Girl kills herself after hoax Internet friendship ends

DARDENNE PRAIRIE, Mo. - Megan Meier thought she had made a new friend in cyberspace when a teenage boy named Josh contacted her on MySpace and began exchanging messages with her.

Megan, a 13-year-old who suffered from depression and attention-deficit disorder, corresponded with Josh for more than a month before he abruptly ended their friendship, telling her he had heard she was cruel.

Later that day Megan hanged herself. Her family learned later that Josh never existed. He was created by members of a neighborhood family that included a former friend of Megan's.

Now Megan's parents hope the people who made the fraudulent profile on the social-networking Web site will be prosecuted, and they are seeking legal changes to safeguard children on the Internet.

The girl's mother, Tina Meier, said she doesn't think anyone involved intended for her daughter to kill herself.

"But when adults are involved and continue to screw with a 13-year-old, with or without mental problems, it is absolutely vile," she told the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis, which first reported on the case.

Tina Meier said law-enforcement officials told her the case did not fit into any law. But sheriff's officials have not closed the case and pledged to consider new evidence if it emerges.

Megan had been on medication, but had been upbeat before her death, her mother said, after striking up a relationship on My-Space with Josh Evans about six weeks before her death.

Josh told her he was born in Florida and had recently moved to the nearby community of O'Fallon. He said he was homeschooled, and didn't yet have a phone number in the area to give her.

Megan's parents said she received a message from him on Oct. 15, 2006, essentially saying he didn't want to be her friend anymore, that he had heard she wasn't nice to her friends.

Then Megan told her mother that electronic bulletins were being posted about her saying things like, "Megan Meier is a slut. Megan Meier is fat."

Later that day, Megan tried to commit suicide in her bedroom, but didn't die until the next day.

Her father said he found a message the following day from Josh stating that Megan was a bad person and that the world would be better without her.

Another parent who learned of the MySpace account from her own daughter, who had access to the Josh profile, told Megan's parents about the hoax in a counselor's office about six weeks after Megan died. That's when they learned Josh was imaginary, they said.

The woman who created the fake profile has not been charged with a crime. She allegedly told the St. Charles County Sheriff's Department she created Josh's profile because she wanted to gain Megan's confidence to know what Megan was saying about her own child online. *