completely worthless, which is great for somebody that's going through some serious problems to begin with. She has repeatedly said that she wishes she had some kind of gaping wound instead, because at least then people would take it seriously.

Mental illness can be frustrating -- I'm frustrated with her myself sometimes. But I have never doubted for a second that she is truly ill, and she is taking her meds and going to therapy and everything else she needs to do in order to get better. And it's working; just not quickly enough for her parents, evidently.