Mom Indicted In MySpace Suicide Case

Suicide Myspace A Los Angeles federal grand jury indicted a Missouri woman on Thursday over an alleged role in a MySpace online hoax played on a 13-year-old girl who committed suicide.

by Associated Press

Published: Thu, May 15, 2008 - 2:15 pm CST Last Updated: Thu, May 15, 2008 - 2:18 pm CST

LOS ANGELES - A Los Angeles federal grand jury indicted a Missouri woman on Thursday over an alleged role in a MySpace online hoax played on a 13-year-old girl who committed suicide.

Lori Drew of suburban St. Louis was indicted on one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress.

Drew allegedly helped create a false-identity MySpace account to contact neighbor Megan Meier who thought she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans.

Meier hanged herself in October 2006 after receiving cruel messages, including one stating the world would be better off without her.

Drew, 49, has denied creating the account and sending messages to Megan.

MySpace is based in Beverly Hills. The indictment noted that MySpace computer servers are located in Los Angeles County.

Because of juvenile privacy rules, the U.S. attorney's office said, the indictment refers to the girl as M.T.M.

Each count in the indictment carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Last month, an employee of Drew, 19-year-old Ashley Grills, told ABC's "Good Morning America" she created the false MySpace profile but Drew wrote some of the messages to Megan.

Grills also claimed Drew suggested talking to Megan via the Internet to find out what Megan was saying about Drew's daughter, who was a former friend of Megan's.

Grills said she wrote the message to Megan about the world being a better place without her, which was supposed to end the online relationship with "Josh" because Grills felt the joke had gone too far.

"I was trying to get her angry so she would leave him alone and I could get rid of the whole MySpace," Grills told the morning show.

Megan's death was investigated by Missouri authorities, but no state charges were filed.

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mremann83 Says:

Thu, May 15, 2008 at 11:16 pm

Or a combo of the two!

BamaBob Says:

Thu, May 15, 2008 at 9:11 pm

mremann83 - Not sure. We either have an opinion about everything or we are bored senseless! lol

mremann83 Says:

Thu, May 15, 2008 at 9:00 pm

Bama BOB, why do u and I, and a few others, respond to everything on this site? LOL.

BamaBob Says:

Thu, May 15, 2008 at 3:18 pm

This woman must be rotten to the core and she deserves some type of punishment! She was supposed to be the adult in the situation, but she seemed to take pleasure in pushing a 13-year-old little girl over the edge. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

sjcmom365 Says:

Thu, May 15, 2008 at 2:29 pm

“I was trying to get her angry so she would leave him alone and I could get rid of the whole MySpace,” Grills told the morning show

So why didnt she just delete the myspace page?? I know that she could have. Saying something like that to someone, she needed to come up with a better excuse.