Woman Accused Of Setting Up False MySpace Page That Led To Girl’s Suicide Breaks Her Silence

After more than a year of recriminations, accusations and condemnations, we’re finally hearing the other side of a story we’ve been following for the last few months. The Missouri woman accused of creating a MySpace website that a mother claims drove her daughter to suicide is finally speaking out.

And Lori Drew is adamant she had nothing to do with the girl’s death or the taunting messages that seemed to precipitate it.

The story began in October 2006, when 13-year-old Megan Meier asked her mother if she could chat online with a boy named Josh Evans who contacted her using her MySpace page. The young girl had a weight problem, suffered from self esteem issues and attention deficit disorder and was on medication to fight depression.

Everything was fine for a time, until Evans began harassing the child, turning his friendly attitude into a vindictive rant against her. He would eventually accuse her of talking behind her friends’ backs and sent her a message that the world would be a better place without her. That was enough to send the teen over the edge, and her parents found her hanging in her room after the incident.

They were gripped with sorrow, but it quickly turned to outrage when it was revealed that “Evans” was a made up creation blamed on a mother who wanted to see what Meier was saying about her own daughter online.

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.

Megan’s mother doesn’t buy it, accusing Drew of changing her story, knowing that her daughter was on medication at the time and immediately deleting the profile when her death became public. “Our daughter died, committed suicide, and she still didn’t say a word,” Tina Meier contends. “I still feel what she did is absolutely criminal.”

But no criminal charges will be laid. While the state is considering changing the law after the incident, there’s nothing on its books that shows anyone broke any existing laws.

The Meiers plan to pursue Drew in civil court, blaming her for their daughter’s death.

The website thesmokinggun.com has copies of the original police report on this tragic case. You can see it here. And for a handwritten note Drew sent to the Meiers, click here.