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A Missouri prosecutor has announced that there will be no charges filed against Lori Drew in the cyberbullying case involving the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier (pictured at right).
According to the St. Charles Journal, prosecutor Jack Banas said in a press conference today that the intent of Drew and others who created the fake MySpace account and who verbally attacked Meier online did not cross a threshold into criminal activity based on state laws that govern harassment and child endangerment.
Banas told reporters that Drew was not even home the day that several of the bullying messages were posted about Meier from the fake "Josh Evans" MySpace account, including the last one posted, which stated that "the world would be a better place" without the teenage Meier in it. This message, among other hurtful ones, were said to have pushed the teen over the edge and caused her to hang herself.
This latest story provides many more details about the case than previously revealed -- including the fact that Drew maintains that it was not her idea to create the account and that it was an 18-year-old employee of Lori Drew's named Ashley Grills who posted most of the MySpace messages about Meier while pretending to be a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans. Grills was responsible for writing the last message that Meier saw.
Banas said that the messages between "Josh" and Megan were mostly benign until an Oct. 15, 2006, message that was sent from a different girl who had access to the Josh account, one who lived across the street from the Drews.
Banas said on Monday that most of the messages sent to Megan as Josh over six weeks were written by Ashley Grills, then 18, of O’Fallon, a temporary employee of Lori Drew’s business, Drew Advantage. Grills often worked from the Drews’ home.
Banas said it was Grills who typed what is believed to be the final message Megan saw and that it was Grills who was at the computer — in the Drews’ home — typing the messages, as Josh, to Megan during the afternoon before Megan killed herself. Banas said the Drews’ daughter, then 13, was with Grills at the time.
Banas said he was unable to interview Grills, now 19, because she has been under psychiatric care as a result of her involvement in Megan’s death. He said he saw no need to interview her at a later date.
While Banas made no excuses for the adult Drew's role in the childish ruse, he said that no charges will be filed because neither Drew nor Grills had created the fake MySpace account with the intent to harm, stalk, harass or endganger Meier, but simply to find out what Meier was saying online about Drew's own daughter. Banas said that the case has highlighted problems with state harassment laws that don't address harassment over the internet. He's been talking with state lawmakers about how to close that loophole.
He also had words for vigilantes who have taken the matter into their own hands.
Banas said he was aware of the national outrage directed at the Drews, much of it originating in cyberspace. Lori and Curt Drew have had their address and work, home and cell phone numbers posted on the Internet. One site showed a satellite photo of their home. A fake MySpace page was created for Curt Drew.
Banas said some of these actions against the Drews could constitute Internet stalking.
In addition, the Drews home has been vandalized.
"Because we can’t prosecute somebody it certainly does not justify violating the law," Banas said. "We live in this country by the rule of the law."
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