Case Not Closed in MySpace Suicide Hoax

Nov. 30, 2007 — -- A county prosecutor has indicated he may yet file charges in the death of a 13-year-old girl who was victimized by an online hoaxer.

St. Charles County prosecuting attorney Jack Banas also told the St. Charles Journal that his office didn't previously review the year-old case because of an "apparent miscommunication" between the sheriff's department and his office.

Meier hanged herself inside her parents' home in Dardenne Prairie, Ill., on Oct. 16, 2006, shortly after the abrupt decline of her online relationship with a person she thought was a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans. Evans turned out to be a middle-aged neighbor who first flattered the self-conscious girl and then taunted her, the neighbor said in a police report filed last year.

Police initially said no laws were broken, but the girl's death attracted an enormous amount of publicity in recent weeks, particularly after Tina and Ron Meier appeared on "Good Morning America" and "The Today Show" earlier this month. The publicity drew public outrage against the neighbor, Lori Drew, and Meier's parents have demanded she be jailed.

Banas did not elaborate on the issue of any "miscommunication" with the sheriff's department that he said delayed his probe, and he did not immediately return a call from ABC News. A sheriff's department spokesman declined to comment further.

The prosecutor said he would announce next week whether he would file charges against Drew.

A sheriff's department spokesman previously told ABC News that his department, along with local and federal prosecutors, had reviewed the case and determined that no laws had been broken.

Perry Aftab, a cyberlaw expert, told ABC News earlier this month that it appeared that the Evans profile and messages could have violated a federal cyberstalking law, which prevents people from sending abusive or threatening messages. Aftab, who runs WiredSafety, which helps victims of so-called cyberabuse, said this was one of the few instances she could recall of adults harassing children online.

The involvement of an adult set Megan's story apart from traditional cyberbullying, she said. "This is particularly heinous," she added.

Drew told police she created the profile to monitor what Megan was saying about her own teenage daughter, the police report says.

Megan, who sometimes suffered from low self-esteem and depression, was elated when she got an e-mail on the social networking site MySpace from a cute boy named "Josh Evans," her parents said. Josh claimed to be a 16-year-old boy who lived nearby. He said he was home-schooled and didn't yet have a phone.

The two developed a virtual friendship that lasted more than a month before things inexplicably took a downward turn. "Megan gets an e-mail, or a message from Josh on her MySpace on Oct. 15, 2006, saying, 'I don't know if I want to be friends with you any longer because I hear you're not nice to your friends,'" Tina Meier said on "GMA."

In an interview with "Good Morning America," the neighbor who first tipped off police about Drew's involvement said that Drew confessed to her that she had played a hoax on Megan.

"She did sit here in my living room and confess everything to me. She told me that they had pulled an image of a boy off the Internet and that they had created an account using the name of Josh Evans, and she said she knew the last message that left her house that Monday when Megan attempted to take her life was that 'the world would be a better place without you,'" said the neighbor, who asked that her identity not be revealed.