Suicide of Megan Meier

Tina Meier started the Megan Meier Foundation, headquartered in Chesterfield, Missouri. The organization states that it exists to promote "awareness, education and promote positive change to children, parents, and educators in response to the ongoing bullying and cyberbullying in our children’s daily environment."

Megan responded saying, "You're the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over." The last few exchanges were made via AOL Instant Messenger instead of MySpace. When she ran upstairs, she ran into her father. She told him about the trouble and went to her room. Ron went downstairs to the kitchen where he and Tina talked about the cyberbullying and made dinner. Twenty minutes later, Tina suddenly froze in mid-sentence, and ran up to Megan's room. Megan Meier had hanged herself with a belt in the bedroom closet. Despite attempts to revive her, Megan was pronounced dead the next day on October 17, three weeks before her 14th birthday.

Several weeks after her death, Megan Meier's parents were told that the mother of one of their daughter's friends—with whom Meier had had a falling out—had created the "Josh Evans" account. The parent, Lori Drew, who created the fake account, admitted that she and her daughter had the password to the account, and characterized the hoax to a reporter as a "joke". Initially, Drew denied knowing about the offensive messages that were sent to Meier. She told the police that the account was aimed at "gaining Megan's confidence and finding out what Megan felt about her daughter and other people". The neighborhood mother who had told the Meiers that Drew had the hoax account said "Lori laughed about it", and said she had intended to "mess with Megan".

Lori Drew was indicted and convicted by a jury of violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in 2008 over the matter. Her conviction was vacated by a federal judge on a post-trial verdict, on grounds that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act did not intend to criminalize the conduct of which Drew was accused. The government chose not to appeal this post-trial ruling.

The new legislation went into effect on August 28, 2008, and was intended to cover loopholes in the current law. According to the St. Louis Daily Record, the "new language expands the definition of the crime of 'harassment' to include knowingly intimidating or causing emotional distress anonymously, either by phone or electronically, or causing distress to a child." It also "increases the penalty for harassment from a misdemeanor to a felony, carrying up to four years in prison, if it’s committed by an adult against someone 17 or younger, or if the criminal has previously been convicted of harassment." This is one of the first comprehensive cyberbullying and cyberstalking state laws that protects children and adults from harassment on social networking sites. The bill is a reaction to Lori Drew's case dismissal and Governor Matt Blunt, the politician who signed the law into effect states, "[Missouri] needs tough laws to protect its children." A bill was introduced in the 111th Congress on April 2, 2009 as H.R. 1966. Both houses of the Missouri State Legislature voted unanimously on May 15, 2008, to criminalize usage of the internet to harass someone, the existing statute was expanded to prohibit abusive "communication by any means..." and is known as "Megan's Law." (not to be confused with New Jersey's and subsequent federal Megan's Law). On May 22, 2008, Congresswoman Linda T. Sanchez introduced H.R. 6123 as the "Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act" to "amend title 18, United States Code, with respect to cyberbullying."

At a press conference on December 3, 2007, Jack Banas, the prosecuting attorney of St. Charles County, said that Lori Drew's 18-year-old temporary employee, Ashley Grills, wrote most of the messages addressed to Meier and that she wrote the final "Josh Evans" message addressed to Meier. Grills said she wrote the final message to end the Myspace hoax and get Meier to stop communicating with "Josh Evans". Banas stated that he did not interview Grills because, at the time, she was under psychiatric treatment for her participation in the Meier case. He did not plan to interview her at a later date.

"Because we can't prosecute somebody it certainly does not justify violating the law," Banas said. "We live in this country by the rule of the law." He described Lori Drew as "upset, cautious and guarded" when he interviewed her. Banas said that Mrs. Drew felt "terrible" about Meier's death. A vigil was held for Megan Meier on November 24, 2007. The crowd gathered in a nearby parking lot and walked past the homes of the Meiers and the Drews. A small piece of ground adjacent to the Drews' house was the scene of remembrances by friends of the Meiers.

The case has caused several jurisdictions to enact or to consider legislation prohibiting harassment over the Internet. The Board of Aldermen for the City of Dardenne Prairie passed an ordinance on November 22, 2007, in response to the incident. The ordinance prohibits any harassment that utilizes an electronic medium, including the Internet, text messaging services, pagers, and similar devices. Violations of the ordinance are treated as misdemeanors, with fines of up to $500 and up to 90 days imprisonment. The city of Florissant, Missouri also passed a "Cyber Harassment" law, with other municipalities, counties, and states considering following suit. The state of Missouri is to revise its harassment laws in response to the case, updating them to cover harassment through computers and mobile phone messaging, and creating a new crime to cover adults 21 and over harassing children under the age of 18.

Meier attended Fort Zumwalt public schools, including Pheasant Point Elementary School and Fort Zumwalt West Middle School in nearby O'Fallon, Missouri. Megan befriended the popular girls so that the boys who picked on her would stop. The girls soon turned on Megan and the bullying got even worse than before. For eighth grade in 2006, her parents enrolled her at Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Dardenne Prairie.

On October 16, 2006, the tone of the messages changed. After Megan got home from school, Tina Meier signed onto MySpace for Megan. She was in a hurry because she had to take her younger daughter, Allison, to the orthodontist. Before she could get to the door, Megan was upset. "Josh" sent troubling messages to Megan, including one that said: "I don't know if I want to be friends with you anymore because I've heard that you are not very nice to your friends." More messages of this type were sent, some of Megan's messages were shared with others, and bulletins were posted about her. Tina told her daughter to sign off, and went to the orthodontist. She called her daughter to ask her if she had signed off, and she hadn't. Megan was sobbing hysterically. When her mother got home, she was furious that she hadn't signed off. She was shocked at the vulgar language her daughter was firing back. Megan then told her mother, "You're supposed to be my mom! You're supposed to be on my side!" and then left from the computer and went upstairs. According to her father Ron Meier and a neighbor who had discussed the hoax with Drew, the last message sent by "Josh" read: "Everybody in O'Fallon knows who you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you".

From the third grade in 2001–02, after she had told her mother she had wanted to kill herself, Megan had been under the care of a psychiatrist. She had been prescribed citalopram (an antidepressant that has a possible side effect of increasing suicide risk in young people), methylphenidate, and the atypical antipsychotic ziprasidone. She had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and depression, and self-esteem issues regarding her weight. She was described by her parents as a "bubbly, goofy" girl who enjoyed spending time with her friends and family.

Megan Taylor Meier (November 6, 1992 – October 17, 2006) was an American teenager who died by suicide by hanging herself three weeks before her 14th birthday. A year later, Meier's parents prompted an investigation into the matter and her suicide was attributed to cyberbullying through the social networking website MySpace. Lori Drew, the mother of a friend of Meier, was indicted on the matter in 2008, but was acquitted in the 2009 case United States v. Drew.

Megan Taylor Meier was born on November 6, 1992, to Christina "Tina" Meier and Ronald Meier in O'Fallon, Missouri,