Dardenne Prairie, Mo. (The Weekly Vice) - Could the case of Megan Meier become any stranger? First, an adult stalks a minor child to the point of suicide. Then an angry public goes on the march to expose this adult. Now, we are on a new hunt. The hunt to expose Lori Drew's apparent sympathizer.
Yes, there's a new chapter to the Megan Meier saga. A story that begun with the tragic suicide of a 13 year old girl a little more than a year ago.
On November 18th, 2007 a new blog titled "Megan Meier Had It Coming" was published with links to the blog being posted to several other blogs that were discussing the case.
Now, local officials have confirmed that an investigation has been launched by the county's Cyber Crimes division in an attempt to uncover the blog's author.
The blog, which was initially authored by a persona named "Kristen", first assumed the role of a young person claiming to know Megan Meier. The author described experiences with Megan Meier in an attempt to justify the stalking activities of Lori Drew, Mrs. Drew's daughter and an 18 year old employee of Drew's advertising business.
The blog then took a curious turn when a new post was added, claiming to be Lori Drew herself. This new post went into great detail describing the course of events leading to Megan Meier's suicide from a viewpoint sympathetic to the Drew family. At the conclusion of the blog entry, the author challenges readers "Here I am, Internet. Come and get me."
The Drew family's attorney, Jim Briscoe has not yet been reached for comment, however Lori Drew's father apparently did. According to Fox 2, the father stated that the Drew family had nothing to do with the blog and that the family welcomed the investigation into the blog's origin and author.
Tina Meier, the mother of teenager who took her own life following the MySpace taunting initiated by the Drews, also welcomed the investigation.
The Weekly Vice Reaction:
While I personally do not care for the blog in question, it's objective or it's author, there is one good outcome from it that I must point out. The blog, which is obviously sympathetic to the Drew's point of view is a double edged sword that also works against local officials in the case.
The truth is, lawmakers do not like this case and do not like the national scrutiny it brings. Extending this saga, continues a case that local officials desperately want to end.
Local law enforcement wants the story to die because monitoring the Drew family home from an angry public drains man hours. The prosecutors want the story to die because the community is losing faith in it's ability to prosecute other cases. While the county prosecutor is not an elected position, the state's Attorney General is. The sooner this story dies, the less significant it will be during the next election cycle.
The national press would also like this story to subside. Increasingly, both the televised and print media find themselves losing it's ability to influence what the public knows and talks about.
Slowly but surely, the blogging community enjoys an ever increasing market share of where the public gets it's news. Surely it must seem unfair to a career journalist armed with a political science degree to find his or her self competing with soccer moms and special interest groups who are not bound by the same 'ethics' requirements.
But the story refuses to die thus far and this is good news. Good because it keeps the pressure on lawmakers to move from rhetoric into legislation. Since we are months away from an election, it's important that this story isn't forgotten when a former attorney 'Claire McCaskill' promises to represent Missouri families for US Senate. It will be a good story to keep in mind when the next Matt Blunt considers new legislation to toughen Internet predator laws. It's a good story to remind folks that our Congress has a duty to the American people outside of sparring over the Iraq war.
No, I don't agree with or condone the message behind the 'Megan Meier Had It Coming' blog one bit. But there's an obvious silver lining here that may work to help motivate our lawmakers into real action.
Interestingly, it certainly is possible that this was the entire point of the blog in the first place.
Danny Vice
http://weeklvice.blogspot.com
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6 comments:
Local law enforcement, national media.........they all want this case to just go away. Makes me ill the way the news has been slanted lately (it's moved to the poor Lori being the victim) I've written letters to Jack Banas and lots of others but I may be only 1 voice.
Dianna Cortez
St Charles, MO
Now, many media outlets have begun to take a defensive posture of the Drew's, and with that many of them are now officially identifying Lori Drew.
So when Lori was a villian, she was provided anonymity, but now that she's a victim, her name is fair game?
Interesting.
After a month's worth of stories on what had happened to Megan,(after 8-9 months of silence since it happened) it seems now the onslaught of stories in defense of Lori Drew now as a 'damage control' effort. Likely hoping to draw the negative responses from preceding stories, away from her and her family. It doesn't change my opinion but I understand the measures. They still have a daughter to raise..... somewhere.
Danny
You hit the nail on the head with your prior post on media hypocrisy. It's truly sick.
And whoever is maintaining the Megan Had it Coming blog? Needs to be put in a psychiatric facility, at least until the law catches up to their sick exploitation of the sad & painful death of a 13 year old.
The MHIC blog is pure trash. Looks like it was the brainless child of someone associated with this site perhaps. When this story first broke Encyclopedia Dramatica had an entry about our site calling our posts about Megan's story "ridiculously long" - lol. Oh, whatever - obviously they read it! ;)
We are really sick of the horrible and disgusting way the law has dealt with this and how now they & the media are DEFENDING Lori Drew. The story and her attorney's statements keep trying to rewrite history. Something we talk about on our site as the internet addicted & personality disordered do all the time.
Frankly, all one needs to do is go back to The Smoking Gun and re-read Lori Drew's initial statements to police. It's all there - but we guess Jack Banas and company can't read well.
Danny, you hit it on the head. They want this to go away. It shows, as we told you, the major failings of the law when it comes to internet predation. The victims from our site will tell you, law enforcement does NOTHING or says "there's nothing we can do." Nikki Catsouras' family probably got the same bum's rush from law enforcement in Orange County - particularly now that the Cal. Highway Patrol said in its press release it's "not responsible." Heck yes it is!
This just empowers others to go out to use and abuse via the internet. All the laws in the world don't mean a thing when law enforcement refuses to enforce them.
Now let's see what happens to MHIC. We know of many other hate sites out there - that are just sitting there. No one is doing a damn thing. Complaints have been made to federal & state as well as ISPs and guess what? There they sit, hiding behind "free speech."
MHIC falls squarely into the pervue Communications Decency Act of 1996. So does Lori Drew's behavior.
Law enforcement's response in Missouri? Unacceptable.
Jason Fortuny is the author of MHIC.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?pagewanted=2
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