ExpandMyWealth.com

It’s a picture-perfect all-American neighborhood, but on Waterford Crystal Drive, just outside St. Louis, a suburban enclave is in turmoil and shock after the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier.

It all began a year ago when Megan met a boy on the Internet.

Megan was insecure and slightly overweight and was thrilled to have a page on the social networking site MySpace, and to be contacted by “Josh Evans.” Tina Meier, Megan’s mom, described Josh as having blue eyes and brown, wavy hair and looking like a model. She asked Megan whether she knew him. In fact, Megan did not know Josh, who told her he was 16 and had just moved to town.

Ron Meier, Megan’s father, was slightly concerned. “Everybody that was on there we had to know, and this individual we did not know,” he said.

“The content that was on there was approved by us so there could not be any inappropriate content on there at all,” said Tina Meier.

The Meiers, fearful of the dangers to teens online, worried more about Megan. She had a history of depression and was prescribed medication. “Megan just always felt like she wasn’t wanted or accepted enough. And that was the hardest thing to try to get her to just be herself,” said Tina.

Recently, things seemed to be turning around for Megan. She had lost weight, switched to a smaller, private school and had made new friends. There had been a rift with another 13-year-old down the street, a close friend named Sarah, who felt Megan had deserted her, but Megan was happier than ever and excited about her new online relationship, her parents said.

Since the dawn of time, girls have been catty to each other.

Two girls will collaborate in the ostracizing of a third girl, calling her names behind her back, spreading rumors and playing little jokes on her with the goal of inflicting as much mental and emotional anguish as they possibly can.

While women never completely grow out of this, most do tend to lose interest in these kinds of activities as they age and mature.

Most women, except, of course, for Lori Drew, who is currently in the running for the title of “Most Hated Woman in America.”

For a while, Lori Drew (above left), who ran a successful local advertising mailer business called The Drew Ad Vantage, was a respected, popular member of her community. She has since gone downhill drastically.

She once lived in a really nice house.

She was once a member of the St. Peters Chamber of Commerce.

She’s married to Curt Drew, who was once employed as a Realtor at their local Coldwell Banker.

But now, Lori Drew’s business is fighting a sudden public relations downturn, she lost her business, her house, and her husband was fired from his position at Coldwell Banker and now works at the local Burlington Coat Factory.

During seventh grade, Lori Drew’s daughter, Sarah, was friends with Megan Taylor Meier, a 13-year-old girl who, like many 13-year-olds, struggled with her weight and had self-esteem issues. These issues Megan had were compounded by a diagnosed case of Attention-Deficit Disorder and a long battle with depression - a condition which she she had been seeing a therapist for since she was in the third grade, after talking about suicide.

Here’s Megan Meier’s MySpace account.

The Meiers and Drews were friendly enough that Megan had been on a vacation trip with the Drews, and the Meiers had been storing a foosball table for the Drews until Christmas.

Sarah Drew and Megan Meier started the eighth grade together, and their on-again off-again friendship became a little more chaotic, as 13-year-old friendships tend to be when two girls are involved.

For some reason or another, Sarah Drew and Megan Meier squabbled, probably over something stupid, and stopped being friends.

If you’ve ever known 13-year-old girls, or if you ever were a 13-year-old girl, you know what that’s like.

Well, Sarah Drew told her mother, Lori Drew, about how Megan was mean to her and how pissed off she was about it.

That’s when things started to get really stupid, because like many other helicopter parents, Lori Drew was unable to keep her nose out of what should have been her daughter’s business.

Lori Drew created a profile on MySpace with the name ‘Josh Evans’ and put a picture of a ‘really hot guy’ on the profile picture. 16-year-old ‘Josh Evans’ had just moved into the area from Florida, was being home-schooled, played the drums and the guitar, and didn’t have a phone number.

And, coincidently enough, he wanted to be friends with Megan Meier.

Megan was thrilled that ‘Josh Evans’ was interested in her enough to add her to his friends list. She showed her mother, Tina, the friend request and begged to be allowed to add the teen to her friends list. Tina, after looking the boy’s profile over, let her daughter add him as a friend.

For six weeks, Megan chatted with ‘Josh’ about things 13-year-old girls usually talk about: school, parents and sex.

Lori Drew, using the experience that comes with advanced age, did her best to get Megan Meier to confess secret desires, crushes and other vulnerabilities to her online ‘boyfriend.’ Shortly after starting this relationship, Lori Drew started letting other people into the “joke.” An employee of Drew Ad Vantage named Ashley was recruited to help keep the joke going. Another girl in the neighborhood also had the login details to the Josh Evans account.

Then one day, on the 15th of October, 2006, six weeks after stringing along Megan Meier, ‘Josh Evans’ started getting mean.

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.

Megan Meier responded with a frantic e-mail that basically said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

The next day, after handing out invitations to her birthday party to friends at school, Megan came home and asked her mother to log into Megan’s MySpace account for her so she could see if Josh Evans had replied to her e-mail. She was hoping that the boy would show up to her party, which was in three weeks. After all, it would be nice if she and her parents could finally meet the boy who had captured her heart - as long as she could find out who had been talking to him and telling him that she wasn’t nice to her friends.

But Josh Evans wasn’t being nice.

Josh’s account had, in fact, forwarded her correspondence with him to a number of other online friends. All those secrets, all those confessions - now everyone Megan Meier knew at school could read them.

And read them they did, with many of them responding as younger teenagers are wont to do - with mockery and name-calling.

Megan’s mother had a dental appointment and was pressed for time, so Megan’s mom told Megan to sign off as she walked out the door.

Megan didn’t sign off. She responded to the online cruelty with name calling and threats of her own. When her mother called her, after she had arrived at the dentist, Megan was still online, crying and telling her mother that everyone was being so mean to her. Megan’s mother again told her daughter to log off.

Shortly after that, a sobbing Megan called her mother and told her that people online were posting bulletins about her, saying things like, “Megan is fat” and “Megan is a slut.” Again, Megan was told to log off by her now-furious mother.

After her dentist appointment was over, Megan’s mom returned home, went to the room where the computer was located and reviewed the messages her daughter had seen and was sending. Seeing how out-of-control things were on her daughter’s MySpace account, Megan’s mom expressed her disappointment in her daughter’s behavior, logged out the account and ended Megan’s MySpace activities for the night.

Megan’s mom didn’t catch the last message in Megan’s inbox, however. That message was from Josh Evans and said:

Everybody in O’Fallon knows how 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.

Megan ran to her room and stayed there, quietly, while her parents cooked dinner downstairs.

Her parents, sensing something was wrong, ran upstairs and found their daughter, who had hung herself with a belt in her closet.

Emergency services was called and an ambulance arrived empty and left with the 13-year-old in the back.

As the ambulance was in front of the Meier’s house, Lori Drew called the 13-year-old who had been brought in on the joke and told her to keep her mouth shut about what they had done.

The Josh Evans account was deleted.

Megan Meier was dead the next day.

Lori Drew went with her family went to Megan’s funeral and mouthed the right words of remorse, all while knowing that what she had done had driven Megan, a girl the Drews knew was on anti-depression medication, to kill herself.

A few weeks after Megan’s suicide, the thirteen-year-old that Lori had recruited into the “joke” felt a wee bit guilty about her part in it and talked to the Meiers about it, explaining what had been done to their daughter by someone they thought was a family friend.

The Meiers, responding with incredible restraint, only went so far as to smash to pieces and drop off on the Drew driveway the foosball table that they had been asked to store in their house until Christmas.

“Merry Christmas” was spray-painted onto the box.

The Drew’s response? Call the police and file a report.

Here’s a partial transcript of that report:

In reference to their daughter’s suicide, Drew explained she wanted to “just tell them” what she did to contribute to the Meier’s daughter’s suicide. She instigated and monitored a “myspace” account which was created for the sole purpose of communicating with Meier’s daughter. Drew said she, with the help of temporary employee named “Ashley”, constructed a profile of “good looking” male on “my space” in order to “find out what Megan (Meier’s daughter) was saying on-line” about her daughter. Drew explained the communication between the fake male profile was aimed at gaining Megan’s confidence and finding out what Megan felt about her daughter and other people. Drew stated she, her daughter, and Ashley all typed, read, and monitored the communication between the fake male profile and Megan. Drew went on to say, the communication became “sexual for a thirteen year old.” Drew stated she continued the fake male profile despite this development.

According to Drew “somehow” other “myspace” users were able to access the fake male profile and Megan found out she had been duped. Drew stated she knew “arguments” had broken out between Megan and others on “myspace”. Drew felt this incident contributed to Megan’s suicide, but she did not feel “as guilty” because at the funeral because she found out “Megan had tried to commit suicide before.”

Drew explained the neighborhood had recently found out her involvement in Megan’s suicide and her neighborhood has become hostile toward her and her family. Despite the recency of the suicide and several neighbors recommending she not confront the Meier family (especially on Thanksgiving), Meier stated she and her husband attempted to contact the Meier family three times, “banging on the door” although Mr Meier had already told them to leave.

Good stuff there. You have to love the fact that Lori Drew told the officers that she didn’t feel guilty because Megan had tried to commit suicide before.

A Senate committee heard testimony Monday night on the bill, sponsored by Sen. Scott Rupp, a Republican, that is modeled after recommendations from a special gubernatorial task force created to study Internet harassment.

The proposed law would punish someone 21 or older who harassed someone 17 years old or younger with up to four years in prison.

It also would require school officials to tell police about harassment and stalking on school grounds. And it updates state laws against harassment to include computers, text messages and other electronic devices, not just telephone or written communications.