Friday, May 16, 2008

Is this what the world has come to?

A federal grand jury in Los Angeles today indicted a woman of fraudulently using a MySpace.com account to "cyber-bully" a Missouri teenager who later hanged herself because she believed she was being rejected by a 16-year-old boy she met on the social networking website.

Lori Drew, 49, of O'Fallon, Mo., faces three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress on the girl and one count of conspiracy.

The case set off a national furor when it was revealed that 13-year-old Megan Meier was the victim of a hoax perpetrated by Drew, who was the mother of one of the girl's former friends.

The rest of the story is in the LA Times here. Yes you did read correctly - she is 49 and the girl was 13...

7 comments:

Susanna said...

That really is sick and sad.

Unknown said...

scary times my friend, scary times.

Chelsea + Shiloh said...

Words fail me...

Unknown said...

Sigh ...

wmmbb said...

A very distressing story.

Jason said...

This actually happened in my backyard...and it's really messed up. I have a baby sister who has grown up with the web (which wasn't around until I got into Junior High/High School) and it's scary how easily someone can harm children via the web.

Much like the A-Bomb, the Internet is a genie we can't put back in the bottle...that has altered human life forever.

Unknown said...

Your continued wisdom and input is always welcoem Jason :-)