TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Tag: suicide

  • Another MySpace Lawsuit

    Victim’s parents sue MySpace after suicide, assault by Celina man:

    The family of a 14-year-old California girl known only as Julie Doe are suing MySpace after the girl committed suicide. Doe was sexually assaulted by 30-year-old Kiley Ryan Bowers of Celina, Texas after the two met on MySpace in 2005.

    Their online conversations led to a face-to-face meeting and the sexual assault near her home in Southern California.

    Mr. Bowers broke off the relationship several months later, and the girl fell into “a deep depression as a result of the failed, despicable relationship fostered over MySpace,” the lawsuit states. She killed herself in July 2006.

    Mr. Bowers, 30, pleaded guilty to traveling across state lines to have sex with a minor and was sentenced this summer to nine years in federal prison.

    Now let’s hear from the attorney…

    “MySpace knows that it is a haven for sexual predators, yet doesn’t put in any security measures to protect young girls,” said the family’s attorney, Jason Itkin. “We think that with MySpace’s right to make a profit comes a responsibility to protect its customers.”

    “The main goal of these lawsuits is to get MySpace to stand up and put in meaningful protections that will make it more difficult to search out and find young girls,” said Mr. Itkin, whose firm is representing six other families who have sued MySpace on similar allegations.

    I really hate to kick a family when they’re down but this lawsuit was once tried already and failed. Mr. Itkin was involved in that lawsuit as well. Mr. Itkin says these lawsuits are to protect the children but we all know it’s really about getting a huge payday.

    The sexual assault took place in the girl’s home. Where were the parents when this assault took place? Why weren’t the parents checking up on her MySpace activities? Families are supposed to come with built-in meaningful protection. They’re called parents.

    U.S. district judge Sam Sparks said it best when he dismissed the original lawsuit. “If anyone had a duty to protect Julie Doe, it was her parents, not MySpace,”

  • Megan Had It Coming is a hoax Part III: Hoax Confirmed

    I’m usually not one to say I told you so….ah who the hell am I kidding? Thanks to Mondoreb from DBKP we now know that ‘Megan Had It Coming’ was a hoax like I’ve been telling you all along. So if you’ll allow me…

    *AHEM*

    I told you so.

    But someone was even more right than me and that would be Pat from Belchspeak. Early on he told me that it was probably someone from Encyclopedia Dramatica and it turns out he was dead on. For those of you who don’t know ED is a bizarro world version of Wikipedia that keeps track of all the drama on the internet. ED’s admission to it can be found here where they also refer to yours truly as an internet genius. Yes I know they’re being sarcastic.

    However as crass and tasteless as this stunt was on ED’s part (as in I hope the hoaxter gets a kick in the balls by karma) the hoaxter has a point. Some assclown posts a blog claiming to be Lori Drew and a lot of you fell for it hook line and sinker further perpetuating the sad realization that even today some people will believe anything they see on the internet.

    Remember Trench’s Internet Law #1 kids. Be skeptical and don’t trust anyone.

  • ‘Megan Had It Coming’ is a hoax Part II

    MySpace Mom Linked to Missouri Teen’s Suicide Being Cyber-Bullied Herself:

    Lori Drew is denying any connection to ‘MHIC’ through her attorney…

    Drew’s attorney, Jim Briscoe, denied that Drew had any involvement with the “Megan Had It Coming” blog.

    “I can categorically say that she did not write it,” Briscoe told FOXNews.com. “She has not said anything on the Internet, on any blogs, on any Internet sites.”

    Briscoe said that Drew, a neighbor of the Meiers, has purposely remained silent in the media and online during the investigation and since.

    “That’s part of why she’s remained silent, so there’s no confusion about that,” Briscoe said. “Anything that’s on the Web is not true. She hasn’t done anything. She doesn’t know anybody who’s done it — anybody who’s doing it or has done it.”

    I would think that if Lori Drew is smart enough to obtain the services of an attorney that she wouldn’t be that stupid to make this blog. Especially since the Meiers will more than likely are pursuing civil action.

    However, prosecutor Jack Banas is investigating MHIC to see if any harassment laws were broken.

    If I was the person behind MHIC I’d be worried about a knock on my door from investigators.

  • ‘Megan Had It Coming’ is a hoax and other news

    MySpace Bully Talks Back (Maybe):

    If you’ve been following the Megan Meier story like I have then you’re familiar with the ‘Megan Had It Coming’ blog. I’m not going to link to it because whoever is running it doesn’t deserve the attention. Anyway, it’s allegedly being posted by someone close to the situation who believes that Megan Meier deserved what she got. Some media outlets think it may actually be Lori Drew posting that blog. As a matter of fact, I had a journalist ask me my opinion on its authenticity yesterday. I think it’s a hoax and I’ll tell you why.

    The posts at ‘MHIC’ are awfully similar to the comments left by someone calling themselves ANONYMOUS that posted on one of my Megan Meier entries. The e-mail address they used to leave a comment traced back to the MySpace of a 16-year-old black girl from Michigan. It is possible that ANONYMOUS was using a fake address that just happened to coincide with that MySpace but the MySpace in question has since been deleted ever since I made that fact public. The second reason I think it’s a fake is because ANONYMOUS’ IP address traced back to Louisville, KY. That’s roughly 260 miles from where the Drews lived. Now since the Drews have allegedly disappeared that might be where they’ve moved to but I can’t be certain of that without knowing the date that they moved. Another reason I think it’s a fake is that I would like to believe that even Lori Drew, in light of what’s happened, wouldn’t be that stupid or callous to make a blog called ‘Megan Had It Coming’.

    However…

    Woman Accused Of Setting Up False MySpace Page That Led To Girl’s Suicide Breaks Her Silence:
    …it seems that Lori Drew is speaking through her attorney.

    But now Drew denies she was even home when the malicious messages were being sent. “She didn’t find out about it until after Megan had taken her own life,” her lawyer Jim Briscoe told a U.S. network.

    A police report contends that Drew asked an 18-year-old employee to create the false I.D., but there’s now some confusion about how it actually came into being and who sent the messages. She “did not create the MySpace account,” Briscoe maintains. “She did not instruct anybody to create the MySpace account. She never made any communications through the MySpace account.”

    Her lawyer claims Drew is losing business because people are blaming her for the girl’s death and are afraid to be associated with her. Her own neighbours will no longer even talk to her. And if the motive really was to see what was being said about her own child online, that’s backfired, too. “Her daughter has had to drop out of school because of the harassment,” Briscoe reveals.

    He claims even if she did have some knowledge about the existence of the site, she wasn’t aware of the kinds of notes being posted to the girl or she would have stopped it. “She wished she did. If she could turn back the clock, that’s the part she would do differently,” he insists.

    Cry me a river. The Meiers aren’t buying it and neither am I. The Meiers are planning civil action against the Drews. I guess the Drews will have to come out of their hole eventually.

  • The Drews disappear

    MySpace Suicide Teen’s Harassers Vanish:

    According to this blog post from AOL News Bloggers, it seems the Megan Meier’s tormentors, the Drews, have disappeared off the face of the earth.

    If, after reading about the story, you’re filled with a similar urge to vandalize the Drews’ house, you’re not alone. Some media outlets posted their names, and they’ve been the subject of escalating violence, detailed here. Now it seems they’ve disappeared from the neighborhood, leaving — wisely — no forwarding address.

    I wonder if they left before or after yesterday’s press conference about no criminal charges being filed.

  • No criminal charges in Megan Meier’s suicide

    Prosecutor: No Criminal Charges in MySpace Suicide:

    As expected St. Charles County Prosecutor Jack Banas announced at a press conference earlier today that there will be no criminal files charged in the harassment/suicide death of Megan Meier.

    “Their purpose was never to cause her emotional harassment that we can prove,” Banas said. “There’s a difference between what people think or what we may believe the reason was that they created this, it’s what we can prove and what a jury would believe.”

    Banas said statements from the neighbor and two teens who participated in the fictitious account couldn’t meet criminal standards for the state’s statutes on harassment, stalking or endangering the welfare of a child.

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation lead the investigation after the U.S. Attorney’s Office was contacted by the Meier family, Banas said.

    In a perfect world, there would be charges filed against the adults that caused Megan Meier to commit suicide. Then again in a perfect world, adults wouldn’t descend into this kind of behavior then act like it wasn’t their fault.

  • Leonard Pitts Jr. on Megan Meier

    Parents concoct ‘joke’ that leads to shame, anguish, death for teen:

    Leonard Pitts Jr. is one of the few newspaper columnists I respect. Hell, he might be the only one. In his latest column, he gives his take on the death of Megan Meier and his wishes for the Drews. In my opinion, it’s the best take so far on the situation.

  • No apologies to the Meiers

    MySpace hoax victim’s kin seek justice:

    This is an article about the interview Megan Meier’s parents gave on the Today Show yesterday. Where they say that the ‘adults’ who caused their daughter to kill herself have offered no apology. In fact, they’ve done quite the reverse.

    “They’ve absolutely offered no apologies,” Ron Meier told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer on Monday. “They sent us a letter in the mail, basically saying that they might feel a little bit of responsibility, but they don’t feel no guilt or remorse or anything for what they did.”

    Rather, said Tina Meier, the people are upset with her for going public with their story. Last week, while shopping, she ran into the woman who invented the hoax, Tina Meier said.

    “She asked me to stop doing all of this,” she told Lauer. “I told her that we would not stop, that we were going to continue for justice for Megan because we knew what they did.”

    The Meiers have not named the people because they do not want to identify their teenage daughter, who had once been a friend of Megan’s.

    Wow, how in the hell do you become that callous in your life to not apologize but to complain when you caused a girl to kill herself.

    And speaking of not naming them I’ve decided to lift that restriction since the St. Louis Journal has. And it seems that Curt and Lori Drew are receiving just a modicum of karma for what they did to Megan Meier…

    One night last week, well after most of the families in this quiet community went to bed, a half-dozen police cars sped down Waterford Crystal Drive, lights flashing.

    A man, they were told, had been fatally shot inside a home.

    Neighbors opened doors, peered out windows and watched. As many as 15 deputies, they said, drew weapons and charged the home of Lori and Curt Drew.

    But there was no body lying in a pool of blood. No weapon in Curt Drew’s hand.

    The call was a prank, one of many at the Drews’ home this year. A lawn job. A brick through a window. Threatening phone calls. Paintball attacks.

    The neighborhood is angry.

    But now it’s not just the neighborhood, most of the country is angry.

    Thanks to Dan Fan for the last link.

  • Megan Meier’s tormentors named

    Blog Readers Out Anonymous Adults that Newspaper Refused to Identify:

    According to this article from Wired readers of some blogs, not this one, that read the story about Megan Meier have published the names of those responsible for her suicide.

    The St. Charles Journal wrote in the story that it decided not to name the woman and the other adult involved in the incident out of concern for the woman’s own teenage daughter. The two adults haven’t been charged with any crime.

    But readers of various blogs that posted the story were furious with the paper’s decision. By matching certain details in the article with property records, they found the name and address of a woman who they believe created the Josh Evans persona, and published her details online.

    Was the paper right to protect the woman’s identity? Were the bloggers right to publish a name and address that may or may not be correct?

    Even though I think the people involved with Megan’s death are scumbags and I hope eventually they are prosecuted and sent away for a long time this is nothing more than a blatant case of vigilantism. I also want to add that I will not post their names here.

    Let the law do it’s job people. By publishing their names you’re jeopardizing the chances of justice being served.

  • Charges possible but not likely in MySpace suicide

    Prosecutor To Review MySpace Suicide:

    The St. Charles, Missouri County Prosecutor, Jack Banas, is saying that there may be criminal charges for the MySpace suicide death of Megan Meier but he also says it’s unlikely.

    The county prosecutor says he never saw the complete case file. He doesn’t want to give anyone false hope, but he says it’s not yet case closed.

    “Me personally, I’ve never seen anything on this case,” says St. Charles County Prosecutor Jack Banas. He says from what he’s heard he knows hearts are broken, but he doesn’t believe laws were.

    Banas never saw the report but wants to see all the evidence now, but based on what he’s heard he believes what happened was cruel, but not criminal.

    I’m not holding my breath over this one but I pray to God that Prosecutor Banas can find something to charge the people responsible for Megan Meier’s death.