Woman indicted in MySpace suicide case - Page 4

witchcurlgirl · May 16th, 2008, 02:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sweetie

I understand computers may be needed for school, but myspace and communicating with older boys doesn't quailfy as school work. Don't all them to have internet access if they are putting their lives on the line and breaking your rule; make them crack open a book.

My co worker won't let her kids have a computer in thier bedrooms. They have to use the family one, this way she can keep an eye on them.

She had let the kids have them in the bedrooms, but one night she was using her 11 year old sons in his room, and at 11:30 at night he was being IM'd by a girl....so she only has the family computer now

sputnik · May 16th, 2008, 02:54 PM

i agree with a lot of crumpet's argument. or i would if we were discussing a case involving 2 adults. but the fact that this was a 12 year-old child being tormented makes all the difference in the world and warrants criminal charges. like others said, at the very least, it's child abuse.

sputnik · May 16th, 2008, 02:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by witchcurlgirl

My co worker won't let her kids have a computer in thier bedrooms. They have to use the family one, this way she can keep an eye on them.

She had let the kids have them in the bedrooms, but one night she was using her 11 year old sons in his room, and at 11:30 at night he was being IM'd by a girl....so she only has the family computer now

giving kids their own computers is ridiculous. when they go off to college, sure, but until then, they can all share the family one.

crumpet · May 16th, 2008, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by greysfang

I'm sorry crumpet, but your argument just does not hold water for me. That's like saying if someone didn't allow their child to drive then they wouldn't have been killed by a drunk driver.

No, what I'm saying is that people need to quit acting like personal networking sites are as mandantory as oxygen and that kids have to have whatever they want just because they really want it, even if it is proving to not be good or healthy for them. As far as the drunk driving analogy goes, we all take chances when we get on the road and there is very little we can do to control how others drive. However, we can turn off a computer/tv/phone. Not that we should have to, but no one has described to me how it was absolutely necessary for this child to continue to have unsupervised access to a computer in her own home , especially after it became obvious it was a source of conflict and pain for her.

I know kids that are 7-8 yrs old with cell phones, simply because their parents want to know where the hell they are all the time. AND in case of emergency. Just saying....
I'm just saying it is possible to have the kinds of phones that don't have cameras and allow unlimited social calling.

southernbelle · May 16th, 2008, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sputnik

giving kids their own computers is ridiculous. when they go off to college, sure, but until then, they can all share the family one.

I agree. My parents had a computer for their personal use in their room, and we all shared a computer in the family room. We had AOL accounts with pre-set time limits on them, so our parents could determine the amount of time a day or week that we spent on the computer. Our parents also required us to tell them our passwords, and if we were on restriction they would log in and change the passwords so that we couldn't get online at all.

It wasn't until like junior or senior year of high school that I was allowed unlimited access to the computer. We got laptops when we went to college, but as long as we were living at home, we used the family computer.

january · May 16th, 2008, 10:20 PM

I think the lack of remorse is a huge problem.

IIRC, Lori Drew and her husband asked the Meiers to store some personal property of theirs when they went on vacation. While they were gone, the Meiers were told that Lori Drew was behind everything (I think by some neighborhood kid?) Once she found out the truth by others, Megan's mom basically destroyed the personal property she was holding for the Drews. IIRC, it was a ping pong table or something like that? And then she put it on the Drew's front lawn. When the Drews returned and Megan's mom told them she knew what they had done, they called the police and pressed charges against her for ruining her ping-pong table! She could have cared less about anything, she has never shown the slightest bit of remorse for what happened. She's a grade A bitch in my book and I would like to see the court throw the book at her.

Honey · May 16th, 2008, 10:57 PM

Gawd this woman is a shitty bitch, bullying a 12 year old girl?? WTF is wrong with people? Bullying at any age is wrong, I fucking hate bullies.

It's bad enough having mental health problems without some wanker telling you over and over how worthless you are. This girl may have been on the edge but that bitch pushed her off.

viggofan · May 16th, 2008, 11:22 PM

good!!!

tkdgirl · May 16th, 2008, 11:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AliceInWonderland

omg i totally agree; how a grown-ass adult woman could take part in such ludicriosy is beyond me!

Agreed. About damn time this bitch gets her punishment. And she wasn't even remorseful about what happened either.

NicoleWasHere · May 16th, 2008, 11:30 PM

This woman is obviously the classic sociopath. She doesn't give a damn about anyone except herself. I hope she gets the stiffest penalty, possible. I grin to myself, knowing that this bitch will probably get the shit kicked out of her, if she goes to prison.

tee-ha-ha · May 17th, 2008, 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sweetie

I don't know about this. I think the woman was wrong but she didn't kill this girl.

I'm with you on that. What she did was disgusting and despicable, but most teenagers would tell you to go fuck yourself if you told them the world would be better off without them. The vast majority of them would not go stomping up the stairs to hang themselves.

This girl had a history of severe depression and had even told her mother that she wanted to kill herself. I don't know if the hoaxer was aware of her history of mental illness, but I do not believe she is responsible for this child killing herself. This kid was on the edge anyway and anything could have pushed her over.

Plus, what the fuck was her mother thinking letting her use MySpace without supervision? My fiance has 2 daughters and they are not allowed to use the internet EVER without an adult supervising. Their PC does not even have internet access. Granted, they're only 5 and 6 years old...but all three of us (their mom, my fiance, and I) plan to enforce the "no unsupervised net access" rule as long as they're under 18.

tee-ha-ha · May 17th, 2008, 08:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cynic

Read it, Sweetie, the parents had tried to get their daughter to stay off of the internet...but try doing that with a 12-13 year old.....all of their social lives are on the internet.....they had talked to her about this boy (that the adult woman was pretending to be a 16 year old boy interested in the girl) and tried to get her to not correspond with him.

The day she killed herself, her mom was at the dentist's....she had tried to get the kid to come with her, but the kid was determined to find out why the "boy" didn't like her any more and by that time "he" had a lot of other kids talked into bullying her online.....she called her mom at the dentist and the mom kept telling her to sign off and the kid kept saying she would.....the mom left the dentist office and by the time she got home, she and the Dad talked to the girl and thought she was settled down.....when they went up to get her for dinner...she was hanging dead.....

What more could they have done?

When I was 13, my mother didn't have to "try" to get me to do anything. If she said "you are coming with me to the dentist", then that is what happened.

The mother could have terminated the kid's access at any time by locking down the computer she was using. Unplug the computer from the internet and take the cable with you. Take the COMPUTER with you. Disable it any way you can. If she'd really wanted that kid off the net, she could have made it so she couldn't sign on at home.

To me the mother has to bear some of the responsibility here. She had a child who was severely depressed even before this whole MySpace debacle. Did she ever get her any help?

january · May 17th, 2008, 06:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tee-ha-ha

This girl had a history of severe depression and had even told her mother that she wanted to kill herself. I don't know if the hoaxer was aware of her history of mental illness, but I do not believe she is responsible for this child killing herself. This kid was on the edge anyway and anything could have pushed her over.

Yes, she was well aware that girl was medicated for depression, she was told by her daughter as well as the girl's mother back when Megan was alive. She also knew from Megan's mother that Megan was very sensitive about her weight. Didn't stop her from calling her a "fat bitch" and the like. If your child was extremely depressed, and someone walked up to them, told them they were a fat bitch no one liked and that the world would be better off without them, at the age of 12, and then proceeded to hand them a loaded gun, wouldn't you hold them at least a little bit accountable if your child then took the gun and pulled the trigger? You can't expect for a 12 year old to process things the same way as an adult. And adults should know better, this kind of bullying blows my mind.

tee-ha-ha · May 17th, 2008, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by january

Yes, she was well aware that girl was medicated for depression, she was told by her daughter as well as the girl's mother back when Megan was alive. She also knew from Megan's mother that Megan was very sensitive about her weight. Didn't stop her from calling her a "fat bitch" and the like. If your child was extremely depressed, and someone walked up to them, told them they were a fat bitch no one liked and that the world would be better off without them, at the age of 12, and then proceeded to hand them a loaded gun, wouldn't you hold them at least a little bit accountable if your child then took the gun and pulled the trigger? You can't expect for a 12 year old to process things the same way as an adult. And adults should know better, this kind of bullying blows my mind.

Like I said, the way this woman bullied her was disgusting. However, I don't agree that she's responsible for her death, or that laws were broken. I would not be surprised if she was acquitted, or even if she is convicted if it were overturned on appeal because it's simply a bullshit case.

Kids kill themselves due to bullying. It does happen. It's tragic and sad, but the bullies aren't prosecuted. I remember a kid from another school (who knew kids I went to school with) killed himself due to bullying. His bullies were old enough to be tried as adults. No charges or lawsuits were filed. When he decided to commit suicide, he took matters into his own hands. Nobody forced him to do it. You can't MAKE someone kill themselves; it's a decision they make on their own.

Speaking from personal experience, I was bullied in elementary school and junior high. I had glasses, braces, and was about 20 pounds too heavy. My mother dressed me in horrendous clothes. People made fun of me because my mom had a funny accent. They made fun of me for being half-French (think Pepe Le Pew jokes). Anything they could use, they used. I was miserable, but if I'd killed myself that would mean the bullies won. I wasn't going to let those assholes win, and they didn't. Most children who are bullied do not end up killing themselves.

I do agree that the bullying was despicable, especially because it was an adult bullying a child. Sick? Yes. Twisted? Yes. Depraved? Yes. Illegal? I don't think so.

january · May 17th, 2008, 06:41 PM

Well, we'll see what happens. I understand what you are saying but I assume that the prosecutors feel its a strong enough case to proceed, so I hope to hell she has the book thrown at her in some capacity. I don't condone vigilante justice, but I have to be honest, if that was my kid, she would probably be dead already. Theres just something about this particular case that has made me so angry. I just can't wrap my head around the fact that a helicopter parent would go so far as to bully her daughter's depressed friend in that capacity, its truly mind-blowing. I do understand your point though.