suicide via myspace (a story)

[Rusty Shackleford]

I just wanted to link to this story that I found interesting. It's about a girl who committed suicide because the parents of a girl she didn't get along with created a fake myspace page to look like a cute boy, gain the girl's trust, and then rip into her.


http://stcharlesjournal.stltoday.com/articles/2007/11/10/news/sj2tn20071110-1111stc_pokin_1.ii1.txt

 

[markvid]

Good Lord.

 

[zagoshe]

This story is impossible. Myspace is a perfectly safe and normal activity for teenagers and any parent who is skeptical of it, monitors it or questions their teen's usage of it or is worried about their NBC Dateline flight's of fantasy about the 40,000 or so sexual predators who are logging into it is an overbearing whacko......

 

[wickedwritah]

Sounds like bad news all around. RIP.

 

[mike311gd]

Myspace is a tool of the devil. ...

It's nice to see that, at heart, kids haven't changed much since I was in middle school. They've just evolved with the technology. Hopefully this mishap will stick with those fools and they'll change their ways for the better.

 

[Igor in CT]

Way beyond disturbing.

 

[The Big Ragu]

That story made me cry -- literally.

How can ADULTS be so cruel, when they knew the girl so well and knew about her personal issues? I just hope that Karma exists.

*****

And Zagoshe, MySpace is nothing more than a website on the world wide web in which people can communicate.

Kids are cruel to each other every day on the school yard -- without the aid of computers. Adults do petty things to each other every day -- without the aid of computers. And troubled teenage girls, with histories of depression, unfortunately end up committing suicide sometimes because of cruel things others do to prey on their self-esteem issues. It doesn't take a computer or MySpace for those things to happen, and in fact, very little of it does happen because of computers of social-networking sites.

But stay on your one-man crusade to rid the world of technology and put every kid you know in a burka. Your point is taken, once again.

 

[Pete Incaviglia]

The parents who "invented Josh Evans" should have their own child taken away.

Anyone that sick doesn't deserve the chance to raise a child.

Nice ethics and morals.

 

[imjustagirl2]

The part that got to me:

After years of wearing braces, Megan was scheduled to have them removed the day she died. And she was looking forward to her birthday party.

"She and her mom went shopping and bought a new dress," Ron says. "She wanted to make this grand entrance with me carrying her down the stairs. I never got to see her in that dress until the funeral."

 

[Pete Incaviglia]

That story made me cry -- literally.

How can ADULTS be so cruel, when they knew the girl so well and knew about her personal issues? I just hope that Karma exists.

*****

And Zagoshe, MySpace is nothing more than a website on the world wide web in which people can communicate.

Kids are cruel to each other every day on the school yard -- without the aid of computers. Adults do petty things to each other every day -- without the aid of computers. And troubled teenage girls, with histories of depression, unfortunately end up committing suicide sometimes because of cruel things others do to prey on their self-esteem issues. It doesn't take a computer or MySpace for those things to happen, and in fact, very little of it does happen because of computers of social-networking sites.

But stay on your one-man crusade to rid the world of technology and put every kid you know in a burka. Your point is taken, once again.

I relayed the story to my wife, who was sitting on the couch behind me as I read, and she said "Sounds like kids I grew up with, like any other girls, only they didn't have myspace."

Myspace isn't to (wholey) blame, the parents are. If it wasn't the website, they sick, twisted parents would have done something else.

 

[Point of Order]

Does anyone else find it weird that the mother was so conscientious about her kid's use of MySpace, and then was so panic-stricken when she was yelling at the girl to "SIGN OFF" over the phone when she had let her on it?

The point of monitoring MySpace usage is generally to protect kids from predators that might try to physically harm them. Parents should be vigilant in knowing what their kids are doing online, but shouldn't the bigger task be to prepare them to deal with life on their own when you are not holding their hands?

It sounds like this girl was in such a fragile mental state that it wouldn't have taken much to push her to this. It's very sad. The adults who baited this girl and took advantage of her fragile mental state are despicable, and they bear some guilt for her death. But it seems to me that they set in motion a chain of events that very likely might've materialized in some other way regardless of their actions.

 

[Kaylee]

Kids are cruel to each other every day on the school yard -- without the aid of computers. Adults do petty things to each other every day -- without the aid of computers. And troubled teenage girls, with histories of depression, unfortunately end up committing suicide sometimes because of cruel things others do to prey on their self-esteem issues. It doesn't take a computer or MySpace for those things to happen, and in fact, very little of it does happen because of computers of social-networking sites.

Completely agreed.

Kids can, and will, be sick little ****ers to one another. I don't think any of us is without stories of witnessing, inflicting or suffering ridiculously mean-spirited actions from kids. Just because there's more technology out there for kids to use doesn't reall count for anything. If we were all plunged into a technical dark ages, kids would still find ways to make life miserable for each other.

Stories like this, sadly, make me laugh whenever I hear the idiocy about "the wonders of childhood."

 

[Walter_Sobchak]

I disagree with the decision to not publish the family's name "out of consideration for their teenage daughter."

**** that. Those parents deserved to be humiliated, and it sounds like the daughter's a real ***** too.

 

[EStreetJoe]

The part that got to me:

After years of wearing braces, Megan was scheduled to have them removed the day she died. And she was looking forward to her birthday party.

The whole story is sad and an example of kids and parents can do with (and without) technology.

However that part of the story (quoted above) was a little bit of a curveball (or the copy editor didn't pay close enough attention to ask the reporter about it). Earlier in the story it said on the day of the suicide that the mother was rushing the younger daughter out of the house after school to the orthodontist and wanted Megan to sign off. If Megan was supposed to have the braces removed that day (presumably by an orthodontist) why weren't the sisters scheduled for back-to-back appointments? There was nothing in the story about the mother taking Meagan back out. Just that the mother came home, confronted Megan about the vulgarities she was firing back, and Megan went off to her room before dinner. Then while making dinner the mother got a sick feeling and ran up to check on Megan and found that she had hung herself. The copy editor in me is questioning the timeline that this quote contradicts.

Once again, it's a tragic story that shows how mean-spirited people can be and I don't wish it happening on anyone.

 

[EStreetJoe]

I disagree with the decision to not publish the family's name "out of consideration for their teenage daughter."

**** that. Those parents deserved to be humiliated, and it sounds like the daughter's a real ***** too.

I agree. The parents aren't minors. Let their names be known.

 

[imjustagirl2]

The part that got to me:

After years of wearing braces, Megan was scheduled to have them removed the day she died. And she was looking forward to her birthday party.

The whole story is sad and an example of kids and parents can do with (and without) technology.

However that part of the story (quoted above) was a little bit of a curveball (or the copy editor didn't pay close enough attention to ask the reporter about it). Earlier in the story it said on the day of the suicide that the mother was rushing the younger daughter out of the house after school to the orthodontist and wanted Megan to sign off. If Megan was supposed to have the braces removed that day (presumably by an orthodontist) why weren't the sisters scheduled for back-to-back appointments? There was nothing in the story about the mother taking Meagan back out. Just that the mother came home, confronted Megan about the vulgarities she was firing back, and Megan went off to her room before dinner. Then while making dinner the mother got a sick feeling and ran up to check on Megan and found that she had hung herself. The copy editor in me is questioning the timeline that this quote contradicts.

Once again, it's a tragic story that shows how mean-spirited people can be and I don't wish it happening on anyone.

Megan didn't die until the next day.

 

[EStreetJoe]

The part that got to me:

After years of wearing braces, Megan was scheduled to have them removed the day she died. And she was looking forward to her birthday party.

The whole story is sad and an example of kids and parents can do with (and without) technology.

However that part of the story (quoted above) was a little bit of a curveball (or the copy editor didn't pay close enough attention to ask the reporter about it). Earlier in the story it said on the day of the suicide that the mother was rushing the younger daughter out of the house after school to the orthodontist and wanted Megan to sign off. If Megan was supposed to have the braces removed that day (presumably by an orthodontist) why weren't the sisters scheduled for back-to-back appointments? There was nothing in the story about the mother taking Meagan back out. Just that the mother came home, confronted Megan about the vulgarities she was firing back, and Megan went off to her room before dinner. Then while making dinner the mother got a sick feeling and ran up to check on Megan and found that she had hung herself. The copy editor in me is questioning the timeline that this quote contradicts.

Once again, it's a tragic story that shows how mean-spirited people can be and I don't wish it happening on anyone.

Megan didn't die until the next day.

ooops... you're right. Looks like I'm the one with egg on my face in need of better copy editing skills.

 

[imjustagirl2]

Still questionable as to why people would make two appointments in back to back days.

 

[hockeybeat]

Absolutely heart breaking.

The law needs to be changed. The family of Megan's "friend" did everything in their power to cause her death.

These are the passages that stood out to me:

"They are posting bulletins about me." A bulletin is like a survey. "Megan Meier is a ****. Megan Meier is fat."

It was from Josh and, according to Ron's best recollection, it said, "Everybody in O'Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a ****ty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you."

"She had been encouraged to join in the joke," the single mother said.

According to Tina, Megan had gone on vacations with this family. They knew how she struggled with depression, that she took medication.

A joke? How can anyone think a town conspiring to humiliate a 14 year old is funny? And they knew about her depression. They knew what they were doing.

These people are guilty of murder.

 

[Joe Williams]

Still questionable as to why people would make two appointments in back to back days.

Is this really what we want to focus on here?

It's like debating the costume design in "Our American Cousin" from that infamous night at Ford's Theater.