Cyberbully Trial Spotlights Cyber Suicide
Although everyone involved in her case agrees that Megan Meier took her own life, committing suicide by hanging, prosecutors have their own version of the events that lead up to Megan’s tragic decision.
According to prosecuting attorney, Thomas O’brien, Megan - who was only 13 years old - killed herself after she had repeatedly received cruel and hurtful messages on her MySpace page. Followers of these posts know that we address cyberbullying quite often. Every now and then I have made reference to a case that involved a suicide. This is that case, and - now that the trial has begun - a number of questions arise for Internet culture in general and social networking in particular.
Prosecutors hope to pin Megan’s suicidal melancholy to the messages that she believed she was receiving from a boy named Josh Evans. In reality, Megan was walking into an emotional cyber-ambush that would - as prosecutors would have their jury believe - lead to Megan hanging herself in a closet using a belt.
So far the trial has already involved a number of emotional testimonies and vivid accounts of the discovery of Megan’s body. Although all of this might sound like a made-for-T.V. thriller, and prosecutors are scoring lots of points connecting the girl’s demise to the cyber-attacks, this is NOT a murder trial. Clearly a suicide CANNOT be a homicide. This is a fraud trial. The prosecution is ultimately trying to nail the defendant for violating MySpace’s terms of use, using a false identity, and specific computer-use fraud legislation that has been successfully utilized to prosecute computer hackers.
Here is another piece about the story. More to come in my upcoming posts!
