Truly Desperate Housewife

Megan Meier died believing that somewhere in this world lived a boy named Josh Evans who hated her. He was 16, owned a pet snake, and she thought he was the cutest boyfriend she ever had.

Josh contacted Megan through her page on MySpace.com, said Megan’s mother, Tina Meier. They flirted for weeks, but only online — Josh said his family had no phone. On Oct. 15, 2006, Josh suddenly turned mean. He called Megan names, and later they traded insults for an hour. The next day, in his final message, Josh wrote to Megan, “The world would be a better place without you.”

Sobbing, Megan ran into her bedroom closet. Her mother found her there, hanging from a belt. She was only 13 years old.

Six weeks after Megan’s death, her parents learned that Josh Evans never existed. He was an online character created by 47-year-old Lori Drew, who lived four houses down the street. That an adult would plot such a cruel hoax against a 13-year-old girl has drawn outraged phone calls, e-mail messages and blog posts from around the world. Many people expressed anger because officials did not charge Ms. Drew with a crime. St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department spokesman, Lt. Craig McGuire, said that what Ms. Drew did “might’ve been rude, it might’ve been immature, but it wasn’t illegal.”

Only in response to the incident did St. Charles County make Internet harassment a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $500 fine and 90 days in jail-- too little, too late, according to most residents in the small community near St. Louis.

According to the New York Times story, Lori Drew’s daughter and Megan had at one time been very close friends. Lori Drew said she created the bogus MySpace profile of “Josh Evans” to win Megan’s trust and learn how Megan felt about her daughter. Because Ms. Drew had taken Megan on family vacations, she knew the girl had been prescribed antidepression medication, and she also knew that Megan had a MySpace page.

Shortly before Megan’s death, the Meiers had agreed to store a foosball table the Drews had bought as a Christmas surprise for their children. When the Meiers learned about Lori Drew's MySpace hoax, they destroyed the table and threw the pieces onto the Drews’ driveway. The police learned about the hoax when Ms. Drew filed a complaint about the damage to the foosball table. In the report, she stated that she felt the hoax “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.”

“There are no words to explain my rage,” Megan's mother said. “These people were supposed to be our friends.”