Lori Drew FINALLY

Missouri "mother," Lori Drew, has finally been charged in the Megan Meier incident. In May federal charges were handed down from a grand jury seeking to prosecute Lori Drew for creating a false account on myspace. Unfortunately, these are the only charges that can brought against this "woman."


For those of you unfamiliar with this case the story is brief but the definition of tragic. Lori Drew's daughter was neighborhood friends with psychologically delicate Megan Meier. At some point the girls had a falling out. According to Lori Drew she created a false myspace account pretending to be a teenage boy by the name of Josh Evans to determine if Megan Meier was speaking ill of her daughter. A romantic, online relationship ensued involving Lori Drew, her daughter and another girl, Ashley Grills (an employee) posing as the teenage boy. The three turn vicious and begin sending nasty messages via myspace to Megan Meier. Confused and heart broken by who she thinks is a boy Megan Meier hangs herself. Other children were involved in the myspace debacle as well, heaping insults on the girl while her online "boyfriend" Josh crushed her. Following the suicide Lori Drew and accomplices quickly deleted Josh's myspace information.

Under current Missouri criminal law there was nothing to be done. Evidently there are no laws against provoking someone to commit suicide. Lacking criminal prosecution for their heinous acts the local community proceeded to shun and harass Lori Drew and family. You'll find no sympathy for that here. Once the story became national the cyber world set itself on the path of rebuke as well. Lori Drew and family's personal information: address, home phone, work phone, pictures etc etc were distributed throughout the internet. Again, it is difficult for me to muster up even an ounce of sympathy. Local and online communities raged that there would be no justice for Megan Meier. Local and state officials were stymied as well by the lack of laws to charge her with. The federal courts however decided to pursue fraud charges and each of the four charges carries a maximum of five years. One can only hope her minor daughter and the employee will be appropriately punished as well.

Since the story went national Lori and her husband have lost their jobs/business and I believe have had to move as the neighborhood could no longer stomach their vile presence. There was the inevitable backlash that attempted to portray Lori and her family as victims which is laughable at best. Just because no law was on the books to be used to prosecute them does NOT mean that they are not guilty or solely responsible for driving that young girl to her death. Those who offered the Drew family up as victims queried whether they deserved to lose their livelihoods and be run out of town on a rail. I'm of the opinion that they deserve that and so much more.

Lori Drew is a female who gives the term "vicious" brand new meaning. First, the woman was in her mid forties at the time. What kind of immature, twisted, pathetic "mother" involves herself so heavily and nastily in the constantly fluctuating world of teenage dramatics? The lengths that this "adult" went to to lure in and develop a relationship as Josh with Megan Meier speak volumes about the evil in her heart. This all didn't happen over night, this was ALL by design and vigilance on the part of those acting as Josh. They lured in Megan, got her on the hook good and tight and then knowingly destroyed her. What grown woman does such things?

Of course Lori Drew being the low person that she is is denying all involvement now. She blames her employee Ashley for any and all of it. It's the height of stupidity. Anyone can read (on smokinggun.com) the various police reports, some written in Lori's own hand, where, when there is no danger of her being prosecuted, Lori admits her culpability. Her own police report states that "she, her daughter and Ashley all typed, read and monitored the communication between the fake male profile and Megan." Of course NOW Lori Drew wants to deny any knowledge of the profile but had no difficulty admitting not just knowledge of the profile but active PARTICIPATION in the ruse when she was explaining to the police officers why her neighbors saw fit to vandalize her property on a regular basis. When she was crying about stones through her window then she had no problem stating her involvement but when grand juries start handing down indictments she's suddenly oblivious to what SHE'S ALREADY ADMITTED to a law officer.

One good thing to come out of this horrible tragedy is that cyber bullying laws (and real world bullying laws) are becoming more prevalent everywhere. Online harassment and bullying are going on the books as just as illegal as physical and verbal harassment and bullying in the real world. With teenagers committing suicide or walking into schools and shooting everyone in sight I think stopping bullying before it escalates to such horrible ends is the only thing our society can do. Parents bear responsibility for knowing their children now. Parents know when their children are bullies, they know when they are aggressive. They have the option of altering their child's behavior or they then have the burden of burying them when one of their victims goes on a rampage. Finally, parents and the law have learned the heavy price for allowing bullying to progress unchecked. Forcing parents to deal with children who are bullies and enacting laws to punish lowlifes like Lori Drew are the only ways to protect ALL children.

Enough is enough. Perhaps twenty years in prison will teach Lori Drew what it means to be cruel. Hopefully she'll serve as a sufficient warning to those who would do the same and crush others for entertainment.