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49-Year-Old Mom Indicted In MySpace Teen Suicide Case

by Tim Stevens on May 16, 2008 at 11:37 AM

49-Year-Old Mom Indited after MySpace SuicideWe've reported on a number of social network-related suicides lately, most happening in the small Welsh town of Brigend, where 17 kids have killed themselves in an effort to get recognition from their friends on the popular networking site Bebo. Today, though, we have a different sort of suicide and a different social network. In Los Angeles, California, 14-year-old Megan Meier killed herself in October of 2006 after a MySpace romance with a 16-year-old boy turned sour. The catch is the boy didn't exist, having been created by a 49-year-old mother who lived up the street.

Lori Drew, mother of a classmate of Meier's, created a fake profile and started to draw the girl into an online romance, apparently to see what Meier was saying about her daughter. After a month of leading the girl along posing as the boy Drew ended the relationship with the message "The world would be a better place without you." Heartbroken, Meier hung herself within an hour, and died the next day.

Yesterday, Drew was indicted on charges of conspiracy and accessing protected computers to obtain information to inflict emotional distress, which could result in a 20-year sentence. She was apparently assisted by an unnamed teenage assistant, possibly her daughter, and it remains to be seen whether she will face any punishment for this. [Source: AOL News/AP]

Tags: breaking news, BreakingNews

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