I know it was the girl's choice to do what she did. I'm just shocked at the triggering circumstances.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:(She) explained the communication between the fake male profile and Megan was aimed at gaining Megan's confidence and finding out what Megan felt about her daughter and other people.
What a complete sicko.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I'm completely speechless. Instigation to suicide should be a crime. When it's an adult or, worse, several instigating a child, it should be treated as murder.
Posts: 354 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
Can't the family be charged with impersonation as well as illegal online activity, and through which mentally and socially abused a minor which most likely played a large part in said minor's suicide? Those all seem like legal implications to me.
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
Yeah, I can't buy that imprsonating a minor for the purposes of communicating with a minor isn't SOME kind of crime... Does their internet connection use a phone line? If so, is that wire fraud?
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
The sad thing is I could easily see a feuding girlfriend do this to someone. That it was instigated by adults just further enrages me against bad parents. There are so many people out there I would not trust with the raising and development of a child...
My heart breaks for Tina and Ron.
Posts: 349 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
I read this story a few days ago, and the circumstances seem to bizarre and convoluted that I cannot help but imagine there is more to it.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
What struck you as convoluted? The "Other Mother" chose a dishonest method of checking out the motivations of her daughter's friend, and carelessly shared this method with the girl's peers, who treated it like their chance to get in their digs.
The girl turns out to have mental and emotional issues, takes it all very personally, and makes a terrible decision.
That's upsetting as heck to me, but it unfortunately doesn't seem too weird or unaccountable. People have done even worse things with even flimsier reasons.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
I think there might be a way to prosecute the creators of "Josh Evans" with some kind of sexual abuse. I mean, I don't know all of what was said, but it appears Megan saw it as a romantic relationship.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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What an upsetting story on every level, and one with no clear resolution.
The parents of the poor girl driven to suicide have had their lives destroyed. This is compounded by the fact that the "guilty parties" will never be held accountable.
From a wider angel, I don't even see how this could have/could be prevented from happening. Even the strictest of parental controls assume that the parents are in someway responsible enough to monitor and control the behavoiur of their kids, which with this story just isn't the case.
Short of running a background check on each user, and monitoring communincations in real time, and with sufficient intelligence to spot abusive behaviour, it is would be well nigh impossible to prevent this scene being repeated.
We are constantly being advised to protect our kids from the Internet. Maybe we should add the caveat that this cuts both ways.
Posts: 892 | Registered: Oct 2006
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posted
Wow. A friend of mine gave me a brief synopsis of the story a couple nights ago but I had no idea it went to this extent. That is just...stunning. Couldn't they charge the mom with misrepreresenting herself to a minor? That seems like it'd be some sort of crime. Kudos to the newspaper, by the way, for not printing the names of the people who didn't want their names printed. While I think the family responsible for this is despicable, and that the mother should face SOME sort of punishment, if the names got out they'd almost certainly have to move, and it'd at least temporarily ruin the daughter's life. I know, I know, the OTHER girl is dead as a result, but there were a LOT of other factors involved, and I just don't think they should have to face that sort of harrassment. And in a day and age where it seems all the news really cares about is getting as much info out as possible, and consequences be damned, I think there's something admirable in holding back.
Anyway, this is maybe the saddest story I've seen in a long time, and I think it says a lot about the dangers of the internet. Even the most watchful parents can suffer consequences as a result. I don't know how we'd do it, but there needs to be a way to protect kids better on the internet, from all sorts of things, but not the least of which is places like MySpace. There are far too many kids out there desparate for attention and yearning for a friend, and far too many sick bastards who'll prey on that feeling for their own gain, and not very much standing between them other than the watchful eye of wary parents, which apparently isn't always good enough. Don't take that as my putting blame on the parents, though I think they may have been wise to not allow the account in the first place, I think they were commendably responsible in their oversight of their daughter's use of the site.
And the useless wondering in my mind is: What the hell was that mother thinking in okaying this sort of behavior for her daughter, and even participating in it? Whatever happened to face to face conflict resolution, or at the very least, calling the mother of the girl you think your daughter has a problem with? I know that kids are using the internet as a way to avoid facing problems with their peers in a face to face manner, but come on, PARENTS don't know any better? What a waste of life.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
The final Quote from the police report: "According to (her) 'somehow' other 'my space' users were able to access the fake male profile and Megan found out she had been duped. (She) stated she knew 'arguments' had broken out between Megan and others on 'my space.' (She) felt this incident contributed to Megan's suicide, but she did not feel 'as guilty' because at the funeral she found out 'Megan had tried to commit suicide before.'"
Take a look at that last sentence, because wow... Wouldn't that make you feel MORE guilty? I mean, normally? You find out that the 13 year old girl you're tormenting and encouraging to commit suicide has a history of depression, and somehow that makes you feel less guilty?
Where's the logic there?
That's like saying "Oh yes, sure he was starving, but he'd been starving for awhile, so when I stole the last of his food I couldn't really feel bad about it. I mean, he had been hungry for so long, I figured that stealing all of his food wasn't going to make much of a difference anyway. I mean, sure, he died, but he had almost starved to death before, so what's the big deal?"
It's almost like she's incapable of seeing the world from another person's point of view. Like she can't really accept that other people are real. The whole "joke" reeks of that kind of unintentional maliciousness. Assuming that they're not very cruel people, I would describe their behavior as self-centered to the point of being socially retarded.
posted
It also says a lot about the importance of an unkind word at the wrong moment.
I've read a lot about suicide. Often little things can be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Someone wrote "I told myself if anyone smiled at me, just one person, on the way to the bridge (to jump off) then I would not do it". Apparently nobody did. Obviously that person's problems went deeper than strangers not smiling at them, but so what if they did? Would it hurt so much for people to just be kinder?
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
Oh, the names are definitely out. As well as information about their businesses (including a website), people and businesses who advertise with the mother's business, their home address, telephone number, the school their daughter goes to, her name, etc. It's been confirmed by neighbors, Internet sleuths, and a "clue" dropped by either Megan's aunt or mother. There was plenty of information in the original article to figure out who these people were.
I certainly won't post their names here. But if you wanted to know, a simple Internet search is all it would take.
From what I've been able to find out, they're already being harassed by phone calls, and people are calling the businesses which advertise with the mother's business and asking them to boycott.
So yeah. Their names are out. And I would think it very surprising if the original newswriter didn't realize he was giving more than enough infomation to figure it out.
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Now this takes the cake, I'm always surprised when I still get shocked at people's behavior. Not just the original hoaxers, but now this excrement: http://meganhaditcoming.blogspot.com/ As a commenter summed up, if she really knew the girl, she's one sick *blank*, and if this site is a hoax, she's one sick *blank*.
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Couldn't they charge the mom with misrepreresenting herself to a minor? That seems like it'd be some sort of crime. Kudos to the newspaper, by the way, for not printing the names of the people who didn't want their names printed. While I think the family responsible for this is despicable, and that the mother should face SOME sort of punishment, if the names got out they'd almost certainly have to move, and it'd at least temporarily ruin the daughter's life. I know, I know, the OTHER girl is dead as a result, but there were a LOT of other factors involved, and I just don't think they should have to face that sort of harrassment. And in a day and age where it seems all the news really cares about is getting as much info out as possible, and consequences be damned, I think there's something admirable in holding back.
The newspaper held back the names, but it caused a storm in the blogosphere, and the names have been unearthed by bloggers. Lori Drew is the mother that created the fake account specifically to mess with Megan.
posted
Well, at least they tried, or appeared to try. I guess it's too much to hope that in this day and age anyone can hope to have privacy once the public eye even bats an eyelash in your direction.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
The parents who engaged in this are despicable human beings. It's one thing for kids to do this; I think it's mean, too often tolerated, and should be subject to discipline more often, but not not necessarily evil.
For the adults to do it means they are either evil or have only the maturity of a teenager. And the maturity of a teenager coupled with the power of an adult is a scary thing.
***
One thing I try to do when I read a story that causes a gut reaction that the law should do something is try to define either the crime or the civil cause of action. Often I find that the act cannot really be the subject of the law, not because it's not morally worthy of having that kind of force behind it, but because there's no way to define the behavior to be targeted.
In this case, I have a hard time defining a crime targeted to this kind of thing. Pretending to be someone you're not is accepted on the Internet. It gives rise to criminal liability only in rare circumstances - when it causes monetary loss or results in impersonation of another living person to that person's harm, for example.
I can see a case for meeting the mental culpability of negligent homicide, given that the parents new of previous suicide attempts. To me, this rises to criminal negligence. However, the intervening act of suicide will make causation very hard to prove.
It's possible that on-line harassment laws could apply - there should be no problem proving intent here. But that misses the true harm caused here.
On the civil side, intentional infliction of emotional distress and wrongful death might be possibilities. It would depend on the specifics of state law.
One aspect that needs to be looked into is the harm being done by these parents to their daughter in teaching her that this type of behavior is OK.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I think impersonating a minor and engaging in romantic overtures could be made illegal. Sure "romantic overture" could be difficult to quantify, but that's what a jury is for. I mean, take the suicide out of the equation, it's still an unbelievably creepy undertaking.
And it's not like predators who impersonate minors to draw kids in say what they intend up front. They probably start out a lot like the friendship with "Josh Evans" did.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Any chance a child abuse charge would have a chance of sticking?
Abuse of the girl whom the parents helped in tormenting the girl who committed suicide? I don't know. I'm not sure I'd really want them to stick based on this alone, although it's very, very tempting. If what they did isn't a crime on its own, I'm not sure how deeply the government should be involved.
If it is a crime, then I think they've committed at least child neglect, which in many states includes making a child in their care require services. And "services" here would include juvenile adjudication of the criminal acts.
If you're talking about abuse of the girl who committed suicide, it's possible. However, most states require some sort of authority over the child before child abuse charges can be brought.
quote:Sure "romantic overture" could be difficult to quantify, but that's what a jury is for.
When too much is left to the jury, it can raise constitutional due process issues. It's a highly technical point that I'm not equipped to explain fully here. Just something to be aware of when defining crimes.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I think if the Josh character ever said he loved her or wanted to date or longed to be with her, that should be enough. If they kept it to "you're special, you're beautiful" then, no.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I'd say Megan's parents should go to jail, but this will haunt them forever, which is enough for me.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
From what I read, it sounds like they did their best to monitor Megan's internet contacts, why do they deserve jail?
Posts: 96 | Registered: Oct 2007
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posted
Why should Megan's parents go to jail? They were ignorant, but I don't think they were necessarily criminally ignorant.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Isn't a person culpable for what they cause to happen rather what they intend. I don't understand how those involved can disassociate themselves from the event.
It just seems that thier actions viewed in the light of thier reactions after the event seem just a little more sinister in nature.
More like an intentionally callous and inhuman minimalization of a minors life than a hoax that turned horribly wrong.
I just don't understand how someone can knowingly contribute to the death of someone then go to thier families events and invite thier familiy into your house or even ask favors of them. That just seems sociopathic. Evil.
I also don't see how the parents could have done anything different. Sure banning her from myspace altogether would have prevented the issue; but the attack was specific by known individuals considered friends of the familiy.
Posts: 686 | Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
Why should Megan's parents go to jail? From reading the article, it sounded like they were doing their best to monitor her internet behavior, be involved in her life, and encourage her happiness.
Posts: 3936 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:Originally posted by calaban: Isn't a person culpable for what they cause to happen rather what they intend. I don't understand how those involved can disassociate themselves from the event.
I'd say their intent was to make Megan feel bad, which they were successful at. Very successful.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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posted
Even without a suicide on their hands, the idea of parents tricking someone's kid over the internet, and making them think they had a friend, is absolutely horrifying.
And then how friendly they were to Megan's parents? Sociopaths.
Posts: 3936 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
BTW, this paragraph has always bothered me:
quote: Later that day, Ron opened his daughter's MySpace account and viewed what he believes to be the final message Megan saw - one the FBI would be unable to retrieve from the hard drive.
I don't understand what that means. If it's a MySpace message, it persists on her account, back on the MySpace servers; it doesn't really live on the hard drive of her local computer.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Anyway, this is maybe the saddest story I've seen in a long time, and I think it says a lot about the dangers of the internet.
Actually, I don't think this story shows that the internet is dangerous. I think it shows that being mean is dangerous.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
According to Megan's parents' Today Show interview, they've talked to the other parents, and rather than showing any remorse, they've stated they feel no guilt and wish Megan's parents would stop talking about it.
posted
Yeah, stop talking about your daughter that killer herself, it annoys us. There is really something dangerously wrong with those people!
Posts: 3936 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:I don't understand what that means. If it's a MySpace message, it persists on her account, back on the MySpace servers; it doesn't really live on the hard drive of her local computer.
Yeah, I found that a bit peculiar as well. This part also:
quote:Ron said a stumbling block is that the FBI was unable to retrieve the electronic messages from Megan's final day, including that final message that only Ron saw.
It's odd that no one has a record of that final message.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I don't think criminal charges should be fired. What those parents did was incredibly mean, but they didn't make any explicit threats. I think creating a law that would make it a crime is also inappropriate. Making "mean" speech a crime just seems like a potential slippery slope. Insulting someone should not be a crime.
I think a civil suit is most appropriate in this case.
Posts: 1327 | Registered: Aug 2007
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: I think there might be a way to prosecute the creators of "Josh Evans" with some kind of sexual abuse. I mean, I don't know all of what was said, but it appears Megan saw it as a romantic relationship.
While I think they should be held accountable, sexual abuse isn't the best way to do that, IMO.
There was no sex, no physical contact, not even another real person. I don't think we want to open that particular can of worms, even for this.
Wire fraud would work, as would reckless endangerment I suspect.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I don't understand what that means. If it's a MySpace message, it persists on her account, back on the MySpace servers; it doesn't really live on the hard drive of her local computer.
Its probably a combination of journalist simplification and insufficient detail.
If it works anything like Facebook, you're right. Very little is stored on the local computer. However, the problem is that the other parents deleted "Josh"'s account. If I had to guess, they may have implemented MySpace in a way so that a deleted account cascades the delete to whatever interactions that user had, deleting that final message (and all other messages from him) as well. (Rather than keeping all the messages but have them essentially pointing to nothing, or a dummy placeholder)
MySpace might not have (or may be unwilling to find, for legal or other reasons) backups for that profile, particularly if the parents deleted the profile right after they sent the message.
MEC: The other computer would be useless for the same reason.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
So if they deleted the account, could they at least stand on some kind of destruction of evidence?
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I agree that criminal charges would be difficult to press, and more difficult to successfully prosecute in this case.
However, I'd be interested in knowing if Megan's parents would have the potential for a "Wrongful Death" lawsuit.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
What I want to know is how the OtherParents knew that something had happened to Megan that night. They called the other girl who knew about the myspace account before the ambulance left Megan's house to tell her that something had happened to Megan and not to say anything about the account.
How did they know the ambulance was there, and if they could see it, how did they know it was for Megan?
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
I do have to think that if my mom had been Megan's mom, and Megan had disobeyed and not logged off immediately while she was walking out the door, and there had been previous trouble with the internet/MySpace, the brother would have been late to the orthodontist while my mom physically went down and logged her out herself.
But I don't think the mother's failure to do so is criminal.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
kq, I think you're right. But she did so much more Internet monitoring than other parents that it's really sad that one lapse in judgment had such horrific consequences.
I think this serves as a good reminder to parents that often teenagers lack the foresight to look beyond their current situation. Things that seem so trivial to adults can be catastrophic to teenagers, and we adults have to be careful not to just brush off their troubles and concerns because we don't understand ourselves why it's such a big deal.
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Suicide is something like the second highest cause of death of teenagers, after vehicle accidents. I think it's wise to always keep the possibility of suicide in mind when dealing with teens. They have the physical power and capability of an adult, but a very limited perspective of life. Often failing abysmally in one small social group can seem catastrophic to a teen who views it as representative of his or her entire life, when maybe there were just a lot of jerks in that school or that town.
One of my friends in high school committed suicide. I honestly can say that it's something one never gets over, the suicide of a friend. Please don't be mean. You never know how much more you might hurt someone than you intended.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Obviously that person's problems went deeper than strangers not smiling at them, but so what if they did? Would it hurt so much for people to just be kinder?
